Coming to the PBS show POV this June...
Monday, March 16, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
the alchemist
Here is a video for [the alchemist] by Amir and Mikail Sulaiman from their upcoming album, The Meccan Openings:
[the alchemist] by Sulaiman.s Temple from The Meccan Openings from amir sulaiman on Vimeo.
I'm in the middle of a book about the Andalusian mystic, Seal of the Saints, Shaykh al-Akbar Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi and so I'm really intrigued by the title (one of Ibn 'Arabi's major works is called Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya or the Meccan Openings/Revelations/Illuminations so I'm wondering how deep the correspondence goes between the titles.
[the alchemist] by Sulaiman.s Temple from The Meccan Openings from amir sulaiman on Vimeo.
I'm in the middle of a book about the Andalusian mystic, Seal of the Saints, Shaykh al-Akbar Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi and so I'm really intrigued by the title (one of Ibn 'Arabi's major works is called Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya or the Meccan Openings/Revelations/Illuminations so I'm wondering how deep the correspondence goes between the titles.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
islam is gaining a foothold in chiapas
Islam Is Gaining a Foothold in Chiapas
By Jens Glüsing
Long a bastion of Catholicism, southern Mexico is quickly turning into a battleground for soul-savers. Islam, too, is gaining a foothold and the indigenous Mayans are converting by the hundreds. The Mexican government is worried about a culture clash in their own backyard.
Anastasio Gomez, a Tzotzil Mayan from Mexico, fondly remembers his pilgrimage to Mecca. He circled around the Kaaba, the highest sanctuary of Muslims, seven times. At Mount Arafat he prayed to Allah and then he, together with 15 other Indians, sacrificed a sheep before boarding the flight back to their Mexican home.
"In Islam, race plays no role," the young man says joyously. His enthusiasm is understandable. After all, in his home state of Chiapas, Mexico's poorest, the indigenous people are viewed as second class humans, and whites and Mestizos treat the Indian majority as if they weren't there. In the southern Mexican provincial metropolis San Cristóbal de las Casas, the descendants of the Maya even have to move onto the street if a white person approaches them on the sidewalk.
Gomez, 23, converted to Islam eight years ago; ever since then, he has called himself Ibrahim. On his first pilgrimage seven years ago, the Indian was still something of an anomaly. Today, however, Muslim women in headscarves have become a common sight on the streets of San Cristobal.
Conquerors from Spain
About 300 Tzozil-Indians have converted to Islam in recent years and it's a development that is beginning to worry the Mexican government. Indeed, the government even suspects the new converts of subversive activity and has already set the secret service onto the track of the Mayan Muslims. Mexican President Vincente Fox has even gone so far as to say he fears the influence of the radical fundamentalists of al-Qaida.
But the Indians have no interest in political extremism. Rather, they belong to the Sunni, Murabitun sect that was founded by the Scotsman Ian Dallas and is seen as an offshoot of a Moroccan religious order. The Murabitun followers represent a sort of primal Islam: Earning interest profits through money lending is a no-no and they preach a literal interpretation of the Koran.
"The see themselves as restorers of Islam," says the anthropologist Gaspar Morquecho, author of a study of the Muslims of Chiapas. "Their defiance of capitalism is similar in many respects to the critique of globalization espoused by many left-wingers."
More and more Mayans are finding their way to Mecca
While the Mayan Muslims in Chiapas have been receiving extra attention of late, the Tzotzil conversion has been underway for some time. In the mid 1990s, a group of Spanish Muslims embarked to Latin America to spread the word; their leader was Aureliano Perez, who is now worshipped by the Maya-Muslims as Emir Nafia. He offered the Zapatista rebels fighting under Subcomandante Marcos, whom Perez supported, an ideological-religious alliance. Marcos was hesitant to enter the odd pact, but the Muslim missionaries were unperturbed: They discovered that the Tzotzil Indians made up the majority of the Zapatista rebels and were quite open to the teachings of the prophet Mohammed.
The battle for the souls of Chiapas is nothing new. In the 16th century, the Spanish conquistadors used brute force to convert the Indians to Catholicism. Half a millennium later, evangelical preachers from the US have turned Latin America into a religious battleground in their efforts to lure Catholics away from the Church. In the town of San Juan Chamula alone -- whose church is seen as something of a spiritual center by the Tzotzil Indians and attracts thousands of tourists a year -- there are 11 different congregations seeking to save the souls of the Indians.
