Monday, January 14, 2008

more on deobandis (and barelwis)

Recently JinnZaman over at Global Intifada posted an article on the Differences between Deobandis and Barelwis which gives an enlightening perspective on the two groups. But to be honest, I personally don't understand how two groups that are so close (both Hanafi, both Maturidi, both looking back to Ahmad Sirhindi and Shah Waliullah, both respecting the various Sufi tariqats) could be so much in conflict. Why can't they just emphasize their (considerable) common ground instead of their differences?

Planet Grenada
the jamaa'at tableegh and the deobandis
a deobandi with a difference
differences between schools
ideology and temperament
ideology and temperament (the habashis)

Sunday, January 13, 2008

muharram facts

For more information on Ashurah and the New Year, you can check out:

Sunni Path: Fiqh of Islamic Months: The Month of Muharram
New Islamic Directions: The Blessings of the Day of Ashura by Imam Zaid Shakir

along with a number of Ashurah/Muharram links over at Scatterbrained Soonee Sister's entry: Welcome Muharram 1429

happy birthday to me

So this year my (Gregorian) birthday landed on a date close to the Islamic new year and I just realized that the same was probably the case when I was born (which should give a hint about how old I am). It all reminds me of how arbitrary all these methods for marking time are.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

mancala

For reasons I don't want to get into right now I've been thinking a lot about mathematics education, especially in the Black community. In that vein, I want to make a plug for using mancala games (sowing games or count-and-capture games) as a tool in the classroom and elsewhere to stimulate greater interest in mathematics, logical reasoning and strategy among Black youth.

Firstly, many of the games in this category are Afican in origin and are commonly played in Africa or the diaspora so the the games would be able synergize well with any other Afrocentric content which was part of the school curriculum. (Some of these games are also popular in Asia. E.g, recently a friend of mine sent me a picture of a Malaysian coin which has the image of one of these games on one of its sides.)

Secondly, the games are almost purely "mathematical" in the sense that they are based on keeping track of the number of stones or seeds contained in various "pits" on a game board and so they will provide a certain amount of practice in counting, doing arithmetic, and certain kinds of mathematical reasoning.

To be honest, I'm still trying to figure out which particular mancala-game is the most mathematically rich for the purposes of teaching. Oware is one of the more "serious" versions and seems to be the most respected in terms of adult-play (e.g. The Oware Society holds international tournaments and keeps track of rankings.) Kalah is the most widely-marketed version in the U.S. (It was one of the games included on my first cell-phone and it is also the game included in the links below.) I've met a group of Haitian-American students who like to play a version of mancala which is basically a race to clear their side of the board. But there are literally dozens of variations. If anyone out there takes my plug for mancala games seriously, you might even consider starting clubs or organizations where young people could come together to become familiar with several different games instead of just focusing on one.

Mancala (Kalah):
Mancala (3 stones per pit)
Mancala (4 stones per pit)

Planet Grenada on games:
submachine games
pencak silat
weeping and nashing of teeth aka he got game

happy new year (it's 1429 y'all)

(see also ashurah 1428) InshaAllah, in a day or so, I'll put another such post together for this year.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

more on black jews

Over at ChickenBones: A Journal, I recently saw two articles by Adeyinka Makinde which discuss the possible Jewish descent in the Igbo of Nigeria: on the Igbos: A Lost Tribe of Israel? and The Igbo and Jewry. But really, these sorts of articles shouldn't be surprising. As I point out in another post:
...according to the Bible, Jacob (Israel) and his sons went into Africa as a group of 12 households and hundreds of years later they came out of Africa as a nation of millions. Either the children of Israel are really really really inbred or they intermarried with the people around them and became basically an African group. The Bible even explicitly says that Abraham, Joseph and Moses married African (Egyptian and Cushite) women [Genesis 16:3, Genesis 41:45, Numbers 12:1].
I think I need to read How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America by Karen Brodkin which has been recommended to me on more than one occasion. There is so much history and politics behind racial classifications and I would like to have a better understanding of how the process unfolds. 

