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  johnpi 11:58 am on November 6, 2009 | 39 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: American Muslim leaders (10), American Muslims (71), associating with Muslims (2), campus Muslims (2), conservative Muslims, gay muslims (11), mosque control (3), mosque leadership (3), mosques (38), muslim american (20), muslim american extremism (25), Muslim converts (7), Muslim dissidents (2), Muslim families (3), Muslim family life (3), muslim fanatics (18), Muslim feminists (6), Muslim Identity (2), Muslim Leaders, Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow (2), muslim liberals (7), Muslim Schools (8), Muslim unity (2), Muslim women (80), Muslim World (13), muslims condemn (3), Muslims in America (36), Muslims in Politics (5), peace activist Muslims (3), progressive muslims (6), western muslims (8)

  Interesting conversation I was having with another moderate Muslim.

  Her point: Mainstream/moderate American Muslims deserve the suspicion of our fellow Americans for having allowed this thing to grow among us that resulted in the violence at Fort Hood and other recent expressions of extremism, for shrinking back from mosque boards and private school committees when those of the puritanical strain among us take them over, for allowing ourselves to be put on the spot at mosque functions and social events instead of turning it around and not putting them on the spot.

  Agree or disagree?

   

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  johnpi 4:22 pm on October 22, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: 'veiling' (31), clothes (3), clothing (17), conservative Muslims, drugs (5), indonesia (54), iran (366), Muslim drug abuse (3), veil (40)

  Veiled Iranian women caught smuggling over $12 million worth of methamphetamines at Indonesian airport.

  A group of 10 alleged Iranian drug smugglers, including eight veiled women, were caught with $12.5 million worth of methamphetamines at Indonesia’s main airport, the customs chief said Wednesday.
  ….

  Indonesian authorities have never seen veiled women used as drug runners, he said. The drugs, wrapped in plastic food containers and cleaning fluid bottles, were packed into hand luggage. But the oddly-shaped packages were picked out by officers operating scanners.

  “We believe they are part of an international syndicate,” he said. By wearing conservative Islamic clothing the women tried to “fool officers in a country like Indonesia, where women in black veils are generally considered to be good women.”

   
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  johnpi 7:11 pm on September 23, 2009 | 5 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: conservative Muslims, fun (2), indonesia (54), Islamists (47), Malaysia (99)

  In defense of fun against the Islamist sourpusses…

  As a child in Malaysia I recall celebrating the end of Ramadan with fireworks, oil lamps, music and a jolly dose of cake-eating, which kids are wont to do. Ramadan and Eid were fun then, during those days in the 60s and 70s when the entire month of Ramadan was spent cleaning the oil lamps, filling them with kerosene, lighting them up every evening, buying (and hoarding) fireworks and having firework fights with my neighbours. Things however began to change as soon as the tone and tenor of normative Islam in Malaysia took a turn for the political and the Mullah-wannabes began to preach from the pulpit about the evils of fun and happiness.

  By the 1980s, as Malaysia went into full swing in the spirit of an Islamisation programme that witnessed little fun but rather the rise of more and more conservative types in mosques and the Parliament, the element of fun was slowly but surely stamped out. We were told that music was haram, that the oil lamps were Hindu, that the fireworks were decadent and corrupt. Tell that to a seven-year old and you kill his love for fun for the rest of his life.

  As a researcher working on comparative religious politics across the Muslim world, I have witnessed the massacre of fun from Pakistan to the Magreb, from Malaysia to Brunei. Which is why Indonesia is such a startling place for me, as it seems to be one of the few places in the Muslim world today where Muslims can actually be happy and have fun, despite the difficulties – both economic and political – that the country faces.

   
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  johnpi 6:07 am on August 8, 2009 | 6 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: conservative Muslims, Extremism (167), moderates (6), Muslim Reformation (2), Progressive Islam (13)

  An article on reformist opposition to religious conservatism and extremism that alleges that such behavior devolves into an infringement on First Amendment rights has been posted at AltMuslim and City of Brass:

  Such reformist approaches, in their quest for progress or even human rights, fail to recognize the effects of their actions on their co-religionist’s fundamental right to free religious expression. It is an infringement of free speech and free exercise rights when mosque leaders and sermon-givers do not voice their conservative views because of their fear of being equated with violent extremists by government authorities.

  The author criticizes Nomani for providing no evidence of a link between conservatism and extremism, and yet provides no evidence herself for the assertion that there is a link between ‘reformist approaches’ and police persecution, or fear of police persecution.

  This could be a new twist (and a very American one with its appeal to constitutional rights) on an old effort to suppress reform-minded Muslims. While I don’t believe Nomani holds ‘the’ answer, I believe she and her fellow travelers are part of it. Here are some words from a rabbi who is working against conservatives and extremists in her own community on behalf of Palestinian human rights:

  Resistance is sometimes rowdy. Naturally, the side of privilege and status quo demand politeness from resisters in order to maintain decorum. Well, politeness isn’t always the best way to go in a situation where you have never been given a voice in the first place. While I am a proponent of compassionate listening, I learned from people of color that interrupting the language of hatred and racism also has a place.

  Interrupting the language of hatred and racism also has a place.

   
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  johnpi 1:13 pm on July 29, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Boyd (7), conservative Muslims, extremists (14), Terrorism (399), terrorism investigation (6)

  ‘No good Muslim would allow himself to be photographed or allow his photo to be published on the Internet.’

  More reports about the Boyd family’s religiosity, from the Washington Post (this includes other Muslims in the Raleigh community contradicting the family spokesperson yesterday who claimed the family had not broken with the local mosque and started holding Friday prayers in their own home):

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  johnpi 5:18 pm on July 22, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: adultery (7), conservative Muslims, flogging, Maldives (5), Wahhabis (9), wahhabism (14)

  150 Maldivian adulteresses to be flogged (50 men too).

  In the Maldives, an island nation made up of more than 1200 atolls, the issue of flogging has become a political battleground following the whipping of the teenager earlier this month outside a government building in the capital, Male. Reports said that the women required hospital treatment after she was flogged in front of a jeering crowd of men.

  Since then there have been a number of demonstrations in favour of flogging and several articles published defending its use. Since the case was publicised there have been a number of demonstrations in support of flogging, some calling for the deportation of a British journalist, Maryam Omidi, who published reports of the incident in the local Minivan News. “It’s hard to tell whether this is indicative of a wider feeling, because people are afraid to speak out,” Omidi said. “But I had people calling me up to offer their support.”

  And there’s this:

  Reports suggest that in recent years, many mosques in the Maldives have fallen under the influence of foreign, conservative imams. The previous president, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who had been Asia’s longest-serving ruler and who positioned himself as the country’s “defender of Islam”, had sought to use the religion to bolster his dwindling. The government in turn said that more conservative forms of the religion had been able to spread as restrictions on freedom of expression were lifted.

  Tagging this ‘Wahhabi’ because I gather from reports its that set of teachings that is ‘taking over’ in the Maldives.

   
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  johnpi 9:39 pm on April 12, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Bedouins, conservative Muslims, cultural conservatives (2), Honor Killings (13), jordan (13), Muslim-on-Muslim violence (76)

  A Jordanian man confessed to stabbing to death his sister who was five months pregnant. “Police familiar with the case said the woman had moved back in with her family after an argument with her husband six months earlier. The brother believed that she had then started seeing other men.”

  One revealing observation about this story is how frequently the word “conservative” appears in it:

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