wow, missionaries have no shame

 

angela davis statement of solidarity with palestine, gaza and sheikh jarrah

"if the camel once gets his nose in the tent, his body will soon follow."

For a while I've been aware that Christian missionaries have targeted Jews and have put in great effort towards presenting "the gospel" in a way which is targeted towards disarming Jews by making the Christian message seem more "Jewish". (Using Hebrew, emphasizing cultural practices like yarmulkes, Hanukah, Passover, keeping kosher, etc.) Jews for Jesus is well known for this.

More recently, I've become more aware of Christian attempts to engage in similar strategies against Muslims.

A while back I started hearing about "Muslim friendly" translations of the Bible which would avoid using terms like "Father" or "Son of God".

But now, missionaries are engaging in something called The Camel Method. The method involves selectively emphasizing all of the positive things the Quran has to say about Jesus (as), the Injeel, the Torah, Christianity, Judaism and the Biblical prophets (while ignoring all of the negative and critical things the Quran has to say about the mistakes of Christians and Jews) and somehow leveraging that in an attempt to lead Muslims to becoming Christian.

The term CAMEL is ostensibly an acronym which stands for Chosen (Mary was chosen by God for a special purpose), Announced by angels, Miracles (Jesus’ power is revealed in his miracles), and Eternal Life (Jesus is and knows the way to heaven). It is also supposedly a reference to a so-called Islamic parable about how only the camel knows the secret 100th name of Allah. Both explanations seem implausible to me. And I can't help thinking about a different Arab parable warning against letting a camel get its nose in your tent.

For a while now, I've witnessed a number of odd interactions online with a particular Christian missionary who seems to come from a Seventh Day Adventist background, but has started to adopt all sorts of "Muslim" mannerisms, even to the point of claiming to be Muslim at times (but denying it at other times), going to the masjid, claiming to believe in Muhammad (saaws) and the Quran, all with the intention of doing Christian missionary work.

When I first encountered him I was intrigued. He seemed like he was on a sincere and principled personal religious exploration, trying to read the Bible and the Quran, while trying to reconcile both. He made me think of people in a "grey area" between Islam and Christianity whom I've looked at before:

episcopal priest tries islamic rituals for lent

"i am both muslim and christian" (part 3)

"i am both muslim and christian" (part 2)

"i am both muslim and christian" (part 1)

He also seemed very different from the Perenialists (like James Cutsinger), Integral Thinkers, Bahais, Universal Sufis, Theosophists, inclusivists (like Hans Kung for instance) or assorted syncretists whom I've had at least some exposure to and who give some mixture of acknowledgement to both Christianity and Islam.

But then the more I listened to him, the more I realized that he didn't seem to take the Quran or Islam seriously (For example, he argues that neither fasting in the month of Ramadan nor making salat facing the Kaaba nor Hajj is obligatory. He actually was even willing to give some credence to the whole The original qiblah was Petra nonsense which seems to be going around in evangelical Islamophobe circles). He didn't want to admit that any new binding commandments could come through Muhammad (saaws) and didn't accept Muhammad as a new messenger to humanity. Instead he seems to imagine that Muhammad was basically some sort of Torah-observant Christian pastor who was just sent to the Arabs. He wasn't "exploring" and "learning" as much as blatantly coopting and distorting.

Inshallah, I'll unpack more of my thoughts over time.

The Camel Method Training Manual

NY Times: On The Camel Method

Doug Coleman's Review of The Camel

resurrection?

 I realize I haven't been posting with any kind of regularity. InshaAllah, I'll try to change that up, at least a little. Especially with COVID lockdowns, police shootings, now trouble in Palestine and other more personal stuff I'm way too stuck in my own head. I need some kind of healthy self-expression. And Facebook has been getting toxic and addictive lately. 

I have some novel / novella / graphic novel ideas I want to work on. Also I've been too caught up in religious arguments on other people's pages lately.  I feel like I might benefit from just putting together my own thoughts on my own terms and sharing them. Even if it is only to get them out and let them go.

i want you back - sabrina ali jamal-eddine

I just saw this amazing spoken word artist at a tiny local open mike.

the exegesis of philip k dick

The Exegesis of Philip K Dick

blackface in miami

I heard this on the radio today while driving... I was tempted to call-in but now I realize it wasn't a live show. WLRN: Afro-Latinos Say Miami Blackface Play Is Part Of Bigger Problem With Racism In Latino Communities The point about invisibility was really interesting to me. When I first moved to Miami I wanted to do a study on whether people(cashiers mostly) spoke to me in Spanish when they first saw me or English. Are people just assuming I don't speak Spanish? Statistically is that a reasonable assumption or not? How does it change with the race of the cashier?

things that make you go hmmmm..... ?