 See also: 

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

the islamic struggle and ours

Grace Lee Boggs is a powerful, long-time, multi-issue activist who recently wrote a response piece to Lous Baeck's paper "Islamic Views on Globalization". She touches on a subject I've been kicking around on Planet Grenada ever since I've started, namely the relationship between Islam and different forms of Leftist thought (see islam needs radicals)


The Islamic Struggle and Ours by Grace Lee Boggs

In my mind’s eye throughout the holidays has been the image of three million white-robed Muslims peacefully praying and picnicking on their pilgrimage to Mecca in December. At the same time I have been reflecting on “Islamic Views On Globalization” by Louis Baeck, Professor of International Economics and Development at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium.

Prior to reading Baeck’s article, like most Americans, I had not paid sufficient attention to the fact that during the last few decades people all over the Third World have been engaged in a search for alternate roads to modernity because the modernity forced upon them by western colonization and corporate globalization has been so traumatic and also because the unrestrained economic development of western societies has had such catastrophic consequences for our planet and for our relationships with one another.

In the Islamic world, according to Baeck, liberal and progressive intellectuals have been searching in their own cultural and religious traditions for a way of thinking that would guide them towards a more democratic and humane modernity. They hope and believe that Islam, unlike western secularism, can provide them with a philosophy that puts morals and ethics, or right conduct, in command of economics and thus a way of thinking that will safeguard their societies from the consumerism and commercialization of all our human relationships which has become the norm in the West, and especially in the United States.

In the Islamic world the 1979 revolution in Iran, which overthrew the U.S-sponsored Shah and empowered the Ayatollahs, is viewed as an expression of this cultural revival.

Since the U. S. military incursions into oil rich- Saudi Arabia and Iraq and the increasingly blatant support by the U.S. of Israel’s occupation of Palestine, this search by Islamic progressives for a non-western road to modernity has been overshadowed by the fundamentalists led by Osama bin Laden. But the search continues and we have a responsibility to explore the possibilities it offers for building relationships of solidarity that can replace the immobilizing fears and suspicions created by 911 and perpetuated since then by the Bush administration and the media.

The Islamic search reminds me of MLKs’s call for a radical revolution in values against the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism as he grappled in the last three years of his life with the crises of the urban rebellions and the violence of American culture at home and abroad.

“The war in Vietnam,” King said, “is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit. We have come to value things more than people. Our technological development has outrun our spiritual development. We have lost our sense of community, of interconnection and participation.”

“Our society has made material growth and technological advance an end in itself, robbing people of participation, so that human beings become smaller while their works become bigger.”

“Instead of pursuing economic productivity,” King urged, “we need to expand our uniquely human powers, especially our capacity for Agape which is the Love that is ready to go to any length to restore community.”

I also see similarities between the Islamic struggle for more democratic and humane roads to modernity and our Detroit City of Hope campaign. Because we have suffered and are suffering the devastation which is the result of putting economics in command, we are making community-building rather than economics the key to the reconstruction of all our institutions from the ground up.

Saturday, January 05, 2008

an african american muslim convert as the founder of chinese hip-hop

Given that this blog is supposed to be about "an emergic global anti-hegemonic culture" with Islam at its heart, I thought it would be good to include the following post from Islam in China: An African American Muslim Convert as the founder of Chinese Hip-Hop

puerto rican muslims or the people of islam?

From the blog: Ahl al-Hadith: Synergy Of Reason And Athaar: Puerto Rican Muslim Or The People Of Islam?: At The Feet Of Shaikh Pepe’ Negron The Poor Righteous Teacher From Philadelphia (In Honor Of My First Shaikh)


As a late teenager, deeply impressionable, culturally conscious and concerned, Pepe was moved by the struggle. Pepe saw many a strange thing in life but even late in life he was moved by the struggle. It was all about his people or so he said. It was all about his people. Pepe grew up in an immigrant (Puerto Rican) home located in the inner city of North Philadelphia. The section he matured in is known as the Barrio, which showcases the Bloque De Oro (the GoldenBlock) “5th street” and is flooded by Spanish speakers and spanglish often reverberates in the air over the songs of salsa music and gun shots and hip hop. As he narrates, the Bloque De Oro is historically noted as the location where big time drug dealers trafficked in large sums of cocaine and some marijuana. They masked illegal business with legitimate businesses like restaurants and video stores etc. to move their dirty money. Often they were these businesses were the targets of the city’s drug task force.

