Muslim Media Review

Letter I Wrote to My Members of Congress after Watching Documentary "Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone"

2025-04-16T10:00:00.004-04:00

I encourage you to watch the documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone. Then take action. Attend your local peace group meeting. Ask people to watch the documentary. Write letters to your members of Congress. Become systematic with your consumer boycott by using the Boycat app. Do something. This is a copy of the email I sent to my members.

-------

Subject Header: Have You Watched the Documentary, "Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone?"

Last night, a group of us in Augusta, Georgia watched the BBC documentary "Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone."

You can watch it here: https://archive.org/details/gaza-how-to-survive-a-warzone_202502

The movie follows three children and some of the adults in their lives during the ongoing genocide that Israel, using USA funds and benefiting from USA political and military support, is perpetuating.

One of the children, Renad, copes by making cooking videos and posting them in social media. Another, Zakariyya, volunteered at al-Aqsa Hospital helping the paramedic Said transport the dead and wounded.

The movie ended during the period immediately following the ceasefire of January 15, 2025. The children survived, and they were extremely happy that (most of) the USA-funded Israeli attacks ended.

Of course, since then, the USA-supported Jewish supremacist state has resumed its massacres of Palestinians. I could hardly sleep last night wondering if the people from the documentary were still alive. Was Said one of the 15 medical and rescue personnel Israel summarily executed on March 23, 2025? https://apnews.com/article/gaza-medics-killed-israel-ambulances-f34b6ecc985d9127265a400bd52c72b7

I found one of Renad's social media channels. Her most recent post is dated March 13, 2025. Is she still alive?

Zakaria complained in the movie about lack of food. The Zionist colonizers have prevented the entry of supplies into Gaza since late February 2025.

And then my thoughts drift to the votes of my elected representatives in the US Congress: Senator Ossoff, Senator Warnock and Representative Rick Allen (GA-12). I ask myself, "Do they think the voters don't know that the USA-Israel killing spree continues? Do they expect people of conscience to support them just because their opponents in the next election might be 'worse'?"

I urge you to speak publicly for a ceasefire and vote for a cessation of all assistance to Israel, an end to hostilities with Yemenis enforcing international law through their blockade of Israeli shipping in the Red Sea , lifting the siege of Gaza and a resumption of funding of UNRWA.

------

Note that Renad has posted again around April 15, 2025.

PBS Independent Lens "Wild Hogs and Saffron"

2025-04-09T14:04:00.003-04:00

The website of the United States's Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) allows you to watch the short documentary film Wild Hogs and Saffron. This is the film's page at the website of the director and one of the subjects of the film, Andy Sarjahani. You can read an interview with the director about the film (archive.org).

Can person-to-person interaction promote world peace and reduce ethno-nationalist chauvanism? Can it be done "at scale" in order to prevent humanity from destroying itself? If we answer "no" to these questions, what is the alternative?

Trailer on YouTube

Support Docuseries "What Happened to Rap?" on Unjust Incarceration of Imam Jamil Al-Amin

2025-03-03T06:15:00.008-05:00

Trailer on Vimeo

Consider donating to support completion of the docuseries "What Happened to Rap?"

Film: "Eid Mubarak" - Streaming on PBS

2024-08-02T12:44:00.008-04:00

Eid Mubarak

"A privileged six-year-old Pakistani girl embarks on a mission to save her beloved pet goat from being eaten on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Azha, only to learn the meaning of sacrifice."

You can watch it at https://www.pbs.org/video/eid-mubarak-iobidg/ through July 14, 2026.

Note: I disapprove of the visual depiction of Ibrahim & Ismail غليهما السلام in the film. The narration of the sacrifice differs in important ways from my understanding of what Allah عز و جل says in the Quran about it. Does this variant exists in Pakistan or other countries? Possibly.

Nevertheless, the film is good in depicting a child wrestling with what she sees as an immoral action her family is committing.

"Shakespeare through Islamic Worlds" by Ambareen Dadabhoy

2024-05-20T06:46:00.001-04:00

Please use this discount code for 20% off: EFLY01. https://t.co/fZvAC9cPaH
— Ambereen Dadabhoy 🪬 (@DrDadabhoy) February 11, 2024

In case you have trouble with the Twitter embeds above, here's the link to Professor Ambareen's blog entry describing her book and here's the link to order the book from the publisher. Use the discount code EFLY01.

I have not read the book.

The Failed Academic Who Became a War Propagandist: A Minor Character in Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina"

2024-04-02T11:12:00.003-04:00

A Russian soldier laughing at an Ottoman Turk. Before being pitted against each other in WWI, bad blood between Russia and Turkey dated back to the 16th century. source

All quotes are from Book 8 of Constance Garnett's translation of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina on Project Gutenberg. Go read Book 8, Chapter 1, and then return to this page. The character on whom this article focuses is Sergey Ivanovitch Koznishev, the half-brother of Konstantin Dmitrievitch Levin, at whose estate Sergey Ivanovitch will later in the Book spend some time and from which more quotations will be drawn.