I've been away from the blog for a while. I'll try to post with a little more frequency. An odd observation.... I was just checking out some of the statistics for the blog and for some strange reason I'm getting alot of page views from Russia, Poland and the Ukraine.... way more than from the US... at least recently... What's up with that?

avengers: ramadhan infinity

thoughts and prayers

the hamilton mixtape: immigrants (we get the job done)

cryin' in the streets

On my way home this story was on the radio: An Indian American Muslim singer resurrects an old civil rights anthem. It struck me as a really "Grenada-esque" story.

 The new version of the song:
 

The original:

grammar nazis

turkish soap operas in the land of the telenovela

Turkish Soap Operas, Latin America, and Emerging World Kinship By Afshin Molavi deals with some interesting cultural crossovers in the world of entertainment.

revolutionary mujer

trump's basic message

eid mubarak y'all

Secret Muslim? Hmmmmm......?

ramadan: a de-colonial centering moment

From Hatem Bazian: Ramadan: A De-Colonial Centering Moment

orlando is an onion

I continue to be surprised by the complexity and intersectionality which is being revealed in relation to the tragedy in Orlando.

1. Hero With a Muslim name Imran Yousuf, the bouncer at the club of partial-Muslim ancestry who acted to save dozens of lives.

2. Peel a layer and get a telenovela Omar Mateen's gay ex-lover claims Mateen was motivated by revenge over being romantically jilted.

3. Contrary to the claims of Trump and others that Muslims don't do enough to help the authorities, here is an account from The Muslim who reported Omar Mateen to the FBI.

4. Imam Zaid Shakir on Orlando

5. A Joint Muslim Statement On The Carnage in Olando

6. Dr. Farrokh Sekaleshfar was a cleric who came to Orlando to give an academic talk on homosexuality in Islam. A snippet of his talk was quoted repeatedly in the news. But here is a broader sample of Dr. Sekaleshfar's comments.

hero with a muslim name

I haven't been blogging for a while, but I feel like putting this out there. One of the interesting details which have emerged from the horrifically intersectional onion-like complexity of the recent Orlando shooting are accounts of Imran Yousuf, an ex-marine and bouncer at the nightclub who saved dozens of lives during the attack: What was really weird to me is that the initial reports identified Yousuf as a Hindu when he clearly had a Muslim name (both Imran and Yusuf are in the Quran). It also raised questions in terms of who gets included or excluded in what "Muslim" means in the popular consciousness. The church-going black president who repeatedly claims to be Christian? Muslim. The mass-murdering, Grindr-using, alcohol-drinking, gay-club regular? Muslim. The hero who saved at least 60 people during the Orlando shooting with a Muslim name? Hindu. I finally found an article which unpacks a bit more info regarding Imran Yousuf's background in India West:

The Yousufs emigrated from India to Guyana four generations ago. Imran Yousuf’s paternal grandfather is Muslim, and his grandmother is Hindu, so his father Rasheed is a mix of both ethnicities. Yousuf’s mother Norma is Hindu, and Imran Yousuf identifies as a Hindu, said Christina Yousuf.

So its not clear how exactly his father identified, but loosely speaking, Imran is "one quarter" Muslim. .. which should be at least one half Muslim by birther standards, right?

you damn dirty ape

i hope my district wins

cary grant, esther williams, angelina jolie & the romance of the gun by christin lavin and brian bauers

I first heard this song on the radio last year a few days after a relative was shot. I didn't know the name of the song then, but I finally managed to put together enough clues to track the song down.

Cary Grant, Esther Williams, Angelina Jolie & The Romance Of The Gun by Christine Lavin and Brian Bauers from christine lavin on Vimeo.

And here is another version from a concert:

happy to be nappy

yet another "Happy" cover, this time from Maimouna Youssef

maimouna youssef's "we're already royal"

I haven't posted in a while but I just found a new amazing artist who has a powerful addition to the earlier series of covers of Lorde's Royal and the more raw live acoustic version Phenderson Djèlí Clark: The Musings of a Disgruntled Haradrim: Already Royal: Reality Trippin’

my #blackmuslimramadan is about bean pie, not baklava

People Are Tweeting #BlackMuslimRamadan Photos And Stories To Celebrate The Month

anarchist traditionalism

Anarchist Traditionalism: Hakim Bey is an old blog piece, but new to me. It makes me wonder about what other ways Traditionalism can be reconciled with leftist thought.

thoughts on tommy westphall fan fiction

For a while I've been fascinated by the Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis. The basic idea is that St. Elsewhere, an 80's hospital drama/comedy is television's version of Kevin Bacon, in other words, if you keep track of the various cameos, crossovers, spinoffs, and fictional allusions, it turns out that hundreds of tv shows arguably exist in the same fictional universe as St. Elsewhere. Furthermore, based on St. Elsewhere's final episode, it turns out that the show (and all the shows linked to it) are happening inside of the mind of an autistic boy named Tommy Westphall who spends his days staring at a snowglobe.

