amexem

Amexem Times and Seasons is an ecclectic collection of articles, mainly on proto-Islamic and early Islamic activities in the United States.

religion in science fiction

Arab and Islamic themes in Dune
my Dune-related comments
Can The World of Star Trek Help Americans Understand Muslims and their Culture of Terror? (from a parody site)
Religion in Star Trek

klingon language

The most extreme example I know of a fictional cultural element taking on a life of its own is the Klingon language. It was made up for a movie so that the aliens could have a more realistic feel to their lines and now people actually speak it in their daily life. You can take classes in it. Shakespeare and Gilgamesh have been translated into it. (I've heard some folks are working on the Bible).

islam and science fiction

Yes, I'm a big geek. Here is a page I recently found on the connection between Islam and Science Fiction called: von Aurum's Islam in Sci-fi

And some obligatory past entries:
star wars: an islamic perspective
a coincidence you think this is?
so i finally saw it
only human

arab and african culture

From IPOAA: Arab Culture and African Culture: ambiguous relations by Prof. Helmi Sharawy

(This paper is extracted from the book 'The Dialogue between the Arab culture and other cultures', published in Tunis in 1999 by the Arab League, Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation)

is racial prejudice on the rise in egypt?

From IPOAA: A Question of Colour: Is Racial Prejudice on the Rise in Egypt, or are Egyptians Merely Obsessed with Skin Colour? by Gamal Nkrumah

ipoaa: precolumbian muslims

Since I started Grenada, I've probably post a couple of slightly different pieces on this subject. This one is from the IPOAA (Indigenous People of Africa and America) Magazine: Precolumbian Muslims in the Americas by Dr. Youssef Mroueh

whiteness and other lies

From The Black Commentator: "Whiteness" and Other Lies: An interview with David Roediger deconstructs the concept of whiteness and points out how it is not as "natural" as some people assume.

"if money is the root i want the whole damn tree"

For some reason I've been thinking about the issue of Islamic economics and happened to stumble across a couple of recent articles on some recent events in modern-day Islamic finance.

Black Electorate: Answering to a Higher Authority by Ahmed Namatalla is on the growth of the Islamic banking sector.

This article is about a recent gathering of the World Islamic Banking Conference in Bahrain with over 500 participants from 31 countries.

And finally, On The Prohibition of Riba (Interest) and its Implications for Optimum Economic Performance by A. S. Mika'ilu is a discussion of some of the theoretical economic principles behind an interest-free economy.

white muslims

By some strange coincidence, two of my favorite bloggers have recently written posts on the experiences of white Muslims

From Umar's blog is the very comprehensive and aptly named entry: The White Muslim and from Sunni Sister (Umm Zaid) is the more specific, but no less interesting or relevant: Marriage & The White Skinned Convert

Grenada's Past:
so white they named white people after them
white muslims and moorish science

islam in latin america

The Murabitun have come up on Grenada before, mainly in the entries islam and mexico and laughing lions as well as several of the links in my link section. Here is a more recent piece which mentions the activities of the Murabitun and other Muslims in Latin America.

Islam in Latin America

Latin America is home to a sizeable and diverse Muslim population with deep roots throughout the region. Most Muslims are of Arab descent, typically of Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian origin, although Christian Arabs from the Levant far outnumber their Muslim kin. There are also sizeable South and Southeast Asian Muslim communities with roots in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Indonesia in Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and elsewhere in the Caribbean Basin. The region is also experiencing a steady stream of migration from the Middle East and South Asia in recent years, especially in vibrant free-trade zones such as Iquique, Chile and Colon, Panama.

As a result of intermarriage and conversion, Islam is becoming one of the fastest growing religions in Latin America. There is evidence to suggest that Muslim missionaries based in Spain and their regional affiliates are making inroads into disenfranchised and underserved indigenous communities that were once the target of evangelical Christian sects for conversion [6]. The competition between Muslim and Christian missionaries for prospective converts has even led to confrontation and violent clashes in the Mexican state of Chiapas.

