'ilm al-insaan علم الإنسان

Behind the Veil

2010-06-14T05:33:00.000+03:00

Chattanooga niqabis in Behind the Veil, NYTimes, 6.11.10

Cover Girl

2010-05-28T16:32:00.001+03:00

The Oprah Magazine ran an article in this month's issue written by a non-Muslim California mother married to a North African Muslim whose nine-year old daughter Aliya recently decided to start wearing the scarf. She discusses some of the emotions that this kicked up; fears over being different, wanting to protect her daughter from people's ignorance, wanting her daughter to have a normal childhood, and admiring Aliya for removing herself, to the degree that she can, from some of the storms of girlhood, remembering her own excitement and shame at wearing a bikini. It's great to see such a unique story, written so lovingly, in a mainstream magazine.

I particularly liked this quote:

I imagined Aliya in a string bikini in a few years. Then I imagined her draped in Muslim attire. It was hard to say which image was more unsettling. I thought then of something a Sufi Muslim friend had told me: that Sufis believe our essence radiates beyond our physical bodies—that we have a sort of energetic second skin, which is extremely sensitive and permeable to everyone we encounter. Muslim men and women wear modest clothing, she said, to protect this charged space between them and the world.

Cover Girl, 5.27.10

Aljazeera: Unplugged

2010-05-22T19:40:00.008+03:00

So I'm writing this post from the Aljazeera "Unplugged: Real Time Media - The Power of Now" conference. It's been great to see so many important aspects of new media brought together and reflected upon, in particular with regard to some of the amazing work being done on crowdsourcing, torrent "curation" (via Ushahidi's project Swift River), aggregating and making sense of crowd content and of course, citizen journalism. In particular, I thought Robin Sloan made some very important and basic points when focusing on reducing "friction" on Twitter (by reducing the user interface to nil, which was one of the things that originally confounded me when I started up on Twitter; its very ease seemed deceptive. But the ease is the point.) In reducing the platform to pure content, pure message, I cannot help but recall the now well-worn McLuhanism "the medium is the message." Particularly in terms of the ways that new media has become imbricated in our lives - when we access the news through new media, we're moving away from what Sloan called "news mode" (time during the day specifically allocated for accessing the news) and instead filling the interstitial moments of our lives, standing and waiting for an elevator, riding in a taxi, with data. Kevin Anderson did a great job of laying out some of the basic ways that traditional journalists can relevantly encorporate new media and of course from Iran to New Orleans to Haiti there is a vast wealth of example at this point to draw from. It's given me a cool idea that I'm going to percolate on.

But I'd like to step back and look at another phenomenon going on in this room. What I'm seeing right now is an interesting process of self-aware cyborgization (actually we're fully cyborgized, and have been for a long time, so it's a process of 'living' cyborg and not 'becoming' cyborg that I'm referring to). The crowd is full of people tweeting, chatting on skype, checking facebook, blogging (ie. on Kaiser Kuo's China and censorship talk), "going" to other places and being remarkably here and there at once. On the one hand it's people tuning out when they decide that the information being presented is less relevant to them, but more importantly, on the other hand people are listening actively and engaging elsewhere, actively, simultaneously, themselves filtering the content being presented for the most relevant soundbytes, the most "tweetable" information. Which speakers know, and comment on, which goes back to the self awareness (for example Aljazeera specified the hashtag #unplugged for those tweeting the conference). I believe it was Joi Ito from Creative Commons who mentioned that it is the audience now distributing the content, and though he was referring to populations like facebook users, the audience in this room couldn't be a clearer example. It feels like a classroom, and the students passing electronic notes to one another as well as to students outside of the room, deciding what in the lesson is most important, and with the teacher's encouragement. And the fact that all of this information through various platforms is laying on top of itself results in a feeling of complete hypertextualization, self-referential, information-storming. A la Roland Barthes, the audience is 'reading' the text of the lectures presented to them and then 'writing' them, audience, interpretor, and author all at once. And maybe that's part of what's so cool about new media - our agency and authorship.

In any case. Very cool, and many kudos to Aljazeera's new media team for a job very well done.

Taqwacore vs. Fatwacore

2010-05-21T22:47:00.003+03:00

"Conservative Muslims need to get used to the proliferating diversity of Islam..."

Conservative Islam Collides With Punk, Asif Akhthar, The Guardian 5.21.10

I'm surprised it took this long for the Pakistani establishment to notice the Taqwacore movement, seeing as so many of the bands have ties to the country, and since Pakistan itself boasts an alternative music scene (and not just alternative music in Pakistan but chart toppers such as the popular Sufi-rocker Salman Ahmad). But more importantly, and more generally, I think this points to the coming-of-age of a specifically Western face of Islam that is far from monolithic. And I think that these Western voices are going to be increasingly turning to their own for authority, seeking Western imams instead of imports whose frequent and pronounced cultural disconnects limit their ability to reach young Muslims. Of course that authority will continue to be sanctioned according to traditional means of scholarship, but they'll be American and Canadian and British graduates of Azhar demanded in their respective countries.

Podcast Roundup

2010-05-21T18:44:00.005+03:00

I listen to a lot of podcasts when I travel and I like being forced to sit down and, having nothing to distract me, listen to lectures. As I'm always getting and giving podcast recommendations, I thought I would pull together some of my favorite podcasts on Islam. I'm not sure how to link directly to iTunes, but you'll be able to find the podcasts by searching whatever I've put in quotes. Ok, breakdown!

1. Khutbahs (sermons) / Islamic lectures / Advice
There's a bit of variety here in quality and content, but in general I've really enjoyed the "Mecca One" radio podcast, a show based in California that brings various figures in the (mostly American) Muslim community on for interviews with Omair, its host. Former Baptist minister Yusuf Estes has a video podcast called "Watch Islam" although I tend to find that he has a bit too much of the preacher in his style for my taste. The Islamic Circle of New York's "ICNYU" podcast is pretty good for khutbahs and I like "Naeem Abdul Wali's Lecture Series" and the "Salam Center" podcast for easily digestible and interesting khutbahs. By searching for individual imams you can find some good stuff, and I'm a fan of Suhaib Webb, and definitely Hamza Yusuf, including his "Zaytuna Institute Knowledge Series" and Imam Zaid Shakir's "New Islamic Directions" series. Sheikh Yasir Qadhi has a podcast and various other materials available at Muslim Matters, and Dr. Bilal Philips, based here in Doha, offers podcasted khutbahs and on online course on his website (thanks to Podhead for the haha, heads up).

There's tons of other material in Arabic, but I haven't explored much of it other than Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi's weekly lectures on Aljazeera's "الشريعة و الحياة".

2. History & Culture
There's lots of good stuff on politics and current affairs in the Muslim world, but I'd rather focus on history and culture. Here iTunes U has some really cool things. The "University of Warwick" has a series on "Medieval Islamic Medicine" while "La Trobe University" has several episodes on "Islamic Banking and Finance," the Metropolitan Museum of Art has an "Islamic Art" series, and in the legal realm there's an interview with "Khaled Abou El Fadl," a scholar with UCLA, among the "UCTV Podcasts." Among the "Harrisburg Area's Community College" podcasts is a class on World Literature by Rick Albright, including lectures on the Qur'an, Ferdowsi, Rumi, and the Thousand and One Nights. Representing the humor category, there is the ever-amusing Ali Ardekani whose "Ummah Films" 'Baba Ali' series is available as a video podcast. You can listen to poetry from Palestinian poet Suheir Hammad from the "Arab American National Museum" podcast and explore Arab music on the Kennedy Center's "Arabesque" podcast. In Arabic, Aljazeera's "الاسلاميون" is a cool video podcast on Islamic reformers.

Sufism gets a whole subcategory of its own. The "Ibn Arabi Society" has a very nice podcast, but oftentimes the lectures are a bit ivory tower. Highlights, however, include "The Poetry of Ibn Arabi - Recitations from the Tarjuman Al-Ashwaq" which feature his poetry in both Arabic and English, and a beautiful lecture called "The Wisdom of the Heart Unveils the Heart of Wisdom" by a Zen Buddhist practitioner speaking on Buddhist meditation and Ibn Arabi. The Naqshabandis are well represented, the "Ansari Sufi Order" has a podcast, as do the Muhammidiyah's, called "Zawiyah." That's a basic listing but there are several more.