So Sergey Ivanovitch spent years writing a book which he expected "would be sure to make a serious impression on society, and if it did not cause a revolution in social science it would, at any rate, make a great stir in the scientific world." Instead, after indifference and a devastatingly effective hostile review, "Sergey Ivanovitch saw that his six years’ task, toiled at with such love and labor, had gone, leaving no trace."

Sergy Ivanovitch turned his talents and energies into mobilizing Russian support for Slavic peoples revolting against the Ottoman Empire, in particular, the Serbs and Montenegrins.

Who were the Russians most invested in these matters?

[Sergey Ivonovitch] saw that the Slavonic question had become one of those fashionable distractions which succeed one another in providing society with an object and an occupation. He saw, too, that a great many people were taking up the subject from motives of self-interest and self-advertisement. He recognized that the newspapers published a great deal that was superfluous and exaggerated, with the sole aim of attracting attention and outbidding one another. He saw that in this general movement those who thrust themselves most forward and shouted the loudest were men who had failed and were smarting under a sense of injury—generals without armies, ministers not in the ministry, journalists not on any paper, party leaders without followers. He saw that there was a great deal in it that was frivolous and absurd. But he saw and recognized an unmistakable growing enthusiasm, uniting all classes, with which it was impossible not to sympathize. The massacre of men who were fellow Christians, and of the same Slavonic race, excited sympathy for the sufferers and indignation against the oppressors. And the heroism of the Servians and Montenegrins struggling for a great cause begot in the whole people a longing to help their brothers not in word but in deed.

Sergey Ivanovitch knew the defects in the people who were most animated by this cause, in particular the Russians who volunteered to fight. His traveling companion Katavasov wasn't aware, and in Book 8, Chapter 3 he eagerly mingled with some volunteers in one of the train cars. The volunteers

made a disagreeable impression on Katavasov, and when the volunteers got out at a station for a drink, Katavasov would have liked to compare his unfavorable impression in conversation with someone. There was an old man in the carriage, wearing a military overcoat, who had been listening all the while to Katavasov’s conversation with the volunteers. When they were left alone, Katavasov addressed him. “What different positions they come from, all those fellows who are going off there,” Katavasov said vaguely, not wishing to express his own opinion, and at the same time anxious to find out the old man’s views. The old man was an officer who had served on two campaigns. He knew what makes a soldier, and judging by the appearance and the talk of those persons, by the swagger with which they had recourse to the bottle on the journey, he considered them poor soldiers. Moreover, he lived in a district town, and he was longing to tell how one soldier had volunteered from his town, a drunkard and a thief whom no one would employ as a laborer. But knowing by experience that in the present condition of the public temper it was dangerous to express an opinion opposed to the general one, and especially to criticize the volunteers unfavorably, he too watched Katavasov without committing himself. “Well, men are wanted there,” he said, laughing with his eyes. And they fell to talking of the last war news, and each concealed from the other his perplexity as to the engagement expected next day, since the Turks had been beaten, according to the latest news, at all points. And so they parted, neither giving expression to his opinion.

So the war fever that Sergey Ivonovitch helped spread prevented people who could see plainly that the project had flaws from expressing themselves.

Despite Sergey Ivanovitch being a "materialist," i.e., not a doctrinal Christian, as a propagandist he is happy to use Christianity-adjacent cultural resources to advocate for war:

“There are traditions still extant among the people of Slavs of the true faith suffering under the yoke of the ‘unclean sons of Hagar.’ The people have heard of the sufferings of their brethren and have spoken.”

Sergey Ivanovitch, when his brother and his brother's father-in-law exclaim that they don't feel any obligation towards their "Slavic brethren," proclaims that the best people are volunteering and supporting and the people's will has expressed itself for war.

“I don’t need to ask,” said Sergey Ivanovitch, “we have seen and are seeing hundreds and hundreds of people who give up everything to serve a just cause, come from every part of Russia, and directly and clearly express their thought and aim. They bring their halfpence or go themselves and say directly what for. What does it mean?”
“It means, to my thinking,” said Levin, who was beginning to get warm, “that among eighty millions of people there can always be found not hundreds, as now, but tens of thousands of people who have lost caste, ne’er-do-wells, who are always ready to go anywhere—to Pogatchev’s bands, to Khiva, to Servia....”
“I tell you that it’s not a case of hundreds or of ne’er-do-wells, but the best representatives of the people!” said Sergey Ivanovitch, with as much irritation as if he were defending the last penny of his fortune. “And what of the subscriptions? In this case it is a whole people directly expressing their will.”
“That word ‘people’ is so vague,” said Levin. “Parish clerks, teachers, and one in a thousand of the peasants, maybe, know what it’s all about. The rest of the eighty millions, like Mihalitch, far from expressing their will, haven’t the faintest idea what there is for them to express their will about. What right have we to say that this is the people’s will?”

Next, Sergey Ivanovitch asserts that support for Russian intervention is unaminous in "the intellectual world." Levin's father-in-law responds:

So it is with the unanimity of the press [in support of the war]. That’s been explained to me: as soon as there’s war their incomes are doubled.

The father-in-law continued:

“Alphonse Karr said a capital thing before the war with Prussia: ‘You consider war to be inevitable? Very good. Let everyone who advocates war be enrolled in a special regiment of advance-guards, for the front of every storm, of every attack, to lead them all!’”