The loss of cultural roots
The Catholics, however, are still, for the most part, in control. They belong to the mafia-esque former state party PRI run the town hall and the lucrative weekly market. In face of the advance of the evangelists, however, they fear that their influence may be waning and they have chased out more than 30,000 protestant Indians out of San Juan Chamula in the last three decades and hundreds have been killed or assaulted. Most of the refugees settled down in the slums on the outskirts of San Cristobal. Cut off from their cultural and religious roots, the Indians are easy prey for all manner of soul-savers.
"In Islam, the Indians rediscover their original values," claims Esteban Lopez, the Spanish secretary general of the Muslim community. "The Christians destroyed their culture." He presents the use and abuse of alcohol as proof. Alcoholism is wide-spread under Tzotzil Indians and the strict ban on spirits in Islam helps many to break the vicious circle of addiction and poverty.
In San Cristobal, the Mayan Muslims run a pizza shop and a carpenter workshop and they are seen by the whites as hard-working and diligent. In a Koran school, children learn Arabic and five times a day they pray in the backroom of a residential building. Empty congregation halls are not a problem for the new Muslims: Converted Muslims vow to witness the teachings of Mohammed among their families.
Anastasio Gomez -- aka Ibrahim -- for example, has managed to convert his entire family. He is especially proud of the conversion of his 100-year-old grandfather who was member of a Christian sect. "He was wandering from religion to religion all his live. Now he has found his peace of mind with Allah," says Ibrahim.
see also:
islam and mexico
islam in latin america
By Jens Glüsing
Long a bastion of Catholicism, southern Mexico is quickly turning into a battleground for soul-savers. Islam, too, is gaining a foothold and the indigenous Mayans are converting by the hundreds. The Mexican government is worried about a culture clash in their own backyard.
Anastasio Gomez, a Tzotzil Mayan from Mexico, fondly remembers his pilgrimage to Mecca. He circled around the Kaaba, the highest sanctuary of Muslims, seven times. At Mount Arafat he prayed to Allah and then he, together with 15 other Indians, sacrificed a sheep before boarding the flight back to their Mexican home.
"In Islam, race plays no role," the young man says joyously. His enthusiasm is understandable. After all, in his home state of Chiapas, Mexico's poorest, the indigenous people are viewed as second class humans, and whites and Mestizos treat the Indian majority as if they weren't there. In the southern Mexican provincial metropolis San Cristóbal de las Casas, the descendants of the Maya even have to move onto the street if a white person approaches them on the sidewalk.
Gomez, 23, converted to Islam eight years ago; ever since then, he has called himself Ibrahim. On his first pilgrimage seven years ago, the Indian was still something of an anomaly. Today, however, Muslim women in headscarves have become a common sight on the streets of San Cristobal.
Conquerors from Spain
About 300 Tzozil-Indians have converted to Islam in recent years and it's a development that is beginning to worry the Mexican government. Indeed, the government even suspects the new converts of subversive activity and has already set the secret service onto the track of the Mayan Muslims. Mexican President Vincente Fox has even gone so far as to say he fears the influence of the radical fundamentalists of al-Qaida.
But the Indians have no interest in political extremism. Rather, they belong to the Sunni, Murabitun sect that was founded by the Scotsman Ian Dallas and is seen as an offshoot of a Moroccan religious order. The Murabitun followers represent a sort of primal Islam: Earning interest profits through money lending is a no-no and they preach a literal interpretation of the Koran.
"The see themselves as restorers of Islam," says the anthropologist Gaspar Morquecho, author of a study of the Muslims of Chiapas. "Their defiance of capitalism is similar in many respects to the critique of globalization espoused by many left-wingers."
More and more Mayans are finding their way to Mecca
While the Mayan Muslims in Chiapas have been receiving extra attention of late, the Tzotzil conversion has been underway for some time. In the mid 1990s, a group of Spanish Muslims embarked to Latin America to spread the word; their leader was Aureliano Perez, who is now worshipped by the Maya-Muslims as Emir Nafia. He offered the Zapatista rebels fighting under Subcomandante Marcos, whom Perez supported, an ideological-religious alliance. Marcos was hesitant to enter the odd pact, but the Muslim missionaries were unperturbed: They discovered that the Tzotzil Indians made up the majority of the Zapatista rebels and were quite open to the teachings of the prophet Mohammed.