It was with “dirty money” that many found small fortunes, fortunes they failed to find once America’s factories were exported and inner city schools crumbled there was no way up the social ladder in teh face of poverty and discrimination. In the Barrio many ” went big time and got paid” they sold crack and heroin, two drugs of choice for the drug addict and the feds. Pepe says, for the addict these drugs were cheap and addictive and for the feds they made big money that needed to be seized. How many millions of dollars the feds seized in North Philadelphia has yet to be known to its inhabitants all victims of the war on drugs but one thing is sure the money never was returned to the school system nor did it create jobs for the poor. One thing is sure many of the drugs seized made their way back to the streets at the hand of corrupt cops in the early and late 90’s. (today America’s inner cities are seeing regentrification the question is are its inhabitants?)

This is why Pepe liked that the rapper KRS ONE would say things like “illegal business controls America” this line he said, speaks to reality ( a nasty reality that people suffered with their lives). With the new found fortunes the American gangsters amassed they built mansions in Puerto Rico and wrecked the Island by bringing corruption and by default extended the sway of the Columbian drug cartels over American streets and Latin American countries. But in the absence of economic ventures that created strong markets for the poor markets governed by the rule of law the underworld took over.

They killed us, Pepe said, by destroying the very fabric of community and life. Our youth poured out the Churches and into the streets and into the Prison system (and their blood poured too) there are few that made beyond 25 years of age and less who entered into the University. The Church became a place for funerals as the murders increased and the Barrio’s walls hosted an array of murals dedicated to the dead. Street corners were ornamented with candles and trinkets marked the spot where someone was killed, assassinated in the war on drugs.
The Barrio was marked by the acronym “R.I.P” except we never saw peace and it has yet to descend. Pepe chanted to me a mantra that I would never forget “they destroyed us and the Barrio our streets are covered with blood“.

Pepe claims his mother told him his family was a refugee family from Puerto Rico, forced to leave the Island because of trade agreements between the US and the Island leadership and this is how he saw himself a Puerto Rican Fugee. This feeling of refugee was dispelled when he realized America was home. Although he was always distrust that American troops colonized the Island during the Spanish-American war and Puerto Rico and today they perform military exercises in the Island’s waters that are said to be the cause for the high cancer rates in Vieques, Puerto Rico.

Like Puerto Rico, Puerto Ricans inhabit a limbo state as an identity (and hold on tight to Spanish as a resistance move that they learned when the US tried to force them to speak English) not from here and not from there. Pepe reconciled with this ambivalant state as many Puerto Ricans had done. But he never failed to remind me that Puerto Ricans fought for the Yankees and spilled their blood for America this he believed entitled Puerto Ricans, gave them a right to be citizens of los Estados Unidos.

He also felt that if it was not for the African American and Latinos that there would be no United States. He also declared staunchly ” we built this country with our blood and sweet”. My grandfather, he said labored in this country and my uncles fought for this country andI pay taxes young buck.

Pepe knew about things, facts and stuff, he reminded me of someone who preserved and narrated an oral tradition, a village elder. It was because of his peculiarities that the “young boys” who crowed the corners to peddle drugs for older drug dealers considered him odd. He only offered anecdotes and advice on life and not an opportunity for quick cash. Unfortunately, it was common for young men to sell drugs with the purpose of making enough money to take home to provide food for their parents, buy clothes and escape the stresses of life by getting high at night (smoke blunts and drink beer).