I would definitely recommend the "Meyer Auditorium Concert Series" episodes on Sufi music, "Sufi Music from Iran" and especially the extremely cool "Sufi Music of Rajesthan." The "Library of Congress" podcast in a series on music and the brain has an interview with Tunisian musician Taoufiq ben Amor called "States of Mind: Music in Islamic Sufi Rituals" (incidentally, all Sufis are Muslims so I'm not sure why the need to specify 'Islamic' Sufi Rituals, but I think Sufism tends to get confused as a watered-down philosophy in the West and not the highly disciplined approach to Islam that it ideally is, but I digress). The NY Met also has an episode called "Rumi and the Sufi Tradition" that explores images of Rumi in medieval Islamic art, and the "Speaking of Faith" podcast has a show called "The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi." Also in iTunes U is a podcast from "Yale Religion" on "God is Loving: Glimpses from Sufi Guardians of Love and Islam."

3. Muslim Narratives
The University of Wisconsin has a great podcast called "Inside Islam," and though I find it more generally directed to non-Muslim audiences, I do like the fact that it covers alternative voices and marginal perspectives. For example, they have episodes on "Taqwacores: Muslim Punk Rock" and "Being Gay and Muslim." "Muslim Voices" from the University of Indiana's Center for the Study of Global Change is similar in this regard. Islamophonic, available through The Guardian, is irreverent and relevant though hasn't been updated since late 2009. New York's Radio Tahrir offers a very cool podcast on issues of relevance to the Arab and American Muslim community.

There's a great episode from This American Life (my favorite podcast out there, period) called Shouting Across the Divide, which you can purchase on iTunes or stream for free from their archives, on one Muslim family's destructive experience of discrimination in the months following 9-11, and another on a traumatized soldier's attempts to overcome his fear of Muslims by joining his university's Muslim Student Association called The Devil in Me.

Anyways, so that's a basic review of what I've seen on iTunes and there's lots more, and you'll get different results if you search "Islam" "Muslim" "Islamic" "Arab" etc, so play around with keywords, and definitely let me know if you find anything particularly awesome.

Afghanistan Salaam

2010-05-20T16:30:00.000+03:00

Aljazeera English has an upcoming documentary on Afghanistan and they've used Farhad Darya's song 'Afghanistan Salaam' in the advertisement. Now that I've seen the commercial a million times (a testament to how much AJ I have on in the background of my life) I am totally obsessed with this song.

If I were a man I'd dress like an Afghan.

Which sort of reminds me, we had some Qatar University students come into our Arabic class today to ask us about our thoughts on Islam and the West. One of their questions was "do you think a guy with a long beard and short pants is an extremist?" Ha!

Ouch!

2010-05-18T17:46:00.000+03:00

Wow, Michael Slackman has been on a roll with Qatar. First it was about obesity and diabetes, then about blindness and genetic issues of consanguinous marriages, and now about self-entitlement and issues of Qatari and non-Qatari relations...ouch! I have to imagine that there are some very displeased people in Doha right now.

In Affluent Qataris Seek What Money Cannot Buy he returns again and again to the inconsistencies between what Qataris say, what they want, what they do, and what they have. Perhaps coming from Cairo, where it's a completely different sort of Middle East, Slackman has a particular perspective. But he paints a very negative picture of an obnoxiously affluent Qatar. And while I don't disagree with what he says entirely, particularly also having experienced that "other Middle East" where there is definitely no free lunch (or any lunch at all), I'm not so sure I would write off Qatar either. My Qatari coworkers are great, so relations between the two aren't bad all over, but I do know that in general that there is frustration and resentment over positions not being awarded to Qataris.

The issue of language is something that I discuss with people quite a bit. Being a foreigner here in an Arabic program, and very much hoping to one day speak Arabic fluently, I find Arabic attrition in the Gulf quite depressing. Qatari families send their children to international schools that prioritize learning English in order to more effectively compete with others once they graduate, English essentially being a prerequistite for most good jobs here. But people are beginning to recognize this and my impression is that there are gurgles of change. At least I hope so. As someone who lost her first language once I learned English, I can say that I lost a major opportunity not just to speak Polish, but to connect with Polish culture in a way that I will never be able to now. Arabic is not just a language; it has a culture, a history, a religion, etc., and without the linguistic component an Arab won't have access to perhaps what is the single most important endower of Arab identity.

On a final note, in my G.I. Joe-esque "knowing is half the battle" geeky-80's reference-of-the-day moral to the story, there's something to be said for struggle. We value what we earn, and there's a lot that's being handed out to people here. And though the Qataris should be privaleged in their own country, especially as its swamped with foreigners (whom the Qatari government has paved the way for, indulgently), how that privelege is conceived of and expressed is important to consider.

The Ring of the Dove

2010-05-15T11:25:00.006+03:00

I've been seeing articles on love, relationships, and sexuality in Muslim marriages in a lot of places these days, from the publication of Wedad Lootah's recent book to Imam Zaid Shakir's article on "The Ethics of Chivalry" published in Emel Magazine to its various responses, including Altmuslimah's The Maelstrom of Ethics and Marriage, to the excellent "Like a Garment" series on Muslim marriage and sexuality by Sheikh Yasir Qadhi...All's I can say is that the frustration that love is not in the air enough is in the air. And that's cool, because it means that we're thinking about an important issue. I think this post at the Muppie Chronicles pretty much summed up the issue when I read it a few years back, before I even really knew it was an issue. She concluded with the following words of wisdom: "This unhot transactional nonsense has got to go, dig? Can’t nobody defenestrate that but us, one lovemonkey marriage at a time. Ready?" (Incidentally, if that's not reason enough to read her blog, I don't know what is). And marriage is an essential component of the capacity of Islam to regulate a healthy society, and sexuality and pleasure in Islam are evinced in the hadith. As Abdul Hakim Murad as written in a a wonderful article on the gendering of Islam, Abrahamic faiths, and Eastern faiths, "the pattern of life decreed by Islam...is primordial, and hence biophiliac and affirmative of the hormonal and genetic dimensions of humanity..." (Islam, Irigaray and the Retrieval of Gender).

Ibn Hazm was an Andalusian scholar born in Cordoba in 994, trained in the classical Arab arts and sciences who wrote a treatise on the art and practice of Arab love called Ṭawq al-Ḥamāmah, or the Ring of the Dove. In it, he describes various forms of love, going into such detail as to expound upon the type of love that we fall into when we dream about a person. From A.J. Arberry's preface:

Islam made it increasingly difficult for the situation to develop in which boy meets girl. Love became a complicated and dangerous exploit; though marriage was of course never difficult; the romantic drama acquired its stock characters and conventional scenes. Moreover the puritanical spirit of Islam, making a virtue out of social necessity, discovered as much satisfaction in the quest as in the conquest. The idealization of a sort of Platonic love, in which the lover never achieved union with the beloved, inspired much of the finest poetry of the Arabs; it supplied the mystics with a favourite theme of meditation, when they substituted the Divine for the human object of the most powerful of man's natural passions.

Of course, the Ummayad-era tale of Layla and Majnun immediately springs to mind. Majnun, the lover, and Layla his beloved, prevented from marrying by her father. Majnun means crazy in Arabic, not in a sort of cheeky way, but in an insane, tearing out your hair and living in the desert wearing nothing but scraps, crying all the time and wasting away sort of way. One of my favorite words in Arabic is the verb "athuba," (عذب), in form I/X meaning: to be sweet or pleasant, in form II/V the meaning changes: to torment, to torture, to agonize. That a single root serves as a derivative for the experience of love as a whole is telling. As Faiz Ahmed Faiz has written:

Round my neck,
from time to time, there was the hallucination
of a noose, and now and then, the weight
of chains binding my feet.
Then one fine day
love came to drag me, bound and manacled,
into the same cavalcade as the others.

(from 'Love’s Captives,' translated by Naomi Lazard)

And yet, in his statement it seems that Arberry is taking the story of Layla and Majnun far too literally, ignoring the heavy allegory, and in response, it's useful to cite Ibn Hazm's: "Love is neither disapproved by Religion, nor prohibited by the Law; for every heart is in God's hands." Ibn Hazm deals with the literal aspects of Layla and Majnun as opposed to the allegorical ones, and discusses love for what it is. "The Ring" contains descriptions of the various forms of love, its signs, and the circumstances surrounding and necessitated by it, all of which are written, at least via the translation, in an incredibly endearing way and peppered by short poems of his. Signs of love include staring, listening with rapt attention, agreeing with the beloved when they're wrong or lying, sudden confusion when out of nowhere the beloved appears, agitation when hearing the beloved's name or seeing someone who resembles the beloved, the loss of "conversational powers," as well as insomnia, a desire for solitude, and weeping. Oh Ibn Hazm, you've just described what it's like to be a Twilight-obsessed 13 year old girl.