Beware academics who think their work will change the world! Sergey Ivanovitch's ambition to leave his mark on the world caused him to respond to the failure of his first book by using the skills he honed as an academic into becoming a propagandist. In our day, Sergey Ivanovitch would become a host of an evening cable news show or a popular podcast. And shilling for war is always an easy way to satisfy the personal ambition of notoriety, because there are always people with a vested interest in promoting war propagandists.

Support Local Independent Media Like Atlanta's "285 South" by Sophia Qureshi

2024-01-09T10:07:00.000-05:00

R to L: Robert Redford & Dustin Hoffman
in "All the President's Men (1976)"

How many great movies portray journalists, editors and publishers as heroic bulwarks against the corruption of the powerful? Did your high school social studies teacher tell you that the news media were the Fourth Estate, nearly equal in power to each of the three branches of the United States government?

In all likelihood, it's only older people like me who remember these quaint notions. For many reasons, even when a city has a daily newspaper, coverage is likely to be slanted towards the perspectives of the powerful.

Take for example the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC):

Ajc publisher Andrew Morse offers media services to the city - Further proof AJC is a propaganda shill for the mayor and cop city. Obtained via GORA #StopCopCity pic.twitter.com/cqA1qpRWD0
— GORA4ORRAU (@InoperableSink) January 8, 2024

There are several good "media criticism" journals, podcasts and blogs, but start with Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.

How do we go beyond media criticism? Independent media may offer some relief. Of what are such media independent? In theory, corporate and government control. More precisely, they escape such control because they have other sources of revenue to fund operations: grants, advertising and subscriptions.

285 South, founded by Sophia Qureshi, is an independent news outlet focused on "telling the stories of the diverse communities that make up Metro Atlanta." She writes:

So many of our stories, the stories of the diverse immigrant and refugee communities in Metro Atlanta, are not captured by legacy media. We are in the American South, but our stories touch all corners of the world. These stories are essential to understanding who we are a region, and where we're headed.

As of now, no paywall prevents you from reading its articles. So read some, and then decide how much it is worth to have a talented professional like Sophia writing stories about communities like yours. If it's worth 80,000/yr, then shouldn't 800 people pony up 100 USD per year? But you realize there are expenses to doing this, right? Should we shoot for 1600 people paying 100 USD per year so that I-285 South has money for Open Record Requests, transportation expenses, transcription services, insurance, etc. If communities don't fund these professionals when they embark on these efforts, let's not complain when they close shop and work for Coca-Cola. There's no shortage of corporations looking to fill Public Relations positions.

Act now and pledge a subscription.

Film: "A Town Called Victoria" by Li Lu

2023-12-08T06:57:00.003-05:00

"A Town Called Victoria" by Li Lu aired in 3 parts on Public Broadcasting Service's Independent Lens beginning October 13, 2023. The film has a website.

The documentary explores the aftermath of a fire which destroyed a masjid in Victoria, Texas. The region's history and politics are exlored as factors in people's actions. Lest this point get lost in my musings below, the film is well done and worth watching.

------ Spoiler alert ------

Authorities determined the fire was intentional. After a co-conspirator came forward as a confidential informant, police arrested Marq Vincent Perez. A federal court later found him guilty and sentenced him to more than 24 years in jail.

Here's a Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice document discussing a recent appeal from Mr. Perez.

A recent local news piece discussed changes in the Muslim community of Victoria since the arson.

What do we learn watching this? We knew that the Global War on Terror, whether in the Bush the Small or Obama mode, caused individuals in the United States to target Muslims and those perceived as Muslim-adjacent as threats.

It surprised some people that the perpetrator was a Chicano (perhaps Tejano?). I'm not sure why that's surprising. Being part of an oppressed group doesn't preclude practicing oppression (see Palestinian anti-blackness in Chicago), and many white supremacist-adjacent USA-fascist organizations have non-white participants. In addition, Hispanic as an ethic group blurs the distinctions among those who identify as white European settlers in the Americas, the descendants of enslaved Africans and the indigenous peoples of the continent.

One Muslim in Victoria placed great hope in Beto O'Rourke's campaign for one of Texas's seats in the United States Senate. A clip shows Beto speaking to Muslims. In that speech, he suggested that the endless wars of the USA were causing problems. Was that a consistent theme for him during that campaign? Or did he only say such things in front of Muslim audiences? Why do Muslims have no home in either the Democratic or Republican parties?

What is the benefit of police and judiciary actions? On the one hand, Mr. Perez is restrained from further crime, although at great cost to the state, his children and his parents. Did his severe sentence deter others? Not likely. Do Muslims in Victoria feel safer? Probably. Do they feel satisfaction at his suffering? Maybe. Might some type of restorative justice have produced a better result? The film doesn't explore this. I again recommend Arjun Sing Sethi's American Hate: Survivors Speak Out.

It's clear to me that USA Muslims, like other non-white peoples, will continue to suffer hate crimes as USA imperial interests require demonization of targeted populations abroad. The only long-term solution is dismantling USA Empire & its twin, the domestic colonization process of racial capitalism. The Muslims in Victoria are committed practicioners of respectability politics. It works for them (somewhat), but it doesn't solve the problem, as many subsequent hate crimes have demonstrated.

