This is somewhat old news, but SeekersDigest reports how a Jewish traveller was removed from a plane flying over Canada a few months ago after passengers observed him rocking back in forth in prayer. I’m not sure whether to be appalled by this violation of somebody’s basic rights, or relieved that for once post-9/11 security paranoias are appearing to be applied fairly and without regard to whether the "suspicious" character appears to be a Muslim. I say the latter not... Read more
I’d call this "disturbing news", but it’s actually barely newsworthy to those who pay attention to such matters. A depressing recent study put out by my school, the University of Georgia, reminds us of the many sinister permutations racism and racial preferences continue to take in the real world. The preference for lighter skin tone runs so deep, it appears, that lightskinned Blacks without qualifications are more likely to get hired than far more qualified Black men with dark skin. ... Read more
Since successful blogging seems to depend partly on regularly churning out product for content-hungry visitors and since I as an eco-conscious liberal am a passionate (if often woefully hypocritical) believer in recycling, I’m going to try to start featuring some of the stuff I’ve written elsewhere (whether in print or in the gazillion email lists I’ve been on over the last decade) that I think people might enjoy, find beneficial, or just need to ponder. So here’s a piece on... Read more
Am hurriedly and a bit belatedly slaving away on a paper so I mustn’t tarry in the Blogosphere long, but I figured I’d share a quote that just touched me (and caused me to creepily giggle in the middle of a crowded cafe). From the exquisite collection of letters by the famed Chisti Sufi Sheikh Nizam ad-Din Awliya, Fawa`id al-Fuad ("Morals of the Heart"), as beautifully translated and helpfully annotated by Bruce Lawrence: In this vein the master told a... Read more
One topic that is dear to my heart but which hasn’t come up much on this blog is, to use that misnomer and euphemism, Globalization. I term it a misnomer because the world is if anything becoming less "international"–one-way cultural exchange is a contradiction in terms, and that’s mostly what happens today–and less cosmopolitan under this baleful process thanks to the relentless drive to homogenize the world in the image of Western and especially American upper-middle class WASP sensibilities. Euphemistic... Read more
Time to cast your vote for the alt.muslim and City of Brass‘s 2006 Brass Crescent Awards. Time’s running out, so hop to it, beoble. Unlike last year, this time around my blog didn’t make the cut, so this plug is a fairly disinterested one. Given how dormant Akram’s Razor has been for much of the last year, I’m not surprised (or troubled) in the slightest by my omission. But don’t count me completely. They might come up with a new... Read more
Lao Tzu understood patriotism and honor: A great nation is like a great man: When he makes a mistake, he realizes it. Having realized it, he admits it.Having admitted it, he corrects it.He considers those who point out his faults as his most benevolent teachers. (Tao Te Ching, 66) Another profound proverb to ponder as zealots in Washington call for another unnecessary war: He [the decent man] enters a battle gravely, with sorrow and with great compassion, as if he... Read more
L’affaire Tariq Ramadan lives on. [HT: American Leftist]. Why I’m Banned in the USA – washingtonpost.com I am increasingly convinced that the Bush administration has barred me for a much simpler reason: It doesn’t care for my political views. In recent years, I have publicly criticized U.S. policy in the Middle East, the war in Iraq, the use of torture, secret CIA prisons and other government actions that undermine fundamental civil liberties. And for many years, through my research and... Read more
Raihana’s been breaking my heart. Chewing it up, spitting it up, and then stomping on it. How, you ask? She tugs Shabana over to her by the hair, throws her little arms around her head, and devours Shabana with kisses. She clamps her mouth over Shabana’s lower lip like a lamprey and cackles with glee. Needless to say, I get a bit jealous at the sight of these rapturous embraces. Yet when I approach seeking the merest peck from my... Read more
Am writing a brief reaction paper to the chapter in Daniel Pals’ (highly recommended) Eight Theories of Religion on the pioneer anthropologist E.E. Evans-Pritchard, best known for his magisterial and seminal work Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande. Don’t have time to comment in depth, but I thought I’d share a few observations concerning how accounts of the sloppy and dehumanizing theorizing about "primitive" peoples of the 19th century have a uncannily familiar ring today for Muslims living in... Read more
Akram's Razor
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