City of Brass

transcript: Obama remarks at National Prayer Breakfast

2009-02-05T09:00:00.003-06:00

As released by the White House / Office of the press Secretary on 5th February 2009, these are the remarks (as prepared for delivery) by president Barack Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast.

Good morning. I want to thank the Co-Chairs of this breakfast,
Representatives Heath Shuler and Vernon Ehlers. I'd also like to thank Tony
Blair for coming today, as well as our Vice President, Joe Biden, members of
my Cabinet, members of Congress, clergy, friends, and dignitaries from
across the world.

Michelle and I are honored to join you in prayer this morning. I know this
breakfast has a long history in Washington, and faith has always been a
guiding force in our family's life, so we feel very much at home and look
forward to keeping this tradition alive during our time here.

It's a tradition that I'm told actually began many years ago in the city of
Seattle. It was the height of the Great Depression, and most people found themselves out of work. Many fell into poverty. Some lost everything.

The leaders of the community did all that they could for those who were
suffering in their midst. And then they decided to do something more: they
prayed. It didn't matter what party or religious affiliation to which they
belonged. They simply gathered one morning as brothers and sisters to share
a meal and talk with God.

These breakfasts soon sprouted up throughout Seattle, and quickly spread to
cities and towns across America, eventually making their way to Washington.
A short time after President Eisenhower asked a group of Senators if he
could join their prayer breakfast, it became a national event. And today,
as I see presidents and dignitaries here from every corner of the globe, it
strikes me that this is one of the rare occasions that still brings much of
the world together in a moment of peace and goodwill.

I raise this history because far too often, we have seen faith wielded as a
tool to divide us from one another - as an excuse for prejudice and
intolerance. Wars have been waged. Innocents have been slaughtered. For
centuries, entire religions have been persecuted, all in the name of
perceived righteousness.

There is no doubt that the very nature of faith means that some of our
beliefs will never be the same. We read from different texts. We follow
different edicts. We subscribe to different accounts of how we came to be
here and where we're going next - and some subscribe to no faith at all.

But no matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no
religion whose central tenet is hate. There is no God who condones taking
the life of an innocent human being. This much we know.

We know too that whatever our differences, there is one law that binds all
great religions together. Jesus told us to "love thy neighbor as thyself."
The Torah commands, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your
fellow." In Islam, there is a hadith that reads "None of you truly believes
until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself." And the same
is true for Buddhists and Hindus; for followers of Confucius and for
humanists. It is, of course, the Golden Rule - the call to love one
another; to understand one another; to treat with dignity and respect those
with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth.

It is an ancient rule; a simple rule; but also one of the most challenging.
For it asks each of us to take some measure of responsibility for the
well-being of people we may not know or worship with or agree with on every
issue. Sometimes, it asks us to reconcile with bitter enemies or resolve
ancient hatreds. And that requires a living, breathing, active faith. It
requires us not only to believe, but to do - to give something of ourselves
for the benefit of others and the betterment of our world.

In this way, the particular faith that motivates each of us can promote a
greater good for all of us. Instead of driving us apart, our varied beliefs
can bring us together to feed the hungry and comfort the afflicted; to make
peace where there is strife and rebuild what has broken; to lift up those
who have fallen on hard times. This is not only our call as people of
faith, but our duty as citizens of America, and it will be the purpose of
the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships that I'm
announcing later today.

The goal of this office will not be to favor one religious group over
another - or even religious groups over secular groups. It will simply be
to work on behalf of those organizations that want to work on behalf of our
communities, and to do so without blurring the line that our founders wisely
drew between church and state. This work is important, because whether it's
a secular group advising families facing foreclosure or faith-based groups
providing job-training to those who need work, few are closer to what's
happening on our streets and in our neighborhoods than these organizations.
People trust them. Communities rely on them. And we will help them.

We will also reach out to leaders and scholars around the world to foster a
more productive and peaceful dialogue on faith. I don't expect divisions to
disappear overnight, nor do I believe that long-held views and conflicts
will suddenly vanish. But I do believe that if we can talk to one another
openly and honestly, then perhaps old rifts will start to mend and new
partnerships will begin to emerge. In a world that grows smaller by the
day, perhaps we can begin to crowd out the destructive forces of zealotry
and make room for the healing power of understanding.

This is my hope. This is my prayer.

I believe this good is possible because my faith teaches me that all is
possible, but I also believe because of what I have seen and what I have
lived.

I was not raised in a particularly religious household. I had a father who
was born a Muslim but became an atheist, grandparents who were
non-practicing Methodists and Baptists, and a mother who was skeptical of
organized religion, even as she was the kindest, most spiritual person I've
ever known. She was the one who taught me as a child to love, and to
understand, and to do unto others as I would want done.

I didn't become a Christian until many years later, when I moved to the
South Side of Chicago after college. It happened not because of
indoctrination or a sudden revelation, but because I spent month after month
working with church folks who simply wanted to help neighbors who were down
on their luck - no matter what they looked like, or where they came from, or
who they prayed to. It was on those streets, in those neighborhoods, that I
first heard God's spirit beckon me. It was there that I felt called to a
higher purpose - His purpose.

In different ways and different forms, it is that spirit and sense of
purpose that drew friends and neighbors to that first prayer breakfast in
Seattle all those years ago, during another trying time for our nation. It
is what led friends and neighbors from so many faiths and nations here
today. We come to break bread and give thanks and seek guidance, but also
to rededicate ourselves to the mission of love and service that lies at the
heart of all humanity. As St. Augustine once said, "Pray as though
everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you."

So let us pray together on this February morning, but let us also work
together in all the days and months ahead. For it is only through common
struggle and common effort, as brothers and sisters, that we fulfill our
highest purpose as beloved children of God. I ask you to join me in that
effort, and I also ask that you pray for me, for my family, and for the
continued perfection of our union. Thank you.

The transcript will also eventually be posted at the White House site, in the meantime here is a PDF from USA Today.

PostSecret: burka and bikini

2008-12-15T08:44:00.003-06:00

Related: The Burka and the Bikini at City of Brass (Beliefnet)

Yom Kippur

2008-10-09T08:07:00.001-05:00

Today is Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. I find some interesting parallels to Islam.

Obama McCain Debate II: the best question

2008-10-08T09:57:00.000-05:00

At City of Brass, I discuss the best question of last night's debate: asking Americans to sacrifice.

5th Annual Brass Crescent Awards

2008-10-02T08:13:00.000-05:00

The 5th Annual Brass Crescent Awards are now underway!

More details at City of Brass...

Dayton mosque attack incident revisited

2008-10-01T09:44:00.003-05:00

New details have emerged about the Dayton mosque incident. I explore them in detail at City of Brass v2.0.

(sorry no RSS feed for the new site is available yet. I am leaning on my editors to get me one soon. Please stay tuned :)

The fiscal crisis explained by stick figures

2008-09-26T07:44:00.002-05:00

at City of Brass v2.0, with added commentary on the relevance to Islamic banking.

Patience, patience

2008-09-12T11:01:00.000-05:00

It's been a couple of weeks now at my new home for City of Brass at Beliefnet, and while I've largely settled into a new routine there, several things remain unfinished. First among these is my RSS feed, which still has not been activated. I ask your patience. In the meantime, why not take a look at the blog the old fashioned way? I really have been quite a lot more active these past two weeks.

City of Brass v2.0 now live at Beliefnet

2008-08-27T11:39:00.000-05:00

It's official - City of Brass will henceforth be published at Beliefnet - the URL to the new blog is:

http://blog.beliefnet.com/cityofbrass/

Please join me over there, and update your bookmarks accordingly!

Announcement

2008-08-23T19:15:00.003-05:00

I am pleased and honored to announce that I have been invited to move City of Brass to BeliefNet.com. Effective next week, I will be posting at my new URL (http://blog.beliefnet.com/cityofbrass/ - but don't go yet, there's not much there at present). If you are subscribed to my feed, you needn't change anything, you should be redirected automatically.

I am really excited about this opportunity and I think that it will be a lot of fun. See you over there!

Obama's muslim-outreach advisor resigns

2008-08-06T07:25:00.002-05:00

Chalk up another victory for the scalp-hunting Islamophobe right: Mazen Asbahi, appointed as national coordinator for Muslim American affairs by the Obama campaign, has resigned from his volunteer position because of claims that he has "ties" to the Muslim Brotherhood, and served on the board of advisors for an Islamic fund at the same time (8 years ago) as another member, Jamal Said who is a fundamentalist imam. Asbahi actually resigned from that position after only a few weeks, once he learned of allegations against Said. In other words, Asbahi got the jihadi cooties, which are kind of like a mixture of anthrax and herpes.

Obama continues to disappoint on this score. He still remains unable to state publicly that "no, I am not a muslim but it would make no difference even if I were." It would have truly been a hope-inspiring change to see him defend Asbahi and take on the whisperers, because caving to them makes them all the stronger. That would be audacity I can believe in.

Yes, 12% of voters still think Obama is muslim (incidentally, 1% think he's Jewish). So whats the better strategy? Try to distance yourself from muslims at all costs to try and make that 12% think, "hmm. ok so he threw his volunteer outreach guy under the bus. I'm convinced!" ? Or to try and undermine the reasoning that says "if Obama is muslim, then I cannot vote for him, because muslims are not acceptable" ?

If any politician had the power or the pulpit to take on the ugly, dark side of American culture that Islamophobia represents, it's Obama. Given the confluence of events of war and energy and security, a sane outreach to Islam is in our collective best interest. Yet Obama runs away. Again.

I'm not sure whether I have any substantive analysis here other than snark, so I'll just stop here. Some excerpts from the story at WSJ:

why even have a muslim outreach advisor?

Until Mr. Asbahi joined the campaign, Sen. Obama did not have a Muslim-outreach coordinator and had relied on the Democratic National Committee's efforts. The campaign has long had its own outreach efforts to Catholic, evangelical Christian and Jewish voters. Some Muslim voters have complained about the disparity. An Obama aide says Mr. Asbahi was brought on in part to bridge that perceived gap and to reach out to Muslim communities in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, states seen as among the most competitive this fall.

What exactly are these "ties" to extremism?

In 2000, Mr. Asbahi briefly served on the board of Allied Assets Advisors Fund, a Delaware-registered trust. Its other board members at the time included Jamal Said, the imam at a fundamentalist-controlled mosque in Illinois.
[faith and obama]

"I served on that board for only a few weeks before resigning as soon as I became aware of public allegations against another member of the board," Mr. Asbahi said in his resignation letter. "Since concerns have been raised about that brief time, I am stepping down...to avoid distracting from Barack Obama's message of change."

Who exactly is Jamal Said?

The Justice Department named Mr. Said an unindicted co-conspirator in the racketeering trial last year of several alleged Hamas fund-raisers, which ended in a mistrial. He has also been identified as a leading member of the group in news reports going back to 1993.

Mr. Said is the imam at the Bridgeview Mosque in Bridge-view, Ill., outside Chicago. He left the board of the Islamic fund in 2005, Securities and Exchange Commission filings state. A message left for Mr. Said at the mosque was not returned.

What jafi scum was responsible for this particular scalping?

The eight-year-old connection between Mr. Asbahi and Mr. Said was raised last week by the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report, which is published by a Washington think tank and chronicles the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood, a world-wide fundamentalist group based in Egypt. Other Web sites, some pro-Republican and others critical of fundamentalist Islam, also have reported on the background of Mr. Asbahi.

Is orientalism dead?

2008-07-23T07:27:00.003-05:00

I admit to not having read Edward Said's Orientalism, but from what I gather, his thesis is that any study of eastern cultures by western historians is necessarily tainted by a racist, condescending, colonial perspective that portrays eastern culture in an inherently inferior light. I have always had trouble accepting this thesis (at least, as far as the modern era - examples of it abound from the colonial era, for example pretty much everything written about India during the British Raj).

Any analysis of a foreign culture is necessarily going to happen across a cultural chasm. As such, it is inevitable that elements of that culture under study will be filtered through the observer's own. The whole point of cultural analysis is to try and understand something alien; the human way to do this is to try and relate it to something more familiar. As a result, the culture under study will be bent and folded (and even mutilated, depending on the skill or lack thereof of the observer) to fit into predefined (and alien) categories.

There probably is always some element of condescension involved as well. Cultural superiority is ingrained deeply by force of habit and the comfort of the familiar. How many times have we seen statements about the West from Islamic sources that seek to portray the West as inherently sinful, hedonistic, without morals, etc. ? Perhaps Western analysts have learned to mask or even suppress their condescension better. But is that condescension the core of the analysis or a side effect? Is the value of the analysis totally negated by it?

A modern day westerner writing about the middle east (which, it should be noted, includes we western muslims as much as it does someone like Michael Totten) will not be immune to these foibles. In my opinion, the thesis of orientalism draws a false line between east and west. In that way Edward Said is as guilty of perpetuating the "Clash" as Samuel Huntington (personally, I favor the Gash of Civilizations theory instead). When i think of Oriental I think of the far east (the Chinese civilization and its offshoots). The middle east is the frontier between east and west, but I don't think you can argue (especially with the adoption of western leftist parliaments and political systems) that its wholly distinct. Neither are they distinct in the religious sphere - after all, there are three great Abrahamic faiths, and they are coterminus at Jerusalem.

I think that we cannot expect a non-muslim writing about the middle east to be too sympathetic to our muslim axioms. It's our task to explain why orthodoxy and faith are important, to rescue terms like hijab and jihad from the negative connotation, to take our own pride in our orthopraxy. A non-muslim writing about the middle east will look for what they know - bars, liberalism, hot chicks - whereas we might see something different. That's not orientalism, its simply culture shock.

Overall, orientalism is badly named. It describes a relationship between colonial powers and its colonies more than it does east vs west or Islam vs (anything). I can't help but speculate that Said's motivation was really to try and establish a distinction between east and west as proxies for the palestinians and the israelis. That conflict is all the more tragic when seen as a fraternal one rather than one at the very frontier between two civilizations, alien and opposed. There's no reason however that the rest of us, who are not embroiled in a life or death struggle over holy land, need to be bound by this formulation. I think we as western muslims especially need to reject the concept of orientalism out of hand.

UPDATE: great essay in The Guardian, "Orientalism is not racism". In my opinion the most important part of the argument is as follows:

Today the west is bleakly incurious about the history of Islam, its art, peoples and learning. There's a blank wall of terror. This wall has been strengthened by Said's book because it closes down a crucial way for cultures to encounter one another: it closes down romanticism.

NOTE: Comments closed here - to discuss this essay, please join the discussion at Talk Islam.

who says muslims don't laugh at themselves?

2008-07-17T04:40:00.000-05:00

At Talk Islam, a joke and a photo.

What is an African-American?

2008-07-16T04:08:00.002-05:00

Tariq has a very thorough post at his blog expanding on the question of what it means to be African American and whether Obama qualifies to claim that ethnic heritage or not. I think the post expands very well on the earlier discussion and i find myself in agreement now that the term African American does have a special meaning that is best left undiluted. I do still think that the self-identity of AA in the US needs to ultimately free itself of slavery’s shadow, much like the self-identity of Jews needs to free itself of the Holocaust, but in practice I don't know how practical that is.

It must be noted however that the term AA will continue to be used as a broad brush. So i think in one sense if ethnic AA's try to articulate their "ownership" of the term African-American, they do risk being tarred (unfairly) as making the “black enough” argument. It might be better to make the argument in the abstract for the term AA, but adopting a more specific label for pragmatisms’ sake. I personally think “Black American” is more descriptive since Africa, per se, is not really central to the identity in question.

(Note - comments closed here. Please discuss this post at Talk Islam).

Club Med

2008-07-13T14:02:00.001-05:00

At Talk Islam, thabet links to a pair of editorials from the FT (skeptical) and the Economist (upbeat) regarding France's proposal for a Mediterranean Union. I must confess, I find the idea of a Mediterranean Union extremely appealing. I found this graphic from the FT rather fascinating, illustrating the economic disparity of the nations around the Med Rim: (click to enlarge)

I am also reminded of the way in which the states surrounding the Great Lakes here in the US came together to form the Great Lakes Compact. Access to the same massive shared body of water means that all adjacent polities have a vested interest in preserving it as a common resource. An economic union across the Med would also be a great way to uplift North Africa in particular, and provide an economic bulwark against fundamentalism.

Introducing Muslim Advocates: freedom and justice for all

2008-07-11T13:23:00.004-05:00

Introducing Muslim Advocates - the Muslim-American civil rights group that CAIR should have been. Founded by the National Association of Muslim Lawyers (NAML), they are hitting precisely the right note in their mission statement about seeking freedom and justice for all. They have hit the ground running, by producing this excellent video titled "Got Rights?":

Watch This Video: It will give you crucial Information about how to protect you and your family when approached by law enforcement.Since the terrorist attacks of 9-11, Muslims, Sikhs, Arabs and South Asians have endured particular scrutiny by law enforcement -- and in some cases, questioning and searches that infringe fundamental rights at the core of the Constitution. In this climate, it is vital that members of our communities inform themselves about our rights as Americans.Then, Take Action: Share the video with your family and friends; and visit our website to tell us about your experiences with law enforcement.To change discriminatory policies, we first need to educate our fellow Americans about our experiences. Help stop racial and religious profiling.

Brilliant. They also invite you to share your story with them if you've been denied your rights or had an otherwise unjust encounter with the law.

The importance of this group cannot be overstated. For 15 years, the Council on American-Islamic Relations has failed to really make a case for muslim American civil rights. The failure of CAIR to articulate a national civil rights argument on behalf of muslims has not gone unnoticed - leading CAIR's chairman to resign in frustration (though he certainly deserves some of the blame). CAIR's membership has been steadily dwindling as well.

Is CAIR now irrelevant? Not neccessarily. I've defended CAIR many times because while their national leadership has been inept and controversy-prone, the local state chapters do important work in compiling information about muslim civil liberties violations that would otherwise go unnoticed, as well as basic community outreach, humanitarian work, and of course damage control. MA can step in to fill the gap at the national level but probably won't be able to replicate CAIR's infrastructure on a state-by-state chapter level, at least not for a while. I don't see MA as being capable of doing the community outreach/open-mosque/interfaith yeoman's work, either. The ideal situation would be for genuine reform within CAIR and have these two organizations work independently, but cooperatively, towards the same goals.

My friend Shahed Amanullah recently mused on a number of ways in which CAIR might reform:

a) Change the name. It has the connotation of “American” and “Islamic” being mutually exclusive.
b) Be more selective about the civil rights issues that are taken up, because there are some times when people are just being jerks and not necessarily anti-Muslim. And some actions (i.e. the “flying imams” lawsuit) have ended up having a net negative impact on public opinion about Muslims.
c) Be more broad about the issues taken up. There’s more to being Muslim in America than the right to wear hijab and pray at work.
d) Explicitly reject all foreign funding, like MPAC has done since its founding.
e) Have at least one proactive/positive initiative (outreach, training, community building) for every aggressive one (i.e. lawsuits).
f) Take a different attitude towards the media - the current CAIR attitude towards the media is far too hostile and uncooperative, and it feeds on itself.
g) Push for the inclusion on younger/more diverse leadership, with special attention given to those who were born and/or raised in the US.
h) Focus on Muslim life in America, and leave foreign policy to other Muslim groups. Both are worthy causes, but the pursuit of both at the same time hurts the efficacy of each one.
i) Stop trying to be another ISNA (i.e. stop adding parallel programs that step on the toes of other groups, and stop positioning yourself as an umbrella group for all Muslims.). Focus on what you do best - defending civil rights of Muslims.
j) Thoroughly vet all staffers for anything in their past that can drag down the organization as a whole. (Not trying to discredit past work that people may have done, this is simply a cost-benefit analysis that weighs the skills one brings to the table vs. the obstacles it can place in the way of the larger org goals).

