"machete" and xenophobia

Interesting. I was already intrigued by the fake trailer in Grindhouse and surprised when I saw the trailer for the real film in the movie theater. I may not wait for the DVD on this one:

Southern Poverty Law Center: The Xenophobic Right's Weird Reaction to Hollywood Blockbuster 'Machete'

um... so is newt gingrich trying to defend white imperialism?

How Obama Thinks by Dinesh D'Souza is the original piece which started this mess. In it, D'Souza, rather presumptuously tries to psychoanalyze Obama and explain his foreign and domestic policy decision in terms of the "anticolonial" (read "foreign", "unAmerican", "socialist") dreams of his father. The piece also strikes me as unnecessarily insulting in parts.

Here is the National Review piece with Newt Gingrich's comments on the issue: Gingrich: Obama’s ‘Kenyan, anti-colonial’ worldview

And here is a report from the Huffington Post: Newt Gingrich Slammed For Saying Obama May Hold 'Kenyan, Anti-Colonial' Worldview

black muslims hear echoes of jim crow in anti-muslim furor

Huffington Post: Black Muslims Hear Echoes Of Jim Crow In Current Anti-Muslim Furor

are blacks less islamophobic?

The Root: Is There Less Anti-Islamic Sentiment Among Blacks?
Recent data about how black and white Americans view the New York City mosque controversy suggest that this is true, but opinions vary as to why.

a few more thoughts on the mosque

9/11 Families for a Peaceful Tomorrow: On the Islamic Cultural Center
Tim Wise: Your House is on Ground Zero (and Quite Without Permission)
Michael Moore: If That 'Mosque' ISN'T Built, This Is No Longer America
Newser: Local Strippers Totally OK With Ground Zero Mosque

9/11... in moments of crisis, positions become clear

This spoken word video is a collaboration between artist Anida Yoeu Ali and filmmaker Masahiro Sugano with over 50 diverse volunteers, participants and community members in the Chicagoland area. It is part of an ongoing project that engages art as a form of intervention against the racial profiling of Muslims in a post 9/11 era. The larger project titled “The 1700% Project” uses a multi-faceted artistic approach to educate the wider public about the diversity within the Muslim community. The number 1700% refers to the exponential percentage increase of hate crimes against Arabs, Muslims and those perceived to be Arab or Muslim since the events of September 11, 2001.


1700% Project Website
Anida Yoeu Ali's blog: Atomic Shotgun

see also: the day after

immortal technique on immigration, slavery and religion

Also an audio interview with Immortal Technique on 9/11 the "Ground Zero Mosque", black and brown unity, and his Afghan orphanage

hat tip to: Davey D's Hip-Hop Corner

aside from the whole quran-burning issue, some other reasons why afghans might be less than totally pro-american...

Huffington Post: U.S. Soldiers Allegedly Killed Afghan Civilians, Kept Body Parts As Trophies

muslims and islam were part of twin towers life

To be honest, the more I study and reflect on the "Ground Zero Mosque" issue the more difficulty I have accepting or respecting the whole "sensitivity" argument. First of all, the 9/11 families and victims organizations don't all speak with one voice and several of them (like September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows and Not in Our Name) are opposed to war and Islamophobia. Secondly, if people can tolerate strip clubs and pizza places on "sacred ground" they should be able to tolerate Muslims practicing their religion there. But thirdly, the never stated, and therefore unquestioned, assumption behind the opposition to the Park 51 project is that all Muslims in the US should be equated with the terrorists behind 9/11.

One of the more persuasive counter-arguments (I think) lies in also pointing out the extent to which Muslims are and have been an integral part of American life. Not only does the nearby African Burial Ground hold Muslim bodies. Not only was that part of lower Manhattan historically "Little Syria". Not only is there already a mosque there for Muslims who work nearby. Not only were there Muslims who were victims and heroic responders to the World Trade Center attack. On top of all that, the World Trade Center originally had a Muslim prayer space for the Muslims who were an integral part of the life of the community.

see also
Planet Grenada: "refudiating" islamophobia: park 51 / cordoba house / the (not-really-at)-ground zero mosque


Muslims and Islam Were Part of Twin Towers’ Life
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
New York Times
September 10, 2010

Sometime in 1999, a construction electrician received a new work assignment from his union. The man, Sinclair Hejazi Abdus-Salaam, was told to report to 2 World Trade Center, the southern of the twin towers.