Pepe said: “it is depressing that they use the school yard to peddle “weight” (large sums of cocaine) but they never took benefit of the school. In scuffles with other thugs they fought for Potter Thomas School as territory and never came to know who is Potter Thomas (Thomas Potter :an Irish immigrantwho became wealthy) and why the school was erected in 1965.
Pepe knew about the struggle he said. He knew about the real story about Puerto Ricans and he felt their pain. He had an uncle that went to the caves in Puerto Rico and studied Taino drawings and religion and through his great uncle he connected with his ancestral roots and always recalled that he was native to the Americas. Pepe ranted about facts such as:

1.) the first sociologist in all the Americas was Puerto Rican ” Eugenio Maria De Hostos”
2.) Julia Maria De Burgos was one of the greatest poets of Perto Rico she settled in New York and year later a schools was named after her in Philadelphia but they never taught her poetry
3.) Many Puerto Ricans were literate and intellectuals possessed of degrees (Phd’s and MA’s) from European Universities in the early 1900’s.
4.) Muslims from Mali and Andalus inhabited Puerto Rico but were banned by the Catholic Church after the emergence of resistance movements against the Spanish were launched in cooperation with the Taino tribe that spanned from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic over to Cuba but popular historical records fail to report the detailed facts of these events the actual details are preserved in Spanish libraries and Church records after all the rebellions is one of the primary reasons Islam and Muslims were banned from New Spain by legal and Church decree.

Pepe was a walking book of Puerto Rican history characterized by melancholy. Once I confronted Pepe and asked him: “what was the issue” he broke down, and told me, in tears, with distraught what ached him. He said: “I love my people but they are killing themselves.” Drugs, crime, ignorance have overwhelmed our community. Pepe went to the extremes -emotionally- he wanted his people to be in the stuggle for a better life, he thought Islam could help. The question was would they put aside their culture and habits for Deen, were the men brave and strong enough for that and the women willing to sacrifice?

Pepe was a Catholic but he was fascinated by Islam. Islam occupied his mind so much so that he narrates that one time he preached to his friends on a street corner about Islam he told them it could benefit them. Despite, his efforts and enthusiasm he saw little results.

Years later Pepe would see his friends convert to Islam (something that made him content) the problem, he said, was many entered Islam in jail, as protection for advantages. Pepe on the other hand entered Islam because he felt and saw in it truth and was convinced that the Catholic church failed abandoned Latinos. The closing down of Churches in the inner city for economic reasons only convinced him more of this reality -big business he said.Pepe said weird things like: The Polish Pope John Paul the II made an agreement with President Regan to eliminate the work of priests in Latin America (they were with and for the people) so Poland could be rid of Communism (in other words he sold them out for national liberation). It took me years to figure out what Pepe was talking about (after entering the seminary and leaving the Church for Islam).
Pepe always was about some affair and steadily aware of the trends and forces shaping thought and action in the community. One time he told me about the 5% Nation of Gods And Earths and the Nation Of Islam. I thought he was nuts until I saw a 5% Percenter talking to him telling him he was a God and he needed knowledge of self. He seemed to be interested in the idea of self knowledge and the focus on literacy that he saw these things in these two groups but he did not think they were real religions.The Nation of Islam and 5% ‘s cultivated learning he said but he wanted to know about Jesus and it was this quest to know Jesus that pushed him to study Islam and by this means he came to enter into Islam.

Pepe took to study the history of the Holy Land for a greater knowledge of the historical Jesus during this quest study he confront Islam for the first time as it was practiced in a Muslim land . Through this search he would learn of the adhan and heard it called while watching a documentary on Palestine (the land Jesus was said to have been born in). The adhan resonated in his heart for years, its beauty and simplicity moved his heart and years later he became Muslim. Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar….La Ilha Illa Allah

Pepe commented on the influx of converts into Islam in the late 80’s and 90’s and did not seem to like the manner in which people in Philadelphia were converting to Islam (in large numbers from both the African American and the Latino communities). I found this strange at first but the reason for his unease was a lack of quality in commitment. He felt that many were moved by the fad to imitate the Muslim but the yearning for an inner transformation was lacking. In fact, this same feeling was reverberating among many young religious people particularly Christians who saw young people flocking to Islam because it offered a culture, an identity (dress and name and cool terms).