With the advent of MA, CAIR might as well outsource all or part of (b) above to them, as far as lobbying at the national level and engaging in PR work. Of course, at the local level, it's the data collected by local CAIR chapters that MA will need to have access to in order to make their case.

Overall, what CAIR needs is bold ideas and fresh leadership. I know the perfect man for the job as CAIR Chairman but he's already declined to be drafted :) Ultimately though the creation of MA bodes well for muslim-American organizations in general, as long as these orgs realize they are all on the same team and "representing muslim American issues" is not a zero-sum game.

painfully self-aware

2008-07-11T06:40:00.000-05:00

More than a few people have brought the seeming hiatus in blogging here at City of Brass to my attention with alarm, asking if I have shuttered this site in favor of a sexier project (Talk Islam, which if you aren't reading, you SHOULD be).

However, while I admit to being distracted of late, nothing could be further from the truth. City of Brass is not going anywhere. Stay tuned, if you've stuck through te drought this long already.

FWIW, I am going to retire the Carnival of Brass, however, in favor of Talk Islam. More details later.

the Qur'an shooter

2008-05-19T22:19:00.004-05:00

The US military has officially apologized for the actions of a sergeant who used the Qur'an for target practice.

The incident was earlier strongly condemned by al-Hashemi and the Association of Muslim Scholars, which represents many of Iraq's mosques.

"This heinous crime shows the hatred that the leaders and the members of the occupying force have against the Quran and the [Muslim] people," it said.

It added that it held both the US military and Iraqi government responsible for the incident.

The US army earlier said the staff sergeant, who fired bullets at the Quran and wrote graffiti inside it, had already been removed from Iraq and was to be disciplined.

A heinous crime? good grief. Personally I think that it's literally impossible to demean the Qur'an - the most anyone can do is destroy a copy, but that's an impotent gesture indeed. What need have we of apologies such as these? Why should the empty symbolism of an unbeliever concern us?

If anything is an insult to the Qur'an, it's this compulsive obsession with how the exterior of the physical book is treated rather than what's inside.

UPDATE: President Bush will also make a personal apology.

Pipes' dream

2008-05-14T07:00:00.000-05:00

As noted previously, the "Obama is a muslim" smear has evolved into the "Obama is an apostate" smear. The reason for the latest mutation is probably the Wright affair, which put OBAMA - PASTOR - CHURCH in giant headlines for most of April. Hence, the smear has had to adapt, from "he's a muslim" to "he's an apostate". Actually, Luttwak isn't the first to push the Smear v2.0, Daniel Pipes was blathering about it just a few weeks ago:

Obama's Kenyan birth father: In Islam, religion passes from the father to the child. Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. (1936–1982) was a Muslim who named his boy Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. Only Muslim children are named "Hussein".

Eteraz already refuted the assertion about birth fathers:

Islamic law recognizes abandonment by the biological father. Obama's Kenyan father abandoned Obama. As such, any religious imprimatur he may have had over Obama -- which is already a stretch since the man was an atheist -- is null and void. In such a situation, Obama's mother's religion is controlling. She was not Muslim. Even if someone makes the argument from patriarchy: that Obama's paternal grandparents were his rightful guardians, that would fail since they also constructively abandoned him.

There is a corollary issue here: what about the fact that Obama's second father, the Indonesian, was a "non-practicing Muslim." Doesn't his faith transfer over to Obama? The answer is no. Under Islamic law, step-fathers do not acquire ownership over the child. Their relationship to the child emanates from their relationship to the child's mother. Again, Obama's mother was not Muslim. If a practicing Muslim man marries a Christian woman with children from a previous marriage, her children wouldn't automatically become Muslim. Here, the new father wasn't even practicing.

Luttwack and the other fake experts promoting this new smear do not understand Islam. Religion is not hereditary as it is in Judaism. Islam is not a race. Just because a child has a Muslim father -- which, again, Obama didn't -- doesn't mean anything unless the child is being raised as a Muslim. At the time of birth, Muslims engage in a symbolic act -- of saying the Call to Prayer in the child's ear -- that renders a child Muslim. If Obama's father was agnostic/atheist, then he wouldn't have done such a thing.

Pipes claims to be an expert on Islam, but none of the traditional practices or concensus views above seems to penetrate his analysis. I think people of Pipes' ilk are confusing muslims with Jews. Or with Klingons (we already know muslims are Orcs).

As far as Pipes' assertion that only muslims are named Hussein, I wonder what he thinks of these shady characters:

Gen. Omar Bradley, who bore a Semitic, Muslim first name, and shared it with the second caliph of Sunni Islam, was the hero of D-day and Normandy, of the Battle of the Bulge and the Ruhr.
[...]
What about other American heroes, such as Gen. George Joulwan, former NATO supreme allied commander of Europe? "Joulwan" is an Arabic name. Or there is Gen. John Abizaid, former CENTCOM commander. Abizaid is an Arabic name. Abi means Abu or "father of," and Zaid is a common Arab first name.

It should be noted that by Pipe's logic, this fellow might also be an apostate:

Look at that beard! And he's named after a Prophet in Islam, to boot.

Administrative note regarding the Carnival of Brass

2008-05-13T17:02:00.000-05:00

The Carnival of Brass is composed of two feeds, one dedicated to blogs (@brass_crescent) and the other devoted to articles in the mainstream media (@COB). However, with the launch of Talk Islam, the latter feed is now obsolete. Please note that there will be no more further updates to the @COB (media) feed, instead I highly recommend that you replace that feed with the one from Talk Islam. Javascript code for embedding the Talk Islam feed is as follows:

<script src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/TalkIslam?format=sigpro" type="text/javascript" ></script>

Please note that the @brass_crescent (blogs) feed is unchanged. You can use the same javascript code for that feed as before. Alternatively you can also use the following code:

<script src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/brass_crescent_blogs?format=sigpro" type="text/javascript" ></script>

The Carnival of Brass FAQ will be updated with this information as well.

Muslim Smear v2.0

2008-05-12T15:41:00.000-05:00

Obama is falsely accused of being an apostate in the New York Times.

Ali Eteraz refutes at the Huffington Post:

people that appear to be Muslims, but don't follow Islam and choose another religion, are permitted under Islamic law to leave Islam without penalty. A major case in Malaysia recently handed down -- a woman who was Muslim for some time in order to marry an Iranian was permitted to go back to Buddhism -- is an example. Obama, unlike the Malaysian woman, didn't even make a profession of faith to Islam, so it makes even less sense for him to be considered an apostate.
[...]
No call to prayer in the ear, not raised as a Muslim, born to an atheist father, and then abandoned to a Christian mother both by father and his family, equals not Muslim. Obama is right to say he had no religion until he became a Christian.

IQ and pseudoscience

2008-04-29T17:37:00.005-05:00

In the debate over Ben Stein's movie Expelled, which purports to argue that creationism/intelligent design has a rightful place in the science curriculum, some have argued that - to be blunt - pseudoscience of this sort is popular because people are dumb. Example - Jerry Pournelle argues that higher education is wasted on the proles:

As we go down the Bell Curve it becomes more difficult and eventually becomes impossible -- and all the educational effort expended in teaching "talent meritocracy" skills has been wasted. Those on the left side of the Bell Curve have talents and potentials, but they require a different kind of education -- and the United States public school system, with rare exceptions, not only doesn't provide it but doesn't want to provide it. We believe or say we believe what Bill Gates believes: that every child deserves a world class university prep education. And as I have said, attempting to provide that to everyone means that few will in fact get such and education, and much of the money and resources devoted to education will be wasted.

In a nitshell, this is why the IQ-is-taboo crowd has such a bad reputation - because they cannot resist the temptation to indulge their latent sense of superiority. In asserting their intellectual prowess, they wholly abandon the moral high ground.

The argument in defense of science is wholly separate from the argument about IQ. The former is easy: ExpelledExposed, RealClimate, TalkOrigins, etc. Yes, those who unequivocally reject the (in retrospect, obvious) idea that IQ has a genetic component are as guilty of pseudoscience as Stein et al.

But the other side of the fence, those who say "IQ has a genetic component" are also at fault when, and if, they propose policy. Such as Pournelle's horrific implication that higher education is wasted upon the plebes.

There is in fact no need to "consider" IQ when combating pseudoscience unless you are prepared to accept the fallacy that only dumb people fall for pseudoscience. Very, very high-IQ people are quite happy embracing pseudoscience for a number of reasons. One of them being simple calculus of self-interest (financial or otherwise). And another being genuine belief.

It is intellectual laziness to assume that disagreement is due to inferiority. You are implicitly assuming that super-rationality exists. It does not. The reason people fall for pseudoscience is not because they are dumb but because pseudoscience is Godelian - it cannot be disproved by reason and logic. Pseudoscience is a belief system.

The problem is not that there are low IQ rubes who slurp up pseudoscience. The problem is that there are high-IQ people who gladly dispense pseudoscience because unlike science, pseudoscence is very useful in promoting an agenda. Science is not quite so easy to push around to fit an a-priori.

Were reason and rationality truly objective, then pseudoscience would not exist. That is the problem, and there is no solution aside from the kind of solution to bad, but free, speech: more speech. More Science. Fight fire with light.

Proposing public policy to restrict higher education to the high-IQ-enabled is not only a moral travesty, but would also do nothing to erase pseudoscience from this world.

Islamosphere.com

2008-04-26T14:09:00.002-05:00

Umm Yasmin of Dervish blog is relaunching Islamsosphere.com as an extended blogroll service. Take a look!

a conspiracy of cartographers

2008-04-22T18:46:00.003-05:00

This is inane.

SPEAKERS at a Doha conference on Mecca's importance said that the holy city, not Greenwich, should become the reference point for world time, reigniting an old controversy that started some four decades ago.

A group of Islamic scholars presented on Saturday “scientific evidence” to prove that Mecca was the core of that the zero longitude passes through the holy city and not through Greenwich in the UK.

Greenwich in England has been the home of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) since 1884. GMT is sometimes called Greenwich Meridian Time because it is measured from the Greenwich Meridian Line at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. Greenwich is the place from where all time zones are measured.

The phrase scientific evidence has scare quotes around it for good reason. For one thing, they argue that Mecca has perfect alignment of geographic north to magnetic north. All well and good, but magnetic north drifts over time. The claim is false anyway, the true perfect alignment is somewhere around Kandahar.

Possibly the most hilarious aspect of this is their solution: reject the maps!

The participants recommended the unification of the time in the Arab world to the time in Mecca instead of Greenwich. They also called the Arab governments to abandon the new world maps “because they are forged to serve Western interests.”

yes, western interests like global trade, or navigation of oil tankers?

As I've said elsewhere, attempts like this to assert Islamic superiority in the arena of science by pseudoscience fatwa betray a deep-seated insecurity about faith more than anything else.

Talk Islam v2.0

2008-04-21T07:00:00.002-05:00

I am very pleased to announce the relaunch of Talk Islam, an experiment in conversation between the members of the Islamic blogsphere.

Talk Islam was originally conceived as a "frequently asked questions" resource to combat public mis-perceptions about Islam, analogous to the Talk Origins archive on evolutionary theory. However, for various reasons, that goal was not realistic in its original form. The relaunch of Talk Islam is intended to be a long-term project, with a focus on promoting stories and initiating discussions that are relevant to our concerns.

This goal is achieved in numerous ways. First, the main page of Talk Islam is a group blog, that hosts a running discussion between leading bloggers in the Islamosphere. This conversation is open to all, and we are actively seeking participation from muslim bloggers to participate.

Second, Talk Islam hosts the Carnival of Brass, which highlights key posts by muslim bloggers throughout the Islamsphere. Anyone can submit links to the Carnival, and posts that are linked appear not just at Talk Islam but at dozens of other muslim blogs around the web.

Third, any regular participant of Talk Islam may request a free blog, at (username).talkislam.info. These user blogs are powered by Wordpress and equal in functionality to free blogs hosted on the Wordpress.com hosting service - except the URL is far cooler!

All in all, Talk Islam is an experiment in progress. The goal is to promote the entire Islamic blogsphere and forge stronger connections within it. Do stop by and take a look! We hope you join us.

The Papacy and Jon Stewart

2008-04-17T10:56:00.003-05:00

This is probaly one of the funniest segments I've seen in a long time on the Daily Show.

"OH MY GOD The Pope's plane in invisible!"

"yeah, not like that last pope.. that guy was a dick!"

"wait, I thought the Jews controlled the media?"

and my favorite, "awesome speech". But that was President Bush's line, not Stewart's.

JStreet: pro-Israel, pro-peace

2008-04-15T20:23:00.000-05:00

"We must establish boldly and forcefully that nothing is more pro-Israel than pressing for immediate, sustained and meaningful American action to end the conflict between Israel and its neighbors.This requires a dramatic change in the dynamic of discussion about Israel in the American Jewish community and in the American body politic. It demands an end to simplistic slogans and name-calling that effectively shuts down debate and discussion in a community not known as shy and retiring in expressing its opinions.

My history demands that I say this. Our future and Israel’s future demands that we act on it."

-- "For Israel’s Sake, Moderate American Jews Must Find Their Voice", by Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street and of JStreetPAC.

More information on JStreet at their website:

J Street is the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement.

J Street was founded to promote meaningful American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israel conflicts peacefully and diplomatically. We support a new direction for American policy in the Middle East and a broad public and policy debate about the U.S. role in the region.

J Street represents Americans, primarily but not exclusively Jewish, who support Israel and its desire for security as the Jewish homeland, as well as the right of the Palestinians to a sovereign state of their own - two states living side-by-side in peace and security. We believe ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in the best interests of Israel, the United States, the Palestinians, and the region as a whole.

sign me up!

I am converting to Scientology

2008-04-01T07:36:00.002-05:00

It's been a great ride, oh ummah, but here's where I get off.

"goodbye, evrybody... I've got to go..."

"Bismillah NO! We will not let you go!"

how appropriately named

2008-03-31T07:10:00.000-05:00

I don't think anyone could deliver a more damaging critique of Wilder's Fitna than this:

Omar Bakri, the Libyan-based radical Muslim cleric who is barred from Britain, did not think the film was very offensive. "On the contrary, if we leave out the first images and the sound of the page being torn, it could be a film by the [Islamist] Mujahideen," he said.

Ouch. especially since he was serious in his admiration. When you've made a film that makes a terrorist smile, you have to wonder what side you really are on.

(source: Financial Times, registration required)

the wages of fitna

2008-03-30T10:17:00.004-05:00

Earlier, I mentioned that Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, of bomb-in-turban Mohammed fame, was suing Geert Wilders for copyright violation. Now it seems that Dutch businesses are following suit (pun intended):

Dutch businesses warned on Saturday that they would consider suing far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders if his anti-Islam film led to a commercial boycott of Dutch goods, while police said cars were set ablaze and graffiti called for Wilders to be killed.

“A boycott would hurt Dutch exports. Businesses such as Shell, Philips, and Unilever are easily identifiable as Dutch companies. I don’t know if Wilders is rich, or well-insured, but in case of a boycott, we would look to see if we could make him bear responsibility,” Bernard Wientjes, the chairman of the Dutch employers’ organisation VNO-NCW, told the Het Financieel Dagblad newspaper.

Malaysia’s former prime minister Mahathir Muhammad on Saturday suggested a boycott of Dutch goods.

“If Muslims unite, it will be easy to take action. If we boycott Dutch products, they will have to close down their businesses,” he told reporters.

The media in Jordan has also called for such a boycott.

Two days after the Internet release of the long-awaited 17-minute documentary “Fitna”, Muslim nations, including Malaysia and Singapore, and the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned it. Although there were no mass disturbances in the Netherlands, two cars were set ablaze in Utrecht overnight, with a slogan calling for the death of Wilders. Police said they could not say with certainty that it was connected to the release of “Fitna”.

The inclusion of the mention of cars being set afire seems pretty tangential to me, especially since it was isolated incidents and not widespread.

At first glance, a boycott seems rather harsh since the ordinary Dutch people - including obviously all Dutch muslims - were steadfastly opposed to Fitna and yet they would bear the economic brunt of a boycott far more than the jafi minority like Wilders and his cohorts.

However, in a free country a boycott is a legitimate instrument for applying social pressure, a form of speech in its own right. Just because you have the right to do a thing doesn't mean that there aren't reasons, of civility and honor, to refrain. If Fitna results in economic harm by voluntary (and legitimate) boycotts of Dutch goods from muslim countries then that is part of the price that the Dutch have to pay for their freedom. Wilders had every right to make his movie, irrespective of the harm it could have caused others, and muslims have every right to respond peaceably via boycotts.

And Dutch businesses suing Wilders over it seems rather just a comeuppance, doesn't it?

UPDATE: anyone inclined to argue that a boycott is unfair would do well to consider the alternative:

DAMASCUS, Syria, March 29 -- Islamic and Arab leaders denounced a Dutch film Saturday that portrays Islam as a ticking time bomb aimed at the West, calling for international laws to prevent insults to religions.

So not gonna happen!

Obviously Arab governments, being largely autocratic, would advocate criminalizing speech sine that is what they routinely do. Speech truly is dangerous, after all, and autocracy has reason to fear it. But the case of Fitna also shows that free nations also have reason to fear speech, and the corrective is applied not through government intervention but rather the power of the market.

The best answer to bad speech is more speech. But that doesn't mean that bad speech doesn't have consequences of its own, regardless of whether you live in a free ocuntry or not. There is no such thing as cost-free speech - rights come responsibilities, as well.

Geert Wilder's Fitna

2008-03-29T08:03:00.006-05:00

(welcome, Instapundit readers!)

UPDATE: The YouTube version was pulled offline, but I found another from Google Video via Rusty.

The ridiculousness of the film speaks for itself, I think. However, Ali Eteraz performed the thankless task of reviewing it anyway. Also, do not miss Thabet's link roundup about the subdued response to the film's release by muslims in Europe and elsewhere.

Warning, very graphic images. Absolutely NOT work- or children-safe.

The cartoon portraying the Prophet Mohammed SAW as a hook-nosed terrorist with a bomb in his turban, over which a lawsuit has been filed, appears in the first 15 seconds.

The tone and style of the film is lifted straight out of the most fevered swamps of the blogsphere and talk radio. I don't really see how this makes any coherent argument other than "terrorists are evil" which is hardly a point of contention. The link of Islam to terror is ham-handed and clumsy and at many times outright laughable. However, for someone with confirmation bias predisposing them to believe the link exists already, this will no doubt be seen as a devastatingly rigorous argument. To someone with no a-priori image of Islam, its actual persuasive value is practically zero. It is solely a guilt-by-association polemic, and a rude, ugly, obscene fear-mongering polemic at that.