There are numerous sites/blogs maintained by folks keeping track of which shows are part of the universe, but I'm not sure how complete or up-to-date any of them are.

An idea that has been on my literary bucket list is to write stories (something in the ballpark of the League of the Extraordinary Gentlemen) which thoroughly broke down the boundaries between shows in the Tommy Westphall universe 

Some more specific notions:

1. A major protagonist would be Det. Munch (who has appeared in several different series, most recently, the Law & Order franchise).

2. A major antagonist would be a Conspiracy which uses Morley Cigarettes Inc. as one of its fronts. (Morley is a fictional brand which connects many shows: The Twilight Zone, Buffy, X-Files The Walking Dead) 

3. One of the conspiracies objectives is to find /exploit both Tommy Westphall and the snowglobe as a way of gaining power. 

4. Organized criminals / serial killers also connected to the Conspiracy might be a good way to connect different police procedural / legal type shows.

5. The Conspiracy also releases a series of infections which culminates in a Walking Dead style zombie apocalypse.  This might be a good way to connect the hospital / medical type shows.

6. UPS Drivers, Postal Carriers, Baristas, DMV workers, might provide an interesting perspective to connect any of the shows, especially the more mundane ones.

It would also be fun to imagine how to combine various genre shows into a coherent pastiche. although doing it consistently would probably be difficult.

7. Supernatural Shows

Addams Family, American Horror Story, Angel, Bewitched, Buffy, Early Edition, I Dream of Jeannie, Milenium, Reaper, Sabrina the Teenage Witch (Is the Conspiracy connected to the Millenium Group or the League of the Black Thorn? Is the snowglobe related to the newspaper in Early Edition?)

8: Sci-Fi (present)

Alias, Alphas, Dr. Who,  Eerie, Indiana, Eureka, Flashforward, Heroes, Journeyman, The Lone Gunman, Lost, Mork and Mindy, Quantum Leap, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Special Unit 2, Torchwood, Warehouse 13, X-Files (John Doggett and Monica Reyes from the X-Files might be a good duo to help Munch. Perhaps after Samuel Beckett disappears and Project Leap is mostly boxed-up, a happily married Al Calavicci is appointed to a Cabinet-level position overseeing the X-Files /Warehouse 13 / Special Unit 2 / CONTROL / Dharma Initiative / Department of Special Research)

9: Sci-Fi (future)

Battlestar Galactica (reboot), Caprica, Firefly, Red Dwarf, Space: 1999, Space: Above & Beyond, Star Trek  (Star Trek is too totalizing to reconcile with some of these other shows, but perhaps elements can be combined in reasonable ways. There is a Federation/Alliance but there are also Maquis/Brownshirts who want to secede. There is also a part of space where they send Space Marine types to fight a secret war against the Chigs? The Conspiracy, in this period might use Weyland-Yutani / Blue Sun / The ORion Syndicate as their main front.) 

10. It would be fun to explain the multiple roles played by the same actors through some kind of Orphan Black- style project. 

Just some thoughts. Who knows? Maybe this will become a sub-genre of fan fiction, in its own right?

The Tommy Westphall Wordpress blog

Tommy Westphall Wiki

Six Degrees of St. Elsewhere By Dwayne McDuffie

Six Objections to the Westphall Hypothesis

Eugene is Huge!: Almost all of TV is the imagined universe of an autistic child.

Tommy Westphall's Mind interview

Tommy Westphall live journal

Maps of Tommy Westphall universe

Oceanic Airlines

Morley Cigarettes

Finder-Spyder

Heisler Beer

Let's Potato Chips

John Munch

black loyalists (again)

For a rarely mentioned side of African-American history...

Wikipedia: Black Loyalists
Black Loyalist Info
Black Loyalist Heritage Society
Canada Digital Collections: Black Loyalists
Canadian Encyclopedia: Black Loyalists

kyle baker on the fourth of july

by Kyle Baker

"they sold marcus garvey for rice"

Time for the US to pardon Jamaican national hero by Hisham Aidi

peru celebrates black history month

Peru celebrates black history month by Hisham Aidi

more from hisham aidi at al-jazeera

More articles from Hisham Aidi

Australia's 'history wars' heat up again
An unlikely celebration of North Africa's ethnic diversity
The sex-for-food scandal in Central African Republic
Podemos and the Catalan cause
Reviving Thomas Sankara's spirit

chicken or the egg

Rap and radicalism: Does hip hop create extremists? by Hisham Aidi

two stories on spain vs. the "muslims"

Spain still uneasy with the Moors and Spanish leftists join fight against ISIL both by Hisham Aidi.