Pepe recalled to me a story that highlights what was happening among the youth. He said he once saw an old classmate on the city’s public transportation. While on a bus his friend Jaime, with whom he went to Catholic school, had been exposed to Islam. (this would be one in a large series of contacts with Muslims) During the encounter Pepe asked Jaime if he had been attending Church as both Pepe and Jaime were once altar boys and did their confirmations together. ( Pepe also recalled Jaime was beaten by the nuns, quite often. So one day Jaime punched the nun who beat him in the face, in retaliation for what he deemed abuse this happened at St. Henry’s Catholic school. He also mentioned that Jaime was being raised by his father and grandmother and seemed to have emotional problems) Pepe said Jaime was not very religious in school but he made a point to talk to Pepe about Islam when asked about Church he told him: Muslims have a Holy book (theQur’an) that rhymes and itis “dope.” Pepe never saw Jaime have enthusiasm about things holy but Islam seem to overcome him as if he had nur on his face.

This I think is what scared people about Islam, it energized people and caused them to love religion and study and practice and brought people together. This posed a threat to emotional religious activity and its establishment (this is what characterized Christianity in the poor communities). Christians in the inner city saw Muslims as a threat because in the words of a religious Christian man: ” those Moslems study, you gotta watch dem” this identity took people from the Church but today Muslims seem to be no threat because they have the same problems that drove people from the Church.

Pepe was possessed by sadness, I believe, because he saw so much in life. Once he narrated to me a story about a young guy who grew up in a crack house, saw his mother used by men for drug money (she sold her body) and then saw his mother shot by police officers, gunned down in the streets. This is the stuff that brought sadness to him. Much had changed in the Barrio he said. In the old days the elders worked together and settled their problems by a fist fight at the most by the time this incident of tragedy occurred the streets were plagued by guns, trafficked in by gun peddlers many of them European Americans from the country side and the suburbs. They sold military issue weapons and traded shot guns for drugs Pepe said.
Pepe told me. social breakdown this is the plight of our people the poor of America in the country and the city (white, black and latinos and others) and his struggle is struggle to be a poor righteous teacher in a cess pool.


It was a sense of mission that pushed him into Islam but he was sad his people did not follow suit. He told me he read Piri Thomas‘ biography (from the Nuyorican movement), it was like a Puerto Rican version of a Malcolm X story, except Pepe says, Piri missed the boat because he saw Islam thought about it and never became Muslim. Pepe says many older Puerto Ricans say the older American Muslims in New York and Philly carried with them traces of the Zulu Nation. Their practice of Islam and way is marked by their past. Then he said you see Muslims today use licorice sticks as miswaks these sticks before the dawn of Islam were a mark of the Zulus. This and other coded symbols and behavior indicated to older Puerto Ricans that the trend among Zulus was to turn to Makka, i.e., they were entering Islam.

Pepe was always sad when he thought of the plight of his people, the poor, their stuggles but he regretted more and with greater intensity that the early Muslims who converted to Islam did little in education. This tore him apart after he converted. He said this failure to build in education will haunt the community in the future. Pepe supported this claim by recited that Guarionex, a great Taino chief from Puerto Rican taught us a lesson. When he fought the Spanish colonists he declared “we must fight them or our children will blame us and curse us for being subjugated to oppression.” From this historical lesson he said the older generation must make a way for the youth, we must leave them a better state or they will blame us for their ill condition and deficiency. Predicated upon this principle, of making a way for the youth he hoped to work in education among Muslims and change the effects of history.

Historically he saw that the effort of the Nation of Islam to educate their members served a great need and they did more in this regard than did the Sunnis. This hard lesson I was never to forget.Pepe always had ideas he tried but he worked to be practical. He said to me: “Our people will come into Islam but they will bring their cultural baggage and stunt their growth. They will make a point to keep their Latinoness and keep alive their Nationalism and fail to learn because they will have to change this is what will destroy them. Do not take this path and work to make a difference.”He said: “If they only knew how they only needed to cultivate a Muslim identity and replace shallow notions of culture and life with founded principles and revelation.
Time to time, Pepe would emotionally break down before me, in tears. I will never forget when he said in tears: “I have watched my people kill themselves and I only loved for them the best. I would never think to see Muslims kill and fight each other and argue over their Deen. What I realize today is that they too are in need of Islam -oh how Islam is strange” He then looked at me still in tears and said: ” Young akh, you are Puerto Rican?” and I turned to him and said: “no, I am Muslim.”He said: Correct, you have done well “young boah.”