Other outward signs and tokens of love are the following, which are apparent to all having eyes in their heads: abundant and exceeding cheerfulness at finding oneself with the beloved in a narrow space, and a corresponding depression on being together in a wide expanse; to engage in a playful tug-of-war for anything the one or the other lays hold of; much clandestine winking; leaning sideways and supporting oneself against the object of one's affection; endeavoring to touch his hand, and whatever other part of his body one can reach, while engaged in conversation ; and drinking the remainder of what the beloved has left in his cup, seeking out the very spot against which his lips were pressed.

Much clandestine winking indeed.

Then there are the various ways one can fall in love: while asleep, through a description of the beloved, at first sight or long association, etc. Once in love, the lover must muster up the guts to get his beloved's attention, which can be done in numerous ways.

The first device employed by those who seek union, being lovers, in order to disclose their feelings to the object of their passion, is allusion by means of words. Either they will quote a verse of poetry, or dispatch an allegory, or rhyme a riddle, or propose an enigma, or use heightened language. Men vary in their methods according to the degree of their perspicacity, or the amount of aversion or sympathy, wit or dullness, which they remark in their loved ones. I know a man who commenced his declaration of love by quoting to his lady some verses of my own composition. This and the like are the shifts resorted to in the first stages of the love-quest. If the lover detects some sign of sympathy and encouragement, he then proceeds further. When he observes one or other of the characteristics we have described, while in the actual course of quoting some such verses, or hinting obliquely at the meaning he wishes to convey in the manner we have defined, then as he waits for his reply, whether it is to be given verbally, or by a grimace, or a gesture, he finds himself in a truly fearful situation, torn between hope and despair; and though the interval may be brief, enough, yet in that instant he becomes aware if his ambition is attainable, or if it must be abandoned.

Personally I like the idea of rhyming a riddle, but that depends on the perspicacity of my suitor...Love can also be signaled with the eyes (wink wink!), a go-between carefully selected from among the lover's friends, or good old-fashioned letter writing. On letters he wrote..."As for watering the ink of the love-letter with one's tears, I know of a man who did this regularly, and his beloved repaid him by watering the ink of her missives with her saliva." Hm, ew.

This goes on, from the inception of the relationship, to pitfalls such as slander, to ending it, heartbreak, forgetting the beloved, wasting away, and death. And though he writes about passionate head-over-heels love, Ibn Hazm is still a good Muslim and therefore wary of the sins of passion, and he believes that neither men nor women are able to control themselves under certain circumstances. He writes: "I hear many people say, "Complete subjugation of the passions is found only among men, and not among women." I never cease to wonder at this assertion. My own unwavering opinion is, that men and women are exactly equal in their inclination towards these two things..." Both men and women can get swept up in passionate love for their beloved, including righteous men and women. "The "righteous" man and the "righteous" woman are like a fire that lies hidden within the ashes, and does not burn any who is within range of it unless it be stirred into flame. But "wicked" men and women are like a blazing, all-consuming conflagration." He does, however, detail the many techniques that women (those minxy malaperts!) use to attract the attention of their beloveds, and so it seems to me that the onus continues to be placed upon them.

Ibn Hazm illuminates The Ring with anecdotes from his life and his friends' lives, though maintains throughout that he has stayed chaste and never adultered. He does admit to falling passionately in love at times, and to staying in the homes of women with whom he had platonic friendships, which I find interesting. He also drops some very saucy cautious tales of giving in to one's desires and the havoc it might wreak on one's reputation and religion. For example:

Tha'lab Ibn Musa al-Kaladhani told me the following' anecdote which he heard from Sulaiman Ibn Ahmad the poet, who added that the woman who related it to him was named Hind, and that he had seen her in the East; she had performed the pilgrimage five times and was a most pious and zealous old lady. " My dear nephew ", she told Sulaiman, "never have too good an opinion of any woman. I will tell you some about myself, which Allah knows is true. I took ship many years ago now, returning from the pilgrimage, for I had already renounced the world; with me on the same vessel were fourteen other women, all of whom had likewise been to Mecca. We were sailing through the Red Sea. Now one of the crew was a fine upstanding fellow, tall, slim, with broad shoulders and a splendid physique. On the first night out I saw him come up to one of my companions and show off his virility to her. She surrendered to his embraces on the spot. On the following nights each of the rest accepted his advances in turn, until only I was left. I said to myself, 'I will punish you for this, you scoundrel.' With that I took a razor, and grasped it firmly in my hand. He came along as usual that evening, and behaved precisely as he had done on the preceding nights. When he approached me I brandished my razor, and he was so scared that he would have run off. I felt very sorry for him then, and grasping him with my hands I said, 'You shall not go until I have had my share of you.' "So", the old lady concluded, "he got what he wanted, God forgive me!"

Istaghfirllah! Of these one night stands Ibn Hazm writes that hatred replaces passion and shame replaces ardour, and that most are likely to regret it the morning after. Following one's passions can also lead to grave errors in judgement:

Then there is the story of Khalaf, the freedman of the famous general Yusuf Ibn Qamqam, who participated in the revolt of Hisham Ibn Sulaiman Ibn al-Nasir. When Hisham was taken prisoner and killed, and his fellow-conspirators fled, Khalaf took to his heels with the rest and got away. On reaching Kastalat however he found himself unable to endure being parted from a slave-girl he possessed in Cordova; accordingly he returned to the capital, and was there captured by the Caliph al-Mahdi who ordered him to be crucified. I well remember seeing him hanging on the cross in the meadows fringing the Guadalquivir...

Ibn Hazm ends The Ring with praise for the chaste and those who are able to control their passions.

How then shall it be with a man whose breast enfolds a passion hotter than blazing tamarisk, whose flanks convulse with a rage keener than the edge of a sword, who has swallowed the draughts of patience more bitter than colocynth, and converted his soul by force from grasping at the things it desired and was sure it could reach, for which it was well prepared, and there was no obstacle preventing its attainment of them? Surely he is worthy to rejoice tomorrow on the Day of Resurrection, and to stand among those brought near to God's throne in the abode of recompense and the world of everlasting life; surely he has right to be secure from the terrors of the Great Uprising, and the awful dread of the Last Judgement, and that Allah shall compensate him on the Day of Resurrection with peace, for the anguish he suffers here below!

What Ibn Hazm shows us is that passion has been written about eloquently and clearly in the Islamic canon before, which shouldn't come as a surprise to Muslims well acquainted to the perhaps surprisingly up-front hadith on, for example, things like foreplay (recommended!). I'd direct readers to the Like a Garment series for more on healthy sexuality in marriage. But it also shows how exceedingly normal all of this is, normal to struggle with passions, and that self-control is a virtue, not only in controlling one's actions, obviously, but also controlling the directions that one's heart takes the mind, which applies to men and women alike.

Arberry's translation of The Ring of the Dove at MuslimPhilosophy.com

Azhar Usman & Halal Bilal Live in Doha

2010-05-13T17:53:00.002+03:00

Word to your mother! I hope that those in the Doha blogosphere can make it to this event, especially cause I'm helping to organize it...

Azhar Usman (of Allah Made Me Funny) and South Africa's Halal Bilal will be performing live in Doha on May 25, 6-9pm.

The show is free. To register send an email with your name and phone number to halalbilal@gmail.com.

Maps and more info here.

The Blind in Qatar

2010-05-02T10:35:00.000+03:00

The Saturday Profile in the New York Times featured an amazing and fascinating story on Hayat Khalil Hassan Nazar Heji, a woman who suddenly went blind in 5th grade and who runs the Noor Institute here in Doha for impaired children.

Changing How Qatar Sees the Blind, Michael Slackman, NYTimes 4.30.09

Islamic Reform on WBEZ Chicago

2010-04-30T12:48:00.002+03:00

And I quote:

Beginning Monday May 3^rd Chicago Public Radio’s international affairs program Worldview will begin a week-long series entitled “Islamic Reform.” Worldview airs daily at 12PM and 9PM on WBEZ 91.5FM – you can also listen anytime online at chicagopublicradio.org/worldview.

The intent of the series is to expose the range of conversations Muslims (jurists, academics, political activists, students, religious scholars, etc.) today are engaged in, in regards to their faith. The series will highlight both the history of reform in Islam throughout the centuries, as well as the broad scope reform has taken on in modern days. We will discuss topics ranging from alternative Quranic interpretations on women in Islam, to Islamic bio-ethics, to modern reform movements in Turkey. The conversation will be a broad one that seeks to encompass a wide range of voices from around the world.

This is, in fact, an unprecedented initiative – to devote so much time on a main-stream broadcast to facilitate a conversation on Islamic reform, and most importantly to frame the conversation, not as a response to others, but as a proactive discourse that is both authentic and organic, is a rare opportunity to say the least.

I hope that you will tune in to this conversation and add your voice to the dialogue, by commenting online or sending us an email at worldview@chicagopublicradio.org. Please fee free to distribute this email widely, and inform others to tune in to the series. You can find the schedule of the programs that will air during the week below.