In the union locker room on the 51st floor, Mr. Abdus-Salaam went through a construction worker’s version of due diligence. In the case of an emergency in the building, he asked his foreman and crew, where was he supposed to reassemble? The answer was the corner of Broadway and Vesey.

Over the next few days, noticing some fellow Muslims on the job, Mr. Abdus-Salaam voiced an equally essential question: “So where do you pray at?” And so he learned about the Muslim prayer room on the 17th floor of the south tower.

He went there regularly in the months to come, first doing the ablution known as wudu in a washroom fitted for cleansing hands, face and feet, and then facing toward Mecca to intone the salat prayer.

On any given day, Mr. Abdus-Salaam’s companions in the prayer room might include financial analysts, carpenters, receptionists, secretaries and ironworkers. There were American natives, immigrants who had earned citizenship, visitors conducting international business — the whole Muslim spectrum of nationality and race.

Leaping down the stairs on Sept. 11, 2001, when he had been installing ceiling speakers for a reinsurance company on the 49th floor, Mr. Abdus-Salaam had a brief, panicked thought. He didn’t see any of the Muslims he recognized from the prayer room. Where were they? Had they managed to evacuate?

He staggered out to the gathering place at Broadway and Vesey. From that corner, he watched the south tower collapse, to be followed soon by the north one. Somewhere in the smoking, burning mountain of rubble lay whatever remained of the prayer room, and also of some of the Muslims who had used it.

Given the vitriolic opposition now to the proposal to build a Muslim community center two blocks from ground zero, one might say something else has been destroyed: the realization that Muslim people and the Muslim religion were part of the life of the World Trade Center.

Opponents of the Park51 project say the presence of a Muslim center dishonors the victims of the Islamic extremists who flew two jets into the towers. Yet not only were Muslims peacefully worshiping in the twin towers long before the attacks, but even after the 1993 bombing of one tower by a Muslim radical, Ramzi Yousef, their religious observance generated no opposition

“We weren’t aliens,” Mr. Abdus-Salaam, 60, said in a telephone interview from Florida, where he moved in retirement. “We had a foothold there. You’d walk into the elevator in the morning and say, ‘Salaam aleikum,’ to one construction worker and five more guys in suits would answer, ‘Aleikum salaam.’ ”

One of those men in suits could have been Zafar Sareshwala, a financial executive for the Parsoli Corporation, who went to the prayer room while on business trips from his London office. He was introduced to it, he recently recalled, by a Manhattan investment banker who happened to be Jewish.

“It was so freeing and so calm,” Mr. Sareshwala, 47, said in a phone conversation from Mumbai, where he is now based. “It had the feel of a real mosque. And the best part is that you are in the epicenter of capitalism — New York City, the World Trade Center — and you had this island of spiritualism. I don’t think you could have that combination anywhere in the world.”

How, when and by whom the prayer room was begun remains unclear. Interviews this week with historians and building executives of the trade center came up empty. Many of the Port Authority’s leasing records were destroyed in the towers’ collapse. The imams of several Manhattan mosques whose members sometimes went to the prayer room knew nothing of its origins.

Yet the room’s existence is etched in the memories of participants like Mr. Abdus-Salaam and Mr. Sareshwala. Prof. John L. Esposito of Georgetown University, an expert in Islamic studies, briefly mentions the prayer room in his recent book “The Future of Islam.”

Moreover, the prayer room was not the only example of Muslim religious practice in or near the trade center. About three dozen Muslim staff members of Windows on the World, the restaurant atop the north tower, used a stairwell between the 106th and 107th floors for their daily prayers.