What I want you to realize is that studying Islam and living it is to have real have culture and in this you will find yourself. Our people, he said: they die in ignorance and some love kufr instead of Iman. Because of desire they fail to love the Deen. Don’t be afraid to stand alone, without your people if need demand this is the way of the Prophets (as) Ibrahim (as) was a Nation, side with the truth. Remember that the brotherhood of Islam is a brotherhood of Iman and transcends race, class and color, a lesson yet to be learned!

Abul-Hussein

"armageddon has been in effect... go get a late pass!" (part two)

As I was trying to do more research about the Sudanese Mahdi, I found the paper, Nineteenth Century Islamic Mahdism in Iran and the Sudan: A brief analysis of the teachings and influence of Ali Muhammad (The Bab) and Muhammad Ahmad (The Sudanese Mahdi) by Jason Illari which compares his claims to those of the Persian Bab. The paper is interesting but takes a slightly polemical turn towards the end; it appears as if the author is Bahai and therefore actually believes that Bab was the true Mahdi.

Monday, December 31, 2007

"ya bhutto" by marvin x

Benazir Bhutto

1953-2007



Ya, Bhutto

Who are these people

Who kill fathers sons daughters

What God do they serve

What ghost in the night

Is there money enough

Power enough

Greed enough

Murder enough

To satisfy this beast

Who devours all in its path

The children of the poor are not safe

Even children of the rich

This monster is vile

His teeth a wicked bite

Snatching you like Godzilla

When you came home preaching freedom

But there are those who cry freedom

But mean slavery of yesterday

There are those who pray in the mosque

Then murder in the street

who crush the spirit

Who silence the poets

The singers of freedom

Who deny the humanity of women

What God is this

Who empowers these devils with lust

and venom

Worse than the cobra’s sting

Ya Bhutto

What now in that sacred land

Shall your sons take the mantle

Shall the children cower in fear

Or will they stand

face the guns bombs

Paid by the Mighty Beast

Who shouts democracy

But means slavery

Who allows dictators to crush opposition

To be president for life.

He discards his general uniform

To dawn the suit and tie of Shaitan

To claim the persona of the puppet

Who smiles in tears

Choking from strings hanging from his neck.

Ya, Bhutto, you tried

To bring a better day

But demons must play out their drama

Their dance in the night

They will never put down their butcher knives

Never turn into Buddha heads.

More must be sacrificed

The judges and lawyers are not enough

The soldiers must accept flowers from the people

Not slaughter them in the streets

There are not jails enough to confine freedom

The torture chambers may fill to overflow

But freedom must rise at the end of the day.

Ya, Bhutto, your last word was the magic word: Allah.

Surely we are from Allah

And to Him we return.

--M

12/28/07

reflections on bhutto's assassination

who you gonna call?

1230 05
The full story is at Common Dreams: Vatican to Train more Exorcists It just seemed so bizzare I felt like sharing. With all the other evils in the world I wonder how one concludes that there needs to be a bold new initiative against demons? Then again, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger he also denounced the Harry Potter series. (see harry potter and the book-burning benedict)

Planet Grenada and the Papacy
the passing of the pope
papal bull
a muslim response to the pope
more on pope benedict and islam
pope benedict: the first year

Sunday, December 30, 2007

"armageddon has been in effect... go get a late pass!" (part one)

Is Public Enemy right? Has Armageddon been in effect? (some might say that the show Strange Love is one of the signs of the end times.) The title for this blog entry just came to me last night when I was driving around listening to It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back but in reality I've been mulling over the same question (in different language) for a while these days.

