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Obama Rumors
I’m glad to see someone with the profile of Mayor Michael Bloomberg is taking on the Obama rumors and doing so in an intelligent way. He mentions that saying Obama is a Muslim should not be considered a smear and it has no bearing on Israel, which is being used as a political football. I have a lot of respect for Mayor Bloomberg. This speech only increases it. Electorally, I’m curious, knowing that Jews break heavily Democratic during Presidential elections, would the smear campaign really cause them to vote Republican? Or is it just a way to suppress the vote?…
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio: The Sufi Spirit, with Reza Shah-Kazemi « Ismailimail
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio: The Sufi Spirit, with Reza Shah-Kazemi « Ismailimail. Prayer that brings a permanent awareness of the Divine Reality is the aim of Sufism first and foremost, which London based Sufi scholar, Reza Shah-Kazemi, believes is the key to its universality. Sufism’s mystical universalism is what interests Hebrew University scholar, Sara Sviri, who reveals the fascinating phenomenon of ‘Jewish Sufism’.
Jews, Muslims, and Orthodoxy
Over at Talk Islam, Abu Noor talks about what the face of Islam in America will look like. He picks up two issues that I have argued previously: 1. The Catholic-Protestant divide is not a useful analogy for discussing the Sunni-Shi’ah divide. 2. We do not need a Reformation in Islam. (See more recently, my talk on Muslims in the Media (part 2)) Where I have difficulty with his argument is the extension of the analogy with Judaism. I agree that the movement approach (Conservative, Reform, Orthodox, etc.) better fits the Muslim experience. We generally speak of turuq (paths), of…