Happy listening!

Assia Boundaoui

www.chicagopublicradio.org/worldview

Aristotle's Lackey

2010-04-29T22:50:00.000+03:00

I love this blog. Go read it. Now. Aristotle's Lackey.

Hahahahwhohohohohahahahahahaheeee heee hee.

2010-04-28T20:46:00.003+03:00

Sometimes you just have to laugh. Parachuting bears hunt down Bin Laden, Revolution Muslim knucklehead sows giggles over triscuits. SubhaaaaanAllah. Oh, and Wajahat Ali's East Park satire is priceless.

Update...Wajahat Ali continues to make me laugh with his delightful satire of the Miss America brouhaha.

The Fat of the Land

2010-04-28T16:46:00.009+03:00

Anyone else notice this disturbing article in Monday's New York Times?

Privilege Pulls Qatar Toward Unhealthy Choices, NYTimes, 4.26.20

Native Qataris, who number only about 250,000 in a nation of 1.6 million, are suffering serious health problems that relate directly to a privileged lifestyle paid for with the nation’s oil wealth, as well as a determination to hold onto social traditions, like having young people marry their cousins.

“We’re talking serious obesity,” said Dr. Justin Grantham, a specialist at Qatar’s orthopedic and sports medicine hospital involved in a healthy-living pilot program. “The long-term health consequences will be significant.”

Like other oil-rich nations, Qatar has leaped across decades of development in a short time, leaving behind the physically demanding life of the desert for air-conditioned comfort, servants and fast food.

While embracing modern conveniences, however, Qataris have also struggled to protect their cultural identity from the forces of globalization. For many here, that has included continuing the practice of marrying within families, even when it predictably produces genetic disorders, like blindness and various mental disabilities.

“It’s really hard to break traditions,” said Dr. Hatem El-Shanti, a pediatrician and clinical geneticist who runs a genetics testing center in Doha, the capital. “It’s a tradition carried from one generation to the next.”

...According to the International Association for the Study of Obesity, Qatar ranks sixth globally for prevalence of obesity and has the highest rate of obesity among boys in the Middle East and North African region. A recent article in the Qatari newspaper Al Watan said that local health experts predicted that within five years, 73 percent of Qatari women and 69 percent of the men would qualify as obese.

Obesity is considered the most important factor in the development of diabetes and is a prime contributor to many other ailments, like hypertension. The International Diabetes Federation ranks Qatar fifth globally in terms of the proportion of people aged 20 to 79 with diabetes.

What's happening right now in Qatar is unique in some respects and yet can very much be situated within a global trend of rising obesity and problems associated with it. This article tackles two issues, that of obesity as well as that of genetic disorders linked consanguinous marriages, both of which in this case are so interestingly linked to culture that I can't help but wax anthropological. So that I don't spend all day writing, I'll stick to obesity.

The World Health Organization notes that one billion people in the world are currently overweight, 300 million of whom are clinically obese, 22 million of whom are children under 5. They say:

The rising epidemic reflects the profound changes in society and in behavioural patterns of communities over recent decades. While genes are important in determining a person's susceptibility to weight gain, energy balance is determined by calorie intake and physical activity. Thus societal changes and worldwide nutrition transition are driving the obesity epidemic. Economic growth, modernization, urbanization and globalization of food markets are just some of the forces thought to underlie the epidemic. (src)

More expendable income, work requiring less physical activity and more screen-staring, and the globalization of the Western fast-food diet, has encouraged this trend. Lifestyle changes here in Qatar over the past fifty years are revealing. I spoke with a Qatari student here at Qatar University who was telling me about her grandparents' generation. She recalled a conversation with her grandmother in which she'd talked about her life growing up in the desert. Like nearly all Qataris at that time (and perhaps like many in the Arab world) they didn't eat much rich food because meat was unaffordable and therefore reserved for special occassions. I remember having a similar conversation with someone in Egypt on how the butcher shops are reserved for those who can afford meat. That's why there are so many great Middle Eastern options for vegetarians. But we do see a growing middle class, and they're "lovin' it." If current trends increase, the WHO predicts that India and the Middle East will be leading the world in the number of those suffering from diabetes.

One thing that I've seen here is tons and tons of fast food, as well as the rise and privelaging of chains such as Applebees. My Arab friends don't understand why I never want to eat at Applebees. I tell them that I never go in the USA and why would I ever in a million years want to eat it here? Gross. But these chains stand for something outside of the United States, namely, prestige associated with Western culture. Similarly, in China "the American fast-food outlets...are fashionable, middle-class establishments--a new kind of social space where people can enjoy their leisure time and experience a Chinese version of American culture..." and...

...eating at a foreign fast-food restaurant is an important social event...McDonald's KFC, and other fast-food restaurants in Beijing carry the symbolism of Americana and modernity, which makes them unsurpassable by existing standards of the social hierarchy in Chinese culture. They represent an emerging tradition where new values, behavior patterns, and social relationships are still being created.

where, for example "white-collar professionals may display their new class status..." (src, 220-221). I think this is going on here, to a certain extent, as well. At Landmark Mall, which I frequent, it being the only place I can walk to and walk around close to my residence, the fast food area forms a sort of third place, and here I shall blasphemously quote Wikipedia, "a term used in the concept of community building to refer to social surroundings separate from the two usual social environments of home and the workplace where people gather."

In Qatar as well as other places in the Gulf, malls themselves serve as third places where people gather to socialize as well as see and be seen, interesting in a culture that prioritizes closed, private spaces. The mall not only allows the freshly-affluent Qataris to indulge in Western styles of consumption, but to engage in new forms of socialization. Villagio is packed during the weekends with locals and expats, perhaps the only place in Qatar where we rub shoulders in a relaxed setting. Villagio is also a sort of luxury destination with a Venice-by-way-of-Vegas aesthetic complete with fake canals and boats, piloted by bored Philippinos. It's one of the places tourists go while in Qatar, which, to me, is anathema.

But I digress.

I attended a wonderful Hamza Yusuf and Zaid Shakir lecture a few nights ago, and one of the things that Hamza Yusuf lamented was the state of Gulf culture, saying that though he is very fond of the Gulf, coming to this region saddens him at times because he sees not only the disconnect that Gulf natives have with their own traditional culture, but the enthusiastic embrace of Western culture, beamed in through satellite television, sold in the malls, and advertised on billboards; essentially the people selling themselves with their own money. He used the example of an African businessman, who, while staying in a hotel in Europe, refuses the fresh-squeezed juice they provide, saying "no, we have that in my village. I want canned juice." Western culture, seen as modern, liberal and bourgeouis, is taking precedence across the globe while traditional culture is relegated to museums and tourist attractions. He talked about how each Palestinian village once had its own clothing, its own characteristic foods, whereas now it's kunafa al-Mcdonalds. Cultural diversity, he said, is something to be celebrated in Islam, to be polished, and Arabs should carefully measure what they stand to lose when embracing what is marketed to them.

Food is an important part of cultural identity, and though I'm American, I don't consider fast food as part of my cultural identity. Pierogi are part of if, po-boys are part of it, but McDonalds is not. And I don't buy this whole healthy McDonald's marketing scheme. To me that's like slapping tar on a mangy camel, if you know what I mean.

The globalization of the Western diet dubbed "Coca-colonization" is a real tragedy. Obesity quadrupled in China between 1985 and 2000 (src), coronary disease trails the Western diet wherever it goes (src) as does the mangling of traditional food and lifeways, and don't even get me started on the environmental impact of this diet. Okay, I'm started. I'll try to make it quick.

Take beef. Beef is considered a huge part of the Western diet, whether as steaks or McDonalds. Not only do people desire to eat more beef as it is seen as part of an elite diet and now accessible to the growing global middle class, but it is heavily pushed by the American, Brazilian, and Australian beef lobbies via the WTO. That's one issue. The horrors, and this is not hyperbole, of the American feedlot system that makes cheap beef possible, are legion. But the environmental impact of raising beef is equally horrific. And I'll just quote wildly here:

Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests.

Just this week, the president of Brazil announced emergency measures to halt the burning and cutting of the country’s rain forests for crop and grazing land. In the last five months alone, the government says, 1,250 square miles were lost.

The world’s total meat supply was 71 million tons in 1961. In 2007, it was estimated to be 284 million tons. Per capita consumption has more than doubled over that period. (In the developing world, it rose twice as fast, doubling in the last 20 years.) World meat consumption is expected to double again by 2050, which one expert, Henning Steinfeld of the United Nations, says is resulting in a “relentless growth in livestock production.”