Spain’s al-Murabitun (The Almoravids, after the African Muslim dynasty that ruled North Africa and Spain in 11th and 12th century) is believed to be the most prolific missionary movement operating in Latin America [7]. The group is an international Sufi order founded in the 1970s by Sheikh Abdel Qader as-Sufi al-Murabit, a controversial Scottish Muslim convert born Ian Dallas. Although no hard evidence has surfaced tying the group to international terrorism, let alone al-Qaeda, Dallas has been accused of harboring extremist leanings. Aurelino Perez heads the Murabitun’s campaign in Chiapas, where he competes with Omar Weston, a British-born Muslim convert who resides in Mexico City and heads the Centro Cultural Islamico de Mexico (CCIM), for adherents in Chiapas and the rest of Mexico. Known locally as Muhammed Nafia, Perez is a Spanish convert to Islam who hails from the southern Spanish city of Granada in Andalusia.

The Murabitun’s ambitious efforts to gain adherents in Mexico include an unsuccessful attempt to forge an alliance with Subcommandante Marcos and his Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), following the group’s armed rebellion in Chiapas in 1994 [8]. The Murabitun are comprised predominantly of Spanish and European converts to Islam. There are also reports that Muslim missionaries are finding adherents among indigenous peoples in Bolivia and elsewhere in Latin America [9].

In an effort to win over converts in Latin America, the Murabtiun emphasize the cultural links between the Arab world and Latin America through Spain’s Moorish heritage. In doing so, the Murabitun and like-minded movements advocate a collective reversion to Islam, which in their view signifies a return to the region’s true heritage, as opposed to what many see as conversion to the Muslim faith. In this sense, Islam not only represents an alternative to the colonial traditions imposed on the indigenous and mestizo peoples of Latin America, namely the Roman Catholic Church, but is also a nativist tradition that has been suppressed. The Murabitun also claim that Islam is not tainted by European and Western colonialism and imperialism, but instead serves as a remedy for the oppression and destruction brought about by the Spanish conquest.

Given al-Qaeda’s documented successes in recruiting Muslim converts in Europe and the U.S. to its cause, many observers worry that Muslim converts in Latin America provide fertile ground for new recruits due to their perceived ability to circumvent travel restrictions and blend into Western cities more effectively.

There is no evidence to suggest that the recent trend toward conversion to Islam in Latin America stems from a turn to political and religious radicalism. On the contrary, most Muslim converts see Islam as a vehicle for reasserting their identity. They also see conversion as a form of social and political protest in societies where they are marginalized and experience discrimination [10]. In this context, it is no surprise that groups such as the Murabitun, with their message of social, political, and cultural empowerment, are making inroads into disenfranchised and impoverished indigenous communities. The group also supports local education, social welfare, and other projects that include Arabic language instruction and the publication of the Qur’an in Spanish and other local languages.


From, Radical Islam in Latin America by Chris Zambelis

here is not like there

"What happened in France would never happen here, not because the United States is less racist, but because the class and demography of the Muslim community here bear almost no resemblance to its counterpart in Europe." -Ali Moossavi

Detroit Free Press: Metro Detroit Arabs don't feel France's alienation
NewAmericaMedia.org: American Muslims Not Like Those of France

The above two pieces are careful to distinguish the Muslim community in America from the rioting Muslims in France. To me it is pretty clear that they are motivated by a desire to reassure the American public that "we're okay" but that doesn't make the claims any less factual. Objectively, the demographics of the Muslim populations on each side of the Atlantic are rather different. In the United States, much of the Muslim population is highly educated; lawyers, engineers, doctors, etc. Many have grown up in the US, or have traveled here from abroad in search of training, education, or good jobs.

In Europe, the Muslim population is generally less educated, and less affluent than their counterparts in the US. They play a much different role in the European economy. In fact, I had a conversation with some Germans about a year ago and when they got around to discussing the Muslim (in this case, mostly people from Turkey and also some North Africans) I was struck by how much their stereotypes were reminiscent of those attributed to Mexicans and African-Americans in the US.

So the riots are pretty clearly not the result of religion or a clash-of-civilizations. In this case race and class are more salient.

are muslims a race?

The Production of the Muslim Race by Nassim Mobasher is an excellent piece, also from Hot Coals, on how Orientalism "racializes" Muslims.

Books such as The Arab Mind authored by anthropologist Raphael Patai, and used by the Pentagon as a comprehensive source of information about Arabs/Muslims, depict ‘Muslimness’ as an ontological and inescapable way of existing. In the logic of orientalists like Patai (and the neo-conservatives who read his book ‘like a bible’ ), ‘Islam the culture’ is passed on and inherited, from generation to generation, impervious to change and essentially inferior. This racial conception of culture, codified in pseudo-biological terms, produces the ‘Muslim’ as a racial category.