A recent interview with director Li Lu is worth reading.

I continue to be inspired by my memory one of the first books I ever wrote about in this blog, Sherman Jackson's Islam and the Blackamerican. I haven't read it in 20 years, so I might be misremembering it.

Review: 36 Seconds: Portrait of a Hate Crime by Tarek Albaba

2023-11-19T12:13:00.000-05:00

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 36 Seconds Film (@36secondsfilm)

I watched 36 Seconds: Portraity of a Hate Crime by Tarek Albaba via the NYC Film Festival, where it is available for streaming through November 26, 2023.

I had of course heard about the murders of Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu Salha and Razan Abu Salha and even attended a vigil in Columbia County, Georgia. I had not kept up with the news of the case, although I periodically saw advertisements and reports of the Our Three Winners Foundation, which formed after the murders. I did know that the perpetrator was sentenced to life in prison (3 consecutive life terms, without the possibility of parole, as I learned from the documentary).

So what is there more? Why should anybody watch this film?

I am going to try to reconcile two seemingly contradictory ideas, but indulge me. The first is that the film is a worthy tribute to the three outstanding martyred young people Deah, Yusor and Razan. The second is that film reveals some of the limitations of respectability politics.

What do I mean by respectability politics in the United States? It's the politics that calls for extending rights, protections and priveleges to an oppressed category because of how much the individuals in that category are like the ideals the priveleged class in society claims for itself and/or demands in others. This is best exemplified by the Talented Tenth, whom various figures in United States history decided were the African-Americans worthy of a fuller measure of human rights. It was the decision to support Rosa Parks's challenge to the racial segregation of Montgomery, Alabama's bus system and not Claudette Colvin.

So by emphasizing the qualities of Deah, Yusor and Razan, we are practicing a sort of respectability politics that says, "Hey, we Muslims can be talented professionals, stylish dressers, popular-culture consumers and participants and physically attractive. Treat us like one of you!"

Shortly after their murders, three youths, Mohamedtaha Omar, Muhannad Tairab and Adam Mekki, immigrants from Sudan's Dar Fur region, were murdered execution style in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The police judged the motive was not anti-Muslim animus since Adam Mekki was Christian. As is common in USA-crimes related to young black men, society settled on the explanation that it was drug-related.

The family members didn't have the resources to challenge the image and/or neglect this case placed on their murdered relatives, and there was no sustaned nationwide mobilization from Muslims to support the families. Whether this is a result of anti-blackness or the murder victims' lack of bourgeious achivements, the impression one gets is that Deah, Yusor and Razan are more important than Mohamedtaha, Muhannad and Adam, may Allah جل جلاله have mercy on all of them and comfort their families.

Yet 36 Seconds doesn't stop with respectability politics and points towards its limitations. When major politcal processes and institutions are driving hate against Muslims, gunmen like the North Carolina perpetrator aren't going to stop to see if their targets have recently volunteered time to feed the needy. In our time, when #46Regime Genocide Joe is repeating Zionist propaganda against Palestinians and funding the Israeli army's killing and starvation of Palestinians, no amount of personal achievement and good looks will protect a Palestinian or a person perceived to be close to Palestianian, i.e. nearly all non-white people and people with non-genocidal politics, from hate crimes.

While the families places a lot of stock in the hate crime designation, I think the film clearly shows that their concern for this designation was partly a reaction to press reports that the murder happened as a result of a parking dispute. The film clearly shows the necessity for a justice system to produce truth, which, thankfully, did happen in this case. I think one of the best literary portrayals of this need is Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead.

While some in the film talk about how hate crime legislation and data tracking should be improved, I don't think the film does a great job of examing policies surrounding hate crimes, which of course vary widely by state and would likely go beyond the scope of this film.

Call me a radical, but I think tolerating homelessness, selling weapons to governments to kill in their wars and failing to address collapse of the biosphere are better examples of racism, the need for gun control and hate crimes than individuals' use of the N-word, 2nd Amendment fanatics & Dylan Roof. I'm just not that interested in the United States government's punishing perpetrators of hate crimes when it itself is the most massive perptetrator of hate crimes.

The film filled in some gaps in my recollection of the case. It claims, for example, that the local police spread the parking dispute narrative in an attempt to control public fears that a pattern of anti-Muslim crimes was possible. I also didn't know that Deah had recorded with his cell phone the murders, that the recording was presented as evidence at the sentencing phase and that it and other evidence collected by the prosecutors proved beyond any doubt that the perpetrator's narrative of a parking dispute and altercation and possible self-defense was false.

Review: "Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood and the World" by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope

2023-10-30T13:16:00.002-04:00

Let us respect the colonialist plunderers of old. At least they had to risk "cannibals" and malaria. Today's plundering colonialists risk bad sushi and paper cuts in hotel lobbies in Switzerland and Singapore.

Reading Tom Wright's and Bradley Hope's Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood and the World engendered in me the same nausea and disgust I felt after reading The Secret World of Oil by Ken Silverstein. Every dollar extracted from the poorer nations of the world is a dollar taken away from development efforts. And while Wright's and Hope's narrative takes advantage of the extravagence of Jho Low, the central character, to maintain the reader's interest, it matters not if the people who extract the money spend it on birthday parties, yachts and jewelry or actual productive business enterprises. It's all theft from the world's poor.