Americans eat about the same amount of meat as we have for some time, about eight ounces a day, roughly twice the global average. At about 5 percent of the world’s population, we “process” (that is, grow and kill) nearly 10 billion animals a year, more than 15 percent of the world’s total.

Growing meat (it’s hard to use the word “raising” when applied to animals in factory farms) uses so many resources that it’s a challenge to enumerate them all. But consider: an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation.

To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius. Similarly, a study last year by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan estimated that 2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.

Grain, meat and even energy are roped together in a way that could have dire results. More meat means a corresponding increase in demand for feed, especially corn and soy, which some experts say will contribute to higher prices.

This will be inconvenient for citizens of wealthier nations, but it could have tragic consequences for those of poorer ones, especially if higher prices for feed divert production away from food crops. The demand for ethanol is already pushing up prices, and explains, in part, the 40 percent rise last year in the food price index calculated by the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization.

The article continues here: The World, Rethinking The Meat-Guzzler, NYTimes 1.27.08

Not good. And in my humble opinion, all of these things serve as very, VERY clear signs to those who reflect upon them.

An uncritical acceptance of that which is marketed to us is completely unacceptable, and we stand to lose so much, whether from the standpoint of those in the developing world or the developed world. We should educate ourselves about what we eat (and why) and actively decide based on the ethical parameters what to support and not support. In the Muslim community, this could mean basing one's decision to eat something on more than simply how an animal was killed, but on how it lived as well.

The other night Hamza Yusuf said "if what suffices does not sustain you, then nothing will." What we don't need can hurt us, from an overindulgence in simple things to forgetting that the luxuries around us are precisely that. So much of it just gets in the way. I hope that we all realize that we're more than just a market for goods, and make decisions consciously.

Check out PBS' A Guide to Eating Well for resources on what to eat, how to eat it, and why.

Sex and Sensibility in Islam

2010-04-25T09:53:00.000+03:00

Wedad Lootah, a graduate in Islamic Studies from the UAE's Islamic College, is a bestselling author of the controversial "Top Secret: Principles and Etiquette of an Intimate Marital Relationship."

Old Subject, New Ground, ArabianBusiness.com, 4.24.10

"Many men, many Arabs, they cheat on their wives with lots of other women of different nationalities," claims Lootah.

"The wife stays at home, getting nothing from him and waiting for him to come home in the late hours.

"Women have the right to enjoy a sexual relationship with their husbands, rather than have the men off doing other things with other women," she continues.

"Emirati women don't talk about this subject - they are blind and they don't speak, but they know what is happening behind their backs. I wrote this book because I want these women to talk, and to call for their rights."

Call and Response Project

2010-04-23T09:24:00.004+03:00

Wow, interesting: Call and Response Project: Women Reciting and Remixing Adzan

From the website:

'Call and Reponse' allows women to react to the Muslim call to prayer (adzan) with their own sonic, emotional responses. It is not meant to denigrate any set of beliefs. Rather, this project aims to show how nuanced and varied artistic reactions to adzan can be - particularly from women, whose voices are deemed by the dominant interpretation of Islam to be too impure to recite the call to prayer.

Women from anywhere in the world, and of any background, can upload audio files of themselves reciting and/or remizing adzan to this website. The curator of this project will then post these files to the site, and play a selection in Brooklyn, New York City.

Ah Brooklyn, where it's all happening. Though I'm not sure about the women's voices being "too impure," as from what I understand general consensus is that women can recite it and lead prayers for other women.

I saw Muezzin yesterday at the Aljazeera Documentary Film Festival, about a adzan contest in Turkey, not a bad film but the weakest of those I saw, which highlighted the Turkish interpretations of "sonic" beauty. Not sure if I share them, as I thought the guy who lost had the nicest voice, but obviously I'm not on the jury.

Going back to women in Islam, I also saw Veiled Voices, which despite the played-out title contained exceptional content that all should see on three sheikhas, female religious leaders and teachers. I loved this film and thought that it portrayed a wonderful and nuanced view of some incredibly powerful and empowering women.

Below is the official trailer for the film I saw yesterday.

Earth Day

2010-04-22T18:13:00.000+03:00

One of the things that has always appealed to me about Islam is the importance of the environment. Incidentally, take note, many Muslims out there. I know that much of the environmental degradation in the Muslim world is linked to socioeconomic issues, globalization, and development, but what's the excuse for all the waste we see here in the Gulf?

From The Messenger: The Meanings of the Life of Muhammad

One day, as he passed Sad ibn Abi Waqqas, who was performing his ritual ablutions, the Prophet said to him: "Why such waste, O Sad?" "Is there waste even when performing ablutions?" Sad asked. And the Prophet answered: "Yes, even when using the water of a running stream."

Tariq Ramadan goes on to say:

The Prophet's insistence on not wasting any natural resource, "even when using the water of a running stream," indicates that he placed respect for nature on the level of an essential principle that must regulate behavior whatever the situation and whatever the consequences. This is not an ecology springing from the anticipation of disasters (which result from human actions) but a sort of "upstream ecology" that rests people's relation to nature on an ethical bedrock associated with an understanding of the deepest spiritual teachings. The believer's relation to nature must be based on contemplation and respect. Indeed, this respect is such that the Prophet once said: "If the hour of Judgment Day comes while one of you holds a sapling in his hand, let him hurry and plant it." The believer's conscience must thus, to the very end, be sustained by this intimate relation with nature, to the extent that one's last gesture should be associated with the renewal of life and its cycles. (202-203).

Here in the Gulf we see a ton of waste. Wasted things: clothes bought and quickly replaced, cars like toys, furniture changed by the month, water bottles, plastic bags, containers, food. Wasted people: construction workers and nannies bought, discarded, invisible. A cursory look at the cycles, or rather, dead-ends, clearly show that we're not staying entirely true to our ethics. Doha has a singular opportunity, still growing on the seed level, to serve as a beacon for creative sustainability. And I do see it...the recent Doha Green and Sustainability Summit sponsored by the Qatar Green Building Council is a great example, Qatar Foundation's green building successes (including the awesome and funky new Convention Center) another, and I'm proud that Doha is leading in the Gulf in these efforts. But this is top-down, and what I'd like to see even more are people whose Islamic consciousness is an environmental consciousness which is a social justice consciousness, people who internalize it and live it.

I ask myself quite frequently here, "where does the trash go?" We never see trash, it's not a part of the view. I still don't know the answer to that question, but while in the Kathmandu Valley, I frequently stopped at fields of plastic bags, plastic bottles, containers, and organic waste (dogs, pigs, and yes, children sifting through it) and said "Ah, so this is where the trash goes." Just because we don't live with the trash doesn't mean that someone else doesn't have to. Check out the "plastic soup of waste" in the Pacific Ocean.

There's lots to talk about in terms of Islam and the environment, but I'm going to stick with waste though food rights in general and ethical farming are other huge interests of mine. For a tiny selection of other cool environmental stuff I've come across (and there's a lot out there), check out the following links:

Washington DC Green Muslims: http://dcgreenmuslims.blogspot.com/
Organic Halal Meat - Abraham Natural Produce (UK)
Hijabman (shoutout!) - Organic is Halal
Green Zabiha
Halal, Organic, or Vegetarian (from IslamOnline.net)
Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Studies
Green Hajj
MuslimMatters.org: Muslims Going Green

Quick Question

2010-04-21T20:50:00.000+03:00

Nkay, let's say your a non-Muslim French woman (or man) who, for whatever reason, decides to go out with her face covered. Stranger things have happened. Really, much stranger things. One time I was attacked by a clown on the Champs Elysees, and as far as my life in Paris goes that's only the tip of the iceberg. Would they be arrested? Would they be arrested for choosing to wear a ski mask down the street? Sans bank robbery, bien sur.

My point is not to belittle those who are forced into wearing Islamic garb that they don't want to wear. No. My point is that it's equally wrong, if not more wrong, to tell ALL French citizens that they may wear (or not wear) what they please, except if it's in the name of religion(s), and did I say religions? Oops, meant Islam. Because the whole "religions" plural bit is just a way to facilitate targeting Muslims. And you know, in the end this just ostracizes the Muslim community, creates animosity on both sides, and pushes people to embrace their "Islamic" identity over their "French" identity, because ultimately, they're being told that they're not French. And if women are choosing to wear hijab/niqab as a political statement, which I know some do, then look for the origins of that political identity in that animosity fueled by decision after decision on the part of the French government to set Muslims apart and then talk about the best ways to address it. There's got to be a better path than this. And while I agree with a lot of what writers like Sadanand Dhume are saying, I can't agree. I didn't know any women who wore niqab before moving to Doha, and to tell you the truth I used to think that there was something slightly off-putting about a woman who would want to wear a niqab. Now I'm friends with several mutanaqibas, including a Belgian, and there's nothing wrong with them. I don't share their reasoning, but I respect it.