"a love supreme" / "allah supreme"?

Did Coltrane say 'Allah Supreme'? by Hisham Aidi 

 The recording has long been understood to be a deeply spiritual, even devotional, piece. Its four phases - "Acknowledgement", "Resolution", "Pursuance" and "Psalms" - reflect what Coltrane described as a "spiritual awakening" in his overcoming of drug and alcohol problems. 

Yet, what was the nature of that "spiritual awakening"? The conventional view is that by 1964, Coltrane had moved away from his Methodist upbringing, adopting a "pan-religious" outlook with a particular interest in Eastern mysticism. In spite of that, "A Love Supreme" is still described as laden with Biblical symbolism: the title "Psalm", and the rising cadences, reminiscent of black preachers' style, are offered as evidence that Coltrane was still rooted in Christianity. But ask one of the jazzmen or Muslim elders who knew Coltrane, and you get a different answer. 

The saxophonist Yusef Lateef, who died at the age of 93 earlier this year, worked closely with Coltrane between 1963 and 1966. In his autobiography , "A Gentle Giant", Lateef says: "The prayer that John wrote in 'A Love Supreme' repeats the phrase 'All praise belongs to God no matter what' several times. This phrase has the semantics of the al-Fatiha, which is the first chapter or sura of the Holy Quran. The Arabic transliteration is 'al-Humdulilah…' Since all faithful Muslims say the al-Fatiha five times a day or more, it is reasonable to assume that John heard this phrase from [his Muslim wife] Sister Naima many times." 

Lateef is referring to the poem Coltrane wrote and included in the liner notes of the album. Coltrane wrote: "No matter what … It is with God. He is gracious and merciful" and ends with "All praise to God..."

What Lateef and others have noted is that "gracious and merciful" is a translation of "rahman raheem", the opening lines of the Fatiha. Moreover, say the elders, when Coltrane begins chanting the album's title for half a minute it sounds like a Sufi breathily repeating "Allah supreme".

The relationship between Islam and jazz is almost a century-old. It was in the 1920s that the Ahmadiyya movement, a heterodox Islamic movement that emerged in 19th century India, began sending missionaries to US cities, building a substantial following among African Americans in the decades to come. In a trend that still intrigues historians and music critics, after World War II, scores of jazz musicians embraced Ahmadi Islam.

When Coltrane arrived in Philadelphia in 1943, the Muslim presence in the "city of brotherly love" would rattle the young man. As he told an interviewer in 1958: "This Muslim thing came up. I got introduced to that. And that kind of shook me." 

The saxophonist was surrounded by Muslims: his drummer Rashied Ali was Muslim, as was his pianist McCoy Tyner (Suleiman Saud), and saxophonist Lateef. Coltrane then married Naima Grubbs, an observant Muslim. Even Coltrane's band members have pondered his relationship to Islam. If Lateef suspected that Coltrane's art was influenced by the Quran, the drummer Rashied Ali thought that the saxophonist was "a real country boy" and that "he was into being a Muslim and everything like that". One also hears the argument that Coltrane wanted to title his composition Allah Supreme - instead of A Love Supreme - but was worried about a political backlash, given the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. "Back then jazz and Islam were intertwined - the first time I heard the adhan on Temple University radio, I thought it was a Nina Simone song," says Imam Nadim Ali, a celebrated jazz deejay and community leader who spent his youth in Philadelphia. "Artists were deeply influenced by Islam - sometimes publicly in their art, sometimes privately." 

It's not inconceivable that "A Love Supreme" could have been inspired by the Quran. After all, as the elders will observe, "Celebration", that great funk hit by Kool & the Gang, was inspired by a Quranic sura. 

"The initial idea came from the Quran," says Ronald Bell (Khalis Bayyan), the group's saxophonist and musical arranger. "I was reading the passage, where God was creating Adam, and the angels were celebrating and singing praises. That inspired me to write the basic chords, the line, 'Everyone around the world, come on, celebration'."

This song inspired by Islam - and released in 1980 - would become an international hit heard at ball games and political rallies in the US, and ironically was played by the Reagan administration on February 7, 1981, to welcome home the hostages held by students in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

us churches and divestment from israel

EI: Will US churches help bring down Israel’s prison walls?

phase 2: polygamy

For a long time I've actually thought that once gay marriage was legal, laws against polygamy would probably declared unconstitutional as well, based on similar legal reasoning.