The looting of 1MDB is the subject of Billion Dollar Whale. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak oversaw the creation and management of 1MDB, a sovereign national fund, and, through cronies and bankers, pilfered millions (tens, hundreds?) of USD.

The best passage in the book is towards the end, on p. 371:

It contrasts somewhat with the pass that the authors on p. 229 provide to the bankers and accountants who facilitated and handsomely profited from this plunder:

Western financial institutions, from Goldman to auditors and private banks, had unwittingly helped Low get away with it, impoverishing Malaysia. (emphasis added)

When people talk about corruption, it makes actions like these seem like accidents. Liberals say thing like, "They took advantage of loopholes." and "Regulation must be strengthened." Radicals ask: what if the whole financial system is designed to continuously prevent capital accumulation for development in the Global South?

Listen to the Citations Needed Podcast Episode entitled Western Media’s Narrow, Colonial Definition of "Corruption". This link is free and has show notes, but requires a Patreon User ID. This link doesn't require a login.

P.S. 2023-11-27 - Another important lesson from this colonialst plundering is the centrality of military force in international finance. Can you image what the United States government would do if confidence artists stole money from powerful people in the United States and used it to buy assets in militarily weak countries? The United States would demand transfer of assets and punitive reparations under threat of economic sanctions and military attack. Some libertarian-types imagine capitalism without government coercion. That is clearly a fantasy, as, at the end of the day, capitalists rely on military and police to protect their capital.

Children's Books from Ruqaya's Bookshelf: Is It Time to Demand More from Muslim Children's Literature?

2023-10-03T06:59:00.004-04:00

Basirah the Basketballer says Insha'Allah by Hafsah Dabiri (more links)
Zaid and the Gigantic Cloud by Helal Musleh
The Great Hair Exchange by Asmaa Hussein (founder of Ruqaya's Bookshelf)
Not Too Little to Make a Difference by Lela Usama Goldsmith
Mr. Gamal's Gratitude Glasses by Asmaa Hussein
Nusaiba and the 5th Grade Bullies by Asmaa Hussein
Pepperoni, Pitches (and Other Problems) by Shifa Saltagi Safadi
Spell It Like S-A-M-A-R by Shifa Saltagi Safadi

Ruqaya's Bookshelf's ordering and fulfillment process worked well. The production value in terms of binding, paper, copyediting, illustrations, colors and cover finish are good. Many of the texts use British orthography, so be prepared to help your young readers with that.

My two favorite stories were Basirah the Basketballer Says Insha'Allah and Zaid and the Gigantic Cloud. In Basirah, Hafsah Dabiri's story shows how a child might develop a faulty understanding of a religious concept and then learn from her parents a more correct understanding. In Zaid, Helal Musleh and the illustrator compel the readers to interpret a metaphor to understand the moral lesson of the story. I prefer that over the more frequent "club the reader over the head with the moral lesson."

Seventeen years ago, I'd written Criteria for Evaluating Muslim Children's Media. While I've written many things over the years which I now regard as cringeworthy, for the most part I thought this one was on point and reflected the state of Muslim children's media at the time.

If these 8 books are reflective of the current state of Muslim children's media, it may be time to make a more demanding set of criteria. As I'm typing these words, I'm not sure how to express what I think is missing, but I'll share some criticisms of these books here. Take these criticisms with a grain of salt. I'm not a specialist in child education, and I'm really too old to be taken seriously talking about children's books. :-) And they are still likely to be worth purchasing for personal and institutional use.

Many of these books have depictions of bullying, yet they seem formulaic. The illustrator typically illustrates the bullies as stereotypical-Northern Europeans. Pepperoni by Shifa Saltagi Safadi has the more complex "bully" story, but it still falls short.

I don't understand the ubiquity of hijabs in illustrations and in some story lines. Do we expect or even want Muslim girls at twelve and thirteen and fourteen year old to wear hijab? The stories are made for 5-6 year olds, so why do the books frequently depict the female Muslim protaganists, with whom the readers are presumably to identify, as wearers of hijab?

Some of these books have "pick yourself up from your bootstrap" and other positive-attitude, self-help type themes. And there's nothing particularly wrong with that, and I even liked it in Zaid and the Gigantic Cloud. But such self-help stories can sometimes cross the line into perseverance porn when the story never makes clear that there are social solutions to individuals' hardships. In the story Not Too Little to Make a Difference, poverty prevents a family from sending the female protagonist to school. The protagonist tries to earn the money for school fees through the informal economy. She fails, but, in the course of doing so, she attracts the attention of a donor who does pay her fees and allows her to attend school. Instead of presenting child labor as a solution, why isn't the story asking why some societies choose not to provide universal free education? Why is not the action that "makes a difference" canvassing to create a labor union to improve the wages of workers and get families out of poverty?

And, just to throw this out there, at what age should children be exposed to tragedy in their literature? What if the child can't go to school? What if the sick relative dies? What if the bully doesn't get her comeuppance?