And all those women Sarkozy hopes to liberate? They'll be spending a lot more time indoors. And that counts for Belgium and Quebec, too.

France, I love you, you know I do, spent three happy years with you, but damn if this doesn't make me want to blast Bruce Springsteen. Despite our many issues in America, merde like this just would not fly. Maybe I'm taking too unnuanced a view here, but that's because to me it boils down to some very simple things. The liberté to choose to practice your religion in a peacefully orthodox (or unorthodox, for that matter) fashion and the égalité where you can have your voice heard, regardless if people can see your mouth moving.

Sarkozy to Submit Bill Banning Islamic Face Veils, NYTimes, 4.21.10

Kathmandu, Qatar, and the In-Betweens

2010-04-21T19:02:00.000+03:00

As mentioned, I recently spent some time in Kathmandu, Nepal, once again deeply appreciating the actualization of couchsurfing's goals of transforming travel from tourism to something more like experiential exchange. I stayed with a Nepali woman and her family for nine days (which she considered a short stay! Such hospitality...), learning how to cook Nepali daal bhat, dealing with Kathmandu's perennial issues of water and electricity shortages, and learning about both the joys and sorrows of what it's like to be struggling in today's Nepal.

When I say struggling, and if I use a word like have-not, I want to emphasize that my host is not a victim. She's an amazing and generous person who, realizing that she can't travel, has the world come to her. She rarely has days when she's not hosting. The only time she did turn someone down was during the swine-flu scare, and only because she was worried that her father, already ill, would be impacted by it. That said, she and her family struggle with the same issues that impact nearly all Nepalis, the same issues that drive the guest-worker phenomenon in the Gulf. One in three Nepali families relies on remittances from Nepalis abroad, including my host's family. Living in Qatar, Nepali workers (along with other nationalities) form the invisible populations that fuel this city's growth. They're the ones who build the very visible shining towers, the heralded universities, the luxurious Pearl complex, and yet we know so little about them and their lives. My host's cousin had just returned to Kathmandu from Doha after quitting his company, exasperated and disheartened that they hadn't paid him for the ten months of work he'd put in. He was preparing to go back overseas, this time trying his luck in Saudi Arabia. The computer that my host uses to connect with her guests was a gift from her cousin. She also uses it to research visas to Western countries, though told me again and again "it's too hard," citing the corruption and expense involved in the Nepali visa process.

This morning I caught a screening of In Search of a Riyal, Nepali-Tibetan director Kesand Tseten's documentary on Nepali workers here in Qatar that screened at the Aljazeera Documentary Film Festival (running until tomorrow at the Doha Sheraton). The film, in three sections focusing first on workers' preparations for travel, their time in Doha, and their return to Nepal, was excellent, humanizing and individualizing what seems so much like a faceless workforce here, and in a sense no one can have an accurate picture of the modern Gulf without hearing these stories.

Workers preparing to leave for Qatar go through a variety of processes. First, they decide to go, based on stories they hear, trends they become swept up in, and very much out of necessity. Unemployment is a major problem in Nepal, and many of the workers come from rural areas where there is zero employment aside from family farms, and those interviewed in the film frequently cited the loss of their land as the main reason for leaving. The workers enter training programs (of which I saw many everywhere I went in the Kathmandu Valley) where they learn various construction skills. In one scene the workers accepted their certificates of completion with broad, proud smiles. They're lectured on various cultural issues they'll encounter, taboos, and other do's and don'ts such as how to use the tray table on the airplane, not to ask about pork, not to try to marry Malay Muslim women, and especially not to get involved in labor politics, try to join a union, or strike. The striking issue is brought up again and again; workers are constantly told that if they strike, they will immediately lose their visas, and it's mentioned later in the film that there are many Nepali workers imprisoned for striking. The Manpower brokers collect and redistribute workers, and at one point one of the men responsible for sending workers to Qatar says "You will be like my sons there...like my babies."

Then men leave excited for the riches that await them. I saw this on the airplane flying into the Gulf from Kathmandu. Of the Nepali workers on the plane, you could tell which were flying for the first time. They were the ones leaning over passengers to get a first glimpse of the desert coming into focus, or pressing their faces against the windows, laughing with one another.

Of course the reality is different. The film did a great job of connecting with workers both satisfied and dissatisfied with their experiences in Qatar. Some of them have come, worked hard, have been paid on time, and have returned. As the journalist for the Kantipur Times interviewed in the film mentioned, 70% of the workers are fine, it's the 30% that have problems and give all Nepalis a bad reputation. Of those whose experiences were negative, it's quite heartbreaking. Frequently they report being paid late (driving several of those interviewed to strike), not being able to pay back loans taken in Nepal to fund visa costs, sick workers not being able to take time off as they're not paid for sick days, workers falling to their deaths, workers being beaten by their bosses, "they treat us like animals," one man said. Another says "For uneducated people like us it's always the the same, isn't it? We always sell ourselves with our own money." Perhaps worst of all to hear were the many, many con operations that the workers deal with, being cheated by other Nepalis. And despite this, they return to the Gulf again and again, among the many desperate for even a slim chance to return to Nepal a hero.

Sushma Joshi at The Global and the Local wrote:

At the recently concluded Kathmandu Mountain Film Festival, after the screening of In Search of the Riyal, Kesang Tseten’s moving documentary about Nepali migrants’ plights in the Gulf, a young man got up. “I am in Grade 12,” he said, in bad English, “Do you think I could get a job in the Gulf with my qualifications?”....“Excuse me, I didn’t understand your question,” Tsetsen said, thrown off balance. Then, a little helplessly, he looked around for help. “Devendraji, do you want to take this question?” Devendra Bhattarai of Kantipur Publications, who spent several years rescuing Nepalis from the horrible labour and inhumane conditions of the Gulf, was equally surprised, and had no answer.

Amazing, and frustrating, and sad, but understandable, too.

Of the men interviewed, there was one Nepali towards the end of the film who was very self-aware and creative. He shared some of what I presumed to be his poetry, and spoke eloquently about the difficulties he's faced, particularly in being separated from his family. Footage of his home village revealed houses crumbling, their owners working in Dubai or Singapore. The most riveting image of the whole documentary was, for me, from a short film he'd made to show his family a building that he'd worked on. He described to his family a "panoramic lift" he'd built in Dubai, one of those elevators that looks like a giant glass pill, and he says to the director "I was filming myself looking at the glass of the lift." In that instant, he reinscribed himself back into the buildings that we as residents of these countries move through, oblivious to the labor that went into them, and oblivious to the injustices involved. In a way, it reminded me of the past This American Life episode on the NUMMI GM/Toyota plant in California, where an auto-worker recently noticed a car parked in his town that dated to the years he'd worked at the plant. He knew that the car had been built while he'd worked there, and he stood and stared at it, seeing himself and his labor, feeling a sense of pride and ownership. Is this what the Nepalis feel? I'm not so sure.

Back to Nepal.

I could write about the great time I had there, the things I did and saw, and I did do and see many cool touristy things and did have a great time. But coming back to Doha, I was really deeply struck by what I have and take for granted in my life. Having spent the past ten days with my host adapting to the lack of running clean water and infrequent electricity, and knowing that for me this is just a vacation, a glimpse at a different life and not the life itself, I want to be more aware of not only what I have (and especially what I have and don't need) but what went into it.

Back to the film.

Tseten has done a really remarkable job and I'd love to see more of his work. The picture he painted was nuanced and certainly fascinating. I'm particularly interested in the some of the unexpected impacts that the guest worker trend has enacted and that I hope anthropologists are exploring. For example, workers talked about the strong bonds that they formed with other young men, living together in the camps, Nepalis from all over the country, whereas back in Nepal they often didn't know others from the same village back home. Seeing as so many are abroad, what sort of impact does this have on national consciousness? How has it impacted relations between different religious groups in Nepal? The film opens with street-level discussions on Muslim-Hindu conflicts, and I recall hearing about the mosque burnings back in 2004 while in Nepal (on account of the deaths of Nepali workers in Iraq). Also, in terms of family relations, much of what they described reminded me of pre-20th century sailing culture, men leaving their wives and families behind for the great unknown with its promise of adventure but miserable realities. Only now they have cell phones and stay connected. Also, what sorts of myths and stories emerge around the money itself, both before they leave and once they're there, and what relation does it have to ideas about luck? The workers describe how hard it is to save, saying "Gulf money doesn't add up to much."

Doha, like other major Gulf cities, is a city of stories upon stories, and mutually exclusive communities that overlap in the margins but remain largely unknown to one another. My experience of Qatar has been extremely positive, but my life overlaps with others who don't share it. The UAE's recent film City of Life, which opens tomorrow in UAE theaters, addresses this issue. True everywhere but especially true in here, what stories are told depends on who has a voice.