Part II tomorrow.

UPDATE: I have received some emails from people asking why I would want to publicize this. (No, no death threats yet. Don't hold your breath.) As I discussed at a thread at Dean Esmay's blog, The film is it's own best counter-argument. It is so over the top that it undermines itself. If censorship against the film succeeded, then people would only know it exists and it would have some credibility accorded to it by virtue of the mystery and controversy. Like Janet Jackson's nipple, though, once (ahem) laid bare it's not that big a deal, and just kind of pathetic.

a disagreement among jafis

2008-03-28T11:59:00.004-05:00

I find this rather bizarre - one of the original Danish cartoonists who portrayed the Prophet SAW as a terrorist in his cartoon, is now suing Dutch MP Geert Wilders over copyright violations in the latter's movie Fitna, which portrays Islam as a religion of terror.

Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who depicted the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban, says he will sue the maker of an anti-Islam film.

Mr Westergaard says his cartoon, which sparked riots two years ago, was used in the film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders without permission.

Mr Westergaard told Danish TV that his cartoon was a protest against terrorism, not Islam as a whole.

The Danish journalists' union is suing on his behalf for copyright violation.

"Wilders has the right to make his movie but he has not permission to use my drawing," Mr Westergaard told Denmark's TV2.

"This has nothing to do with freedom of speech," he said. "I will not accept my cartoon being taken out of its original context and used in a completely different one."

I find it intriguing that Westergaard chose the movie to make his stand and to argue that his cartoon was only an indictment against terrorism. He was certainly, ahem, silent over widespread adoption of his cartoon (portraying the Prophet with a bomb in his turban) by exactly those vocal European groups which explicitly claim that Islam as a whole is a problem. And I dont see how you can claim you are not indicting the religion as a whole if you coose to portray the founder of the faith himself as a terrorist. Logically doesn't that imply that his teachings are also terror?

I think the more likely explanation for Westergaard's sudden concern for moderate Islam is revealed here:

Mr Westergaard says he is once again in danger because the cartoon has been used in Mr Wilders' film.

In other words, he is really just afraid of the additional publicity. Since his cartoons did actually trigger a genuine StupidStorm of violence, whereas Wilder's Fitna is largely being ignored, I think his fear is understandable given his experience. Still, it's quite interesting that now he has basically endorsed the existence of moderate mainstream Islam, which will be a useful wedge to use against those who try to adopt his insulting cartoon as a weapon against ordinary decent muslims.

ritualizing Science

2008-03-28T08:13:00.003-05:00

(Below is a comment I left in response to Elezier Yudkowski's thought experiment that science might be better served by wrapping it in a cloak of ritual.)

Elezier,

The reason I keep coming back to this blog is because you madden me. Long time reader, first time commentor. I appreciate the thought experiment you are conducting in this post but I think some of your own biases are driving the theory.

For example, you equate science with magic. I suspect this is because you have a romanticized bias towards science instead of practical, mundane scientific experience in the trenches. Arthur C. Clarke would be happy, god rest his soul, but the actual practice of science is the opposite of magic. The scientific method simply could not survive in an arcane mysterium context. As a practicing scientist, I not only rely on the knowledge of my fellow initiates to Ars Scientifica to hold my work to its rigour, but also the very public nature of the peer review process itself. There's a reason why PLoS and arXiv are so popular and groundbreaking - these are innovations in the process of peer review that drive us towards greater public transparency, not less. If Ars Scientifica were walled off from the public sphere and wrapped in layers of ritual, it would hamper the very process of inquiry and most importantly self-critique that is essential to the function of Science itself (and magnify the very real flaws and problems in the Method and peer review that persist today).

Secondly, you equate religion with the very small, very specific, and very (disproportionately so) vocal subset that is intelligent design/young earth creationism/etc. This is likely because you are biased in regards to the sample of religious folk you find yourself debating with online and in person. Ordinary deeply religious folk like myself are simply not insecure enough about their faith to care much that you keep referring to religion as a whole as an original sin of rationality (though I do admire your cleverness in inverting the metaphor!). However, that said, you tipped your hand a bit when you wrote above that "if some other cult tried to tell you [The Truth] was actually a bearded man in the sky 6000 years ago, you'd laugh like hell." I think at least part of the underlying drive behind the thought experiment at hand is the wish that science were accorded more respect, so that it least would have parity with pseudoscience. But if science has a PR problem, it is structural. It's simply not worth the effort worrying about it. I think Science succeeds in making an impact on people's lives irrespective of their respect for it.

By focusing only on the bearded sky dude you are avoiding the much deeper intellectual challenge of grappling with the far more mature manifestations of religion, the majority of which transcend minor details like young earths, bearded men, or whatever. The kernel of religion is not the trappings of the stereotype you invoke but rather the simple idea that existence is deeper than what can be accessed by the finite tools we possess.

I am fond of arguing that Godel's Theorem points the way towards the superset of knowledge that contains all that Science can discover and all that Religion seeks to uncover. I don't think ritualizing Science to make it more like religion, or systematizing Religion to make it more like science, is the answer.

fitna against fitna

2008-03-26T08:01:00.002-05:00

As previously mentioned, Dutch MP Geert Wilders is planning to release a film entitled "Fitna" which purports to prove that Islam and the Qur'an are an "inspiration to murder" and the faith is fundamentally inmical to Western values. In essence, it is hate speech, which will test the boundaries of free speech in much the same way that (falsely) yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater does.

There are numerous restrictions on free speech - for example, in most of Europe, Holocaust denial is illegal. Still, I find myself repulsed by suggestions that the Qur'an and Islam should be placed beyond limits of critique, parody, or even mockery as a matter of law. However, there is nothing wrong with advocating opposition to hate speech in the marketplace. They say that the best answer to bad free speech is more speech, but what is often more effective as an answer to bad speech is less money. Boycotts, public pressure, and media scrutiny upon those affiliated with hate speech hits the purveyors of hate where it counts - in their pocketbooks.

This is why, though I am absolutely opposed to any restriction by law upon speech against Islam, I applaud this news:

Godhatesfags.com. JewWatch.com. KKK.com. These are all examples of controversial web sites that regularly stir up debates over religion and hate speech online. Generally speaking, if a site avoids making direct threats and is based in the US, it's usually allowed to continue operating in the name of free speech. Once site that has not made the cut is Fitnathemovie.com. It promoted a yet-to-be-released film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders that was critical of the Qur'an, and it has now been suspended by its US-based hosting company, Network Solutions, pending an investigation into the site's contents.
[...]
The company's placeholder page says that Fitnathemovie.com "has been suspended while Network Solutions is investigating whether the site's content is in violation of the Network Solutions Acceptable Use Policy. Network Solutions has received a number of complaints regarding this site that are under investigation." The Acceptable Use Policy generally prohibits sites that contain "profane, indecent, or otherwise objectionable material of any kind or nature."

And yes, I do believe that Network Solutions should follow suit on the other hate sites mentioned above, assuming that they have received complaints. This strikes me as a reasonable market response to a speech issue. Anyone who cries foul or censorship on Network Solution's takedown of the movie page is misguided in their understanding of what speech is. Wilders has no inherent right to force any company to act as vehicle for his (genuine) right to free speech. A company affiliated with him has every right to assess their own self-interest and determine whether they want to maintain that association, and take into account just how that association will affect its own image in the marketplace.

I think Ars Technica is trying to be fair in invoking other hate sites which remain in operation, but really it is pretty irrelevant that other hate sites remain online. If Ars were to file complaints about each of those, and NetSol refused to then do the same to those as they have done for Fitna, then the comparison would be relevant.

electronic intifada

2008-03-20T14:42:00.003-05:00

At Nation-Building, I look at how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has opened a new front - on Facebook.

Meanwhile, Tariq Nelson promises to return, with a jihad on his agenda.

defining a muslim Left III: a muslim bloc?

2008-03-20T07:20:00.005-05:00

at alt.muslim, Shahed discusses the flaws in the concept of a muslim bloc vote:

A necessary component of the "block vote" strategy is the faulty assumption that Muslims either have uniform political views or are indifferent enough to drop them in favor of a recommendation by Muslim leaders. But every survey of Muslim political opinion shows a wide variety of views on issues ranging from national security and foreign policy to education and trade. While some Muslims conservative values are in line with the Republicans, their social justice, civil rights, and foreign policy viewpoints are sometimes more in line with the Democrats. In the current race, many Muslims also admired Ron Paul's fiscally conservative, anti-war bent.

It is unreasonable to expect, and unfair to encourage, Muslim voters to drop these personal political leanings in favor of a dictate from above. To do so would be to mirror dysfunctional electoral politics in less-sophisticated democracies, where voters cede their responsibility to be informed decision makers, casting their votes largely along ethnic or tribal lines. This approach can only lead to political apathy and atrophy in the Muslim electorate - the exact opposite of what the Muslim American community needs.

I have to agree. Shahed discusses a bit of the history of the muslim bloc in 2000 and 2004 and illustrates in both cases how dysfunctional and meaningless the bloc was in practice.

However, I can't agree to the prescription that he offers as an alternative:

Instead of focusing on orchestrating a block vote, Muslims must be (or should have been) encouraged to focus on issues at grassroots levels, and not be swayed by personalities, throwaway overtures, or one-time favors. Interest groups of every persuasion are effective at promoting their issues because they work with politicians across the spectrum, at all levels, from local to national. Muslim leadership should be enabling this by opening doors for Muslims to get involved in this way, and not just during an election year. And rather than swinging from Democrat to Republican, as the last two endorsements have done, Muslims should be encouraged to become involved in the political party of their choice, staying true to their own ideals.

This is a laudable suggestion for civic involvement, but is a universal strategy rather than one of particular or unique relevance to the muslim community. In essence, it surrenders the idea that muslims have a political identity in america all their own. That idea is certainly open for debate; the point about the diversity within the muslim community is well-taken. However, is there really no broad umbrella principle we muslims can look towards as a point of commonality?

To answer that question, we as a community need to first decide just what muslim "issues" are. As I have argued previously, these issues will necessarily be both muslim and American; therefore there will be issues of social justice such as Darfur and Palestine in which we might have an emotional stake, but which are not strictly within the boundary of our collective political self-interest.

A good example, again, is Obama, whose position on the Israeli-Palestine issue is pretty run of the mill (rhetoric about balanace, in practice will do nothing to upset the status quo). However, as regards to Pakistan, Obama alone has spoken of a post-Musharraf, pro-democracy policy instead of the pro-stability policy of administrations past, and ties US aid to Pakistan directly to the performance of the Paksitani government in rooting out the extremist enclaves. This is a refreshing approach to Pakistan policy and one that will be of significantly more relevance to the muslim community (given its large fraction of members of Indopak heritage) than Israel-Palestine.

Unlike the AMT endorsements of Bush in 2000 and Kerry 2004, where the parameters of the decision were decided by a relatively small group of self-appointed muslim leaders, any decision on what constitutes an American muslim policy platform needs to be made in consultation with the community. Ideally, a panel for discussion at next year's ISNA conference could be expressly devoted to fleshing out muslim concerns and identifying topics of relevance. Such a panel would not be tasked, initially, with anything more than simply identifying such areas of concern. However, follow-up panels would be required to devote attention to the topics in turn, and perhaps also fund polls to assess how well they are tracking genuine muslim american opinion. Ultimately, I envision a convention structure with delegates appointed/elected from within all muslim organizations and groups, who could meet in a political Shura whose ultimate aim would be to define the issues platform. If we embrace the mechanism of party politics, we can leverage them to truly give ourselves voice. This can be done under the banner of our cultural and religious identity rather than despite it.

Tariq Nelson on hiatus

2008-03-19T07:12:00.004-05:00

Tariq Nelson is one of the most consistently professional muslim bloggers in the Brass Crescent. He was nominated for Best Blog in the 2007 Brass Crescent Awards and won the category of Best Thinker in 2006. His perspective as an African American muslim is that of a major fraction of practicing muslims in America, though also one that is under-represented within the community itself. As such, his is a voice that we in the Islamsphere can ill-afford to see silenced.

Unfortunately, silent Tariq will be, for a short while at least - he is taking his blog on hiatus. I for one pray that he will be back soon and that the time off brings a sense of renewal and rest so that when he does return, he will be invigorated enough to shrug off the slings and arrows that wear all of us down over time.

Here is a list of Tariq's popular past posts worth checking out if you are unfamiliar with his writing.

freedom of religion in Qatar

2008-03-17T10:18:00.004-05:00

The very first church in Qatar is to open soon:

St Mary's Roman Catholic church was inaugurated in the capital, Doha.

Tens of thousands of Christians, most of them Catholic, live in the emirate, which has a mainly Sunni Muslim population.

Previously, Christians were not permitted to worship openly. Saudi Arabia is now the only country in the region to prohibit church building.
[...]
The church is expected to cater for the country's large community of foreign workers, mainly from the Philippines and other Asian countries.

The building is estimated to have cost $15m and seats 2,700 people.

Tomasito Veneracion, the priest of the new parish, expressed gratitude to the Qatari authorities for allowing the project to go ahead.

"The opening of the church is an important event for the entire community," he said.

There are plans for further churches in Qatar, which correspondents describe as part of a strategy of opening up to the West.

Saudi Arabia remains an outlier as usual. Recently, the top Wahhabi cleric there issued a death fatwa against two writers, for their "heresy" of arguing that believers in other religions might not be hell-bound. And let's not even bother mentioning the state of the Shi'a community there. However, in the rest of the middle east, the trend is indeed towards increasing religious freedom. There's a long way to go, but the trend is there, and opposite to the trend in Europe (Spain being just one example...).

Hard times in Al-Andalus

2008-03-16T11:07:00.003-05:00

The New York Times has an interesting article about the dearth of mosques in Spain, forcing the burgeoning muslim population to pray in smaller makeshift prayer halls in garages, rented halls, and other similar venues. The muslim community faces stiff opposition from the locals, who mask their underlying (and historic) Islamophobia with the new rhetoric of security:

Although Spain is peppered with the remnants of ancient mosques, most Muslims gather in dingy apartments, warehouses and garages like the one on North Street, pressed into service as prayer halls to accommodate a ballooning population.

The mosque shortage stems partly from the lack of resources common to any relatively poor, rapidly growing immigrant group. But in several places, Muslims trying to build mosques have also met resistance from communities wary of an alien culture or fearful they will foster violent radicals.

Distrust sharpened after a group of Islamists bombed commuter trains in Madrid in March 2004, killing 191 people, and in several cities, local governments, cowed by angry opposition from non-Muslims, have blocked Muslim groups from acquiring land for mosques.
[...]
The North Street prayer hall faced opposition from the outset. Marta Roigé, head of the local neighborhood association, said residents tried to block it five years ago by renting the garage themselves, but backed down after the landlord started a bidding war. They have since sued the local council to close it down on the basis that it is a health and safety hazard.

“The tension has grown as the numbers have grown,” Ms. Roigé said. “They’ve set up shops, butchers, long-distance call centers and restaurants.” These businesses, catering to Muslim immigrants, line the surrounding streets.

She added: “They are radicals, fundamentalists. They don’t want to integrate.”

Muslim leaders, however, say the lack of proper mosques is one barrier to integration. And Spanish authorities and Muslim leaders say the potential for extremism would be easier to monitor at fewer, larger mosques than at the 600 or so prayer halls scattered throughout the country.

The muslim communities are organizing and trying to acquire leases to land to build, though they still face opposition. Given that the majority of muslims in Spain, like the rest of Europe, are laborer class, funding is also a severe obstacle. There is a bill proposed in Spain's legislature to set aside land for all faiths to build places of worship, however the Christian leaders argue that all faiths are not equal and freedom of religion is only for some, not for all:

Cardinal Luis Martínez Sistach, archbishop of Barcelona, opposes the bill, which would entitle all religious groups to land on an equal basis. He argues that Catholicism requires different rules.

“A church, a synagogue or a mosque are not the same thing,” he said, according to the conservative Spanish newspaper ABC. The bill, he said, “impinges on our ability to exercise a fundamental right, that of religious liberty.”

While no law on religious land use exists, the wealthy Catholic Church faces no difficulty acquiring land, experts in law and religion say.

Ah, Western values! This is tremendously short-sighted, because this attitude will further prevent integration by the muslim community, facilitate extremism, and also leave a gaping void for resources which other undesirable forces may fill. Does Spain want the wahhabis to fund a mega-million dollar mosque and appear the saviors of Spanish Islam in the face of committed Christian opposition?

Andre Carson wins IN CD-7 special election

2008-03-12T08:15:00.001-05:00

Shari'a alert! The number of muslims in Congress has now doubled:

Democrat Andre Carson defeated his Republican rival tonight by a wide margin in a special election to replace his grandmother in representing the 7th Congressional District.
[...]
He called the win an “extremely humbling experience” and said his message of protecting Social Security, bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq and fighting for jobs and health care had resonated with the voters of the 7th District.
[...]
Carson will be the first Muslim to ever represent Indiana in Congress — and only the second Muslim nationwide in Congress.

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama congratulated Carson on “winning a hard-fought race.”

Carson's tenure is likely to be somewhat short as the regularly scheduled primary takes place in two months, and he faces numerous challengers. Still, his win is noteworthy in its own right.

I think it's interesting that both muslims in Congress are African American Democrats. In contrast, Brown Americans (aka Desis) like Bobby Jindal and rising star (you heard it here first) Amit Singh in Virginia are Republicans (thus far, of the old-fashioned, sane, fiscally-oriented variety). Neither Jindal nor Singh are muslim. Overall, though, Desis are leaning towards the Democrats, and Hillary in particular (for this cycle, anyway). I don't think that Desi-Americans can be assumed to be as reliably Democratic as African-Americans, regardless of religion. At City of Brass I have been attempting to articulate a political identity for a muslim Left, but if the GOP were ever to abandon its war on muslims, there's no guarantee that the muslim vote would stay left. It's clear though that the Desi political identity is already split left-right, the question becomes whether desi-muslims will follow or will the "Muslim" political identity override.

(via Tariq Nelson, whose blog is essential reading for African American muslim perspectives)

a foreign policy Q&A with Obama

2008-03-11T08:30:00.003-05:00

This is a very specific set of written questions by the Washington Post to which Senator Obama gave detailed replies. Let me highlight and excerpt a few of the ones that I think are particularly relevant to the muslim american interest.

On democracy promotion:

Q. Do you believe democracy promotion should be a primary U.S. goal? If so, how would you achieve it? How would you balance democracy and human rights priorities against other strategic needs in the case of countries including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China and Russia?

A. We benefit from the expansion of democracy: Democracies are our best trading partners, our most valuable allies and the nations with which we share our deepest values.

Our greatest tool in advancing democracy is our own example. That's why I will end torture, end extraordinary rendition and indefinite detentions; restore habeas corpus; and close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

I will significantly increase funding for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and other nongovernmental organizations to support civic activists in repressive societies. And I will start a new Rapid Response Fund for young democracies and post-conflict societies that will provide foreign aid, debt relief, technical assistance and investment packages that show the people of newly hopeful countries that democracy and peace deliver, and the United States stands by them.