Perhaps I'm writing these mild criticisms on these for-the-most-part quality books because of a general frustration I'm feeling with the quality of Muslim life in North America. We just seem to be settling for superficial, formulaic, bourgeois religion, not religion which comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.

Book Given Away: "Calling for a Blanket Dance" by Oscar Hokeah

2023-10-02T06:44:00.002-04:00

~~Would you like my copy of the novel~~ Calling for a Blanket Dance by Oscar Hokeah? Book given away. It's a good read.

Every once in a while I give away books here. Make sure you subscribe to receive blog posts as soon as they are published.

Film: "Bilal: A New Breed of Hero" by Khurram H. Alavi and Ayman Jamal

2023-06-25T10:06:00.005-04:00

I watched Bilal: A New Breed of Hero by Khurram H. Alavi and Ayman Jamal on Peacock. It is produced by Barajoun Entertainment. Alexander Kronemer & Michael Wolfe of Unity Productions Foundation are also writers on the film.

While the movie never is explicit that it is a story based on Muslims' common understandings of events surrounding Bilal ibn Rabah رضي الله عنه, a leading companion of Allah's Messenger صلى الله عليه و سلم, Muslim families familiar with these understandings will recognize elements. For example, in the duel before a battle scene, one of the participants on the side of the "New Movement" carries a sword ending in two points, as is commonly believed about `Ali ibn Abi Talib رضي الله عنه.

There are other details which don't match my understanding of the life of real Bilal. For example, I never heard he had a sister enslaved in Makka.

So families could study sources about the companion Bilal, watch the film and discuss the choices the directors made.

For viewers unfamiliar with Muslims' common understandings of these actual characters, the film portrays uplifting and inspirational messages about the equality of human beings and vices of greed and anger. It could also be a prompt for a directed discussion and study of slavery and other forms of human exploitation.

I think the choice of the word "breed" in the subtitle is unfortunate.

Recommendation: "Savvy Yazzy's African Adventure: The Fulani Culture" by Boubacar Cherif Balde and Illustrated by Irina Conde

2023-04-19T09:07:00.007-04:00

Savvy Yazzy's African Adventure: The Fulani Culture by Boubacar Cherif Balde and illustrated by Irina Conde is a wonderful way to introduce your young reader to travel, Guinea Conakry, agriculture and good manners which make people pleasant hosts and guests wherever they live. The illustrations are warm and vibrant.

Recommendation: Documentary "A Stranger at the Gates," Directed by Josh Seftel

2023-03-18T09:52:00.002-04:00

Check out the documentary A Stranger at the Gate by Josh Seftel.

My only reservation is the pressure Muslims in the United States place on reverts to represent us. May Allah help all those in the documentary to continue on His path, especially Richard McKinney.

Recommendation: "The Blessed Bananas" by Tayyaba Syed and Illustrated by Melani Putri

2023-03-18T09:16:00.005-04:00

I realized how much I liked The Blessed Bananas, written by Tayyaba Syed and illustrated by Melani Putri, when I started to describe the story to an elderly relative in Arabic. When I finished my version, I realize it differed in some ways from Tayyaba's text, yet it still worked, both as an entertaining narrative and a lesson in good behavior and morals.

I had recently read Watership Down by Richard Adams. Apart from the dramatic action, the interspersed stories the rabbits told about their ancestor ElAhrairah were entertaining. I had similarly tried to convey them to my relative.

So I feel like a raconteur!

قولوا علي قصاص

So you can use the wonderful illustrations in this book to tell your toddler Tayyaba's version of the story and then your version(s) of the story. Then, when the child grows older, you can repeat the process, and you and the child will be hearing a whole new set of stories.

Review: Film "Lamya's Poem" by Alex Kronemer

2023-03-05T08:54:00.005-05:00

Lamya's Poem, from Unity Productions Foundation, is an imaginative and moving animated film which can appeal to a variety of audiences. It would be inaccurate to pigeon-hole Lamya's Poem into a category. Is it advocacy on behalf of migrants fleeing war and poverty? Is it therapy for individuals who have experienced trauma? Is it fan-fiction for Jalal al-Din Rumi? Is it a call to Muslims to orient their religious practice in a particular manner?

There are certainly aspects of these themes in the film. Might the film have been simpler to digest had it restricted itself to a more straightforward narrative and less avant-garde visuals? Perhaps, but isn't it time Muslim media productions went beyond macaroni & cheese to a more nuanced and subtle dish?

The film is animated, and it portrays children, but don't make the mistake of thinking it is a children's film. Don't think that you can stick it in your DVD player and have it babysit your 8 year old while you shop on eBay. I'm no expert in what's appropriate for children based on their ages, but I'd definitely sit and discuss this with a child during and after viewing.

My favorite visual effect was the transformation of the Mongol cavalry charge which haunted Jalal al-Din's memories into the police kettle which trapped Lamya and other migrants in an unregulated gathering site in an unnamed European city.

I have requested through my public library books which appeared in the film's credits as sources for the translations of Rumi's poetry.

For many years I've supported Unity Productions Foundation. I urge readers of this blog to watch its productions and support as able. I also gave the film a good rating at IMDB.

I was able to watch this film on Hoopla Digital for free through my public library membership. As the film reminds us, the first word of the revelation is "Read!".