I'll end with a quote from the film that sums up not only the workers' perceptions of Qatar, but strangely enough, my own. The Kantipur Times journalist says "Describing Qatar is like describing abstract art. It's hard to say what it is. It's easy to enter, but three times as hard to get out."

Obama Administration and Muslims in America

2010-04-19T07:59:00.000+03:00

Good signs and important movements on the other side of the world. I'm always glad to read news like this.

“For the first time in eight years, we have the opportunity to meet, engage, discuss, disagree, but have an impact on policy,” said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute in Washington. “We’re being made to feel a part of that process and that there is somebody listening.”
Reaching Out Quietly to Muslims in America, NYTimes, 4.18.10

Incidentally, Zogby, though Arab and an important and outspoken advocate for all Arab rights regardless of religion, is Maronite Catholic and not Muslim.

Kathmandu

2010-04-18T16:55:00.001+03:00

Wow, just got back from ten days in Kathmandu, Nepal. Much to write about, stay posted.

Tariq Ramadan: Muslims and Citizenship in the West

2010-04-03T15:17:00.004+03:00

In a recent Guardian op-ed, Tariq Ramadan expounded on the importance of Islam and Muslims as providing a much-needed ethical perspective in Western countries, noting that "an ethics based on our common citizenship must be forged from a serious and profound engagement with the meaning of our common humanity." The article generated many comments, not one (that I saw) positive. And I agree on the one hand that an Islamic ethics, like any ethics founded in faith, has the capacity to improve the lives of not just the particular religious community that practices them, but the whole nation. On the other hand, that presumes that the religious community is actually practicing that foundational ethics.

But it's gotten me to thinking about the role of Muslims, and what Muslims can bring to the table specifically, in a participatory democracy. At the talk I attended, Dr. Ramadan spoke about the nature of citizenship in the West, not in the context of integration (because, as he puts it, integration has already occurred) but in a "post-integration" discourse. Two issues emerged.

First, Muslims in the West are dealing with participatory citizenship in challenging ways, because so many of them are immigrants from countries where the politics are corrupt, or because they may not feel they have a place in the politics of their new country, or they may feel that they are just biding their time before returning home (which is not true of second and third generation immigrants, who are at home in the West, or as Dr. Ramadan put it speaking to the mostly Arab Muslim audience about western Muslims, "They are as at home as you are, and as Muslim as you are").

Incidentally, this is reminds me of a strain I saw reflected in the comments mentioned above, such as "Whilst I agree largely with the article, I do not feel these values that he talks about are visible in the east. All very well talking about tolerance in the largely tolerant west. In the west we can all speak up and Muslims are afforded free political space. This however this is not apparent in "muslim" Lands." Yeah, agreed. And I wonder how immigrants from countries like Egypt and Syria think about democracy when they encounter it in the West, considering, for example, how very un-democratic Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party is. But that's not the point. Just because Muslim countries themselves are stewing in their own contested political values doesn't mean that we in the West should compromise ours by not extending political rights to full citizens just because they're Muslim, or for something as silly as what they wear. And I think you'll tend to find most immigrants are as critical of politics in the Mother Country westerners are. And, there is some amazing work being done on the grassroots level in Muslim countries to struggle against the corruption of those leaders, many of whom are there with the explicit support of Western governments. So how you like them apples? But that's neither here nor there.

Second, Muslims in the West, and Muslims in general, tend to embrace a victim mentality when thinking about the West, pushing them away from public, contributive participation under the assumption of "well, they're all out to get us anyways." This victim mentality is absolutely poisonous. It nurtures alienation and pushes individuals to reject commonalities and to embrace identity markers, especially those that are obsessed over by people in Western countries as symbols of the religion, such as the hijab and now, especially, niqab. I know people who started wearing hijab because they felt proud of their identity as Muslims first, and as a spiritual commitment second. People cling to symbols when they become infused with resistance founded in identity; Layla Ahmed wrote in Women and Gender in Islam about this in the context of colonialism in Algeria and Egypt and the ways in which the hijab became infused with political meaning and birthed binaries such as Algerian/French, "backwards"/"modern", oppressed/feminist, etc, meanings which linger potently in today's hysteria over hijab. I'm not saying that people shouldn't wear hijab or niqab, that's up to the individual (and the individual alone, neither their parents nor their government should decide for them), but of the many reasons why people do decide to wear it, identity is among them.

So what did he recommend? First, citizenship in a democracy is by definition one of contestation. As citizens anywhere, we should not take for granted the leadership and laws of our countries; they are people-generated (ideally). All citizens should therefore be engaged in the processes of articulating power through leadership and regulations through people-serving laws. Critical, constructive contestation is a field where Muslims can and must participate and in so doing, establishing themselves as equal citizens with a voice. Through positive and constructive participation, they not only give themselves voice (and particularly in contexts where platforms are given to radical minority voices, because those views stir emotions and sell papers), but pave the way for change in systems of institutionalized bias. And it is happening. An Altmuslimah article published yesterday called Modern Muslim Women in Britain noted that “far from the widespread stereotype of being submissive and victimized, Muslim women are increasingly active participants both in local communities and wider society," continuing on to cite a Warwick University study which

...gives much credit to the Muslim women in Britain and France, and aims to inform the policymakers and Western public of their problems, aspirations, and great achievements. In addition to Warwick study’s positive results, the latest statistics show that there are more than 100,000 Muslim women currently working in Britain who share the same ambitions and challenges of other working women. This could be clearly noticed by just having few glimpses over the profiles of the Most Powerful British Muslim Women, a list published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), in association with The Times Online (U.K.) and Emel magazine, in March 2009. The Times Magazine’s article acknowledged that more Muslim women than ever are in leading positions in society, but that fact is often under-reported.

Of course, that's all well and good, but at the end of the day, there's still victimization, racism, and bias towards what is a minority religious community. One woman asked a question about such an overwhelming bias in the media, lamenting that 99.9% of the Muslim community can live like normal people, can do good, be good neighbors, help the poor, can even excel as peacemakers and communicators, and yet this is ignored by a media that shapes the discourse on Islam (the same media that hesitates to call terrorist acts "terrorism" when Islam isn't involved). His response was this: you know that the media is going to lambast you. You know that. But that shouldn't stop you from being a full participant in your society. If anything, it should encourage you to to witness to your values. Okay, true, and an ideal. But is that it? And incidentally, this is where someone like the Lebanese-Belgian thinker Abou Jahjah has stepped in, earning himself the title of the European Malcolm X.

Here's a talk Tariq Ramadan gave to an Austrian Muslim audience that discusses many of the same issues he presented here in Doha:

Taqwacore Redux

2010-04-02T11:34:00.001+03:00

From the Taqwacore webzine...

TAQWACORE may be many things. Sure it’s rude at times. Sure it’s trangressive. Sure it flirts with blashephous notions. But one thing it is not is anti-Islam. These characters give Islam an important place in their identity. They pray, they visit the mosque (sometimes), they read Islamic literature, philosophy, etc…they treat religion seriously, even if they dare to ask questions or push for different interpretations, they are trying to work WITHIN the faith, not against it. And for that they and everyone around them deserves to burn in hell?

Supposedly it’s because we are not practicing Islam the way our critics imagine we should. And that alone is worth the ultimate punishment. Does that mean that non-Muslims like Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa and Mahatam Gandhi are going to burn in hell too? Because they didn’t fit the narrow pocket of the recognizable ‘traditional’ Muslim? And what of the Sufis, the Ismaeli’s, the Shias? Do they also deserve hellfire? The Sufis dance, and listen to drums and guitars, and smoke hashish, just like some of the Taqwacores do. The Shias don’t hold the exact same interpretation of the Quran and hadith as you might, also like some of the subjects of my film. Yet all of them call themselves Muslim, all of them have uttered thanks to Allah in prayer, and all of them have fasted, given to charity, and observed the other core values. If that’s not enough to call someone brother, and leave them to their path, then I don’t know what to say.

Actually, I think I do know, and its the most punk thing I can think of: Never Mind the Bollocks.

Read the rest at Stop the...Stop the HATE, March 22, 2010.

Tariq Ramadan and the Problem of Semantics

2010-03-31T21:00:00.000+03:00

I recently attended a talk sponsored by the Qatar Foundation's Faculty of Islamic Studies given by the Swiss academic and Oxford University professor Tariq Ramadan on Muslims in the West. The talk was amazing; he has a profound, universalistic, and inspiring vision. We all felt called to action and dialogue, and I think the best comment I heard afterwards from a friend of mine was "it felt like being in church...I just wanted to get up and shout Amen!"