I recognize that our security interests will sometimes necessitate that we work with regimes with which we have fundamental disagreements; yet, those interests need not and must not prevent us from lending our consistent support to those who are committed to democracy and respect for human rights.

On reaching out to the muslim world:

Q. You have said that within your first 100 days in office, you would give a major speech in a "major Islamic forum" in which you will "redefine our struggle." What is that redefinition? What would be the substance of that speech?

A. As president of the United States, I will directly address the people of the Muslim world to make it clear that the United States is not at war with Islam, that our enemy is al-Qaeda and its tactical and ideological affiliates, and that our struggle is shared. In this speech, I will make it clear that the United States rejects torture -- without equivocation, and will close Guantanamo. I will make it clear that the United States stands ready to support those who reject violence with closer security cooperation; an agenda of hope -- backed by increased foreign assistance -- to support justice, development and democracy in the Muslim world; and a new program of outreach to strengthen ties between the American people and people in Muslim countries. I will also make it clear that we will expect greater cooperation from Muslim countries; and that the United States will always stand for basic human rights -- including the rights of women -- and reject the scourge of anti-Semitism. Simply put, I will say that we are on the side of the aspirations of all peace-loving Muslims, and together we must build a new spirit of partnership to combat terrorists who threaten our common security.

On Afghanistan and Pakistan policy:

Q. How would you balance the perhaps conflicting imperatives of taking U.S. action against presumed terrorists in the Pakistan border area and the possibility that such action could further undermine the ability of . . . the Pakistani government . . . in its own fight against domestic terrorism? You have called for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq "on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan." How, specifically, would you change current U.S. policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan?

A. I will deploy at least two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan to reinforce our counterterrorism operations and support NATO's efforts against the Taliban. I will put more of an Afghan face on security by enhancing the training and equipping of the Afghan army and police, including more Afghan soldiers in U.S. and NATO operations. I would increase our nonmilitary aid by $1 billion to fund projects at the local level that impact ordinary Afghans -- including the development of alternative livelihoods for poppy farmers. And I will put tough anti-corruption safeguards on aid, and increase international support for the rule of law across the country.

In Pakistan, I will reject the false choice between stability and democracy. In our unconditional support for [Pakistani President Pervez] Musharraf, we have gotten neither. I will condition elements of our aid to the Pakistani government on their actions to pursue al-Qaeda in the FATA, and their actions to fully restore democracy and the rule of law. I will increase assistance for secular education and for development of the border region so that we meet the extremists' program of hate with a program of hope. Our goal in Pakistan must not just be an ally -- it must be a democratic ally, because that will be a better ally in the fight against terrorism and that will represent a better future for the Pakistani people.

On India and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty:

Q. You've said you want to strengthen the [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] "so that nations that don't comply will automatically face strong international sanctions." What about those nuclear states that have refused to sign the NPT -- specifically Israel, India and Pakistan? Should they also be eligible for sanctions? If not, does that encourage countries like Iran simply to follow their example and withdraw from the treaty?

A. There's a big difference between countries that are members of the NPT and violate their obligations, and countries that have never signed up to these obligations. In the first instance, we need to enforce treaty obligations. Withdrawing from the NPT, after having violated its provisions, is contrary to international law and requires the strongest international response.

I didn't excerpt it above, but it should be noted that Obama's answer to the obligatory question on Israel-Palestine was typically vague. Tha's reassuring, as is the fact that Obama has been vilified by as both an anti-semite and a zionist already by the usual suspects. I've long argued that the Israel-Palestine issue is fundamentally irrelevant to the muslim-american political self-interest, so I am actually pleased with vague rhetoric and status quo. Any further interference in I-P is detrimental to everyone involved.

There's a lot more in depth at the link (the article is four pages long) and covers the whole spectrum of issues, including withdrawal from Iraq, Iran policy, Guantanamo, and the State Department. It's worth reading the whole thing. On the whole, reading this makes it clear that Obama's judgement is indeed comprehensive and informed and that the "experience" issue is merely a canard. Obama knows the issues and in this interview outlines a very consistent and principled approach.

What's the one thing missing? I would very much like to see someone ask Obama about Dubai Ports World.

Al Qaeda Boogaloo II: Barack the House

2008-03-10T06:26:00.003-05:00

Iowa Representative Steve King is a jafi of the highest degree:

I don’t wanna disparage anyone because of their race or their ethnicity or their name, whatever the religion of their father might have been-- [but] I’ll just say this then: If you think about the optics of a"Barack Obama" potentially getting elected president of the United States, and I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world, what does it look like to the world of Islam?

And I will tell you, if he is elected president, the radical Islamists, and the al Qaeda and radical Islamists and their supporters will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on Sept. 11. Because they will, they will declare victory in the war on terrorism. They will say the United States has capitulated, because we will be pulling our troops out of any conflict that has to do with Al Qaeda anywhere. And additionally it does matter, his middle name does matter, it matters because they read a meaning into that the rest of the world, that has special meaning to them, they’ll be dancing in the streets because of his middle name, they’ll be dancing in the streets because of who his father was, and because of his posture that says pull out of the Middle East and pull out of this conflict. So there are implications that have to do with who he is, and the position that he’s taken.

If he were strong on national defense and said I’m gonna go over there and we’re gonna fight and we’re gonna win and we’ll come home with a victory, that’s different, but that’s not what he said. And they will be dancing in the streets if he’s elected president, and that has a chilling aspect on how difficult it will be to ever win this global war on terror.

The GOP War on (American) Muslims continues apace. Presumably, the inconvenient truth about what Al Qaeda really thinks about Barack Obama doesn't interest the gentleman from Ohio.

traitor

2008-03-05T19:35:00.002-06:00

former US navy sailor has been convicted of spying and supplying a pro-al-Qaeda website with information on American warship movements.

Hassan Abujihaad, 32, was found guilty of providing material support to terrorists and disclosing secret national defence information.

He was arrested last year in Phoenix, Arizona.

Abujihaad, a Muslim convert previously known as Paul Hall, faces 25 years in jail when he is sentenced on 23 May.

He showed no emotion as he was convicted of passing classified details of US navy ships to Azzam.com by a jury at the US District Court in New Haven, Connecticut.

Azzam was an Islamist website that prosecutors said had actively supported terrorists but has now closed.

Only 25 years in prison? He endangered American lives. This is about as clear-cut a case of "aid and comfort" to our literal enemies as it gets. I'm not in favor of executing traitors any more than I am of chopping the hands off of thieves, those are archaic and barbaric extremes. But this tool should at least spend the rest of his life in prison. He dishonors his uniform, his family, his nation, and his fellow citizens.

I don't think he dishonored Islam however - as far as Islam goes, he is as irrelevant as the jihadis he colluded with.

Did the muslim smear hurt Obama in Ohio?

2008-03-05T07:36:00.003-06:00

Obama carried the major cities in Ohio yesterday but lost statewide.I can't help but wonder how much the "cryptomuslim" whispering smear campaign hurt him. There are some clues in the exit polls. Using the data from CNN, we see the following:

The vote among Democrats was racially divided, with white Dems going for Clinton and black Dems going for Obama. Democratic party members followed the same breakdown, but white Independent voters were somewhat closer, preferring Clinton by 8 points.

Vote by Race

White (76%) - Clinton 64%, Obama 34%
African-American (18%) - Clinton 13%, Obama 87%

Vote by Party and Race

White Democrats (49%) - Clinton 70%, Obama 27%
White Independents (18%) - Clinton 53%, Obama 45%
Black Democrats (15%) - Clinton 12%, Obama 88%

Protestants and Catholics alike preferred Clinton by a very large margin. This held true regardless of race.

Vote by Religion

Protestant (32%) - Clinton 61%, Obama 36%
Catholic (23%) - Clinton 63%, Obama 36%
Other Christian (23%) - Clinton 46%, Obama 54%

Vote by Religion and Race

White Protestant (40%) - Clinton 67%, Obama 30%
White Catholic (20%) - Clinton 65%, Obama 34%

Interestingly, when you look at the age breakdown overall, there's a transition with Obama taking progressively less and Clinton taking progressively more as you go up in age bracket. The breakeven point was the 40-49 age group who went for Clinton by only 4 points. However when you factor race and age together, the numbers decline for Obama quite drastically, with Obama winning the youngest age bracket (17-29) by only one point, and then losing more and more to Clinton as you go up.

Vote by Age

17-24 (7%) - Clinton 29%, Obama 70%
25-29 (8%) - Clinton 41%, Obama 54%
30-39 (17%) - Clinton 49%, Obama 51%
40-49 (21%) - Clinton 52%, Obama 48%
50-64 (32%) - Clinton 60%, Obama 37%
65 and Older (14%) - Clinton 72%, Obama 26%

Vote by Age and Race

White 17-29 (10%) - Clinton 47%, Obama 48%
White 30-44 (19%) - Clinton 60%, Obama 40%
White 45-59 (26%) - Clinton 66%, Obama 32%
White 60 and Older (20%) - Clinton 72%, Obama 24%

So overall, the vote broke heavily across racial lines, regardless of party affiliation. The Christian vote broke heavily for Clinton, regardless of race. And the youth vote broke for Obama, except for the white youth.

It is of course very difficult to tease out anything concrete from this. What seems relevant though is that race, while a strong factor, had no effect on the religion breakdown, whereas it did tip the age breakdown. This suggests to me that religion was a strong barrier to Obama and operated independently of race. If religion was more flexible, then it would also have followed the racial pattern seen in the age grouping. Can we infer then that the muslim smear had some effect? It certainly wasn't negligible, but it probably was just one of a number of factors that combined to tip the state towards Hillary.

Hillary certainly had the opportunity to distance herself, and utterly repudiate, the muslim smear in a very public fashion before the people of Ohio and chose not to do so. So while her campaign probably wasn't actively fanning the muslim smear, it certainly was content to let it operate unhindered.

Earlier I argued that we as muslims should wait until after the primary ends to hold Obama accountable for distancing himself from muslim Americans. It's true that he has called the smear an insult to muslims, but he still has not said that whether he is muslim or not is irrelevant. I thought prior to Ohio that some distance between Obama and muslim Americans would help him, but now it seems to me that there's not much point. So why not press the issue now?

I think that prior to Pennsylvania Obama should confront the muslim smear and attempt to take it off the table by challenging the underlying islamophobia. I don't think his delegate lead is in any danger but I very much doubt he will win PA, a state with demographics highly similar to Ohio. Even the most committed Obama partisans must concede that losing OH and PA is going to be a significant liability in the general election - electability is a real concern, and the Democrat can't beat McCain without those two states. Therefore Obama has to look strategically at the electability issue and attempt to neutralize whatever forces he can that are undermining him in these blue-collar, predominantly white and Christian communities. The two things hurting him the most are the NAFTA problem and the muslim smear.

The real target is John McCain, and John McCain is no Alan Keyes. If Obama wants to counter Hillary's argument that only she can beat McCain by competing in battleground states (whose importance in the general election even a 50-state strategy can't diminish), he is going to have to make a serious play for PA. And that means it's time for him to channel his inner Jerry Seinfeld.

"I'm not muslim and never have been. Not that there's anything wrong with that."

Senator Obama, you can't hide from the cryptomuslim smear forever. The time to confront it is now. If Hope, Change, and Unity aren't enough to defeat the Islamophobia within, then how much power do these key concepts of your campaign really hold?

Obama: muslim smear offensive to muslims

2008-03-03T08:13:00.001-06:00

I asked in January why Obama didn't do more to defend Islam rather than just distance himself from the muslim smear. Since that time a number of other articles in the popular media as well as the blogsphere have followed suit. Now, 60 Minutes had a segment yesterday that dealt in part with the muslim smear, in which Obama directly addresses the smear:

"This has been a systematic email smear campaign that's been going on since, actually, very early in this campaign. Clearly it's a deliberate effort by some group or somebody to generate this rumor. I have never been a Muslim, am not a Muslim. These emails are obviously not just offensive to me, but its also offensive to Muslims, because it plays into, obviously, a certain fear-mongering there."

Obama doesn't go as far as the Jerry Seinfeldism we'd all like to hear him say ("not that there's anything wrong with that") but others from his church do make that explicit. As I mentioned earlier, muslims probably need to be content with this from him for now because the smear is indeed a barrier to the nomination. The Clinton campaign is not pure as driven snow here. But once the nomination is secured, we can expect much more from Obama. And we should.

UPDATE: Ali Eteraz also has the video and transcript up. He urges all muslim bloggers to do the same.

micro-Islamophobia, macro-Islamophobia

2008-03-01T15:07:00.001-06:00

Via Tariq Nelson, a very disturbing expose of deeply ingrained Islamophobia in conservative country.

The segment was filmed in Waco, Texas. I have to stress that while living in Houston, the vast majority of Texans I met were true to the hospitality tradition, respectful of my differences and spirituality. The incidence of attitudes like the ones depicted in the video are rare, though less rare outside the major cities than within. That said, I have been called raghead, camel jockey, etc and spit upon and told to go back where I came from (Chicago?). Those incidents - in Houston - were few and insignificant compared to 9 years of living there.

Even though it is still a rare (though increasing) phenomenon in the social landscape, Islamophobia is unfortunately an embedded part of the American politicsl landscape. If the above example is a micro-example, then the treatment of Obama is a macro-example, as noted in the jerusalem Post:

Some of the dirtiest attacks against Barack Obama are being carried out by Jewish bigots in the US and Israel, and if Obama is the Democrat's candidate for president, which looks very likely, these smears are going to get a lot worse.
[Sen. Barack Obama (right)...]

It's not a whispering campaign, it's not anonymous; Marc Zell, co-chairman of Republicans Abroad in Israel, put his name to an article in The Jerusalem Post's Web edition last week that brands Obama as a Muslim anti-Semite.

"Obama and the Jews" begins: "Less than two weeks before the critical primary elections in Ohio and Texas, Democratic voters have made it very clear: Barack Hussein Obama is for real."

Why would a Republican activist mention Obama's middle name, especially in the first sentence, especially to readers of The Jerusalem Post? Everyone knows the reason, but I'll spell it out anyway: To reinforce the false impression that Obama is a Muslim, knowing that many readers, Jewish and Christian, will hate and fear him for that reason alone.

That same wink-wink-Obama-Hussein insinuation is made constantly at RedState, the premier Republican web community. Here's just one example - their latest rhetorical strategy is to simply pretend that the furor is over middle names and that Obama should be "proud". (I agree that Obama should not repudiate his muslim connection and stand up for muslims in the classic "not that there's anything wrong with that" sense - just not right this moment.) However other Republicans are not nearly as subtle or sophisticated in their bigitry-enabling. Case in point, Tennessee blogger Bill Hobbs, who works for the TN GOP and who penned this unbelievable screed against Obama, labeling him an anti-semite on the basis of his middle name. Just a flavor from the lede:

NASHVILLE, TN - The Tennessee Republican Party today joins a growing chorus of Americans concerned about the future of the nation of Israel, the only stable democracy in the Middle East, if Sen. Barack Hussein Obama is elected president of the United States.

“It’s time to set the record straight about Barack Obama and where he really stands on vital issues such as national security and the security of Israel,” said Robin Smith, chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party. “Voters need to know about two items that surfaced today which strongly suggest that an Obama presidency will view Israel as a problem rather than a partner for peace in the Middle East.

the whole thing is even worse. So much worse, that it was pulled from the TN GOP website, though Google Cache still has the record. And as Obama gets closer to the nomination, and the Presidency, watch for this to increase. The cycle is the same - smear, retract, deny - but each time it makes an appearance, damage is done, not just to Obama but also to ordinary muslim Americans. The video I linked to at teh top of this post is an example of where attitudes towards Muslims are now - a fringe attitude, but one that is headed for mainstream, in no small part because of jafis like Bill Hobbs.

Who would have thought that the first Black President of the United States would face not racial, but religious prejudice as his primary obstacle? I guess that counts as progress, of sorts. At least we know that the terrorists don't want Obama to win.

al-Qaeda hates Obama al Farsi

2008-02-28T22:14:00.005-06:00

The release of photos of Obama wearing a turban and African tribal robes seems to have infuriated Al Qaeda, if the messages at the jihadi webforum "Al Hesah" are any indication. MSNBC's FirstRead blog has the details:

Evan Kohlmann of Global Terror Alert, and an NBC News terrorism analyst, was among those who watched as the Al Hesbah message board lit up. Al Qaeda sympathizers cited the image as evidence that American political leaders, particularly Hillary Clinton, want to portray Islam as a political negative.

“In this case,” Kohlmann said, “it would appear that the publication of the Obama photo, along with the insinuation of an intended negative political impact from being classified as ‘Muslim,’ has only served to antagonize the ranks of those who admire and support al Qaeda.”

This discussion has been viewed several hundred times on the Al-Hesbah network, Kohlmann adds, and it has been among the top 40 most popular discussions on Al-Hesbah the past three days. Most of the discussions are about events in the Islamic world, particularly the conflict between the West and Islamic militants.
[...]
“Not only are they enraged by the implication that being Muslim is something to be ashamed of,” Kohlmann added, “but moreover, they are nearly equally indignant about the much-rumored notion that Obama (who has repeatedly declared his faith in Christianity and his support for Israel) is somehow in league with them.”

In fact, Kohlmann added, al-Qaeda supporters are so insistent about their hatred for Obama that they have gone as far as to portray him as an "Iranian agent" secretly sent to take over the United States and fight a war against Sunni Muslims.

One user, with a login that suggests Saudi nationality, claimed in his response, "Obama is actually of Persian-Iranian origin. Many of the Persians emigrated to Kenya after the fall of the Persian empire... . We ask Allah to destroy Obama, Kerry, Clinton, America, its allies, and its slaves."

“As far as they are concerned,” Kohlmann said, “there is basically no difference between Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or even George Bush.”

I find it amusing - and typical - that as usual the Ultimate Enemy are the Shi'a. Of course from Al Qaeda's perspective, there is one meta-Enemy, a conglomeration of the Shi'a, the Jews, America, Sex, and ... I don't know what, whatever else comes along I suppose. Still, the idea of Obama being a Persian "Manchurian" candidate is pretty hilarious. No one can fault Al Qaeda for an excess of logic.

"Obamas and Osamas hate America"

2008-02-24T22:32:00.002-06:00

Republicans hate muslims. Look at this disgusting example of a diarist at RedState who bends over backwards trying to insinuate the Obama-muslim smear without explicitly endorsing it. Liberals, muslims, terrorists, all are wrapped into one shiny and convenient America-hating package and equated with a deft exchange of consonants.

It's not worth quoting except to note that the author closes with a link to an essay ostensibly about the "maturing of patriotism post 9-11." The irony is surely lost on them.

the Eteraz Mutiny

2008-02-21T15:23:00.003-06:00

Ali Eteraz picks a fight with Sepia Mutiny, arguing that while they are not biased against Pakistan, their perception (and blog coverage) is stale and rooted in outdated political theory:

I think SM suffers from two major problems when it comes to Pakistan.

a) SM does absolutely no outreach to the Pakistani or Pakistan-American blogger groups.... even when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated the main SM thread about it didn’t manage to include a single Pakistani blog? Oh: but Belmont Club, the ultra-right wing American blog made it! It is, in fact, not until comment #57 that a Pakistani voice is linked to.
...
b) SM’s analysis about Pakistan runs somewhere between George Bush and John McCain, not just problematic (we can disagree politically), but out of touch.