The battle for the souls of Chiapas is nothing new. In the 16th century, the Spanish conquistadors used brute force to convert the Indians to Catholicism. Half a millennium later, evangelical preachers from the US have turned Latin America into a religious battleground in their efforts to lure Catholics away from the Church. In the town of San Juan Chamula alone -- whose church is seen as something of a spiritual center by the Tzotzil Indians and attracts thousands of tourists a year -- there are 11 different congregations seeking to save the souls of the Indians.
The loss of cultural roots
The Catholics, however, are still, for the most part, in control. They belong to the mafia-esque former state party PRI run the town hall and the lucrative weekly market. In face of the advance of the evangelists, however, they fear that their influence may be waning and they have chased out more than 30,000 protestant Indians out of San Juan Chamula in the last three decades and hundreds have been killed or assaulted. Most of the refugees settled down in the slums on the outskirts of San Cristobal. Cut off from their cultural and religious roots, the Indians are easy prey for all manner of soul-savers.
"In Islam, the Indians rediscover their original values," claims Esteban Lopez, the Spanish secretary general of the Muslim community. "The Christians destroyed their culture." He presents the use and abuse of alcohol as proof. Alcoholism is wide-spread under Tzotzil Indians and the strict ban on spirits in Islam helps many to break the vicious circle of addiction and poverty.
In San Cristobal, the Mayan Muslims run a pizza shop and a carpenter workshop and they are seen by the whites as hard-working and diligent. In a Koran school, children learn Arabic and five times a day they pray in the backroom of a residential building. Empty congregation halls are not a problem for the new Muslims: Converted Muslims vow to witness the teachings of Mohammed among their families.
Anastasio Gomez -- aka Ibrahim -- for example, has managed to convert his entire family. He is especially proud of the conversion of his 100-year-old grandfather who was member of a Christian sect. "He was wandering from religion to religion all his live. Now he has found his peace of mind with Allah," says Ibrahim.
see also:
islam and mexico
islam in latin america
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
"my everything" by liza garza
A powerful piece from Latina poet (and Muslim), Liza Garza:
Laza Garza's website
Liza Garza's Myspace Page
Laza Garza's website
Liza Garza's Myspace Page
Friday, February 27, 2009
cheikh lo - sante yalla
This has been in heavy rotation in my car these days...
From the liner notes:
For SANTE YALLA (Thanks to Almighty God) the recording location moves back to Dakar. Stylistically the track is Cuban but with an unmistakable West African lope. Cheikh began playing music as a child and like so many West African musicians of his generation first started to play along with Cuban 78 rpm records. Guillermo Portabales' 'El Carretero' was one of the most popular records and ‘Sante Yalla’ bears echoes of that song's slow guajira rhythm. Cheikh dedicates the song to "my nephew N'Dongo Lô, N'Diaga M'Baye and Eva M'Baye who have left us. May the earth be light for them. The devotional chant is sung in the name of the Almighty and it accompanies each person to their final resting place." There is a superb slinking guitar solo from Lamine Faye and Cheikh's trademark harmony vocals open up the chorus.
see also:
cheikh lo
catching up
a saint in the city: sufi arts of urban senegal
From the liner notes:
For SANTE YALLA (Thanks to Almighty God) the recording location moves back to Dakar. Stylistically the track is Cuban but with an unmistakable West African lope. Cheikh began playing music as a child and like so many West African musicians of his generation first started to play along with Cuban 78 rpm records. Guillermo Portabales' 'El Carretero' was one of the most popular records and ‘Sante Yalla’ bears echoes of that song's slow guajira rhythm. Cheikh dedicates the song to "my nephew N'Dongo Lô, N'Diaga M'Baye and Eva M'Baye who have left us. May the earth be light for them. The devotional chant is sung in the name of the Almighty and it accompanies each person to their final resting place." There is a superb slinking guitar solo from Lamine Faye and Cheikh's trademark harmony vocals open up the chorus.
see also:
cheikh lo
catching up
a saint in the city: sufi arts of urban senegal
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
new muslim cool
Hamza Perez left life as a drug dealer for Islam ten years ago. Now, after a devastating break-up with his first wife, he moves to Pittsburgh's tough North Side.
In a rundown building surrounded by crack and crime, he helps start a new community for African American and Latino Muslims. Like Hamza, many are ex-gang members who are using hip-hop culture to take their religious message to the streets, slums, and jail cells of urban America.
Raising his two kids as a single dad and longing for companionship, Hamza finds love on a Muslim networking website and seizes the chance for happiness in a second marriage. But when the FBI raids their mosque, Hamza and his community come face to face with a whole new set of challenges, and have to choose how they respond.
