Indonesia’s largest Muslim group calls for welcoming President Obama and condemns hardline protests.
(Via an emailer.)
Latest Updates: muslims RSS
-
thabet
-
thabet
Germany convicts home-grown militants.
I seriously think the only suitable punishment for such people is that they are parachuted into the middle of a war zone so they can play out their stupid fantasies.
-
thabet
-
thabet
-
arif
MF Husain surrenders his Indian passport.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Husain-surrenders-passport/588546
I would read this highly intellectual interview (dated). Lots of critical points to ponder.
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main37.asp?filename=Ne020208in_hindu_culture.asp
-
thabet
‘500′ are reported to have been killed dead in the latest violence in Jos, Nigeria:
A resident in Plateau State, where the tragedy happened, said he had seen armored vehicles and military trucks arrive in the village along with patrolling troops.
The latest military move came after a Nigerian government official confirmed on Monday that at least 500 had been killed in a communal clash in Jos, which followed the crisis on Jan. 17 in the same region when some youths attacked worshippers at St. Michael’s Anglican Church in Nasawara Gwom.
-
thabet
Yesterday, BBC World aired a debate entitled “Europe is failing its Muslims”. Although the teams on either side of the motion were made up of two people, this debate was basically Tariq Ramadan (arguing for the motion) versus Douglas Murray (arguing against the motion). The debate seems to be available on YouTube.
At one point Murray (whose tag team partner was Flemming Rose) suggested that being European and Muslim wasn’t possible at the same time, and made some blather about European values. It’s a shame no one asked Murray to explain whether these ‘values’ included the use, and covering up of, torture and the fascination with mindless warfare on others to spread your own ‘values’. And perhaps it would have been interested if Rose, who declared himself a believer in ‘universal human rights’, how he felt sitting alongside someone who has spent a lot of time attacking the Human Rights Act.
There were also the usual, and mindless, arguments about how great it was to be a Muslim in Britain compared to, say, Saudi Arabia. Who cares what they do in Saudi?
In the end the audience voted against the motion, although I don’t think this meant people supported Murray. For example, one of the audience members — a former British diplomat to an Arab country who also used to work for the Muslim West Facts Project — also objected to the motion, but noted that his reasons for doing so would probably differ to those being promoted by Murray. I felt that even Rose, who would usually be cast as an anti-Muslim bigot (Zeinab Badawi certainly did her best to constantly remind the audience of his claim to fame), came off better than Murray.
-
thabet
Omid Djalili says he is often cast as “the Arab scumbag” on the big screen, or asked to do Muslim stereotypes.
-
arif
The news is not that he spied, but he became Christian and claims that Palestinians have no hope if they keep holding on to their God. That is pretty incredible.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2010/03/100303_mosab_hassan_yousef.shtml
-
arif
Detroit Institute of Arts showcases the art of Islam in a permanent exhibit
Five years in the making and costing $750,000 US, the 3,350-square-foot gallery on the institute’s first floor includes pieces from the Middle East, the Mediterranean, Central Asia and India that go all the way back to the seventh century AD. Many of the pieces were already in the museum or its archives.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/windsor/story/2010/02/26/detroit-islamic-art.html#ixzz0ggb2Yqq7
-
arif
Have been reading this book lately and just found this after a quick search. Good news if this film is in the making.
Such a film may not be far off. Director Jonathan Demme is reportedly considering a film based on the award-winning book “Zeitoun,” which documents the true story of a Syrian-American man who helped rescue residents of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina but landed in jail when police suspected him of being a terrorist.
-
thabet
Seeing the post below by Arif on Pervez Hoodbhoy, reminded me of this rough-and-ready attempt I made to categorise Muslim approaches to ’science’ (below the fold).
-
thabet
Zia Sardar reviews Christopher Caldwell’s Eurabian fantasies.
-
thabet
I found this on a thread at DeenPort:
“Civil society is the deodorant of kufr.”
It is a ‘contention’ (see #70) by Timothy Winter. Sadly, there wasn’t much of a follow up discussion at DeenPort to the initial posting.
What do readers of Talk Islam make of this? The implications seem quite severe on the face of it, if you follow through on the argument being proposed.
-
arif
You must have heard about this bus driver by now but thought we acknowledge the thoughtful response by the authorities. Different countries would react differently under the same situation (most likely).
——
Transport for London … said all Muslim drivers are being reminded that they should pray during statutory rest periods rather than hold up services.
…
‘We understand that there is some flexibility in the Muslim faith as to the times of day that drivers can pray.‘TfL and the individual bus operating companies acknowledge and value the diversity of their staff.
‘As diverse employers, TfL and the bus operators provide suitable prayer or quiet rooms at garages and other key locations for staff who wish to practise their faith.