Take, for example, SM’s post about the Pakistani elections. It is entitled: “Victory for the Pakistani People?” It goes onto make the generous prediction: “Eventually the new general in charge of the army will be forced to take over, just like Musharraf did eight years ago. But hey, I don’t mean to be a party pooper.”

Nevermind that the current General — Kiyani — has refused to permit the military to partake in civil society, but what the hell is up with the question mark? Landmark elections, praised by three US senators, which rolled back tyranny, crushed music-banning Islamists, brought a secular resurgence, and in terms of voter turn out were equal to or exceeding previous elections, where even the tyrant’s party was gracious in defeat, get a question mark?
...
the SM posts, with their unhealthy obsession with the Zakarian idea of “Illiberal Democracy” are tired and stale, reflective of an analysis that no longer applies. Not only that, the application of the principle of Illiberal Democracy is not even Zakarian, since Brother Fareed himself says mostly good things about where Pakistan is headed.

I think this is a fair critique overall, but as I pointed out in comments, Zakaria’s analysis of Pakistan has evolved over time; SM might be lagging him a bit but then again, while process is progress, I note that herr general Mush still wont step down from power even after the election. Zakaria is right to point out how far pakistan has come - it certainly is no Zimbabwe! - but there are miles yet to go before Pakistan is, ahem, on par with India. (and lets be fair, India still is a poster child for Zakaria’s thesis of illiberal democracies as well).

I am also not clear about the “outreach” issue. More links to the pakistani blogsphere? A better route would be for Pakistani bloggers to make use of the News tab and submit stories to sepia directly - that way you are participating in sepia on its own terms. SM is not just a blog but a behemoth, it’s the Desi Daily Kos. They are not under obligation to outreach to you, you need to do the legwork to reach in. As you said, they aren't inherently biased, just less aware of the nuance - so join the mutiny and lend your macacas.

At anyrate, it would be cool if sepia had a pakistani voice on board. I nominate Zack Ajmal.

Who Speaks For Islam?

2008-02-20T11:45:00.004-06:00

John Burgess of Crossroads Arabia blog gives a heads up on a new book by John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, titled "Who Speaks For Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think." The book promo text reads,

In a post-9/11 world, many Americans conflate the mainstream Muslim majority with the beliefs and actions of an extremist minority. But what do the world’s Muslims think about the West, or about democracy, or about extremism itself? Who Speaks for Islam? spotlights this silenced majority. The book is the product of a mammoth six-year study in which the Gallup Organization conducted tens of thousands of hour-long, face-to-face interviews with residents of more than 35 predominantly Muslim nations — urban and rural, young and old, men and women, educated and illiterate. It asks the questions everyone is curious about: Why is the Muslim world so anti-American? Who are the extremists? Is democracy something Muslims really want? What do Muslim women want? The answers to these and other pertinent, provocative questions are provided not by experts, extremists, or talking heads, but by empirical evidence — the voices of a billion Muslims.

I can appreciate the enormity of the task - which is probably why this book is coming out now instead of three years ago when it might have been immensely more useful in blunting the rising jafi tide. It's worth noting that the Pew Global Voices polling probably has covered a lot of this ground before, so it will be interesting to see how Esposito and Mogahed's results compare, especially if they are more comprehensive. They give a preview of their work in this op-ed:

Our new study, "Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think," reflects the views of 1.3 billion Muslims. The book is based on six years of research and more than 50,000 interviews conducted in more than 35 predominantly Muslim nations or nations with sizable Muslim populations. Representing more than 90 percent of the world's Muslim communities, this poll is the largest, most comprehensive study of its kind. The results defy conventional wisdom and the inevitability of a global conflict -- even as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue.

The study produced some surprises. It showed that Muslims and Americans are equally likely to reject attacks on civilians as morally unjustifiable. Those who do choose violence and extremism are driven by politics, not poverty or piety. In fact, of the 7 percent of respondents who did believe that 9/11 was justified, none of them hated our freedom; they want our freedom. But they believe that America -- and the western world in general -- operate with a double standard and stand in the way of Muslims determining their own future.

I will probably pre-order the book as well. Should be a handy reference for bloggers in the Brass Crescent.

no friends on the right

2008-02-18T09:00:00.002-06:00

Though I consistently argue that we muslims need to keep some distance between ourselves and the political left, it must always be noted that the political right is far, far worse. Exhibit #15382 at RedState.com.

UPDATE: And here's exhibit #15383 - labeling Kosovo a "jihadist state".

western feminism and Islamic values

2008-02-17T07:08:00.006-06:00

Kudos to Jill at Feministe for raising the issue of how oppressive head-scarf bans are - just as oppressive in their own way as mandatory burqas. She quotes extensively from an article in the NYT written by a Turkish woman detailing her experiences with the ban at Turkish universities. I found this particularly cogent:

Ms. Benli was the first person in her family to get a college education. She earned her law degree before the state began to enforce the ban in the late 1990s. But her two years of additional graduate work was stopped by the restriction, an interpretation of an earlier court ruling. A 300-page master’s thesis at Istanbul University law school had to be orally defended on campus. Her mother, also covered, pressed her to remove her scarf, to no avail.

“I just couldn’t do it,” Ms. Benli said in an interview in her small law office this week. “I left the room crying. They marked me absent.”

She says the reasons, deeply personal and hard to put into words, are a combination of her relationship to God and her aversion to accepting what she sees as misplaced authority.

“This is related to my private life,” she said. “It’s my personality. My wholeness.”

In one particularly traumatic example, as told to Ms. Benli by several of her clients, a university rector forced several women to uncover their heads in front of him, in order to obtain his signature to allow them to transfer out of the college he was taking over and no longer allowing them to attend.

The state, she said, was saying, “No matter what you think, I can make you do what I want,” an attitude which, if obeyed, made one feel “degraded.”

An analogy might be if the Dean of a college required women to strip to their underwear before receiving their diploma. It might be more cloth than the woman wears the next day at the beach, but whether the cloth is imposed upon or forbidden from, it is the woman's sense of self-modesty that is violated.

Unfortunately, many feminists argue that "less is more" with respect to clothing and that taking clothing off equals empowerment. My classic essay on the Burka and the Bikini drew much criticism from feminists because they could not accept that a bikini could also be oppressive. This mindset manifests immediately in comments to the post at Feministe:

I don’t agree with headscarves/burqas, in that they’re clearly tools designed to supress female freedom/identity. Yet at the same time I obviously hope everyone has the freedom to wear what they damned please, and some women clearly want to cover themselves in this (to my, western eyes) demeaning fashion- and they should have the freedom to do so, and go where they please when they do. Yet some women are clearly forced to wear these things against thier will (or, worse still, have lost sight of even the concept of having a choice in the matter at all).

Note how the commentor is compelled to raise the issue of forced-veiling and is much more comfortable with denouncing that aspect of control, whereas the right to veil is treated with dripping condescension, "clearly" demeaning. It's essentially impossible to communicate with people of this mindset, the best you can do is register your dissent and hope that a reader coming across it will understand our point of view.

The danger in allying western muslim political identity to the Left should be clear. Muslims must remain an independent entity from the greater Left, because the secular divide is simply impossible to cross. At best we can be allied against external threats but we must be wary - a headscarf ban is not outside the realm of the possible here in the United States, should Progressivism grow ascendant. The greatest bulwark against it woudl be to articulate our own liberal, Islamic sense of feminism in which we fully embrace the right of a woman to choose her expression of faith and reject any a-priori assumptions about how much cloth - too much, or too little - is intrinsically oppressive.

UPDATE: I cross-posted this at DailyKos and the resulting debate was quite vigorous. I think the comment by Jerome a Paris, one of DK's better-known voices, is instructive of the secular divide to which I refer.

muslims protest "wearily" against Danish cartoons

2008-02-15T18:19:00.005-06:00

Pity the poor victimized Danish media, who now are deprived of victimhood itself - the expected muslim protest against their provcation of reprinting the offensive Muhammad SAW cartoons was not exactly the rabid violent mob they seemed to be hoping for:

Many said they simply could not understand the motive unless it was hatred for Islam.

But the overwhelming mood was not so much anger but weary resignation; a sense that they have been through this crisis once before and nothing has been learnt.

Some Danish Muslims said they felt the problem was not the Danish people who were, if not well informed about Islam, at least generally liberal.

Instead, they pointed the finger of blame at the Danish media, saying it had stirred controversy instead of trying to help mend community relations.

Why, they sound like civic-minded reasonable people who just want to get along and would appreciate not being slagged off all the time. Go figure.

Still, I think some applause for Jyllands-Posten, true heroes of the Enlightenment and brave warriors for selective speech, is in order.

one stupidstorm was not enough! we must have more!

2008-02-13T12:03:00.006-06:00

I confess to not caring about what the Danes do:

Danish newspapers have reprinted one of several caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad which sparked violent protests across the Muslim world two years ago.

They say they wanted to show their commitment to freedom of speech after an alleged plot to kill one of the cartoonists behind the drawings.

Three suspects were held in Denmark on Tuesday "to prevent a murder linked to terrorism", officials said.

The cartoons were originally published by Jyllands-Posten in September 2005.

Danish embassies were attacked around the world and dozens died in riots that followed.

Jyllands-Posten and many other major newspapers - including Politiken and Berlingske Tidende - reprinted the caricature in their Wednesday editions.

The cartoon depicts Muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse.

They have every right to republish the cartoons, but that doesn't absolve them of their role in any violence that may result. Provocation is not cost-free. With rights, come responsibilities. This is analogous to yelling Fire in a crowded theater and while I certainly hope that nothing ill comes of it, I am not going to gnash my teeth about my faith if some louts decide to accept the invitation and bait from Jyllands-Posten et al. It's not my concern, and I wash my hands of it.

UPDATE: Indscribe weighs in:

The caricature is not just offensive because Islam forbids pictorial depiction of Prophet, but also because the 'bomb-shaped turban' in the caricature is a fascistic attempt and such hatespeak is unimaginable in a continent where the mention of Holocaust and doubts on its veracity can land a person in jail.

Clearly, when it comes to Islam, things are different. Hurting sentiments no longer remains an issue. Given the kind of furore the cartoon controversy had generated in the past, the irresponsible reprinting can severely hurt the process of reconciliation between Muslim countries and Europe.

That's the central point - that the supposed "free speech" that the Danes purport to hold sacred does not in fact exist. To claim then that there is soe higher purpose to their provocation and deliberate insult - to muslims, not to Islam - is a lie.

The vast majority of muslims will look at Denmark and see something rotten indeed. That denmark is revealed to be a third-world country in terms of attitude, despite its first-world status in geography, is the ultimate consequence of their actions. That is the true consequence of this supposed fight for free speech to which they pretend to aspire.

documented voter intimidation in Virginia primary

2008-02-12T21:55:00.003-06:00

Sepia Mutiny is on the scene. Shameful.

(though, I wonder if voting for Hillary would give abhi an in with Huma Abedin?)

They hate us for our freedoms

2008-02-10T11:33:00.001-06:00

via thabet, comes indications that the bugging of UK MP Sadiq Khan was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg:

The covert eavesdropping of the MP Sadiq Khan is alleged to be just the first case in a far wider operation to bug terrorist suspects and other serious criminals introduced after the September 11 attacks.

Lawyers, including the human rights solicitors Gareth Peirce and Mudassar Arani, were allegedly "routinely bugged" by police during visits to see clients at Woodhill prison. Listening devices were said to have been concealed in tables at the jail.

Nationally it is thought that many more people may have been covertly recorded.
[...]
The scandal came to light after Mr Khan, a Muslim Labour MP, was covertly recorded during two visits to a terrorist suspect held at Woodhill prison in Milton Keynes in 2005 and 2006.

It led to a political outcry as the bugging of MPs has been prohibited since the 1960s. Mr Straw was forced to set up an inquiry. He insisted he had known nothing of the operation before last weekend, although it later emerged that officials in his department had learnt of the allegations two months ago.

Now someone with detailed knowledge of the operation claims that Mr Khan's visits were allegedly among "hundreds of conversations" bugged by Det Sgt Mark Kearney during his time with a four-man intelligence team based at the prison since early 2002.

The recordings are deemed so sensitive that copies are stored at a secret facility protected by armed guards.

Initially, only a handful of prisons implemented the alleged bugging policy - including Woodhill and Belmarsh - but over the past 18 months the secret policy is alleged to have been rolled out across Britain.

it's not just the UK, of course - here in the US we also have the fight over FISA. On one side we have the Constitution and our rule of law, and on the other we have those who would tear those thing asunder for the sake of "security". They hate our freedoms, indeed.

hijab as political symbol

2008-02-09T08:44:00.000-06:00

The headscarf ban in Turkey has been partially lifted, marking a significant step away from the secularist legacy of Kemal Attaturk:

Turkey's parliament voted on Saturday to lift a ban on female students wearing the Muslim headscarf at university, a landmark decision that some Turks say will undermine the foundations of the secular state.

Parliament, where the ruling centre-right AK Party has a big majority, approved the constitutional amendments by 411 votes to 103.
[...]
The headscarf issue cuts to the heart of Muslim but secular, Western-oriented Turkey's complex identity.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party, which has Islamist roots, says the headscarf ban is an unfair denial of individual rights and religious liberty in a European Union candidate country where two thirds of women cover their heads.

Erdogan's own wife and daughters wear the headscarf as do those of President Abdullah Gul and many AK Party ministers.

But Turkey's old secular elite, which includes the judiciary, university rectors and army generals, regards the headscarf ban as crucial for maintaining a strict separation of state and religion.

Opponents of the hijab argue it is a slippery slope towards "Islamic" rule, but since the hijab is clearly a statement of free speech in the Turkish context (unlike in Saudi Arabia, where it is a symbol of oppression), denying it is arguably on the slippery slope towards oppression as well. Given Turkey's secularist background, the dangers of a slide into Islamic rule are slim, whereas maintaining such strict bans is probably what gave the Islamic parties in parliament their life to begin with. The people of Turkey are muslim, regardless of the elite's secularist tastes. Trying to oppress that identity only serves to strengthen it in opposition and resistance. Providing it the outlets it needs is the best way to tame it towards more useful channels. It isn't the Islamic political parties arguing you cant be Turkish and muslim at the same time.

Savage

2008-02-08T16:00:00.000-06:00

Micharl Savage went on one of his trademark rants about muslims and CAIR:

"I'm not gonna put my wife in a hijab. And I'm not gonna put my daughter in a burqa. And I'm not gettin on my all-fours and braying to Mecca. And you could drop dead if you don't like it. You can shove it up your pipe. I don't wanna hear anymore about Islam. I don't wanna hear one more word about Islam. Take your religion and shove it up your behind. I'm sick of you."

"What kind of religion is this? What kind of world are you living in when you let them in here with that throwback document in their hand, which is a book of hate. Don't tell me I need reeducation. They need deportation. I don't need reeducation. Deportation, not reeducation. You can take C-A-I-R and throw 'em out of my country. I'd raise the American flag and I'd get out my trumpet if you did it. Without due process. You can take your due process and shove it."

"What sane nation that worships the U.S. constitution, which is the greatest document of freedom ever written, would bring in people who worship a book that tells them the exact opposite. Make no mistake about it, the Quran is not a document of freedom. The Quran is a document of slavery and chattel. It teaches you that you are a slave."

CAIR has a lengthy rebuttal and an audio excerpt posted as well; listen to it by clicking here.

Savage was not amused by this and is trying to sue CAIR, invoking copyright law. As Ars Technica notes, this is a pretty blatant attempt at silencing his critics and the use of the audio is obviously fair use. The EFF has gotten involved and is helping CAIR defend against Savage's lunacy. Savage's actual legal filing was barely coherent, filled with

an extended rant about "CAIR and it's [sic] terror connections" and how the group was "tied to terror from the day it was formed."

Savage isn't just upset about copyright; in fact, he complains at one point that his remarks were taken out of context and that many other selections (i.e., more copying) from his show would indicate his regard for Muslims. Savage is upset that CAIR used the clip to convince some advertisers to pull their support for his show, a practice he seems to think is illegal.

He also makes a racketeering claim against the group and says that "the role of CAIR and CAIR-Canada is to wage PSYOPS (psychological warfare) and disinformation activities on behalf of Whabbi-based [sic] Islamic terrorists throughout North America. They are the intellectual 'shock troops' of Islamic terrorism."

instead of anything actually resembling a substantive legal argument. presumably he'll blame his impending legal loss on the dirty liberals and their mental disease.

I'm sick of being on the retarded team

2008-02-06T22:28:00.000-06:00

just great:

An article about the Prophet Muhammad in the English-language Wikipedia has become the subject of an online protest in the last few weeks because of its representations of Muhammad, taken from medieval manuscripts.

I wish we had a religious equivalent of Australia. We could ship the loons there and then their descendants would create an enlightened civilization with cool slang and wicked senses of humor.

I suppose I should mention again that there is no insult to Islam whatsoever in depicting the Prophet SAW. In fact, Muslims have depicted the Prophet SAW throughout history. Here's one example (via sepoy), entitled "Muhammad and his companions" circa 17th century:

And non-muslims have also done so, not solely to offend but also to pay sincere homage, such as on the frieze of the United States Supreme Court honoring Muhammad SAW as a lawgiver:

so, frak off, you loons.

Kalpana Chawla, 1961-2003

2008-02-01T08:57:00.000-06:00

Five years ago, Shuttle mission STS-107 was lost over the skies of Texas. I remember that morning clear as day. I've got a memoriam post at my geekblog for the mission as a whole, but I wanted to also make special note here of Indian astronaut Kalpana Chawla, who also perished aboard Columbia as a member of the crew and India's first female in space.

Wikipedia notes that Kalpana in Sanskrit means "imagination of the mind" and thus also "creation".

Why I won't raise my daughters in Pakistan, either

2008-01-29T11:02:00.000-06:00

Zack does the legwork and provides possibly the best summary of women's status in Pakistan relative to other countries in the West, the Subcontinent, and the Middle East that I have ever seen. He uses the invaluable Pew Global Attitudes Survey (PDF) as is source. The results paint a grim picture of Pakistan as generally falling far behind other countries in the comparison, such as Bangladesh and Egypt, on attitudes about whether women should be educated or have a say in their marriage options. Zack also looks at the Global Gender Gap Report 2007 and finds Pakistan ranking near the bottom:

Pakistan seems to be really bad for women in terms of economic participation and opportunity (a measure which includes labor force participation, wage equality for similar work, income, legislators, senior officials and managers, and professional and technical workers), educational attainment (literacy rate, and enrollment in primary, secondary and tertiary education), and health and survival (sex ratio at birth and healthy life expectancy).

This is grim indeed. The question that comes to my mind though is why does Pakistan fare so poorly? The data shows that there are numerous Islamic countries far ahead of Pakistan, and there are countries poorer than Pakistan which also are better. So easy answers like "It's because of religion" or "it's because of economics" don't really apply.

