Talk Islam

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  • 04:23:34 pm on July 23, 2008 | 6 | # |
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    Saudi women aren’t allowed to drive - but horses are ok. The story of how Sumaya learned to ride is fascinating, and inspiring - especially when you see how she solved the problem of what to wear.

     
  • 01:01:31 pm on July 23, 2008 | 3 | # |
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    speaking of emergent Islam:

    Momentum is building within the Muslim world to re-examine what had seemed immutable tenets of the faith, to challenge what had been taken as literal truths and to open wide the doors of interpretation (ijtihad) that some schools of Islam tried to close centuries ago.

    great must-read article, including more discussion of the Turkish project to re-evaluate the hadith corpus.

     
  • 10:25:01 am on July 23, 2008 | 8 | # |
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    Our own Andrea has an op-ed in Newsweek, about Emergent Islam:

    I long for a Muslim environment that is spiritually fresher, deeper, and untainted by a Saudi-style conservatism or bitterness over the war on terror.

    read the whole thing!

     
  • 07:04:12 am on July 22, 2008 | 28 | # |
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    Michael Totten talks about his experiences in Kosovo, perhaps the most truly liberal muslim country in the world. What struck me however was the repeated statements by various kosovars he interviewed, to the effect that they self-identify as “muslim” but also insist that religion is not the basis of their identity. I While I admire the way the Kosovars have crafted a free society, I can’t help but be curious about what their perception of Islam actually is. Is this “cultural Islam” made manifest?

    perhaps the word Islamic can be used in a similar fashion to the old Woody Allen joke: “I’m not a Jew, I’m Jew-ish”

     
  • 02:39:47 pm on July 21, 2008 | 3 | # |
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    A bizarre suggestion: that Obama should go to Mecca. Since he’s not muslim, I repeat, since he IS NOT MUSLIM, going to Mecca is a moot point anyway. But suppose he actually were for some reason allowed to go. Wouldn’t this cement the “Obama = muslim” meme forever?

    (via Larison)

     
  • 12:52:16 pm on July 21, 2008 | 6 | # |
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    Obama’s campaign will create a “muslim liason” position, though whether this role will be to actually address muslim-american concerns or just feel our pain is yet to be determined.

     
  • 10:06:19 am on July 21, 2008 | 0 | # |
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    Rahmatullah Naikzad, an AP photographer in Afghanistan, took a snuff film of the Taliban executing two women. The evidence is pretty solid against him for violation of the AP’s own ethical code of conduct:

    AP employees must avoid behavior or activities - political, social or financial - that create a conflict of interest or compromise our ability to report the news fairly and accurately, uninfluenced by any person or action.

    Editorial employees are expected to be scrupulous in avoiding any political activity, whether they cover politics regularly or not. They may not run for political office or accept political appointment; nor may they perform public relations work for politicians or their groups.

     
  • 12:30:15 pm on July 18, 2008 | 5 | # |
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    Friday open thread (aka jummah jamaat for the lingo-inclined)

     
  • 01:28:15 pm on July 17, 2008 | 16 | # |
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    Thursday thread topic: Do pharmacists have a right to refuse to dispense medication on moral grounds?

    I addressed this topic a few years ago, arguing that pharmacists do have such a right, as long as they do not violate their professional ethics (wihch demand that the patient not be denied care deemed medically necessary by a doctor).

    However, given that a large fraction of the american muslim community are both 1. socially conservative and 2. health professionals, I think this is a salient issue worth revisiting.

     
  • 03:39:00 am on July 17, 2008 | 5 | # |
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    Remember that old joke, where three mullahs are sitting outside when a beautiful woman glides past? Mullah 1: “alhamdolillah”. Mullah 2: “astagfirullah”. Mullah 3: “inshallah”.

    I immediately thought of that joke when I saw this:

    inshallah

    click to ahem, enlarge.

    (via Ali Eteraz. who else?)

     
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