New anti-Obama book on the horizon.
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thabet
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thabet
Denise Spellberg, the academic at the centre of the Jewel of Madina controversy, responds to Asra Nomani’s article “You Still Can’t Write About Muhammad” (covered by Shahed, who was also mentioned in Nomani’s WSJ article).
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aasem
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shahed
No good deed goes unpunished. I believe in free speech, which means that people have the right to publish whatever they want about Islam and Muslims without fear of censorship and/or violence, but also that Muslims have the right (and responsibility) to comment vigorously on any writings about them or Islam, so long as they do not resort to the aforementioned censorship and/or violence.
It was in that spirit that I forwarded an inquiry regarding the book “Jewel of Medina” on a private email list. Unfortunately, nothing is private these days, and the mail got circulated around various lists until it reached the publisher, who promptly pulled the book. You can read all about it here at the Wall Street Journal. As was the case with “The Satanic Verses” and the Danish cartoons, the best Muslim response is civil speech in return, and that should have been the case for this book.
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aziz
I’ve signed up for an account on GoodReads. join me!
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thabet
Matthew Hogan reviews Crush the Cell: How to Defeat Terrorism Without Terrorizing Ourselves at ‘Aqoul.
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muse
How many of you underline or otherwise mark-up the books you read? I just got a nice fresh batch of books and I dread marking them up, though I’m sure I won’t be able to help myself as I read them. Also, there’s always something intriguing about buying used books and reading other people’s thoughts written in the margins.
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willow
So I’m reading Lawrence Durrell’s orientalist masterwork The Alexandria Quartet, which, if you haven’t read it, is excellent. Durrell is certainly guilty of a few of Said’s more serious pet peeves–under much discussion, as we’ve seen, now that Orientalism is entering its fourth decade–but overall the picture he paints is complex and thoughtful. (He focuses on Coptic rather than Muslim culture, it should be noted, and has a very astute handle on how the British complicated the relationship between the two.)
When I read, I dog-ear pages that I think contain really amazing phrases/insights. This was one I ran across today:
“To have a grasp of the language was nothing, he now realized; for Leila exposed the hollowness of the knowledge when pitted against understanding.”
My take: so, so true. A concise summary of what fells most western expats/travelers in the Middle East: you arrive thinking you know something, discover you know nothing, and retreat into racism because it’s the only thing you have in your intellectual arsenal that makes sense.
Thoughts?
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aziz
I just finished The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. So many people have said that this book renews your faith in the human spirit, makes you believe in redemption, lifts your soul… but the only thing I feel is anger.
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thabet
Patrick Cockburn’s Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq is reviewed at The New Republic.
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thabet
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thabet
Filippo de Vivo asks us to rethink the emergence of ‘information’ in Venice and its impact on politics.
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thabet
Colin Burrow reviews The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie.
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thabet
Ahmed Rashid, author of the popular Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, has a new book out this month: Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.
Ali Eteraz has reviewed Descent into Chaos for Jewcy.com.
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thabet
Just another reason why I think France is a failed society and racist to the core:
[Faïza] Guène should have a charmed life, a famous Frenchwoman who embodies her country’s cultural mix. But discrimination in France is so widespread, that even she - a star writer and currently one of the country’s biggest literary exports - is plagued by it. Last year, Guène married in a religious ceremony and the couple looked for a flat to rent near her parents in Pantin. Her husband is black and was born in Ivory Coast. “When people said estate agents were racist, I always told them to stop exaggerating. Then it hit me in the face. Just walking into an estate agent’s office was a nightmare,” she says. She found herself telling her husband to stay at home while she went alone - being north African and having slightly lighter skintone would be “less bad”, she reasoned. When she made bookings to see flats over the phone, the name Mademoiselle Guène didn’t sound “too north African”. But when she arrived at appointments and they saw her, she was not allowed to see the flats. Seven months later, they still had no home. “I’d seen an apartment I liked but heard nothing. Then one of the women from the estate agents’ called and whispered: ‘Look I live with a Moroccan guy, I know it’s not easy. The boss is away. Come in and sign the contract, so at least when she gets back there’s nothing she can do about it.’ I felt like I was stealing it; that it wasn’t legitimate; that I’d got in through a trap door.”
(Via Mr Moo.)
Remember, this is a country that unable to acknowledge its own sordid past:
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thabet
In December, Angry Arab reviewed Michael Oren’s Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present. More recently, As’ad says he received an email from someone working for a senator regarding the book and AIPAC.
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thabet
Charles Kurzman is the latest to review Abdullahi An-Na’im’s Islam and the Secular State: Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari’a.
Apparently, An-Na’im’s book is available online (via AE).
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razib
i’m reading the post-american world. i will amend my earlier complaint about fareed talking about how chinese and indians don’t believe in god; he cites a 2007 pew survey which shows that the majority of chinese & japanese don’t believe that one needs to believe in god to be moral, and that the majority of americans do. that’s his one quantitative point. he has some later qualitiative arguments and points which i think are more subtle than come across in his exposition in interviews, even if they need further teasing apart than is possible in a book of this nature….
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muse
What do we think of Ziauddin Sardar? I’m immensely enjoying his Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim book.
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aziz
I’ve long been fascinated by depictions of Islam in science fiction. Notable examples are the religion of Buddislam in the Dune series and the prayer circle in the movie Pitch Black. I’ve also noted many references to Islam or muslim characters in passing as I’ve read science fiction short stories over the years. Now there’s a solid reference of Islam in SF available that compiles references to Islam in SF literature by non-muslim writers, as well as scifi written by muslims. Islam has ranged from the “safe other” upon which to project fear, to more sympathetic portrayals - the latter more so in evidence since 9-11.
(Via io9)
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thabet
“Western civ”: an American war baby
In both its remote and immediate origins, “Western civ” was a war baby. The first such course was instituted at Columbia immediately after World War I, as a continuation of the “war issues” course offered during hostilities. It defined the traditions of the West as those for which the Allies had fought against the Hun. The course had few imitators between the wars, but after World War II it became the most widely taught history course on American campuses. Courses of this type were strongly urged by the influential report of Havard’s General Education Committee in 1945, whose principal concerns, according to a sympathetic commentator, were “‘why we fight’, the principles of a free society, the need to provide a consistent image of the American experience, the definition of democracy in a world of totalitarianism, the efforts to fortify the heritage of Western civilization, and the need to provide a ‘common learning’ for all Americans as a foundation of national unity.
- Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession
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aziz
If you’ve read The Life of Pi, then chime in on comments as to your theory about the ending. If not, stay the heck out of this thread!
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muse
US News compares and contrasts Noah Feldman Rise and Fall of the Islamic State and Abduallah An-Naim’s Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Sharia.
Feldman talks about his book on Colbert Report yesterday. Hilarity ensues.
“See me shake, sheikh?”
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thabet
Aasem Bakhshi reviews Talal Asad’s On Suicide Bombing.
If you have not read OSB, read Asad’s essay Thinking about “Just War”.
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aziz
Where is Alaa al Aswany writing from?
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thabet
Angry Arab says Noah Feldman’s new book, The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, is seriously flawed.
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razib
books on early islam of note:
When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam’s Greatest Dynasty
The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In -
thabet
Despite the many obstacles it faces - censorship, a lack of translations, exile - Arabic literature has never been more vital.
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aziz
What are the ten essential books (fiction) that belong on every western muslim’s bookshelf?
I’ll start: Snow by Orhan Pamuk.
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thabet
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