Out of curiosity I checked to see how Pakistan ranks in per-capita GDP compared to some of the other countries on the list. Fareed Zakaria argues in his book, The Future of Freedom, that liberal rights should be correlated with this measure (among other things - the book is highly recommended). Wikipedia has a list of countries ranked by per-capita GDP (normalized for "purchasing power" to even out currencies) using data from the International Monetary Fund, and we see that Pakistan is pretty low on the list:

Rank	Country	per-capita GDP
4	United States	$43,223
70	Turkey	$9,240
110	Egypt	$4,895
118	India	$3,802
132	Pakistan	$2,744
144	Bangladesh	$2,130
163	Afghanistan	$1348
170	Yemen	$984

Note that Yemen and Afghanistan do rank below Pakistan here, but they were not included in the Pew survey. Almost all of Africa ranks below Pakistan, but the African countries surveyed still fare better on the Pew questions (particularly the marriage choice issue). I haven't made the effort to see where the African countries fall on the Gender Gap Report, as that is as much a function of poverty and war and hence my assumption is that the African countries will fare worse overall.

So what is going on here? Though I have no doubt it will be spun otherwise by the jafisphere, Islam is clearly not the causative factor. Additional evidence is in the surprising result from Pew on the question of whether a woman has the right to decide whether to wear the veil or not (see chart below - click to enlarge). Pakistan is fairly moderate and has become even more so in the past five years, whereas countries in the middle east have actually regressed. So the attitudes towards women are at least partially separable from attitudes about religion.

The answer probably lies in tribal attitudes. As far as I am aware, Afghanistan and Pakistan have stronger tribal identities than in most of the rest of the world, and given how much of these states are still frontier, the ability of the government to ameliorate and dilute tribal allegiances and values is close to nonexistent. Much of the region exists in a pre-Westphalian condition, which is also why it remains a natural haven for Al Qaeda. In that sense, the situation for women is probably going to remain unchanged until the attending situations of stability, law and order, and liberal rights and freedom are addressed first.

The UMMA Clinic, Los Angeles

2008-01-28T12:52:00.000-06:00

A community clinic in the deepest depths of south-central Los Angeles:

Jazakallah.

what if Barack Obama were a muslim?

2008-01-26T15:00:00.000-06:00

I am not naive. It's obvious why the "madrasah" smear against Barack Obama is harmful and unfair. The idea that Obama might be a "crypto-muslim" with secret allegiance to the Enemy is a pernicious one that has spread almost entirely via email, with one purpose, to play into the xenophobic and racist impulses that still lurk at the heart of our society, despite the lip service we pay to MLK's lofty visions to the contrary. And those impulses cross the political divide (though, despite pundit claims to the contrary, it certainly originated from the Right, and has been legitimized by right-leaning news outlets). Still, this is primary season, not the general election, so what matters is how the smear plays out in Left-leaning audiences, not Right-leaning ones. Given that in the South Carolina Democratic primary yesterday, white voters went preferentially for Edwards, there's clearly a reservoir of antipathy for the Other to contend with.

So by all means, Obama must (and has) vigorously defend himself from the charge. Obama's website has a fact-check article that flatly states "Obama is not and never has been a muslim", and which also debunks the assertion that Obama attended a madrasah as a child in Indonesia. However, what the fact-check does not do is to tackle the deeper assumptions behind the smear, and that is a genuinely wasted opportunity.

What if Obama were a muslim? The better response would have been, "So what" and confront the underlying prejudice head-on. That is a risky strategy of course, given the hardball Obama is facing from the Clinton camp (with Bill linking him to Jesse Jackson, as if Obama's politics could remotely be akin). Obama is playing it supremely safe and distancing himself from race and religion to come off as "safe" as possible. He will still lose some votes by virtue of his skin, as SC showed, but not enough to matter (as SC showed). Why risk it by embracing muslims?

As I said, I am not naive, and given that Hillary's record on muslim issues is substantially worse, I would rather Obama not be dragged down by the likes of, well, me. For the greater good. Still, should Obama take the nomination, it will be instructive to see whether he maintains the same cautious stance towards Islam, and continues to keep American muslims at arms' length. Listening to his rhetoric, one would assume so, but the singular question about Obama has always been, can he deliver actions to match his words? hen he's facing off against the Right, the time for caution will be over.

islamotrolling

2008-01-24T06:32:00.000-06:00

Yelling fire in a crowded theater:

Jafi Geert Wilders: pleased with himself

The Dutch Muslim Council has attacked far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders' politics as "racist and fascist".

The council, which includes 200 organisations, appealed for calm ahead of the planned release by the MP of a controversial film.

Mr Wilders says his film will show the Koran as an inspiration for murder.

The Dutch Muslim Council said its members' message to the Muslim and non-Muslim world was that conflict would do no-one any good.

I make zero excuses for any islamafool who gets up in arms about the film and takes to the street over it. However, Wilders' film is essentially islamotrolling - a classic case of poking a hornet's nest, solely to elicit a response with which he can then use to "prove" the original assertion that Islam is intrinsically violent, etc. The fact that the vast majority of Dutch muslims will not riot in the streets is irrelevant to the desired, and manufactured, final product: a marketing ploy, with Wilders playing the role of Western martyr.

I used to have more ire for the inevitable idiots than for the instigators like Wilders, but I've come to realize that the islamofools are simply not capable of comprehending what tools they are. Premeditated mischief, cowardly wrapped in the mantle of free speech as if it were some noble enterprise, by someone who is clearly very intelligent, doesn't have any excuse.

defining a muslim Left II: The Gash of Civilizations

2008-01-22T20:03:00.002-06:00

I have previously argued that in defining a genuinely Islamic-American political identity, we must identify what exactly our issues are. This news seems relevant in that regard:

Most people in Muslim countries and the West believe divisions between them are worsening, a Gallup poll for the World Economic Forum (WEF) suggests.

The poll also suggested that most Europeans thought more interaction with Islam would be a threat - though most Americans disagreed.
[...]
Describing the position now, majorities on both sides said they did not believe the two sides were getting along.

This belief was strongest in the US, Israel, Denmark - where the publication of cartoons about the Muslim Prophet Muhammad caused worldwide controversy - and among Palestinians.

WEF experts examining the poll data put this down to the effect of the Iraq war and the Middle East conflict.

By contrast, there was a less gloomy response in Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

According to WEF poll, neither the West nor the Muslim world believed the other side respected it.

But while Muslims said they believed their world did respect the West, Western respondents agreed that the West did not respect the Muslim world.

The issue for Muslim Americans is fairly obvious, given that we are highly vested in closing this gap between east and west, because the existence of this "gash" of civilizations serves to strain our own identities. We have family and friends on both sides of the Gash, we have cultural practices and values that span it, and we live in two worlds at once. Hence, a political party or politician that demonstrates an awareness of the Gash, and policies that serve to mend it or bridge it, is one that deserves our support.

It should be noted that neither political party is doing much to mend the Gash at present. The Democrats' seizure of the Dubai Ports World issue was a disgraceful example of latent xenophobia, but had they played it the correct way would have served as a powerful example of an issue which could draw east and west together (on the basis of economic cooperation and mutual gain). However, the Republicans are far worse than this, engaging in a rhetorical war against muslims and engaging in overt religious prejudice by their insistence on the phrase "Islamofascism" :

The pairing of "Islam" and "fascism" has no parallel in characterizations of extremisms tied to other religions, although the defining movements of fascism were linked to Catholicism - indirectly under Benito Mussolini in Italy, explicitly under Francisco Franco in Spain. Protestant and Catholic terrorists in Northern Ireland, both deserving the label "fascist," never had their religions prefixed to that word. Nor have Hindu extremists in India, nor Buddhist extremists in Sri Lanka.

In contrast to the way militant zealotries of other religions have been perceived, there is a broad conviction, especially among many conservative American Christians, that the inner logic of Islam and fascism go together. Political candidates appeal to those Christians by defining the ambition of Islamofascists in language that makes prior threats from, say, Hitler or Stalin seem benign. The point is that there is a deep religious prejudice at work, and when politicians adopt its code, they make it worse.

The use of such rhetoric becomes a feedback loop which drives the GOP further and further into the jafi embrace. There is a real danger that if this continues, the GOP will ultimately become as radicalized as the white supremacist political parties of Europe, except on religious grounds rather than racial. It may be that Democrats are not doing anything to improve the Gash, but the Republicans are actively exacerbating it. The challenge then for the muslim Left is to articulate the concern about the Gash, and present the case for why its existence is not just a threat to our interests but to the nation as a whole.

much thanks

2008-01-20T00:48:00.000-06:00

to Paul and to thabet for filling in a bit while I was off. I am in London, stuck overnight after flight delays and missed connections, but should be home by the end of the day (taking into account the timezone transits :)

I'll be posting some of my travel notes and reflections, along with pictures, over the next few days.

An orthodoxy of negation

2008-01-14T07:44:00.000-06:00

I thank Aziz for the generous opportunity to brazenly and even impetuously present my mostly inchoate views before his readers: a very different audience from that with which I am accustomed; and I beg these readers’ indulgence to present them as brazenly and even impetuously as I feel I must. For I am, of course, a Christian and a Conservative; and as such I can only be impressed by the dogged persistence of our esteemed host in believing that he and I may truly become collaborators and even comrades.

_____________________________________________________________________

Every society includes a public orthodoxy. Here we touch an elementary fact of political society which our own peculiar fashions and prejudices have obscured from us.

Without an orthodoxy, there is no society, but simply a decay, slow and excruciating, or rapid and sanguinary, into chaos. “Orthodoxy refers to any public doctrine accepted unconditionally by a community,” wrote Frederick D. Wilhelmsen and Willmoore Kendall in a very substantial essay (pdf format, and rather difficult to read, I’m afraid) from some 35 years ago, “even if the orthodoxy in question is somebody else’s heresy; and the emotional reaction of positivists to the word ‘orthodoxy’ is only one aspect of their orthodoxy.”

Modern Liberalism is our orthodoxy; or is very near to becoming it, notwithstanding the resistance that still endures. This is, in my view, the basic question at issue in our political and cultural disputes. And the emergence, maturation and ascendance of a new orthodoxy necessitates a severe reshuffling of ideological alliances among the constituents of the society which is undergoing this change. It cannot be otherwise.

It is increasingly clear that the big fault lines of this ideological shift are on the Right. For it is the Right whose duty and vocation has usually been to defend the orthodoxy, just as it is the Left whose vocation has usually been to criticize the orthodoxy, whether overtly (when the orthodoxy is weak), or subtly (when it is strong).

The terrible conundrum for many on the Right is that the new orthodoxy is repugnant to them. So Conservatives, under this new orthodoxy, cannot be conservative; indeed, the day may dawn when they will be revolutionaries. Yet some will remain mere conservatives, mere men of the status quo, and turn with loathing on what they see in their former comrades as a new threat to the established order which it is their business to defend. In brief, there will be conservatives whose project is to conserve the status quo, and Conservatives whose project it will be to restore the status quo ante; those loyal to the established order, and those loyal to a transcendent order that is no longer recognized. And they will emphatically not be allies. Wilhelmsen and Kendall go on,

Such a dilemma certainly faces any man who is aware both of the demands of the transcendent and of society, any man whose soul is turned out towards the truth of things as they are (that is, apart from political considerations), but also faces his responsibility as a member within a society that incarnates a way of life involving a certain (at least apparent) commitment to the Absolute.

But the situation today is exacerbated by the fact that modern Liberalism’s Absolute is a denial of the Absolute. Men are asked to venerate a negation.

It is in this context that politics in postmodern America will be best comprehended. In this context the strange and explosive fractures within what was once a more unified Conservative party will become clear in their causes and meaning; as, for example, it clarifies why some on the Right reacted so sternly against a symposium in the pages of First Things about “the judicial usurpation of politics,” which I encourage anyone interested in the true pressures and lineaments of the American Right to read with care. The symposium and the reaction against it, in short, presaged a fracture into a Right that would become revolutionary in its opposition to a tyranny of courts and judges, and, against that, another Right that would be conservative of the status quo, even if the status quo included lawless courts and “robed masters.”

Other controversies which perplex may be illuminated by this dialectic. The fracture over amending the Constitution to prohibit homosexual marriage; the fracture over immigration; the fracture over what is called globalization, the fracture over what we might call democratic imperialism — all of these, I perceive, are related to the transformation of the public orthodoxy of this nation, and the response to that transformation of the men and women of the Right.

It's not just Bush who is touring the Middle East

2008-01-14T02:08:00.000-06:00

French President Nicolas Sarkozy began a three-day Middle Eastern visit to boost energy and defense contracts and discuss regional political matters, including Iran, Lebanon and the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Sarkozy’s trip began yesterday in Saudi Arabia and will continue in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Yesterday, he and Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdelaziz al-Saud signed an oil and gas cooperation agreement and an education accord; they also spent more than an hour talking about a series of contracts that could earn the winning companies a total of 39.5 billion euros ($58.4 billion) and about the Middle East political issues.

The French president said France could do “much better” at gaining more market share in the region where it lags behind countries including the U.S., China and Germany. Defense, oil, natural gas, air and rail transportation, and water distribution are France’s biggest exports to the Gulf states.

“The interest of this visit is political, economic, cultural and military,” Sarkozy told reporters yesterday after signing the agreements with King Abdullah. He will make a speech today at the kingdom’s Consultative Council and address French and local businessmen.

Sarkozy’s visit coincides with U.S. President George W. Bush’s week-long trip to the region that will bring Bush to the Arabian kingdom today, less than two hours after Sarkozy will have left for Qatar.

France is due to announce a series of agreements and contracts by the end of the official visit on Jan. 15.

US and Malaysia resume free trade talks

2008-01-13T23:39:00.000-06:00

The United States and Malaysia resumed formal talks Monday for a free trade agreement, nearly a year after discussions stalled amid differences over Malaysia's government procurement policy.

The United States — Malaysia's biggest trading partner — is seeking "real, demonstrable progress" in its sixth round of free trade negotiations with the Southeast Asian country, said U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Kathryn Taylor.

"There is no deadline, but there is no indefinite timeline either. We need to be making progress. So that's what we'll be looking for," Taylor said. "Political calendars can affect the way trade negotiations continue."

Taylor said the U.S. wants to seal a deal by summer before a new administration takes over — a target that Washington believes is "achievable."

Formal talks, last held in February 2007, stalled when the Malaysian government said it needed more time to consider its domestic interests.

However, informal discussions aimed at ironing out differences have been held since then, leading to the latest talks in Malaysia, which are expected to end Thursday, Taylor said.

"We're at the point now where both sides are ready to come back to the formal negotiating table," she said. "They are ready to come down and formalize what they've been discussing."

Malaysian trade officials were not immediately available to comment.

What would a Hillary victory represent?

2008-01-13T06:20:00.000-06:00

Given that the US has election fever, I have decided to point readers to an article written for the London Review of Books in August 2007:

To be sure, like many left-of-centre individuals of her generation, [Hillary Clinton] has shown a marked commitment to improving the lot of traditionally disadvantaged groups. She became convinced early on, Bernstein remarks, that the ‘tragedy of race in America must be made right’, and from her student days she conscientiously sought out black friends, while also setting out to learn. One of her earliest mentors was Marian Wright Edelman, the first black woman to be admitted to the bar in Mississippi. Hillary has also repeatedly championed women’s rights in the States and overseas, and she makes a point herself of advancing talented women. Her campaign manager, head of operations and policy co-coordinator are all female – as, it bears considering, are 54 per cent of the current US electorate. Yet she can still appear confined within some of the radical priorities of the later 20th century, and unable or unwilling to generate a comprehensive and compelling vision of America and of the world’s present and future. Issues to do with race, gender and the dispossessed come naturally to her. But it is Al Gore who has hammered out an informed and powerful position on the environment, energy conservation and global warming. She has only belatedly borrowed some of his language and ideas. And it has been John Edwards who has tried steering the Democratic Party firmly back in the direction of economics. He, not Hillary, has been the most eager to address the gulf between America’s rich and poor. A one-time Democratic senator’s critique of Hillary’s initial, hard-line support of the Iraq war therefore seems more broadly applicable. She puts herself, he argued, ‘in the position of looking backward, not forward, of caving to conventional wisdom instead of moving in the direction of . . . new ideas, being bold.’

Obama is a little dull

2008-01-13T05:24:00.000-06:00

Like Will Smith, who in the new film I Am Legend wakes up to find himself the last man alive in a world of zombies, am I now the only person left on the planet who finds Barack Obama a little bit dull? Every time I listen to him, I start off thinking I'm about to wet my pants, but a minute-and-a-half later find my mind wandering, asking itself things like: 'What does "the challenge of hope" mean?'
Yet I turn and look around and everyone is shouting and screaming. Obama chants: 'Something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it' and there's a collective swoon from grown pundits and hardened reporters, all of them tearing off their shirts and pleading for Obama to sign their chests with indelible marker pen. Will Smith woke up to a world of zombies: in my personal nightmare, everyone around me has an overactive thyroid.
So why does Obama, billed by everyone as a cross between Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln, but without the terrible looks of either, just leave me puzzled? Maybe it's because his is a rhetoric that soars and takes flight, but alights nowhere. It declares that together we can do anything, but doesn't mention any of the things we can do. It's a perpetual tickle in the nose that never turns into a sneeze. Trying to make sense of what he's saying is like trying to wrap mist.
But, rhythmically, it's quite alluring. It can make anything, even, for example, a simple chair, seem magnificent. Why vote for someone who says: 'See that chair. You can sit on it' when you can have someone like Obama say: 'This chair can take your weight. This chair can hold your buttocks, 15 inches in the air. This chair, this wooden chair, can support the ass of the white man or the crack of the black man, take the downward pressure of a Jewish girl's behind or the butt of a Buddhist adolescent, it can provide comfort for Muslim buns or Mormon backsides, the withered rump of an unemployed man in Nevada struggling to get his kids through high school and needful of a place to sit and think, the plump can of a single mum in Florida desperately struggling to make ends meet but who can no longer face standing, this chair, made from wood felled from the tallest redwood in Chicago, this chair, if only we believed in it, could sustain America's huddled arse.'

(Armando Iannucci is a satirist, responsible for, amongst other moments of classic British comedy, The Thick of It. This will help you to understand the above.)

Against man's ingrained inhumanity

2008-01-12T07:41:00.000-06:00

The Third of May 1808 by Francisco Goya.

Image taken from Modern Art Notes.

The nature and style of the Qur'an

2008-01-12T02:16:00.000-06:00

For those of you who don't know, the Guardian has started a new blog on the Qur'an. Blogging the Qur'an is being written by Ziauddin Sardar with help from Madeleine Bunting. The approach by the Guardian is based on Slate's Blogging the Bible.

The latest post by Sardar is on the style and nature of the Qur'an, which inevitably raises the point made by Bunting in her response: why is the Qur'an so difficult to read?