Favorite Quotes from "A Sand County Almanac" by Aldo Leopold

2023-02-25T14:07:00.008-05:00

A friend recommended to me Aldo Leopold's book A Sand County Almanac. For more information on Aldo Leopold, visit the Aldo Leopold Foundation website.

The book, originally published in 1949, is an excellent exploration of why we need an environmental ethic (Leopold called it "the land ethic.") Here are some passages which struck me. All page numbering comes from the 2013 special commemorative edition.

Historians Must Use the Saw, the Wedge and the Axe (p.16)

Alphabetical Conservationists Destroy Wilderness (p. 89)

Economists Don't See the Value of Wilderness (p. 91)

Understanding Evolution by Natural Selection Opens a Way towards the Environmental Ethic (p. 97)

"It is a century now since Darwin gave us the first

Ecological Awareness, Not Technology, Is a Mark of Humans' Superiority (p. 99)

Note that "Mr. Bush's bombs" is a reference to Vannevar Bush, who became famous for marshalling engineering and science for the United States's military. "Mr. DuPont's nylons" is a reference to the DuPont company's successful commercial replacement of women's silk stockings with a synthetic fabric. This transition is widely considered the begining of the age of plastics.

Is Experience the Dilution of Essentials by Trivialities of Living? (p. 107)

Striving Too Much for Safety is Not Thinking Like a Mountain (p. 117)

True Recreation Development Is a Mental Process (p. 151)

Conservation Solely for Economic Self-interest Is Limited (p. 180)

Releases of Biotic Capital Are Deceptively Positive in the Short-Term (p 183)

Chemical & Mechanical Changes to Agriculture Are Improvements to the Pump, Not the Well (p. 186)

Recommendation: "In Our Own Hands: Tools for Talking Abolition and Transformative Justice with Little Ones" by Rania El Mugammar

2022-11-22T04:54:00.002-05:00

You can talk to your kids about abolition & transformative (I made a free workbook to help you do it!)

Trust they're already getting an education in copaganda & catceral punishment.https://t.co/aeESt11HpJ pic.twitter.com/AUfE4EeMh4
— ر ت ت ت (@raniawrites) November 21, 2022

Here's the link to the page on Rania's website. Rania also uses Twitter and IG.

Recommendation: Documentary "An Act of Worship" by Nausheen Dadabhoy

2022-11-11T07:37:00.000-05:00

Nausheen Dadabhoy's documentary An Act of Worship uses Muslim-Americans' home movies, documentary clips of newsworth events, interviews with Muslims and a board where handwritten post-it notes with events which impacted the lives of Muslim-Americans to show the forces Muslim-Americans confront living in the United States. The film is available on PBS's show POV, and it is available for free online through January 16, 2023.

Recommendation: "Minor Detail" by Adania Shibli

2022-09-24T08:50:00.004-04:00

The incident took place on a morning that would coincide, exactly a quarter of a century later, with the morning of my birth. Of course, this may seem like pure narcissism, the fact that what drew me to the incident, what made it begin haunting me, was the presence of a detail that is really quite minor when compared to the incident's major details, which can only be described as tragic. It's completely plausible, though, for this type of narcissism to exist in someone. It's an innate tendency, one might say, toward a belief in the uniqueness of the self, toward regarding the life one leads so highly that one cannot but love life and everything about it. [p. 58]

In 2021, the One Book, Many Communities project of Librarians and Archivists with Palestine selected Minor Detail by Adania Shibli and translated by Elisabeth Jacquette.

Don't stop talking about Palestine.

Excerpt from "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison for Banned Books Week 2022

2022-09-23T09:19:00.002-04:00

For more information on Banned Books Week, visit https://bannedbooksweek.org/. American Library Association, Officer for Intellection Freedom While “diversity” is seldom given as a reason for a challenge, it may in fact be an underlying and unspoken factor: the work is about people and issues others would prefer not to consider. Often, content addresses concerns of groups who have suffered historic and ongoing discrimination. For instance, a book that often recurs in previous years’ top ten challenges is Toni Morrison’s Beloved. While it has sex in it, and that's often the complaint, many other books also have sex, and are not challenged. Is the underlying motivation for the challenge racism? Sometimes, it surely is. In other cases, of course, a complaint genuinely may be about precisely what the challenger says it is. from https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/d... Toni Morrison's 1970 novel "The Bluest Eye" has been challenged many times, including Columbia County, Georgia, where I live, in 2022. This narration comes at the end of a longer passage. You can download and listen to the longer excerpt here: https://app.box.com/s/x2q6xqsseqxu3cc... Images in order of appearance Toni Morrison Lecture_013 (March 28, 2013) by Mike Strasser (United States Military Academy PAO) https://flic.kr/p/e6Fow2 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Noted psychologists Kenneth Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark: 1945 ca. Washington Area Spark https://flic.kr/p/Gwjt4S https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Kenneth and Mamie Clark Doll National Park Service Photo by Visual Information Specialist Preston Webb Part of the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Park, Topeka, Kansas https://www.nps.gov/brvb/learn/histor... Alexandria King, Hadar Busia-Singleton, McKenzie Frye, and Brittany-Laurelle Photo: T Charles Erickson From the 2022 stage production "The Bluest Eye" by Lydia R. Diamond and Directed by Awoye Timpo, January 28 - March 26, 2022, The Huntington Calderwood/BCA, Boston, MA https://www.huntingtontheatre.org/ https://flic.kr/p/2n17J9T https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Stephanie Gainer Arts, https://www.facebook.com/sgainerfb Covers of various editions of translations of "The Bluest Eye." 29.GraffitiAlley.BaltimoreMD.8August2019 by Elvert Barnes https://flic.kr/p/2gT3aFw https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Reading by Ayman Fadel (http://twitter.com/aymanfadel)

