Media Literacy and the Middle East – Primary Source Podcast

A top White House aide was asked if Trump thought Islam was a religion. He refused to answer. – Vox. Questioning whether Islam is a religion is not, in and of itself, a new idea. Dr. Hussein Rashid, a professor of religion at Barnard College, told me that it was a dynamic that began in Europe and has a “centuries-long pedigree.” “We are seeing a particularly American manifestation of it now,” he added. He continued, “This administration is playing into all of these themes very clearly: They are trying to say that Muslims are not human and that they are…

Behind anti-Muslim video 'Innocence of Muslims:' what L.A. County knows but isn't saying | Alaska Dispatch. Professor Rashid says the moviemakers’ plan rested, in part, “on everyone being as full of hate as themselves. Fortunately, that's not the way the world actually is.”

Aziz Ansari has a funny suggestion to end Islamophobia. Here’s why it’s important. – The Washington Post. The azan is meant to remind the listener of God’s majesty. Revealed to prophet Muhammad, it puts the believer in a state of awe and humility. For every claim that we may understand God, we are reminded that God is greater than anything we may conceive. That moment of being lost in the transcendence of God, in the tradition of prophet Muhammad, is an ecstatic one. It is not about bells or dancing. It is about exercising the gifts God has created in…