I can't offer any particularly unique insights into the structure of the text, but for the purposes of debate and discussion (and for those interested) I would like to link and cite something from Mustansir Mir's "Is the Qur'an a Shapeless Book?", which was first published in the Pakistani English-language Islamic journal, Renaissance:

The completion of the arrangement of the Qur'an was conterminous in time with the completion of its revelation. In respect of order and sequence, therefore, the Qur'an as it was compiled was different from the Qur'an as it was revealed. In other words, the Qur'an had two arrangements, one revelatory and the other compilatory. The question is, why was the revelatory arrangement abandoned in favour of a compilatory arrangement. Was the latter adopted without any special reason? If so, why was chronology not considered a sound enough basis for arranging the Qur'an? And is one today at liberty to discover, if possible, the chronological arrangement of the Qur'an and recite the Qur'an according to that arrangement? Or, if chronology was not an acceptable guide, why was not some rule, that for example of dividing the Qur'an into surahs of about equal length, employed. Nor does the principle of the progressive diminution of the size of surahs go very far because the diminution is not so progressive: We frequently find that long surahs are followed by shorter surahs which are again followed by long surahs and so on. The question continues to stare one in the face: Why a different arrangement?

Mir then goes onto briefly describe the ideas of Hamiduddin Farahi and his student Amin Ahsan Islahi, two scholars from the Indian subcontinent, who detailed an approach in which the arrangement of the Qur'an formed an important part of interpreting the text. The Qur'an for them was an organic whole, and different sets of chapters were interconnected with some overall theme. Those interested in pursuing the Farahi-Islahi approach to the Qur'an should read Mir's Coherence in the Quran or Neal Robinson's Discovering the Qur'an (the only two English-language sources I know of that have discussed Farahi-Islahi interpretive method in detail; Mir's work is largely supportive, while Robinson takes a critical view).

Islahi is interesting because he was a friend of Sayyid Abu A'la Maududi, considered one of the 'fathers' of Islamism -- Islahi parted ways with Maududi on the structure and nature of an Islamic state. Islahi was also the teacher of the somewhat controversial Pakistani scholar Javed Ahmed Ghamidi, who is often associated with more 'liberal' pronouncements on Islamic law.

Asian voters in US 'face discrimination'

2008-01-12T01:52:00.000-06:00

Many Asian American voters faced discrimination from voting officials during 2006 mid-term elections in the US, a civil rights group has alleged.
The report is based on a multilingual exit poll conducted among 4,700 Asian American voters in 25 US cities.
It documents alleged violations of the Voting Rights Act and Help America Vote Act and cases of "anti-Asian attitude".
[...]

The report by the Asian American Legal Defence and Education Fund (AALDEF), a 34-year-old civil rights organisation, comes as presidential primaries are in full swing in the United States.
The group alleges that poll workers were hostile towards Asian American voters, particularly those not fluent in English, during voting in 2006.
Many voters complained of "rude or hostile behaviour" and an "unhelpful attitude about election procedures", the report said.
It said 59 Asian American voters had complained.
In New York, 83% of voters who were asked to show identification were not legally required to do so, the report says.
It says English-speaking voters were not asked for ID.
The discrimination was "racially motivated and at the same time also demonstrated a bureaucratic approach", AALDEF lawyer Glenn D Magpantay told the BBC.
The survey found 40% of Pakistani-origin, 38% of Bangladeshi-origin and 17% of Indian origin-voters could not speak English well. One-third of Urdu speakers and the same number of Bengali speakers said they needed the assistance of interpreters in order to vote.

One of the new voices around here

2008-01-12T01:09:00.000-06:00

Hello all. I have been asked by Aziz to help keep City of Brass ticking over. I irregularly update my own blog, pixelisation. And that's enough about me.

some new voices around here

2008-01-10T08:34:00.000-06:00

I'm leaving for a trip to Colombo tomorrow afternoon and will be gone all of next week. However, City of Brass won't be moribund while I am away; in fact I am recruiting some guest bloggers to fill in for me while I'm off. I'll leave their identities a surprise, for now :)

abusing Allah

2008-01-06T08:33:00.000-06:00

I tend to have very little patience with people who try to prove the existence of God. I favorably quote Douglas Adams on the matter of faith, even though he is a noted atheist. I've also done my part to refute so-called proofs of faith like the Kalam Cosmological Argument. So, when I read over at Good Math, Bad Math about a supposedly mathematical proof of God from a muslim, I was compelled to reply. I left the mathematical rebuttal to Chu-Carroll and addressed the argument from a more theological perspective. This sort of thing always gets under my skin.

I just may be the lunatic you're looking for

2008-01-05T21:27:00.000-06:00

Sepia Mutiny takes Ted Rall to task, somewhat rightly:

I do appreciate Rall’s overarching point— Huckabee is allowed to be as batshit crazy as he wants to be because he’s on the lunatic fringe of my religion instead of any other one— since I’m no fan of the preacher man. It’s a very valid concern.

However, I also cringed slightly at how Rall made his point. I cynically wonder whether people will get mired in “Hinduism is strange” instead of questioning why we aren’t more worried about the rise of this candidate. After all, if Rall’s conception of Hindu fundamentalism (cobras? chanting? SATI??) confuses slightly-familiar-with-Hinduism-me, what will those with even less exposure to the religion think?

The assertion by Anna (echoed approvingly in the discussion) that Huckabee is clearly a lunatic solely because he doesn't believe in evolution. I guess by that standard I too am a lunatic, not because I necessarily disbelieve that men descended from apes (though sci-pedant that I am, I'd point out that apes and men both descended from something else), but because I do think it's perfectly reasonable for another person to believe in creation. It's not an irrational belief. It's as rational as any other rational thought process, which is to say it's your typical black box with inputs and outputs, and garbage in, garbage out.

I am not sneering at creationism at garbage in, either. Just now I read a thread at Overcoming Bias blog where fresh off a tone-deaf and schoolyard-taunting post on Christmas day mocking the Immaculate Conception, the blogger states his belief in Transhumanism and the Singularity.

The ego of man knows no bounds, and neither does his faith. Reason is just a tool applied in service of both.

I tend towards increasing skepticism of "rational thinking" as any kind of intrinsically superior in terms of relative "Truth" (capital T). Overcoming bias? Such righteousness! Such hubris!

Now, however, what is superior is method, not process. This is why the true fruit of the Enlightenment was the scientific method, not secularism and the conceit that any human thought can ever be truly objective.

At any rate, sneering at Hinduism for being "strange" is not much different from sneering at Huckabee for being devout, and you can't take offense at one an dnot the other. Well, you can, but in doing so you are not exactly... reasonable.

At any rate, I believe in both evolution and intelligent design, so there.

(I've posted the above in the thread at SM as well.)

Separation of Mosque and State

2007-12-30T09:21:00.000-06:00

An old essay at eteraz's reminded me of a musing I had about the separation of Church/Mosque and state.

Separation of church and state is of course idea for a secular technocratic republic, such as we have seen the West evolve towards. However in a poostcolonial Islamic country, separation of mosque and state might be a disaster.

Turkey is an example of how poisonous the appeal of secularism has been. And the pan-Arab movement showed us how quickly ostensibly-Separated governments quickly lead to strongmen.

The end goal is a constitutionally-governed liberal state. The Constitution is the key. Why not let that document be drawn from Islam? As long as it is made flexible enough, it will suffice. When was the last time America executed someone for Treason? Or Habeus Corpus was formally rescinded?

Christians insist they worship same god as Muslims

2007-12-28T14:45:00.001-06:00

Presented for your perusal without further comment.

A church and Christian newspaper in Malaysia are suing the government after it decreed that the word "Allah" can only be used by Muslims.

In the Malay language "Allah" is used to mean any god, and Christians say they have used the term for centuries.

Opponents of the ban say it is unconstitutional and unreasonable.
[...]
There has been no official government comment but parliamentary opposition leader Lim Kit Siang said the decision to ban the word for non-Muslims on security grounds was "unlawful".

"The term 'Allah' was used to refer to God by Arabic-speaking Christians before Arabic-speaking Muslims existed," he said.

Well, one comment: obviously, the ban is wrong and any muslim supporting it is an idiot.

via pixelisation.

UPDATE: Malaysia reversed the ban. Seems we are all the same mono in monotheist after all. All praise due to Ali Eteraz, even though I beat him to blogging about it :)

Benazir Bhutto killed

2007-12-27T07:48:00.001-06:00

Benazir Bhutto is dead.

Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been killed in a presumed suicide attack, a spokesman for the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) says.

Other reports said Ms Bhutto had only been injured and taken to hospital.

Ms Bhutto had just addressed a rally of PPP supporters in the town of Rawalpindi when the rally was hit by a blast.

At least 15 other people are reported killed in the attack.

Ms Bhutto has twice been the country's prime minister and was campaigning ahead of elections due in January.

Namaz Sharif might do well to consider leaving Pakistan for his safety.

UPDATE: Al-Qaeda claims credit:

Karachi, 27 Dec. (AKI) - (by Syed Saleem Shahzad) - A spokesperson for the al-Qaeda terrorist network has claimed responsibility for the death on Thursday of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

“We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen,” Al-Qaeda’s commander and main spokesperson Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid told Adnkronos International (AKI) in a phone call from an unknown location, speaking in faltering English. Al-Yazid is the main al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan.

It is believed that the decision to kill Bhutto, who is the leader of the opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP), was made by al-Qaeda No. 2, the Egyptian doctor, Ayman al-Zawahiri in October.

Why am I not surprised that the leader of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan is named Yazid?

Suspicious things I've done in public

2007-12-20T13:34:00.000-06:00

I am pretty sure I have taken notes on a pad, taken photos, and consulted maps while out in public. This means that when we go to Chicago this weekend to visit my parents, I'm "suspicious" according to the Chicago police:

In general, I'm a suspicious looking dude. First, airplanes, and now on the streets!

(via Sepia Mutiny and Boing Boing)

Eid ul Adha mubarak

2007-12-18T21:27:00.000-06:00

Interested in aerial views of the tent city of Mina and Mount Arafat? Head over to Shi'a Pundit for a look.

touching the untouchables

2007-12-17T07:32:00.000-06:00

Artist Santiago Sierra has a new exhibition at the Lisson Gallery in London, that is literally a pile of sh&t. But it's also a serious work:

21 ANTHROPOMETRIC MODULES MADE FROM HUMAN FAECES BY THE PEOPLE OF SULABH INTERNATIONAL, INDIA

The work is made of 21 modules of human faeces, each measuring 215 x 75 x 20cm. […] Workers of the sanitary movement Sulabh International of India are mostly scavengers who, by birth, have to undertake the physically and psychologically painful task of collecting human faecal matter, being charged with the blames of a previous life of bad deeds.

Yup, it's 21 monolithic blocks of sh&t. But the art forces the viewer to wonder how such an enormous pile of shi% could be assembled, and the physical reality of it in front of the eyes attunes their mind to the plight and working conditions of these laborers at the bottom of the bottom of India’s society, a depth which we simply cannot fathom from our everyday experience alone.

Like the Indian laborers in Dubai toiling on modern-day pyramids, the workers of Sulabh International are an exploited class whose working conditions are far worse than they need to be. Unlike the Dubai workers, they have much less recourse to assert themselves or bring attention to their plight, except perhaps via art such as this.

haraam isn't just spiritual harm

2007-12-16T23:17:00.001-06:00

posted as a public service announcement, without further comment -

The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that at least 70 percent of the antibiotics used in America are fed to animals living on factory farms. Raising vast numbers of pigs or chickens or cattle in close and filthy confinement simply would not be possible without the routine feeding of antibiotics to keep the animals from dying of infectious diseases. That the antibiotics speed up the animals’ growth also commends their use to industrial agriculture, but the crucial fact is that without these pharmaceuticals, meat production practiced on the scale and with the intensity we practice it could not be sustained for months, let alone decades.

Public-health experts have been warning us for years that this situation is a public-health disaster waiting to happen. Sooner or later, the profligate use of these antibiotics — in many cases the very same ones we depend on when we’re sick — would lead to the evolution of bacteria that could shake them off like a spring shower. It appears that “sooner or later” may be now. Recent studies in Europe and Canada found that confinement pig operations have become reservoirs of MRSA. A European study found that 60 percent of pig farms that routinely used antibiotics had MRSA-positive pigs (compared with 5 percent of farms that did not feed pigs antibiotics). This month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a study showing that a strain of “MRSA from an animal reservoir has recently entered the human population and is now responsible for [more than] 20 percent of all MRSA in the Netherlands.” Is this strictly a European problem? Evidently not. According to a study in Veterinary Microbiology, MRSA was found on 45 percent of the 20 pig farms sampled in Ontario, and in 20 percent of the pig farmers. (People can harbor the bacteria without being infected by it.) Thanks to Nafta, pigs move freely between Canada and the United States. So MRSA may be present on American pig farms; we just haven’t looked yet.

The Brass Crescent Awards winners

2007-12-15T16:09:00.001-06:00

Congratulations to the winners of the 4th Annual Brass Crescent Awards:

BEST BLOG: Spirit 21
WIDER RECOGNITION: The Islamicist
BEST DESIGN: DeenPort
BEST FEMALE: Spirit 21
BEST GROUP: Indian Muslims
BEST MIDEAST/CENTRAL ASIA: Raising Yousuf, Unplugged
BEST SOUTH/SOUTHEAST ASIAN: An Indian Muslim's Blog
BEST NON-MUSLIM: Juan Cole
BEST POST/SERIES: The Rise and Fall of the Salafi Dawah in the US by Umar Lee
BEST MULTIMEDIA: The Reminder Blog (Baba Ali)
BEST IJTIHAD: Ali Eteraz

Do stop by the official site and check out the Honorable Mentions in each category, as well as the other nominees. Thank you all for participating and for making this the best BCA year yet.

CAIR membership

2007-12-14T09:56:00.000-06:00

The Washington Times is being widely linked for a story about how CAIR's membership has "spiraled down from more than 29,000 in 2000 to fewer than 1,700 in 2006." based on tax documents obtained by the WT.

Ostensibly this is because CAIR does not suitably critique or condemn terror attack. Assuming its true, that seems to be a quantitative measure of the moderation of the American muslim community. However I find that explanation rather unserious, since CAIR has been at the forefront of every public condemnation of terror that American muslims have made.A casual google search or review of CAIR's website makes this obvious. The one thing muslims can count on is that no amount of condemnation of terror is ever enough to satisfy those who insist that muslims have such a duty to do so; in fact muslims do not have any such duty whatsoever.

If there is a decrease in membership, it is probably more due to the routine bad press that CAIR gets and the foolishness of some of the national figures at the national organization leadership. However, on a per-chapter basis, CAIR is a solid organization with good people who do good works. If you ignore the bloviating of the ego-driven leadership at the top, who of course are totally isolated from the daily activities of the independent regional chapters, you will see a very different picture of CAIR emerge.

Of course, such a picture does not mesh well with the inclination of some to distrust any gathering of muslims for any purpose. The subtext is that CAIR is a vehicle for domestic terror and treason, and every piece of (bountiful) evidence otherwise is dismissed as taqqiya. The foundation for that is, of course, the sentiment (dominant on teh right, but not wholly absent from the left either) that muslims cannot be trusted, their numbers should be limited, and their freedom of expression of faith curtailed and monitored.

Pharoah over ourselves

2007-12-07T08:06:00.000-06:00

The indentured servant immigrants from India and Pakistan who comprise the majority of the laborers in Dubai are now being hit hard again, because their wages are pegged to the (declining) US dollar:

In the four years that it has taken laborers to climb more than 150 floors over Dubai's congested freeways and skyline, the U.S. dollar has fallen with equal steadiness. Its decline has helped trigger unprecedented wage strikes and a rock-throwing protest this fall by the foreign construction workers, who are paid in local currencies pegged to the dollar.
[...]
To build and tend their kingdom, the Emirates' 800,000 citizens imported millions of foreign workers, including 700,000 construction workers. Nearly one in five people in the kingdom is a construction worker; most are from India.

As recently as last month, some construction workers on the Burj Dubai and other projects made the equivalent of as little as $109 a month. Back home in India, where the dollar has fallen 14 percent against the rupee in the past 18 months, remittances that workers here sent to their families steadily lost value.

It should be noted that the living conditions for these workers are a century behind, reminiscent of 1900s-era American labor, which is ironic given that they are working on 21st-century projects like Burj Dubai:

"I work here, and I can't save anything. I'll ruin my family," said Ram Chandra, 33, a mason from the north Indian state of Rajasthan.

Chandra spoke in Sonapur, outside Dubai. Though its name means "City of Gold" in Hindi, Sonapur is a bleak, sand-blown labor camp housing 50,000 construction workers. Men sleep 10 to 12 to a room in tightly packed rows of concrete barracks. Chandra sat with four other workers perched on cots or squatting on the concrete floor. They wore sleeveless T-shirts and shorts or faded towels worn like the wraparound dhoti skirts commonly found in India.

Other barracks had laundry strung from bare beams. A sewage tanker made its evening rounds of the camp's septic tanks, filling the air with a gurgle and reek.

What bothers me most about this is that Dubai's wealth is built on a service industry that caters directly to the Asian middle class. Wander the ultramalls of Dubai (including the airport) and you find mostly Asians - especially Indians - shopping till they drop.

The workers themselves can exert pressure by striking, since any work slowdown impacts Dubai's image, and an article in the Washington Post is assuredly far more negative press than Dubai's elite would like to see. But a boycott of Dubai shopping districts by Asians would have a complementary, and force-multiplying, effect.

Can we restrain ourselves? For our own sake?

the Islamphere grows up

2007-12-04T08:16:00.000-06:00

This is the 4th year for the Brass Crescent Awards, and it seems that the Awards have achieved a kind of critical mass. We received over 300 unique blog nominations during the nomination phase! Not only that, but in two days of voting, there have been more votes cast than in the entire two week voting period last year. These statistics suggest that this is the year that the BCA really arrived as a phenomenon worth taking note of.

However, there's a more subtle form of recognition that I think also speaks volumes about the growth of the Awards, and that is the attention the Awards are drawing from muslims online. For one thing, this year even larger blogs such as 'Aqoul have taken notice of their nominations and are urging readers to vote. Other bloggers like Dal Nun Strong are smartly leveraging their nominations to welcome new readers and invite them to peruse a selection of their best work. And don't miss Naeem's hilarious post on how he should have been nominated for all categories. These are all great examples of publicity for the Awards and perfectly reasonable, positive strategies for nominee blogs to pursue.

Of course, there's the other kind of publicity as well. Ijtemaa.net has a fairly harsh post and even harsher comment thread about the perceived idoelogical bias of the BCA. Abul Layth at Seeking 'Ilm is even more explicitly hostile in his disdain for the Awards, though that doesn't stop him from urging readers to vote for certain nominees "so that a Sunni blog will win." Both Ijtemaa and Abul Layth succumb to the takfiri impulse in their disdain for some of the BCA nominees, particularly Ali Eteraz who ably and masterfully defends himself with far more grace than his detractors muster.

And what would a muslim social event be without an accusation or two of Shi'a conspiracy? :) I don't believe for a minute that Deenport or Ijtemaa.net sanction such nonsense, but roaches do crawl out of the woodwork of even the nicest houses from time to time.

All in all, the BCA are attracting a lot of heat and light. And that's good, because just like the Carnival of Brass, the main purpose of the Awards is to create more awareness of the diversity and talent within the Islamsphere. If the sole achievement of the Awards is to get muslim bloggers talking about muslim blogs they disagree with, then it's already a success, because sectarian or ideological silos are harmful to the online Islamic community as a whole.

teddy bear fiqh

2007-11-29T06:59:00.000-06:00

the saga of the teddy bear from hell continues. The decision to arrest Mrs. Gibbons is not without controversy within Sudan:

Sudan's top clerics have called for the full measure of the law to be used against Mrs Gibbons and labelled her actions part of a Western plot against Islam.