"The Great Muslim American Road Trip" Once Again Demonstrates that Unity Productions Foundation Is Worthy of Support

2022-08-04T10:42:00.003-04:00

I am a long-time supporter of Unity Productions Foundation. I've blogged about its productions numerous times.

I just finished watching the series The Great Muslim American Road Trip on United States's Public Broadcasting System. The series presented vignettes of Muslim life in North America through the lens of Mona Haydar and Sebastian Robins, a married couple, who traveled from Chicago to Los Angeles on the famed Route 66.

I hope that, for Muslims, the series will be another reminder that there's no single way to be Muslim and any attempt to restrict Muslim life to a particular conception is likely to exclude unjustly many other authentic expressions of Muslim life. In fact, maybe we ought to drop the concern about authenticity in Muslim life.

Of course one can nitpick on things here and there in the series. Nevertheless, since the vast majority of us can't do anything better, send some of your money to Unity Productions Foundation so it can continue to tell stories about Muslims which improve the lives of Muslims in North America and open people's minds a bit more.

I also should publicly thank Mona & Sebastian for sticking their necks out and having cameras in their faces for extended periods of time. I don't know them personally, but, assuming their motives are good, I pray that Allah rewards them for sacrificing their privacy for the sake of a production which can do a lot of good.

Lessons for Muslims from "Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation" by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

2022-08-02T13:02:00.005-04:00

Kristin Kobes Du Mez provides answers in Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation to those who wondered why the vast majority of self-identified Christian evangelicals supported the publicly vulgar & openly sinful Donald Trump for President of the United States in the 2016 election cycle. Historians like Du Mez and Kevin Kruse claim that the answer to this apparent dilemma lies in decades of United States history. While Kevin Kruse emphasized oligarchs' fear of organized labor and social welfare programs and communism, Du Mez emphasized the misogynistic, white supremacist messaging in support of overseas imperialism and domestic patriarchy. I encourage readers to benefit from both books. I encourage Muslim readers to ponder the following questions:

1. Is your hatred of human rights for gays and lesbians and fear of atheists worth allying with people who are on the wrong side of issues such as environmental protection, labor rights, decolonization & restoration of the rights of the First Peoples of this continent, ending mass black incarceration, quality public education, just immigration policies towards non-European migrants, etc? I'm trying to imagine a world in which I would ever share platforms with people who cheered the occupations of Afghanistan & Iraq and ignore the existence of Palestinians. Do you think we should be adding our names in support of people who want to place Left Behind books and movies in public schools and remove books on evolution, cosmology, geology and history?

2. Read Chapter 16, "Evangelical Mulligans," and then tell me that we should dismiss contemporary Muslim calls for gender equity. Study materials from the Hurma Project. Ask people who work in domestic violence shelters specializing in helping Muslim women and children. Already, we Muslims in North America have had high profile "leaders" exposed as physically and sexually abusive. Do you think that the YouTube preachers railing against "feminism" are any different from the Christians Du Mez discusses in this chapter? It is reported that Allah's Messenger said:

لَتَتَّبِعُنَّ سَنَنَ الَّذِينَ مِنْ قَبْلِكُمْ شِبْرًا بِشِبْرٍ وَذِرَاعًا بِذِرَاعٍ حَتَّى لَوْ دَخَلُوا فِي جُحْرِ ضَبٍّ لاَتَّبَعْتُمُوهُمْ قُلْنَا يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ آلْيَهُودَ وَالنَّصَارَى قَالَ فَمَنْ

You will tread the same path as was trodden by those before you inch by inch and step by step so much so that, if they had entered into the hole of a lizard, you would follow them. We said: Allah's Messenger, "Jews and Christians?" He said: Who else?

Why do you suppose that we Muslims will be immune to the harms that these Christian misogynists spread among their followers? Cease supporting patriarchal preachers. Push organizations claiming to represent Muslims to have independent women in positions of leadership. Don't settle for unequal facilities in places of worship. Don't sweep sexual "indiscretions" and physical, financial and emotional abuse under the rug, either from lay Muslims or "scholars." Make sure Muslim girls have the same educational, recreational and career opportunities as boys.

Recommendation: Bahram Rahman, "The Library Bus," Gabrielle Grimard (illustrator)

2022-06-17T09:16:00.002-04:00

Bahram Rahman's The Library Bus is an excellent means to introduce to Muslim (and non-Muslim!) children the value of reading and the harms gender discrimination causes.

I hope this book is eventually translated into all the languages spoke in Afghanistan and nearby countries and published and distributed widely.