‘We have asked London General to remind drivers who have a requirement to pray to use these facilities during their rest periods.’
-
thabet
A German orthodontist refused to serve a teenager named ‘Jihad’:
The doctor in Donaueschingen told local daily Schwarzwälder Bote on Friday that she believed his name was a declaration of war against all non-Muslims and refused to treat him.
-
arif
-excerpts:
..this is not a discussion of Dr Aafia’s guilt or innocence or the morality or justice of her detention. Instead, it is a dissection of the belief held by many Pakistanis and other Muslims that being a Jewish American automatically leads to bias against Muslims in general and Muslim Americans in particular.
–
even as Dr Aafia casts aspersions on the Jewish Americans that may have been present in her jury, it is Jewish Americans who are working at the request of her own brother to monitor the fairness of her trial and the condition of her mental state.Undoubtedly, many questions can be raised about the flawed mechanisms through which Dr Aafia and many others accused of terrorism have been treated by the US authorities.
But this has little to do with being Jewish American. It is a myth that all Jewish Americans are against the two-state solution and to feel strongly against the community obscures Jewish American efforts to stand up for the rights of those detained in Guantanamo and Bagram.
-
thabet
The Infidel is a new comedy written by David Baddiel, and starring Omid Djalili:
Watch a clip at the Graun.
-
arif
The possible cause of ‘hyper-masculinised’ Muslim societies in the troubled lands. A very well written personal account, you might appreciate it more if you have an Asian subcontinent context.
-
thabet
Chris Morris is back, this time with a comedy about four wannabe British ‘jihadis’.
Watch a clip at The Guardian.
Looks like another Morris classic in the making.
-
arif
Another sign of changing times in the Muslim world. The city of Bandung Indonesia clamping down the freedom.
-
aziz
An excellent diary at dkos by an Arab American (non muslim) about collective blame.
-
aziz
Full text of the Liberhan Commission report on Ayodhya: old wounds, best examined.
Here’s an editorial from The Hindu newspaper, and blog commentary from Sepia Mutiny and from indscribe, who notes that a lot of things have changed since then. For the better.
-
plimfix
Remembrance Sunday. Personally, I’m a white poppy person. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) have published Remembering the Brave: The Muslim contribution to Britain’s Armed Forces.
-
mirelle
Today’s yet another day where I want to thrash AP journalists about the ears for malpractice of journalism:
Feds: Leader of radical Islam group killed in raid
But, as it turns out, the feds weren’t raiding over terrorism, but on a much more standard criminal-type complaint:
Agents at a warehouse in Dearborn were trying to arrest Luqman Ameen Abdullah, 53, on charges that included conspiracy to sell stolen goods and illegal possession and sale of firearms. Ten followers listed in a criminal complaint were also being rounded up in the area.
You have to get down to paragraph four before you read this:
No one was charged with terrorism. But Abdullah was “advocating and encouraging his followers to commit violent acts against the United States,” FBI agent Gary Leone said in an affidavit.
Look, if the guy was involved in criminal activities such as trying to sell stolen goods and illegal possession and sale of guns, just state that. There’s no need to add a frisson of “oh noes! he might be an eeeeevil terrrrrrrst” on top of that, especially if no charges are being filed.
-
thabet
A quote by the Bradford Muslim blogger on a subject that has come up before amongst Muslim bloggers in the dim and distant past:
-
thabet
Charles Tripp says the politics needs to be put back into analysis of ‘Islamist politics’ in his review of Gilles Kepel’s Beyond Terror and Martyrdom: The Future of the Middle East and Ali A. Allawi’s The Crisis of Islamic Civilization.
-
thabet
Merve Kavakçı makes an argument which I know Aziz is fond of too:
-
thabet
An interesting argument for why Muslim nations should take up the task of helping Afghanistan:
The solution? Muslim and regional states must fill the void.
Emirati, Jordanian and Turkish troops have been in Afghanistan, though in small numbers and doing very limited roles.
The author, Arif Rafiq, continues to the meat of his argument:
The Organization of the Islamic Conference, the association of more than four dozen Muslim states, should set up an Afghanistan contact group, led by Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. The group would lead a coalition of Muslim states responsible for political reconciliation, peacekeeping, economic development, and governmental capacity building in Afghanistan.
I like the idea of the Organization of the Islamic Conference do something other than bleating about ‘Islamophobia in Europe’, though it is unlikely to happen.
And just as some would like the US to admit to its mistakes in Muslim countries, it would be good if Muslim countries which have a dubious foreign policy of their own could admit to some of their mistakes; especially Pakistan and Saudi Arabia with respect to Afghanistan. Though, again, I wouldn’t advise holding my breath waiting for that to occur.
It’s a nice idea by Rafiq. On paper at least.
-
aziz
Razib looks at a paper about the origins of South Asian muslims.
