Category: Inter-faith

my final word on Park51 – City of Brass. When you combine the emotional impact of 9-11, the undercurrent of prejudice against Islam borne of fear of the unknown/centuries of Orientalism marking it as the quintessential Other, and then layer onto that the background signal of racial intolerance that is America’s original sin and persists to this day, then you are basically confronted with a pretty skewed playing field, against which the idealized rhetoric of universal rights and freedoms has a disadvantage. It’s to the credit of our national character however that we are actually having a debate. That suggests…

The Semiotics of Islamophobia | Savage Minds. Clearly the United States would be better off if our leaders, journalists, and citizens knew a little more about Islam. But there are also some lessons here about the semiotics of racism which I would like to think offer some insights beyond the 24 hour news cycle.

Eid on 9/11 Anniversary? | Culture | Religion Dispatches. At a loss for what to do, I thought I should go to the Muslim prayer room on campus, where students, anxious and afraid, might gather for help. The subways were closed, and cell phone service had gone out. I had no other idea how to find my friends, no idea where else to go. At the very least, I thought I had a responsibility to the Muslim students on campus. (Then again, I really had no idea what to do. I just thought I had to do something, anything, to…

Eid on 9/11 Anniversary? | Culture | Religion Dispatches. At a loss for what to do, I thought I should go to the Muslim prayer room on campus, where students, anxious and afraid, might gather for help. The subways were closed, and cell phone service had gone out. I had no other idea how to find my friends, no idea where else to go. At the very least, I thought I had a responsibility to the Muslim students on campus. (Then again, I really had no idea what to do. I just thought I had to do something, anything, to…

I appreciate Haroon’s keen analytic mind, which you can see over at Avari. But then, every so often, he just comes out with poetry that I didn’t know he had in him. Haroon Moghul: This Ramadan, Myself and God, Before I Was Born. It is the Muslim belief that the memory of this moment is buried inside of us. Though we do not inherit sin, though we are each born innocent, though no one can be tried for the errors of another, still somehow this memory courses through each of us. It may appear as a flash, a moment of…

I really don’t know what to make of this story. Jewish women want to wear the burqa for modesty and the religious authorities say to be modest is a sign of sexual deviancy. I am so confused on so many levels with this story. h/t Talk Islam Israeli rabbis clamp down on burka – Telegraph. “At first, I just wore a wig,” one burka-wearing woman told the Haaretz newspaper. “Now when I see a woman with a wig, I pray to God to forgive her for wearing that thing on her head.”