While he continues his MySpace.com-fueled rise as part of the provocative rap group Mujadideen Team, Hamza starts reaching for a deeper understanding of his own faith -- leading him to some surprising new relationships with Christian and Jewish allies.
Setting Hamza's story in the context of young American Muslims' emergence among the deep dividing lines of the post-9/11 world, New Muslim Cool gives audiences an authentic, intimate, and fresh view of life in one of the world's most rapidly growing and least-understood communities.
See also: Interview with Jennifer Maytorena Taylor, director of The New Muslim Cool
In a rundown building surrounded by crack and crime, he helps start a new community for African American and Latino Muslims. Like Hamza, many are ex-gang members who are using hip-hop culture to take their religious message to the streets, slums, and jail cells of urban America.
Raising his two kids as a single dad and longing for companionship, Hamza finds love on a Muslim networking website and seizes the chance for happiness in a second marriage. But when the FBI raids their mosque, Hamza and his community come face to face with a whole new set of challenges, and have to choose how they respond.
While he continues his MySpace.com-fueled rise as part of the provocative rap group Mujadideen Team, Hamza starts reaching for a deeper understanding of his own faith -- leading him to some surprising new relationships with Christian and Jewish allies.
Setting Hamza's story in the context of young American Muslims' emergence among the deep dividing lines of the post-9/11 world, New Muslim Cool gives audiences an authentic, intimate, and fresh view of life in one of the world's most rapidly growing and least-understood communities.
See also: Interview with Jennifer Maytorena Taylor, director of The New Muslim Cool
Thursday, February 19, 2009
deep cover revisited
I've blogged about the film Deep Cover before but it has been on my mind again these days... mainly because a few weeks ago I bought Immortal Technique's album The 3rd World which samples several scenes from the film.
So first I'd like to say that IMSDb has posted a script for Deep Cover which is more readable than the one I linked to before (but further away from the actual film).
Secondly (since a number of people seem to find their way to Planet Grenada seeking answers to this question) based on this latest album, it doesn't seem as if Immortal Technique is actually Muslim. He does often express solidarity with the people of Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. and is highly critical of U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world. On top of that, he seems to show a certain amount of appreciation for Islam (after a fashion). But, on the other hand his comments on lifestyle issues tend to be inconsistent with Islam.
So first I'd like to say that IMSDb has posted a script for Deep Cover which is more readable than the one I linked to before (but further away from the actual film).
Secondly (since a number of people seem to find their way to Planet Grenada seeking answers to this question) based on this latest album, it doesn't seem as if Immortal Technique is actually Muslim. He does often express solidarity with the people of Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. and is highly critical of U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world. On top of that, he seems to show a certain amount of appreciation for Islam (after a fashion). But, on the other hand his comments on lifestyle issues tend to be inconsistent with Islam.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
gaddafi wants caribbean in africa
Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi has said he would like a United States of Africa to include "Caribbean islands with African populations". Col Gaddafi, speaking in Tripoli as the African Union's (AU) new chairman, said this could include Haiti, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. The Libyan leader also sympathised with Somali pirates, describing their actions as self-defence. Last week he said that multi-party democracy was not right for Africa.
The BBC's Rana Jawad in the Libyan capital says Col Gaddafi's critics believe he is too erratic to be chairman of the 53-nation AU. A week into his appointment his agenda for Africa is expanding and his views remain as controversial as ever to some people, she says.
see Gaddafi Wants Caribbean in Africa
The BBC's Rana Jawad in the Libyan capital says Col Gaddafi's critics believe he is too erratic to be chairman of the 53-nation AU. A week into his appointment his agenda for Africa is expanding and his views remain as controversial as ever to some people, she says.
see Gaddafi Wants Caribbean in Africa
speaking of love...
and Rumi... I just found out about a local group of Mevlevis and will possibly start attending some of their gatherings. At this point I'm still a little cautious about them and I hope they are more traditional than New Age-y (e.g. see Why Gurdjieff's "Fourth Way" Teachings are not Compatible with the Mevlevi Sufi by Ibrahim Gamard). We'll see how things go.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
more room for rumi
Tonight I plan to go to a Rumi/whirling dervish event analagous to one I went to several months ago where I met a buddhist sufi. Should be interesting.
Monday, February 09, 2009
sarah silverman on kabbalah
I sometimes wonder if the practice of Sufism will wind up like the practice of kabbalah and become a Islamic-but-not-Muslim celebrity-ridden New Age fad (audhu billah) Let's hope not.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)