Agreed. He made a number of great points, and I'm hoping that I can, over the next few posts, address in detail what he said.

The problem of semantics.

The Muslim community has a language issue in several respects.

1. Translating from Arabic into English is inaccurate and meaning only partially recoverable. The example that he gave is in the translation of the word "Islam" as submission. From Merriam Webster: a. the condition of being submissive, humble, or compliant, and b. an act of submitting to the authority or control of another.

The Hans Wehr dictionary translates the verb sa'la'ma as: to be safe, unharmed, secure, blameless, faultless. In form II, sa'La'ma: to preserve, keep from injury or harm, surrender, to grant salvation. Salaam means peace, as does silm. There's an interesting etymological chart here that shows the various permutations of the root sa'la'ma, with the overall 'feeling' of the word being one of safety and peace, particularly in the context of a society where conflict was common, consistent with Arabian society in the 7th century.

The point is, when we use the word 'submission' in English, it tends to have a negative connotation. As individuals, we don't like 'submitting.' In Arabic, the term Islam refers more to an idea of subsuming and aligning the individual to the will of God, submitting to that will insofar as we shed ego and arrogance in favor of disciplining ourselves to walk that much harder, but more rewarding, road. Slavery is another term used in this regard that is poorly translated. Abd, meaning 'slave,' is used to refer to the condition of being enslaved to God and God's will, and yet without any of the negative connotations that the term carries in English, and particularly in American English with its historical memory of the Atlantic slave trade. In Arabic, a'ba'da carries meanings referring both to physical servitude but also to worship and "humble veneration."

Translating the Qur'an is a big issue as well. Many of the surahs are complicated in Arabic, require a thorough understanding of the context in which they were revealed, and an excellent command of the Arabic language as well as its historical usage. On this subject, Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore has written:

...one must tread very carefully indeed because of the sacred nature of the text as well as its basic and serious incorporeality. Trying to bring it into a language other than Arabic is like the difference, in a way, between a vital beating heart full of light and a Jarvis. There are so many levels of meaning to the Qur’anic verses in Arabic, to the words that make up the verses, from their roots upward and outward into concepts and abstractions, that any capturing of them in a carried-over language is like trying to hold fireflies at dusk in a garden of shadows...Keep it literal (but what is its literal meaning?). Try to transmit some of its incomparable beauty of language, its song quality, its celestial poetry (without sacrificing the basic meaning). So many versions exist, often veering from one extreme to another, or ultimately betraying some flawed bias or other in the translation of a term or word that has potential seismic impact on the application of its tenet (beating disobedient wives, for example, versus simply rebuking them or smiting them lightly with, say, a lettuce leaf). (45)

I still haven't found a translation that I'm completely comfortable with, and it's hugely helpful to be able to read the Arabic alongside the English and to know when something is being ideologically inferred, especially with Wahhabi translations pumped out of Saudi and distributed all too freely.

So in terms of translation, we're not always on the same page.

2. The words don't always mean the same things among Muslims. There is a wealth of perspectives and interpretations in the Muslim community, from progressive to conservative and just about everything else in between. For example, can men shake hands with women? Yes! No! Depends! Semantics are impacted by strain of Islam, jurisprudential school, ethnic and cultural origin, individual approach, etc. So, different Muslims using the same term might be using it to mean somewhat different things.

3. Terms in English don't always mean the same thing to an Arabic-speaking audience. One example that I find incredibly important is that of secularism, which is definitely not perceived or experienced the same way by all religious communities. The Muslim experience of secularism is colored by histories of colonialism, oppression, despotism, condemnation, Arab Nationalism and Socialism, Saddam Hussein, the Shah of Iran, etc., and in response to "secularism," religious revivalism and fears of Islam being smothered with and by the spread of atheism. Not so! says the experience in America, where secularism became a means by which multiple religious communities could practice freely, facilitated by that very separation of church and state, and having emerged in the context of Protestant reform movements against a stiffly hierarchical church (not present in the Islamic context) and the Western European enlightenment.

The problem is exacerbated because secularism is translated into Arabic as 'ilmaniyya or alaminiyya, with their connotations of science and worldliness, not exactly the same thing, and as such the Arabic doesn't provide a correct explanation of the English term. Azzam Tamimi has written about the problems with the word secularism in a great article in Islam and Secularism in the Middle East, co-edited with John Esposito, stating that it is

...a concept that came to the Muslim world in the company of other related terms such as modernity, westernization, and modernization within the context of colonialism. Although secularism is usually taken to imply the liberation of the political from the authority of the religious, it has, together with its related terms, been used in different contexts to describe a process aimed at the marginalization of Islam, or its exclusion from the process of restructuring society during both the colonial and post-independence periods. Secularization in the Middle East has entailed severing society's cultural roots; its objective has been to effect a complete break with the past. (13)

So, translation in both directions from Arabic-English and issues of a cultural linguistics or semantics make it difficult for one side to know what the other is really saying. This requires that we clearly state our terms when we're using them if we want to be understood.

Next: Muslims in the West and the meaning of citizenship.

Dr. Ramadan will be returning to the US for the first time since a federal appeals court reversed the decision to deny him a visa and speaking at Georgetown University on Muslims Today: Radical Reform, on April 12.

New Media and the (silenced) Muslim Word

2010-03-26T19:55:00.001+03:00

UC Berkeley earlier this month held a conference titled "Islam, Youth & New Media," bringing together a variety of speakers, including Shahed Amanallah and Wajahat Ali, both from Altmuslim (maybe my favorite roundup on Muslim news out there), Suhaib Webb, a great speaker, thinker, and activist, and Fatemah Fakhraie of the awesome Muslimah Media Watch among others. They're all interesting and influential characters on the scene, especially Webb, a convert who speaks street patois and elegant classical Arabic in the same breath, and very new-media savvy. I got to know him through his numerous interviews on the Mecca One podcast, and he runs a great blog that manages to make fiqh reachable.

But I think that this event is a further acknowledgment that young Muslims are growing into their media and using it. With so much emphasis placed on how the internet is wielded as a terrorist recruitment tool, I think we too-often overlook the myriad ways in which the realm of new media serves as a frontline in the fight against radical thought. And the more voices that are out there in this forum, the better, particularly as the voices of reason become louder and more insistent. Altmuslim is a great resource, for example, and other of my favorites are Hijabman, Muslimah Media Watch and Ali Eteraz. It's not only important to have people out there talking about their lived experiences of Islam (in the face of not just radical media, but an anti-Muslim Western media), it's real, it's authentic, and it's the face of the majority. And of course getting more Muslim voices out there means that more Muslim voices will be heard.

It's unfortunate then to consider that IslamOnline.net, the Muslim world's most read and most comprehensive source of information (founded in 1997 by Sheikh Qaradawi here in Doha), is shuddering through a major upheaval as a result of conservative backlash against this critical mass of moderation. From Altmuslim's "A Final Blow to IslamOnline":

In what became a widely reported clash of the Qatari board wanting the content and tone of the site to become more conservative versus the moderate voice of Islam Online and its reputation for covering diverse and often avoided topics, Muslim journalists worldwide sounded the alarm, crying that an important, well-established voice on Muslim news and gateway for thoughtful, balanced, and sourced Islamic guidance on all aspects of life was being silenced.

Two days ago we heard that Qaradawi, who appealed to the Qatari Board of Directors on behalf of the excised journalists, was removed from his position with IOL, extremely unfortunate and quite shocking considering his importance not only here in Doha but as a much-loved figure in the Muslim world. Hopefully this will serve as an opportunity and call-to-action for someone/s with the funds and the vision to pull together a new resource offering what the Muslim community is asking for. As Suhaib Webb put it:

It is unfortunate to see the true value of our community, its scholars, and its leaders, in the eyes of some people who will place ideology over etiquette and power over “the right thing to do.” Firing Shaykh Qaradawi is one of the tragedies here, but perhaps even worse is the fact that these people are deaf to the roar of the Muslim community: parents, teens, women, children, other websites, organizations and converts. All of this leads to one conclusion – in a climate of utilitarian da`wah, some of our leaders are nothing short of plantation owners and they simply do not care about the Muslim community...The solution is for students of knowledge and workers to seriously consider, as I’ve said before, a Wuu Tang type organization that functions independent of any group, community or Godfather...

By the way, Wu Tang organization? Subhanallah, I love this guy. And while it might not be totally appropriate to simplify it like this, having seen Islam on both sides of the pond, it seems to me like it's also about the Western Muslim community coming of age, finding its voice, and 'The Man' (based largely in the Gulf) not liking what that voice has to say. Which was why Qaradawi is such a critical figure in so many ways.

On a more flava'ful note, I'm also totally in love with the Narcycist.