For example, the Dawnbreaker Collective, mentioned in the last post would probably answer that question in the affirmative. Firstly, the Bahai Faith teaches that the Second Coming of Christ and the arrival of the Mahdi already occurred over 150 years ago (in which case, most of us will definitely need that late pass). But secondly, even though the song "Son of Being" may seem upbeat at first, some of the lyrics definitely have their pessimistic end-of-the-world side (e.g. "the whole world getting rolled like a Cuban cigar", "the world's just a pothole", "this place won't last so you better take a picture"). In fact, the Bahai Faith generally uses metaphorical interpretation to stretch the meaning of the end-time prophecies of many different religions in order to claim that they have already been fulfilled by the central figures of their faith.

Or to consider PE's words from a different direction... yesterday I was listening to an audio tape of Imam Jamil al-Amin (formerly H. Rap Brown) giving a jummah sermon entitled "What Color is Pharaoh?". Imam Al-Amin set up a comparison between Pharaoh's treatment of the children of Israel, COINTELPRO's treatment of Black activists during the Civil Rights era and the government's treatment of Muslims "today". (the sermon was given fifteen years ago). History isn't just history. Things move in cycles. Patterns repeat. But then perhaps that suggests that prophecy might not be prophecy.

In an older post, the number of the beast we already touched on Preterism, an understanding of Christian eschatology which holds that all are most of the prophecies in the Book of Revelation were fulfilled by 70 AD when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans.

There are even a few groups in the Islamic orbit which say that the Mahdi has already come (e.g. the Nation of Islam, the Ahmdiyyah, the African Islamic Mission). I think that in a future post I would like to consider how these groups understand their various mahdist claims in light of the fact that the world seems to have gone on, much as before. I'm especially interested in how believers in the Sudanese Muhammad Ahmad do this. More later.

Planet Grenada:
the mahdi
remember imam jamil al-amin

Central Mosque: Description of Imam al-Mahdi
Central Mosque: The Coming of Isa (as)
Wikipedia: People Claiming to be the Mahdi
Chuck D: Flavploitation?
Chuck D's blog

Thursday, December 27, 2007

o son of being / the spark

I honestly don't remember what chain of links first brought me here, but these days I've been intrigued by this new Bahai hip-hop group called the Dawnbreakers Collective and their catchy new single, O Son of Being.




The refrain:
"O SON OF BEING! Make mention of Me on My earth, that in My heaven I may remember thee." comes from a Bahai text called "The Hidden Words", which some Bahais identify with a Book of Fatima which the prophet Muhammad's daughter is said (according to some Shiis) to have received from the angel Jibreel after the Prophet's death.

Personally I find the Hidden Words to be very reminiscent of the Hadith Qudsi (The intensely heart-softening subset of Islamic hadith where Allah/God speaks in the first person).

The above 'hidden word' is particularly reminiscent of the following hadith:

On the authority of Abu Harayrah (may Allah be pleased with him), who said that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: Allah the Almighty said:

I am as My servant thinks I am. I am with him when he makes mention of Me. If he makes mention of Me to himself, I make mention of him to Myself; and if he makes mention of Me in an assembly, I make mention of him in an assembley better than it. And if he draws near to Me an arm's length, I draw near to him a fathom's length. And if he comes to Me walking, I go to him at speed.


I would argue that there is much in the Bahai faith which is derivative of Islamic sources (including later Sufis, poets and philosophers along with obvious sources like the Quran and hadith). To show this carefully would take more time than I'm able to spend at the moment, but some of those links are pretty evident, even from a cursory analysis.

While we are on the subject of the spiritual inspiration behind hip-hop music, the other example which was on my mind as I was writing this is The Roots' song "The Spark". (I wouldn't consider The Roots an "Islamic" hip-hop group per se. From what I gather, one of their members is a Five Percenter and another past member is Sunni, and both perspectives come out in their lyrics). For example, in "The Spark", the hadith qudsi:

"My servant draws not near to Me with anything more loved by Me than the religious duties I have enjoined upon him, and My servant continues to draw near to Me with supererogatory works so that I shall love him. When I love him I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks."

becomes the somewhat more irreverent lyrical chorus:

"Yo, the feet that I walk with
The ears that I hear with, the eyes that I see with
The mouth that I talk with, the terror that I stalk with
Now it's time to spark shit"
I wish I could find the video online, but instead I could only find the lyrics (included below). In spite of the vulgarity, the song actually does come off successfully as the sincere prayerful voice of a flawed Muslim.