Once "Muslim" becomes a "race", you can then go on to make sweeping generalizations about Muslims as a whole regardless of class, culture, education, or even level of observance. The move also tends to justify profiling as well as the oxymoronic construction of "secular Muslim".

"pretty sneaky, Sis"

willie perdomo online

From Norton Poets Online: Willie Perdomo, one of the first writers to even give me a hint that a space like "Grenada" existed.

third resurrection blog

Okay, to all those who want to participate in Third Resurrection (or whatever this Blackamerican Muslim group blog will end up being called), could you e-mail me at abdul.halim2005@gmail.com. I have ideas but would prefer to get input and have a discussion before just diving in.

islam and the black american: still reading...

So this is a continuation of: islam and the blackamerican: finally reading it. As I'm getting more into the book I'm starting to feel that it would be too hard to summarize what I'm reading and do it justice. So I'll just pull out one nugget which seems worth pointing out, especially in the light of the recent events in Oakland.

In most religious conversations, debates and discussions in which I find myself, I often take the position of holding up an idealized Islam which contrasts with the various imperfect practices, vices, flaws and scandals which exist in the Muslim world. And so any flaws are attributed to culture, economic conditions, educational levels, political manipulation, lingering effects of colonialism, neo-colonialism and globalization, etc. Islam is perfect, but its implementation is always a work in progress.

Many Muslims make the extra step of identifying an idealized universal Islam with the particular understanding of Islam which they have from "back home" in Muslim countries, and this becomes the scale against which Islam in America is measured. (And of course, the American understanding of Islam will necessarily be found wanting. I've even heard the comment from one person: "There is no Islam in America, just good intentions"). But as Jackson points out, this way of thinking fundamentally sets up immigrant Muslims from "over there" (even medical doctors and engineers) as religious authority figures while it disadvantages American Muslims (no matter how well-read). Ethnicity and immigrant status can effectively become a proxy for religious learning.

Jackson goes on to suggest that instead of speaking of a single universal Islam, it makes more sense to think in terms of multiple culturally and historically conditioned Islams. More specifically, just as one can speak of Black Religion which is born out of Blackamerican history one can also speak of Post-Colonial Religion which comes out of the formerly colonized developing world's experiences with the West. And where Black Religion has been a liberating force and a form of resistance to domination, according to Jackson, Post-Colonial Religion "seeks first and foremost to reverse the sociocultural and psychological influences of the West, either by seizing political power as a means of redirecting society or through and ideological rejection of all perceived influences of the West." And so immigrant Islam isn't more pure or more universal, it is just conditioned by a different set of circumstances.

(to be continued...)

the pre-columbian presence of muslim africans

From Hot Coals (a new blog I found about recently and I'm getting into): THE PRE-COLUMBIAN PRESENCE OF MUSLIM AFRICANS IN AMERICA IS NO MYTH! by Imām Al-Hājj Tālib ‘Abdur-Rashīd. It is an interesting contribution to an ongoing historical debate about what was going on this side of the pond before Columbus.

vamos a rapiar: latinos and hip-hop

From a blog called The Fallout Shelter: Vamos A Rapiar: Latinos and Hip-Hop Music A survey of the contribution of Latinos to the genre along with interesting discussions of the line(s) and connections between black, white and Latino identity.

more hispanics turning to islam

From NewAmericaMedia.org courtesy of Hispanicon:
El Diario/La Prensa, Nov 29, 2005
NEW YORK, New York -- Islam, the religion with the most followers after Christianity, is growing rapidly in the United States – and the majority of new followers are minorities, especially Hispanics, according to New York’s El Diario/La Prensa. In 1997 the American Muslim Council counted approximately 40,000 Hispanic Muslims. Recent studies estimate there are 75,000 followers most of them in big cities like New York and Miami.According to Juan Galván, vicepresident of the Latin American Dawah Organization and Census Bureau, the majority of Hispanics practicing Islam in the New York metropolitan area are Puerto Rican and Dominican.

the green party supports divestment

Press Release: The Green Party calls for divestment from the state of Israel.