A friend recently went to Turkey and the tour guide started explaining Islam. It’s actually pretty good, and the guide is funny. Of course, I have objections to both a five pillar definition of Islam and linking of religious acts as dependent on science, but overall it is fun. It’s also nice to have a Muslim, from a Muslim-majority country, explain Islam in a way that resonates with the way many of us understand our own faith.
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PFBC – Roots and Branches
[formatting is off. notes are incomplete. go read Rachel, she’s better.] Rabbi Arthur of the Shalom Center. Quoting friend and teacher: Different religions are like different organs in the body. Want them to do what they do, and nothing else, but also realize they have the same DNA. What is the DNA? and what unfolds for itself? Chris Walton, Philocrates: Do people interact with different perspectives within own faith tradition? (Good show of hands) Rachel: How do we connect across faith lines, and internally? easier to talk to other faiths than internally (Christian Alliance for Progress, Public Theologian) ep fracture…
Moses a Pharoah?
Oddly enough, I was just talking to someone about Akhenaten and the monotheistic religion he preached in Egypt. Now I find an article linking to a book suggesting Moses and Akhenaten were the same person. That means Moses was a pharoah. I want to do some reading on this topic, so if anyone has heard about other research, pro and con, I would appreciate it if you could send it my way. For a nice fictionalized account of Akhenaten, see Naguib Mahfouz. For a good, basic introduction, see Akhenaten and the Religion of Light.
How the Jews Saved Islam
I was hoping that title would get someone’s attention. More specifically: I was reading The Hundred Thousand Fools of God: Musical Travels in Central Asia (And Queens, New York) and learned quite about the relationship between Bukharan Jews and Muslims in Transoxiana (modern day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan). In brief, Muslims started giving up aspects of their musical heritage and the Bukharan (here, basically meaning Central Asian) Jews took up the craft and helped preserve Islamicate music, especially the shash maqām. It’s a good read, and I highly recommend it. While it’s also a bit late for Diaspora Month, the last…