Without enough time to walk to the closest mosque — Masjid Manhattan on Warren Street, about four blocks away — the waiters, chefs, banquet managers and others would lay a tablecloth atop the concrete landing in the stairwell and flatten cardboard boxes from food deliveries to serve as prayer mats.

During Ramadan, the Muslim employees brought their favorite foods from home, and at the end of the daylight fast shared their iftar meal in the restaurant’s employee cafeteria.

“Iftar was my best memory,” said Sekou Siby, 45, a chef originally from the Ivory Coast. “It was really special.”

Such memories have been overtaken, though, by others. Mr. Siby’s cousin and roommate, a chef named Abdoul-Karim Traoré, died at Windows on the World on Sept. 11, as did at least one other Muslim staff member, a banquet server named Shabir Ahmed from Bangladesh.

Fekkak Mamdouh, an immigrant from Morocco who was head waiter, attended a worship service just weeks after the attacks that honored the estimated 60 Muslims who died. Far from being viewed as objectionable, the service was conducted with formal support from city, state and federal authorities, who arranged for buses to transport imams and mourners to Warren Street.

There, within sight of the ruins, they chanted salat al-Ghaib, the funeral prayer when there is not an intact corpse.

“It is a shame, shame, shame,” Mr. Mamdouh, 49, said of the Park51 dispute. “Sometimes I wake up and think, this is not what I came to America for. I came here to build this country together. People are using this issue for their own agenda. It’s designed to keep the hate going.”

"none but the purified shall touch it"

This has been rattling in my head for the past month (and longer actually) but now that the month of the Quran is over it seems a little bit late.

I.
One of the more controversial debates in Islamic theology has to do with the nature of the Quran and whether it is created or uncreated. The dominant orthodox position is that "it" is uncreated. But what does it mean to say that "the Quran is uncreated"? The physical Quran made of paper and ink is obviously created. When the Quran is recited, the sound waves of the recitation are similarly created. The letters and sounds of human language, Arabic included, are arguably created as well. (although some schools of thought might begin to disagree with this point).

One of the most satisfying explanations I've found on this topic comes from Belief and Islam (I'tiqad-nama) by Mawlana Diya ad-din Khalid al-Baghdadi. Some of the linguistic and psychological claims may be controversial but, I would argue, they still work for the purposes of analogy (also note that Syriac is a form of Aramaic):

When a person wants to give an order, to forbid something, to ask something or to give some news, first he thinks about and prepares it in his mind. These meanings in mind are called “kalâm nafsî,” which cannot be said to be Arabic, Persian or English. Their being expressed in various languages does not cause these meanings to change. Words expressing these meanings are called “kalâm lafzî.” Kalâm lafzî can be said in different languages. So, kalâm nafsî of a person is a pure, unchangeable, distinct attribute that exists in its possessor like other attributes such as knowledge, will, discernment, etc., and kalâm lafzî is a group of letters that express kalâm nafsî and that come out of the mouth of the person uttering them and that come to the ear. Thus, the Word of Allâhu ta’âlâ is the eternal, everlasting, non-silent and non-creature Word existent with His Person. It is an attribute distinct from the as-Sifât adh-Dhâtiyya and from as-Sifât ath-Thubûtiyya of Allâhu ta’âlâ, such as Knowledge and Will. The attribute Kalâm (Speech, Word) never changes and is pure. It is not in letters or sounds. It cannot be differentiated or classified as command, prohibition, narration or as Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Turkish or Syriac. It does not take such forms. It cannot be written. It does not need such apparatuses or media as intelligence, ear or tongue. Nevertheless, it can be understood through them as a being distinct from all beings we know; it can be told in any language wished. Thus, if it is told in Arabic it is called the Qur’ân al-kerîm. If it is told in Hebrew it is the Tawrât. If it is told in Syriac it is the Injîl.

