Media Literacy and the Middle East – Primary Source Podcast

Letter 4 | Values and Voices. Muslims have been part of this country since its founding. Since nearly a third of all slaves were Muslim, this country literally was built on the backs of Muslims. We have remained important contributors to American history, serving to defend our nation and contributing culturally to what it means to be American. Thomas Jefferson’s copy of the Qur’an sits in the Library of Congress as a testament to how important Muslim thought was to the founding of this country.

For many Muslims, Ramadan is a built-in digital detox program – Religion News Service. Hussein Rashid, who teaches Islamic studies at The New School, is also trying to cut back on gaming this Ramadan as part of his ongoing pursuit of a more “mindful” use of technology. Back in 2016, Rashid was spending well over an hour on Facebook every day when he decided to log out for the month of Ramadan.  ‘The idea that Facebook promoted a false sense of self was really resonating with me and I started thinking about how Facebook encourages the nafs,” he said, using…

Islam scholar Bernard Lewis left unfair legacy of disdain for Muslims – Religion News ServiceReligion News Service. Lewis’ transformation from scholar to neo-imperialist was not sudden, but there is a hint to be found in “The Assassins.” Originally published in 1967, it is an erudite work that sought to correct the record on the Nizari Isma’ilis, a Shiite Muslim community that had long been maligned as consumers of hashish, known in Arabic as “hashashin,” which transformed into the word “assassin.” The book fascinated me because it was a scholarly book at a time when scholarship was rarely applied to such topics.…