Not that I want Armenians or any other group to be stereotyped, but let’s see how much attention this gets from the bigots warning of Muslims’ alleged unassimilability into Western civilization. Had these crooks been born a few hundred miles west, in mostly-Muslim Azerbaijan, the Blogosphere would be ablaze anew with Muslim-baiting vitriol. But criminals with foreign ties who are Christian are just crooks with funny names. Muslim criminals are stealth jihadis opening a new front in their war against... Read more

Haven’t had a chance to examine it closely yet, but I should share a valuable essay from 2009 by Hussein Ibish on the agonizingly cliched yet ubiquitous invocation of the doctrine of Taqiyya by Islamophobes and all manner of ignoramuses these days. Muslims, Islamists, Islamophobes and the doctrine of “taqiyya” | Ibishblog As Wikipedia puts it, paraphrasing the Oxford Enclyclopedia of Islam, “Taqiyya is the Islamic practice of precautionary dissimulation whereby believers may conceal their Muslim faith when under threat,... Read more

As usual I'm announcing it rather late, if you didn't know it's time to recognize the best blogging on or by Muslims in the Seventh Annual Brass Crescent Awards. I'm once again a judge, for better or worse. In addition to the established categories of BEST BLOG BEST WRITER BEST NON-MUSLIM BLOGGER BEST BLOG DESIGN BEST POST OR SERIES BEST FEMALE BLOGGER BEST NEW BLOG BEST GROUP BLOG FUNNIEST BLOGGER BEST MIDDLE EAST/AFRICAN BEST EUROPEAN BEST SOUTH ASIAN BESTASIAN BLOGGERS... Read more

This is random, but then “Random” is my middle name when it comes to blogging–Or is it “Fitful”?—but The New York Times has an interesting report on Western husbands being “imported” into a poor region of Thailand. It appears to be big business. A Thai Region Where Husbands Are Imported – NYTimes.com UDON, THAILAND — The most dazzling creatures Nui Davis saw when she was a child were the village girls who had found foreign husbands, visiting in their Western... Read more

Speaking of honor killings, this news out of India has to be the most fasctinating example of activism I've seen in a long time. The Love Commandos. http://rt.com/Top_News/2010-09-22/india-love-commandos-killings.html?fullstory HT: http://www.stophonourkillings.com Read more

Robert Fisk penned a searing piece last week about the scourge of "honor" killing. I think religion plays a much smaller causative role in this awful problem than I think many Western observers assume is the case–fact is, non-Muslims with comparable cultural hangups about family honor, parental authority and gender do it, as well, as this shocking case involving Sikhs in Canada seems to illustrate–but that doesn't make it any less horrific and obscene. Nor does it explain how many... Read more

A joint statement has been released by a number of North American Muslim artists, bloggers, activists, scholars and leaders speaking out against misguided attempts by Muslims to censor, intimidate and/or harass people critical of Islam. Sheila Musaji, the tireless editor of The American Muslim, came up with the excellent idea and spearheaded it. I'm not listed on the version posted on alt.muslim, but I was a signatory, as well.  It runs as follows: A DEFENSE OF FREE SPEECH BY AMERICAN... Read more

Ah, if only all critiques of War on Terror paranoia were so much fun to read. Mark Steel: That’s right, it was all a Muslim plot – Mark Steel, Commentators – The Independent You might think that a plot to blow up the Pope would be news for a while. Popes don’t get blown up all that often, and this one’s enough of a celebrity that if he fell over drunk at the MTV awards with Kanye West it would... Read more