So one of the more interesting corrolaries of the above is that from "God's perspective", from the view of kalam nafsi, the Quran, the Torah, the Gospel and the Psalms (at least in their original forms) are actually the same book! Al-Baghdadi goes on to write:

The ’ulamâ’ of the right path unanimously say that al-Kalâm an-nafsî is not a creature but it is qadîm (eternal). There is no unanimity on whether al-Kalâm al-lafzî is hâdith (created) or qadîm. Some who regarded al-Kalâm al-lafzî as hâdith said that it was better not to say that it is hâdith for it might be misunderstood and come to mean that al-Kalâm an-nafsî is hâdith. This is the best comment about it. When the human mind hears something that denotes something else, it simultaneously remembers the denoted thing. When one of the ’ulamâ’ of the right path is heard to have said that the Qur’ân al-kerîm was hâdith, we must understand that he referred to sounds and words which we read with our mouth. The ’ulamâ’ of the right path have unanimously said that both al-Kalâm an-nafsî and al-Kalâm al-lafzî are the Word of Allâhu ta’âlâ. Though some ’ulamâ’ considered this word metaphoric, they all agreed that it was the Divine Word. That al-Kalâm an-nafsî is the Word of Allâhu ta’âlâ means that it is Allâhu ta’âlâ’s Attribute of Speech, and that al-Kalâm al-lafzî is the Word of Allâhu ta’âlâ means that it is created by Allâhu ta’âlâ.

II.
When I try to contemplate what it means to say that the Quran, Gospel and Torah are the "same" in their pre-eternal forms, the concept which comes to mind is what I would call the "telescopic" aspect of different Abrahamic scriptures.

For example, there is the famous story about the time the great rabbi Hillel was asked by a prospective convert to teach him the entire Torah while he standing on one leg and Hillel said "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation of this--go and study it!" (An interesting side note: Ludwig Zamenhof, more famously known as the inventor of the language Esperanto also tried to develop and promote his own religion/ethical philosophy which he called Hillelism)

Using similar language, the New Testament attributes to following to Jesus (as):
So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the Law and the Prophets (i.e. the Tanakh). (Matthew 7:13)

In Islam there are many texts (both authentic and authoritative texts and secondary writings as well) which vividly describe the merits, the significance, the oceans of meaning associated with "La ilaha illa Allah" (no god but God) and some would even argue that the entire Quran is merely a commentary on this phrase.

Alternatively, according to one of the Naqshbandi saints:
All of the knowledge which God gave to humanity is contained in the four heavenly books (the Quran, the Torah, the Gospel and the Psalms). All the knowledge of the four books is found in the Quran. All the knowledge of the Quran is found in Al-Fatiha (the first surah). All the knowledge of Al-Fatiha is contained in the Bismillah (the first verse). All the knowledge of the Bismillah is found in the Ba (the first letter). And all the knowledge of the Ba is found in the dot underneath it.

III.
The above reminds me of an argument I had with a Christian friend of mine a few years ago. He claimed that the Bible was a "good" size, but that the Quran was too short a book to be a suitable guide to life. I had to explain to him that if length was the important yardstick, that if you add the hadith collections to the Quran the Islamic scriptures are actually several times longer than the Bible. But I also tried to make the more important point that length of scripture is a really bad yardstick. Religious language is uniquely capable of packing large amounts of meaning in a few words. Hillel's Golden Rule or "La ilaha illa Allah" could fit on a sheet of fortune cookie paper and that would be "sufficient". Everything else is just commentary.

IV.
Of course, if you are Muslim you will be more "at home" with the distinctive features of the written Quran. It's structure will be more understandable. It's stories more familiar. It's verses more comforting and inspiring. But I'm still intrigued by the possibility that in a "telescopic" sense different religions can "contain" one another. I might have to wait for another post to develop that idea further.