Even Chief Justice John Roberts basically said as much in his dissenting opinion to Friday's Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage:

It is striking how much of the majority’s reasoning would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage. If “[t]here is dignity in the bond between two men or two women who seek to marry and in their autonomy to make such profound choices,” why would there be any less dignity in the bond between three people who, in exercising their autonomy, seek to make the profound choice to marry? If a same-sex couple has the constitutional right to marry because their children would otherwise “suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser,” why wouldn’t the same reasoning apply to a family of three or more persons raising children? If not having the opportunity to marry “serves to disrespect and subordinate” gay and lesbian couples, why wouldn’t the same “imposition of this disability,” serve to disrespect and subordinate people who find fulfillment in polyamorous relationships?

Here are a range of other voices weighing in on the relationship between gay marriage and polygamy.

Some more recent:

Politico: It’s Time to Legalize Polygamy

Informed Comment: No, GOP, biblical Marriage was not between one man and one woman

And some from a while back:

 Vice: After Gay Marriage, Why Not Polygamy?

NPR: Would Gay Marriage Lead To Legal Polygamy?

obama coffee?

Mondoweiss: ‘Obama coffee’ is black and weak — racist tweet from wife of Israel’s vice premier

Informed Comment: Wife of Israeli Cabinet member tweets Racist Obama Joke, had called for Innocent Palestinians to be Punished 

we're all connected

 People all over the blogosphere are making connections between Dylann Roof's acts of violence and  hatred  against Muslims elsewhere:

 Loonwatch: Dylann Roof: The Nexus Between White Supremacy’ s Anti-Blackness and Islamophobia
 Informed Comment: European Islamophobic Networks influenced Roof to Kill in Charleston
 Mondoweiss: Charleston: Do Black and Palestinian lives matter?

a secret history of coffee, coca and cola

An interesting discussion from CSPAN-2, around the book A Secret History of Coffee, Coca and Cola by Ricardo Cortes. A perspective you do not often hear articulated. More information about the book can be found at the Akashic books website.

ello, the anti-facebook

Ello, the so-called anti-Facebook is actually on the interesting side. Ad-free. Nice design. Original content. It is still in its beta phase so they are still gradually rolling out its features.  And the community is still growing. Nevertheless, It should be a nice alternative to Facebook.

Iag.me: Quick Guide to Ello

game of thrones vs. brave new world (part two)

I had last worked on this over two years ago (Thursday April 18, 2013) and left it as a draft, but given recent events, I thought I should probably dust this off and publish it.... and think about a part three.... Another element of the popular culture which has gotten me thinking about Game of Thrones vs. Brave New World is the show Switched at Birth. The show is a drama on ABC Family which (as the title implies) involves two girls who, as babies, were switched at the hospital and went home to the wrong family. One grew up as Daphne Vasquez and was raised by a Puerto Rican Latina single mother. (The mother's Italian-French-Arab boyfriend had been in the picture but then left when a paternity test confirmed that Daphne was not his daughter). Also a childhood bout with meningitis has left Daphne deaf. The other girl grew up as Bay Kennish, who was given a fairly comfortable upbringing, raised with a younger "brother" by a retired major league baseball player and a stay-at-home mom. The show has gotten a bit melodramatic lately, but it is surprisingly thought-provoking for a teenage drama; raising issues of nature vs. nurture, class, race, ethnicity, privilege, deaf culture, and the nature of family obligation. The reason why I bring it up in the context of Game of Thrones vs. Brave New World is because of the surprising way the show seems to deal with issues of custody. Even after the hospital's mistake is discovered by the two families, the girls don't simply go back to their natural families but instead the two families move in together (the wealthy Kennishes happen to have an empty guest house) and form a complex blended arrangement. 

  game of thrones vs. brave new world (part one)

this is unity

From Puerto Rican / Ethiopian Orthodox Jewish rapper Y-Love (Yitz Jordan)

capers funnye

For a different look at the relationship between Blackness and Jewishness, we can consider Rabbi Capers Funnye, a long time leader in the Black Jewish community, and a cousin of Michelle Obama.

BETH SHALOM B’NAI ZAKEN ETHIOPIAN HEBREW CONGREGATION 

The New York Times: Obama's Rabbi 

 Huff Post: Jewish Voices of Color Must be Heard 

Killing the Buddha: Meet Black Judaism

anti-african racism in israel

An eye-opening series of links on some of the deep racial problems in Israel.

muslims in cuba

BBC: What is it like to be a Muslim in Cuba?