islam doesn't speak, muslims do | "the ink of the scholar is worth more than the blood of the martyr" – Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)
We really need more people like this guy. Almost gets blown up and still has the ability to think of others, and avoid hating a whole group of people. Note that Jewish-Muslim commonalities also exist in our difficulties and how we choose to ignore them.
Although now we hear quite a bit about Muslims denying the Holocaust, things were not always thus. NPR has a good interview with the author of a book called Besa: Muslims who Saved Jews in World War II. I have Besa, and can tell you it is very good. In searching for the title on Amazon, I found two other related books, listed below. “Besa: Muslims Who Saved Jews in World War II” (Norman H. Gershman) Related: “The Grand Mosque of Paris: A Story of How Muslims Rescued Jews During the Holocaust” (Karen Gray Ruelle, Deborah Durland Desaix) “When Courage…
Earlier this year Pres. Obama asked us to dedicate ourselves to national service. The result was Serve.gov. In particular, Aug. 31 – Sep. 6, 2009 is meant to be be a week dedicated to interfaith service. Ultimately, the call to service will transform 9/11 into a National Day of Service and Remembrance. Over at City of Brass, Aziz has a slightly longer post on this topic. The opening video for the interfaith call to service, in combination with Ramadan and the associated Qur’an reading, has me thinking about interfaith work as service. In the Qur’an is the declaration that no…
Tonight, Aug. 21, 2009, is the first night of Ramadan 1430. I suggested that we Tweet the Qur’an during this time, with the tag #Quran. Since then, Aziz picked up the idea at City of Brass, Gary Bunt mentioned it on Virtually Islamic, and there was a mention in an article from Canada. There has been huge interest on Twitter, and I hope people will take part. Any event usually begins with the first chapter of the Qur’an, al-Fatiha, in its entirety. Rather than Tweet it, I thought I would put it here. In the Name of God, The Most…
From Zeba Iqbal: — Hello All – Have you heard about a fantastic new book by Pulitzer nominated author Dave Eggers? The book, Zeitoun, called an ‘instant American classic’, is about a Muslim American man, Abdalrahman Zeitoun and his family in New Orleans. Zeitoun stays behind to help neighbors after Hurricane Katrina only to be detained and suspected as “Taliban” and “Al Qaeda. Timothy Egan writes in his upcoming New York Times Book Review (on August 16, 2009): “Imagine Charles Dickens, his sentimentality in check but his journalistic eyes wide open, roaming New Orleans after it was buried by Hurricane…
Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, is approaching. We expect it to begin around August 21. Traditionally, Muslims read the Qur'an in its entirety over this time, in a section a day. The Qur'an is split into thirty sections, called juz', and one section is read each night. This year, I have been thinking it would be fun to tweet the Qur'an for Ramadan. Coincidentally, Shavuot came, and several people I follow on Twitter tweeted the Torah. Since that experience seemed to be successful, it further cemented my belief that this would be a good idea. Some guidelines for tweeting…
You can follow along with the hashtag #BahaiRights, The Bahais are a persecuted minority throughout the Muslim-majority world.
Tikkun blog likes me. It really, really likes me. More importantly, it puts me in some great company, I’m not sure I’m worthy of, but as long as those guys don’t complain, I won’t either.
After the arrogant and contemptuous way Mohler and other fundamentalist takeover leaders treated the Mainstream and moderate Baptists in their own denomination, I have exceedingly low expectations for civility from any of them. But, lives are at stake in the Middle East and around the world when people like Mohler persist in fomenting a clash of civilizations. … Frankly, in my experience, I find Muslims more respectful of Christianity than I find Evangelical Christians respectful of Islam. More at Mohler Contemptuous of Islam
I would actually hope that it holds promise for everyone: There is, Khan averred, a “dominant player fallacy” or the tendency to place “too much reliance in national governments and other institutions which may have relatively superficial connections to life at the grass-roots level.” Thus, “urban-based outsiders often look at these situations from the perspective of the city center looking out to a distant countryside, searching for quick and convenient levers of influence.” The secret, then, is to work “from the bottom up” and not from the top down, as is so often the case. As he told the dinner…