V.
Finally, I've been thinking about all of the above while following the news about the Dove "World" Outreach Church and Pastor Terry Jones' Quran-burning stunt., especially in the context of the ayat "None but the purified shall touch it [the Quran]". On one level it is a proscriptive statement which alludes to the requirement that one be ritually clean before handling the physical text of the book. On another level it is a metaphysical statement that only the angels will have access to the copy of the book in heaven. On a spiritual/intellectual level it suggests that only the person of pure intention can truly understand the book. And so in the end, regardless of whether or not Jones decides to burn copies of the Quran made of paper and ink, on multiple levels he has no "grasp" of the real Quran which is safe from his ignorance and bigotry.

eid mubarak y'all

Wow, the month is over. I have no idea what I'll have for lunch.

immortal technique on gaza flotilla

immortal technique on social change, terrorism, afghanistan, and the nature of democracy

immortal technique on the iraq invasion, afghanistan, 9/11, obama and the music industry

immortal technique on haiti

I just got turned on to the Russia Times YouTube channel which has a surprising about of hip-hop content, including a series of interviews with political Afro-Peruvian rapper/activist, Immortal Technique. This interview begins and ends with a discussion of Haiti in the wake of the earthquake but also touches on the role of the US in Latin America generally.

9/11 happened to us all

conversations with history: abdullahi ahmed an-naim

An interesting hour of conversation between Abdullah Ahmed An-Naim and Harry Kreisler on the subject of Islam and the secular state. I still haven't made up my mind about An-Naim. I have too many books on my reading list at the moment and haven't gotten to his yet. However his website is pretty well-stocked with articles and video clips expressing his ideas.

down with fanatics!

Down With Fanatics!

If I had my way with violent men
I'd simmer them in oil,
I'd fill a pot with bitumen
And bring them to the boil.
I execrate the terrorist
And those who harbour him,
And if I weren't a moralist
I'd tear them limb from limb.

Fanatics are an evil breed
Whom decent men should shun;
I'd like to flog them till they bleed,
Yes, every mother's son,
I'd like to tie them to a board
And let them taste the cat,
While giving praise, oh thank the Lord,
That I am not like that.

For we should love the human kind,
As Jesus taught us to,
And those who don't should be struck blind
And beaten black and blue;
I'd like to roast them in a grill
And listen to them shriek,
Then break them on the wheel until
They turned the other cheek.

-- Roger Woddis

the end of the covenant

God's Covenant, Judaism and Interfaith Marriage by Paul Golin starts off as a pretty unsurprising review of Jewish views on inter-religious marriage on the occasion of the Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky nuptuals. But I was definitely surprised by the second half the article which started to swim in much deeper waters:

In the 1970s, when radical modern-Orthodox thinker Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg grappled with the full implications of the Holocaust, he concluded that God's withdrawal from earthly affairs and failure to protect His chosen people meant, quite dramatically, that "the covenant was broken." However, Rabbi Greenberg suggested that "the Jewish people was so in love with the dream of redemption that it volunteered to carry on with its mission." And in fact those who took up the "voluntary covenant," as he called it, were even greater than those who acted "only out of command."

Personally I found the above intriguing for a number of reasons. First, while many (but not necessarily all) Christians, Muslims, Bahais, etc. might readily admit that God's covenant with the Jewish people is no longer in effect, it seems unusual (perhaps even contradictory) to find an Orthodox Jew making that claim.

Secondly, as horrible as the Holocaust was it really more theologically significant than other great tragedies in Jewish history like the destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian Captivity, or the destruction of the Second Temple and the subsequent diaspora?

Thirdly, the quote serves as a cautionary "tale", the article makes me wonder if Muslims attitudes towards the sharia will ever become comparable to Jewish attitudes towards the halakhah?

green deen

For a while I've known that there were isolated Muslim environmentalists here and there. But recently it seems "Islamic environmentalism" has become much organized and fleshed out as a movement. If you are interested in the subject, here is a website for the book Green Deen: What Islam Teaches about Saving the Planet by Ibrahim Abdul-Mateen.

Green Deen is also the name of an apparently independent set of group blogs. The older incarnation was on blogspot Green Deen (old) but a few years ago they switched over to wordpress: Green Deen (new).

Yet another blog is the The Ramadan Compact which touches on the environment but really emphasizes excessive consumption from a $$$ perspective.

And finally there is Green Zabiha an organic, halal/zabiha meat provider.

All the pages have interesting links for further exploration.