Original Hip-Hop Lyrics: The Spark
Hip-Hop Linguistics: Dawnbreaker Collective creates Baha’i album

Other hadith qudsi:
last man to enter paradise
and so it was said

Grenada's Bahai past:
since when was blindness a good thing?
bahai thought police

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

the black knight

I thought I should give a nod to Just Another Angry Black Muslim Woman? for her excellent gift of some Afro-Arab history with: The Black Knight: ‘Antar and the Arab Epic

see also:
Wikipedia: Antarah ibn Shaddad

Grenada's past:
catching up
black, but comely
a fatwa on pan-arab racism
the african palestinian connection

felipe luciano

Over at Khalil Al-Puerto Rikani's blog I found this recording of Felipe Luciano (former Last Poet and Young Lords memmber) introducing Eddie Palmieri with a a powerful spoken word piece called "Puerto Rican Rhythms":


You can also check out an older Felipe Luciano performing "Jibaro / My Pretty Nigger" on Def Poetry Jam:



Luciano prefaces his poem with some topical comments (especially considering that today is the first day of Kwanzaa, which represents umoja or unity). Afterwards there is also a performance by muMs da Schemer.

the last poets
young lords
niggers are scared of revolution
"...being the last one around"

Thursday, December 20, 2007

millie pulled a pistol on santa / kwanzaa

Yeah, I know it is in the dark side... but the other day I was in my car listening to some old De La Soul was thinking how "Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa" was sort of timely due to the upcoming holiday. Also, more generally, I'm dealing with a lot of young people these days and I am often amazed at the kind of challenges they have to deal with in their lives.

"Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa" (lyrics from OHHLA)
"Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa" (song on YouTube)

Speaking of upcoming holidays, I hope that any Black bloggers reading this would consider doing some Kwanzaa blogging and maybe even set up Kwanzaa blogring. To be honest, I wouldn't go around calling myself Afrocentric. And I don't plan on having any rituals with fruit and candles and such this year. But I feel really good about the idea of Black folks taking a solid week out of the year to engage in some sustained thought, reflection and discussion around the seven principles of Nguzo Saba; a process which could be powerfully supported through the use of the internet.

Kwanzaa and Grenada's Past

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

eid mubarak y'all

Peace and blessings to you and yours.

Friday, December 14, 2007

catching up

I've had the seeds of a lot of different posts rattling around in my head but I'm short on time so I think I'm "forced" to just do a link dump instead of a more thoughtful consideration

Over at Umar Lee's blog, “Ugly Black Women”, Perfect Arab Wives, and Matters of Race starts to discuss some of the less idealized aspects of race relations in the Arab world. This piece was originally inspired by Not Sure What To Make of this “Discussion” over at Soliloquies of a Stranger (The life of an African American, Muslim, Muhaajirah (Expat), from the hood, in an Inter-Racial Marriage. It Doesn’t get any stranger than that!).

Abdur Rahman Muhammad finally concluded his series with Why Blackamerican Muslims Don’t Stand For Justice Pt. 5

Ever since my post i and i and thou I've been meaning to find and share information about Baye Fall, an African-based, dreadlock-wearing Sufi order who are sometimes called "Muslim Rastas". Recently I saw a pretty 'Grenada-esque' entry over at Pa' Africa Muchacho tu ta loco?, written by Dominican blogger Francisco Perez who is currently travelling in Senegal. He has a brief entry on Cheikh Lo an African musician who is a member of the Baye Fall. I wish I had a more detailed understanding of the group, but I suspect that they could be a very strong example in my favor with respect to the ongoing discussions with Sondjata (see islam and afrocentrism, afrocentricity and islam ii) on whether Islam is consistent with being African.

Francisco also has another entry on the upcoming Eid al-Adha entitled What Would Jesus Buy? I'm not sure what else to say about the holiday. This year I feel like the holiday has surprised me. I'm not totally certain which city I'll be in for Eid. I have a couple of old posts about Eid al-Adha but I don't have any genuinely new comments for now.