Year: 2018

A Discussion with Professor Hussein Rashid | the.Ismaili. We are always judging ourselves by material attributes, material aspects. Instead of saying what is this person like as a human being, as a person? How can I better myself by being in contact with this person? I think that’s what materialism does, is it keeps us from God, it keeps us from ourselves, and it keeps us from making a human connection. Basically, what we do is, we willingly turn ourselves into nothing more than an object, by denying our divine connection in our very own humanity.

Enforced disappearance: Why a whole community is going missing – Home – Herald. Gatherings such as the one at Baitul Huda are common for Ahmadi communities living in various parts of the United States. According to Professor Hussein Rashid of the department of religion at Columbia University, they are more a manifestation of a shared insecurity than of anything else. “Staying together does not tell anything about the community except the fact that they are a minority, and a besieged minority,” he says. “This is often the case with immigrant groups and those who are persecuted in their home countries…

How Arab Music Makes Movie Villains. “Muslims find it painful to hear the sound they love tied to the violence they abhor,” Dr. Rashid continues. “Non-Muslims find it basically impossible to approach what Muslims find beautiful if they hear it connected to what we all find ugly.”

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.…