A Muslim youth organisation, the Ramadhan Foundation, called for Mrs Gibbons' immediate release.

Spokesman Mohammed Shafiq said: "This matter is not worthy of arrest or detention and her continued detention will not help repair the misconceptions about Islam."

However, since the hardliners are in control, the outcome was predictable: she's been charged with "insulting religion, inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs". The British government is not the only one outraged on Mrs. Gibbons behalf:

The Muslim Council of Britain reacted angrily to the news, saying it was "appalled" and demanded Mrs Gibbons' immediate release.

"This is a disgraceful decision and defies common sense. There was clearly no intention on the part of the teacher to deliberately insult the Islamic faith," said Secretary-General Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, in a strongly-worded statement.

"We call upon the Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir, to intervene in this case without delay to ensure that Ms Gibbons is freed from this quite shameful ordeal," said Dr Bari.

The Sudanese ulema's rationale for throwing the book at Mrs. Gibbons reeks of paranoia and insecurity:

Earlier, the Sudanese Embassy in London said the situation was a "storm in a teacup" and signalled that the teacher could be released soon, attributing the incident to a cultural misunderstanding.

But Sudan's top clerics have called for the full measure of the law to be used against Mrs Gibbons and labelled her actions part of a Western plot against Islam.

"What has happened was not haphazard or carried out of ignorance, but rather a calculated action and another ring in the circles of plotting against Islam," the Sudanese Assembly of the Ulemas said in a statement.

This jibes well with Meph's analysis at 'Aqoul, who describes the Sudanese government thus:

the existing government in Sudan has always been prickly, obstreperous and wont to childish displays of inferiority complexes. This is partly rooted in deep insecurity and partly a hangover of the cynical anti-Western propaganda campaign the National Liberation Front employed for years in order to divert attention from its own lack of a political agenda and rally support for the war in the South. They need to be SEEN to be doing something as opposed to actually feeling strongly about the case. The overreaction stems from the government’s lack of touch with the national zeitgeist (the streets of Sudan have hardly been awash with protestors, and those that have showed up have strong affiliations with the government) as well as the miscalculation of how their display of standing up the big guy will be perceived in the West. Instead of coming across all Iran like, principled and not bowing down to the hegemony of the West (which is how the Sudanese government likes to perceive itself) the real perception is of a joke of a regime that really has no perspective.

Meph has actually lived in Sudan and observes that it's unlikely that the teacher's sentence of lashes will be carried out if convicted, as well as providing some context to the fracas:

there has always existed an uneasy truce between the highly Westernised elite that chose to send their children to the school and local government authorities who resented the very existence of such an elite and their access to the admittedly exceptional education the school offered. Were it not for the ironic fact that high ranking government officials mostly sent their children to the school, the co-existence would have been much more challenging.

There were several instances where expat teachers were be vaporised due to public displays of drunkenness. Parents who lapsed in their fee payments sometimes resorted to the local authorities to plead their case against the exorbitant unregulated fee structure and sometimes, managed to keep their children at the school by bullying the school administration which comprised mainly of British expats eager not to incur the wrath of the temperamental government. This background is important when judging the actions of the government as totally randomly barbaric.

The behavior of the Sudanese authorities may at best be characterized as pointedly barbaric, rather than randomly. Clearly, the very existence of the school itself - providing superior education and heavily used by government officials themselves - is the thorn in the side of the ulema, and Mrs. Gibons is simply a proxy for their ire.

I don't believe in god

2007-11-28T17:33:00.000-06:00

not the God who is a hypothesis, or the god who is a gene, or the God who is a hole, or any of the other Gods that those who freely choose disbelief continually insist is equivalent to the God in which I have, simply, faith.

I don't want to prove God. I don't need to prove God. However, many anti-theists (a distinct subset of atheists as a whole) seem to want to, and need to, disprove God. But all of these boil down to utilitarian descriptions of God - a functional God, one whose existence is defined by human semantic constructs such as Occam's Razor, or limited by human concepts of logic and reason (proof of negatives, the immovable stone, etc), or by linear time and space (creation and causation), or even by morality (why won't god heal amputees?). I agree; none of those gods exist, and I don't believe in any of them.

There is no god. Save Allah!

teddy bears are haram

2007-11-26T14:53:00.000-06:00

The entire concept of "an insult to Islam" is itself the closest thing to an insult that can exist, if an eternal divine revelation can be insulted (which in my view, it can not). Case in point:

The Sudanese police arrested a British schoolteacher and accused her of insulting Islam after she allowed her 7-year-old pupils to name a class teddy bear Muhammad, Sudanese officials said today.
[...]
According to BBC, Ms. Gibbons, 54, asked a seven-year-old girl to bring in a teddy bear and for her classmates to pick a name for it.

“They came up with eight names including Abdullah, Hassan and Muhammed,” Mr. Boulos said.

When it came time to vote, 20 out of 23 children choose Muhammad, one of the most common names in the Muslim word.

The article notes that if convicted of this "crime", Mrs. Gibbons faces punishment including lashes. The article also gets to the nub of the matter, somewhat unintentionally:

In Islam, insulting the Prophet Muhammad is considered a grave offense, and the law of northern Sudan, where Khartoum is located, makes this a crime.

Where is it written that "insulting the Prophet" is a "grave offense" ? Is it in the Qur'an? Hadith? Upon what jurisprudence is the law of Sudan based? Far from this law being based in Islam, it's actually invented without a single source of Islamic law to justify as source. The law of Sudan is, in effect, bida'a.

That is all beside the point, however. No rational person can consider naming a teddy bear "Mohammed" to be an insult. Especially given that Mohammed is the single most common name in the muslim world.

hate crimes in the US

2007-11-20T14:03:00.001-06:00

John Burgess links to the 2006 hate crimes report by the FBI and argues that muslims are not the most-persecuted group in the US.

Contrary to what many of the world’s Muslims believe—and contrary to the picture that groups like CAIR seek to portray—Muslims are not the target of most hate crimes in America.

The FBI has issued its statistics for 2006 on hate crime in America. Crimes directed against Muslims, simply because they are Muslims, amounted to 156 incidents; those against Jews, 967; against homosexuals and bisexuals, 1,195.

Well, great!

Note, however, that he does ascribe to CAIR the belief that muslims are the most victimized by hate crimes. I take serious issue with him on that claim. I don't think I have ever seen a single CAIR publication assert that muslims are the "principal" target of hate crimes in the US. Can anyone point to a source from CAIR that says otherwise?

That said, muslims ARE a persecuted group, as the FBI statistics clearly demonstrate, and the only reason that the FBI even has any record of that persecution is because of work by groups such as CAIR to document it. Assuming that there is no under-reporting of cases against muslims, and using the US census data from 2001, we see that Jewish Americans outnumber Muslim Americans by 6 to 1. Thats about the same ballpark as the hate incident ratio as reported by the FBI.

I think any reasonable discussion of hate crimes in the US needs to take these issues into account. Rather than use the hate crimes statistics to bash CAIR, whose regional chapters are independent organizations that do good work, it would be nice to see someone use those statistics to rebut those who argue that there is no such thing as Islamophobia in the West.

mob justice, sadly thwarted

2007-11-20T09:03:00.001-06:00

This man, Afazuddin Ali, is a coward, a blasphemer, and a pervert:

Afazuddin Ali, 36, has five children - three of them daughters.

A few months ago Ali married his eldest daughter, telling his wife Sakina that Allah had ordained him to do so.
[...]
"He is a deeply religious man and will never lie in the name of Allah," Sakina told a court in the northern district of Jalpaiguri.

"I agreed to his marriage with our eldest daughter when he invoked divine sanction," she said.

Let's also add that his wife is an ignorant buffoon. His neighbors, also muslim (as it should have been noted in the article), were not impressed by this "deeply religious" man's sudden communion with the divine:

"We didn't know she was married so when we confronted his wife, she told us about the bizarre marriage six months ago," Sheikh Ramzan, a village leader at Kasiajhiora, said.

"We wanted to smash his head, we were so angry."
[...]
Ali and his wife have not returned home because they fear a fresh attack from angry villagers.

If Allah wills the man to marry his daughter, surely Allah would provide protection from the mob? Oh ye of little faith!

CAIRO by G. Willow Wilson

2007-11-12T10:26:00.000-06:00

Willow is a good friend of mine; I guess I was predisposed to enjoy anything she would have written. Still, her new graphic novel CAIRO (inked by M.K. Perker) was a great read on its own merits. The story is unabashedly ours, ie it's rooted with pride in Arab and Islamic mythology, and also pays homage to the pre-Islamic Egyptian mythos as well. The Qur'an and the faith of Islam are not the subject of controversy or debate or analysis; they simply exist and are as factual as the sky, which is how it is in practice. The lack of needless navel-gazing, and letting the story exist in that context without any need to explain it, was so refreshing that it sets a kind of bar in my mind for any other fiction set in similar settings. There are no clumsy apologetics, or appeasements, or anything intended to set someone's mind at ease. The world is presented to you; take it or leave it. Assuming you take it, you are treated to a fun story that is part Aladdin and part Indiana Jones.

The story has an ensemble cast, and truth be told none of them seemed out of place. However, I suppose I am naive. Willow writes at her own blog that the inclusion of an Israeli character was a difficult one, and explains why she went ahead anyway despite the very real risk of alienating the Arab audience:

I want so much for tenderness to be universally understood, and it isn’t. I want not to have to separate the people I love to keep them from hurting each other. At the very least, I want the space to pretend, in fiction, that this is possible. But I may not even have that.

My husband wanted to know why I needed an Israeli character. Without her, the book is a shrine--a sometimes paradoxically irreverent shrine--to Islamic, Arab and Egyptian mythology, fit for all but the most hardline bookshelves. As one reviewer observed, the only unequivocal image in the entire book, the only symbol that is not polluted by shades of grey, is the Qur’an. Without the Jew, the book is kosher. I told him I didn’t need an Israeli character. But I did need the Israeli who was one of my most steadfast friends through my conversion; and the Israeli who held my hand while I was getting a large, pretty but idiotic Arabic tattoo in the days leading up to it, who joked that speaking Arabic would help me learn Hebrew; and the Israeli refusenik who was one of the first people to read a draft of the book, who was robbed of his Nobel peace prize by the tree woman from Africa. I needed those Israelis, and Tova was--is--for them.

As a privileged son of Western liberalism, I simply accepted the character without a second thought (my main beef with the story was the "mission" of the main character, prior to getting caught up in the events). In reality, including Tova was an act of courage. This book builds bridges, and does so within a firmly muslim context. That is exciting and fresh, and for that alone, deserves a place on your shelf.

burn

2007-11-10T07:12:00.000-06:00

Afghanistan's own 9-11.

59 Schoolchildren Killed in Afghan Blast

By FISNIK ABRASHI – 21 hours ago

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Dozens of schoolchildren and five teachers were among those killed in a suicide attack in northern Afghanistan earlier this week — the country's deadliest since the fall of the Taliban — the government said Friday.

The 59 schoolchildren had lined up to greet a group of lawmakers visiting a sugar factory in the northern province of Baghlan on Tuesday when a suicide bomber detonated explosives.

"The education minister has ordered that no children should be ever again be used in these sort of events," said Zahoor Afghan, an Education Ministry spokesman. He said the children ranged in age from 8 to 18.

In all, the explosion claimed the lives at least 75 people, including several parliamentarians, and wounded 96. It was the deadliest attack in the country since the toppling of Taliban regime from power in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

not to contradict Tariq bhai, but these aren't even people. They are Reavers, and they will burn in hellfire.

More importantly, it behooves us all to remember who kills the most innocent muslim blood in this world. Not secret Jewish cabals, or neocon conspiracies, or colonial designs; none of these bogeymen of the modern ummah are to blame.

The Reavers. The Reavers alone are the enemy of the Ummah.

And the dominant organizing principle of a western muslim political movement must not be focused on nonsensically unrelated issues like Israel-Palestine or Iraq withdrawal or Iranian nuclear capabilities. Nor should it chase after "reform" or "moderation" or "dialog". No; the dominant principle of a Western muslim polity should be to promote foreign policy that destroys them.

Until then, the Ummah will live in fear from within.

an Astrodome proposal

2007-11-08T07:36:00.001-06:00

After 9 years, I moved from Houston to central Wisconsin this past July, but there will always be a part of Texas - and Houston - in my blood from now on. So I stay abreast of local news and politics from Houston as best I can, mostly via Charles Kuffner. His ongoing coverage of the travails of the Astrodome redevelopment project has been fascinating, and dispiriting as well. The recent news that the Texans and the Rodeo are pretty much opposed to any hotel concept on the Dome site really bodes ill; as Charles puts it, any new plan needs to be "1) commercially feasible, 2) politically viable, and 3) not in conflict with the bidness of the Texans and the Rodeo." Otherwise, it seems that the demolition of the Dome is inevitable.

A crazy thought occurred to me. The old Compaq Center in downtown Houston was sold to Lakewood Church (of Joel Osteen fame) and is now fully renovated as a megachurch. Why not attempt something similar with the Astrodome, by making it into a mosque?

Houston has several public personalities who are also muslim who could rally the community and marshal outside support and resources to such a task. Notably, city councilman M.J. Khan, Mustafa Tameez, and retired basketball legend Hakeem Olajuwon. More to the point, Houston has an estimated muslim population of 250,000, and native Texan-style Islam is vibrant and growing - especially among the Latin community. A megamosque would become a focal point of Islam in Texas and serve as a valuable icon of outreach to the rest of the spiritual community. In addition to serving as home to the annual Eid al Fitr feast, the megamosque could also compete to bring the ISNA and other important annual conferences to Houston. While the megamosque would need to be an independent entity, it could certainly have relationships with existing muslim organizations like the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, the Katy Islamic Organization, etc. The potential for charity and disaster relief work and coordination is also immense.

This could all just be a pipe dream with no pragmatic reality. Still, it fires the imagination.

falafel: the fifth column snack

2007-11-07T13:56:00.000-06:00

I'm amazed.

Like Hansel and Gretel hoping to follow their bread crumbs out of the forest, the FBI sifted through customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006, hoping that sales records of Middle Eastern food would lead to Iranian terrorists.

The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales, combined with other data, would lead to Iranian secret agents in the south San Francisco-San Jose area.

How stupid! everyone knows that the real food of terror is nihari.

The article raises the bogeyman spector of a secret Iranian terror infrastructure here in the US:

According to Israeli-born Youssef Bodansky, director of the conservative-backed Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, Iran already had a terrorist network in place here in the early 1980s.

It “included safe houses in major cities, weapons, ammunition, money, systems to provide medical and legal aid, false identity papers, and intelligence for the operatives,” Bodansky said in a widely circulated 1993 Associated Press report. It was “large and spanned the United States.”

The FBI was unable to find any of it.

Maybe because those clever Iranians hid it in Syria, next to the Iraqi WMD?

to Baraka

2007-11-07T12:43:00.000-06:00

As an article of faith, God burdens no soul more than it can bear - this we are told in the Qur'an. So by that measure, Baraka must be a strong, strong soul indeed. Keep her in your prayers.

Pakistan roundup

2007-11-04T09:01:00.000-06:00

It's been only 24 hours since President and General Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan, which amounts to martial law. The Islamosphere has responded admirably to the constitutional crisis. Here's a brief roundup.

First, the video of Musharraf's televised address to Pakistan is available online:

Chapati Mystery has transcribed the full text of Musharraf's remarks, for both the Urdu and English portions. Sepoy notes that the official printed transcript differs a bit from what was actually said. He also notes that there are a number of surprising things in the speech, including a total absence of mention of India.

Sepoy also blogged the Provisional Constitutional Order when it was first announced, as part of his ongoing Tick Tock series about Pakistani democracy. His summary analysis was rather bleak:

Next up? Martial Law. More bombings. And the eventual drain of all that capital that had accumulated in the country in the past 8 years. Zimbabwe, here we come. Unless, US and China can come to their senses and do some actual diplomacy. The status is bleak. Let us say that Musharraf resigns and leaves. The Supreme Court declares an election date, the new government solves the Baluchistan issue, the US redeploys significant troops to Afghanistan (and keeps them there), the Pakistani military combats within cities and mountains of Pakistan. War. Chaos. Uncertainty. And this, my gentle readers, would be the best case scenario. A more likely option is a military state somewhere between Mugabe’s Zimbabwe circa 2005 and Gandhi’s India circa 1976. I must be proven wrong.

Start here for the first post in his Tick Tock series.

PKpolitics has been updating extensively, in real time. They are probably the best source for the latest news. Zack of Procrastination blog also chimes in. He's equally cynical, and notes that he also has been suspicious of Musharraf from the start, casting a parallel between Musharraf and Zia ul Haq:

On October 12, 1999, I told everyone who would listen that Musharraf was not taking over for the sake of Pakistan or for saving the country from the corrupt politicians like Nawaz Sharif or Benazir Bhutto. He did not act when the country was in peril, but when his own position as Army Chief was threatened. I have always considered him a power-hungry army general in the mold of General Ziaul Haq.

Ziaul Haq sowed the seeds of Pakistan’s current troubles with his Islamization and jihadi policies and today Musharraf is reaping its rewards and acting like Zia II. Having grown up in Zia’s Pakistan and now watching Musharraf’s Pakistan from afar, both these generals look to be the worst nightmare for Pakistan.

Sepia Mutiny offers a roundup of their own. In addition to summarizing the most important events, they link to detailed legal analysis by Anil at Dorfblog, a pocket guide to surviving martial law by Manish at Ultrabrown, and an interview with Lawyer Aitezaz Ahsan, while under arrest, speaking furtively from the police station toilet.

Finally, Ali Eteraz already has launched a new website devoted to Pakistani Politics (PakistanPolitics.net) and written a piece at the Guardian about the PCO. In a nutshell, he advises to take Musharraf at his word, with the litmus test being the January elections. He also notes,

Disengaged western audiences, pumped full of the current pro-democracy intoxicants, will almost universally decry Musharraf's behaviour. I decry it too, precisely because I am a disengaged westerner and I have that luxury. However, the story in Pakistan is not so straightforward.

For that matter, I have to agree. The Supremem Court of Pakistan has been playing politics with as much vigour as Musharraf has - Musharraf's charge of judicial activism by the Supreme Court, including releasing confirmed terrorists and reopening extremist madrasahs, has substantial merit. Musharraf's argument that democracy is Pakistan is young also bears repeating, in is English remarks addressed to the West:

I request you all to bear with us. To the critics and idealists against this action, I say please do not accept or demand your level of democracy which you learned over a number of centuries. We are also trying to learn, and we are doing well. Please give us time. Please also do not demand and expect your level of civil rights, human rights, civil liberties which you learned over the centuries. We are trying to learn. And we are doing well also. Please give us time.

Well, we can give him until January.

And I'd like to reiterate that there's no better way to promote these excellent posts or blogs than by nominating them for a Brass Crescent Award.