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The Suspicious Revolution: An Interview with Talal Asad
![[Talal Asad. Image from arabnewsblog.net]](/content_images/3/sm_talalasadssrc.jpg "[Talal Asad. Image from arabnewsblog.net]")
Not long after his return from Cairo, where he was doing fieldwork, I spoke with Talal Asad at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, where he is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology. Distinguished indeed: with books like Genealogies of Religion and Formations of the Secular, as well as numerous articles, Asad’s work has been formative for current scholarly conversation about religion and secularity, stressing both global context and the ways in which their interaction has been shaped by local histories, in the West and the Middle East. Most recently, he co-authored (along with Wendy Brown, Saba Mahmood, and Judith ...
Keep Reading »Collateral Damage: #Oslo Attacks and Proliferating Islamophobia
![[Aftermath of Oslo attack. Image from unknown archive.]](/content_images/3/sm_oslo-attacks-23072011.jpg "[Aftermath of Oslo attack. Image from unknown archive.]")
As the world continues to reel from the shockwaves sent by the recent violence in Norway, we need also to grapple with the reactions that immediately followed and what they mean. An online analysis of Twitter posts carried out by R-Shief, a lab that provides real-time analysis of opinion about late-breaking issues, gives credence to what observers have been condemning as an appalling day for Western media—and which laid bare a proliferating Islamophobia. Just as real events on the ground last week in Oslo created a global impact, so did the words, media, and proliferation of racist sentiment over the Internet. It is critical to recognize the impact of this global ...
Keep Reading »On the Historical Study of South Asia and Sufism: An Interview with Nile Green
![[Nile Green. Image from ucla.edu]](/content_images/3/sm_NileGreenImage.jpg "[Nile Green. Image from ucla.edu]")
In the following conversation with Jadaliyya Co-Editor Ziad Abu-Rish, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Professor of History Nile Green discusses some of the issues arising from the study of “Muslims of South Asia and the wider Persianate world.” The bulk of the interview addresses issues related to the study of the history of South Asia, Sufism, and Islam. It concludes with some advice for graduate students struggling to define their research agendas. The interview was originally conducted in the spring of 2009. Ziad Abu-Rish (ZA): Your bio on the UCLA Department of History website lists your field as South Asia. How would you describe your academic ...
Keep Reading »Nothing to Fear: Debunking the Mythical "Sharia Threat" to Our Judicial System
![[Image from report cover.]](/content_images/3/sm_aclureportshia.jpg "[Image from report cover.]")
[Below is the latest from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).] Nothing to Fear: Debunking the Mythical "Sharia Threat" to Our Judicial System A Report of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief Introduction Across the country, state legislators are considering proposed laws that would limit the ability of courts to adjudicate lawsuits brought by Muslims. Proponents of these measures argue that they are necessary because so-called “Sharia law” is somehow taking over our courts. These claims are, simply put, wrong. They are based both on misinformation and a misunderstanding of how our judicial system works. There is no evidence that ...
Keep Reading »Gays, Islamists, and The Arab Spring: What Would A Revolutionary Do?
![[Mix and Match Flag; Image from unknown archive]](/content_images/3/sm_1297797167_img1.jpg "[Mix and Match Flag; Image from unknown archive]")
This past May, the blogger behind the “Gay Girl in Damascus” site responded to an alarmist front-page article by CNN International on the future of LGBT rights in the wake of the Arab Spring. The crux of the blogger’s response centered on the ways in which gay rights rhetoric is being used to undermine the revolutions sweeping the region and with them, the first tangible possibilities of democracy in states that have suffered under decades of brutal authoritarian rule. In the past few days, news has spread like wildfire that Amina Arraf, the blogger mentioned at the beginning of this article, is in fact a fabrication. Arraf, a self-described out Syrian-American Muslim ...
Keep Reading »Radical Islam in Gaza
![[Map of the Gaza Strip. Image from theodora.com]](/content_images/3/sm_gazamapmap.jpg "[Map of the Gaza Strip. Image from theodora.com]")
[Below is the latest from the International Crisis Group (ICG) on the Gaza Strip. For the full ICG report, click here.] Radical Islam in Gaza Executive Summary The recent Israel-Hamas escalation returns a spotlight to Gaza and the Islamist movement’s relationship with more militant organisations. Gaza arouses multiple concerns: does Hamas seeks to impose religious law; has its purported Islamisation stimulated growth of Salafi-Jihadi groups; and will al-Qaeda offshoots find a foothold there? Hamas faces competition from more radical Islamist groups, though their numbers are few, organisation poor, achievements against Israel so far minor and chances of threatening ...
Keep Reading »الجاليات العربية والمسلمة في ألمانيا بين الإندماج والوقاية [Arab and Muslim Communities in Germany between Assimilation and Prevention]
![[فتيات في منطقة كرويتسبيرغ في برلين. المصدر غير معروف]](/content_images/3/sm_kreuzberg.jpg "[فتيات في منطقة كرويتسبيرغ في برلين. المصدر غير معروف]")
”هذا البلد، هو بلد ذو طابع وقيم مسيحية-غربية ممتدة عبر عصور، وأتمنى أن يكون هذا أمراً واضحاً لا شك فيه.“ بكلمات كهذه أراد وزير الداخلية الألماني هانس بيتر فريدريش (عن الحزب الإجتماعي المسيحي البافاري) وضع النقاط على الحروف في إفتتاح ”المؤتمر الإسلامي الألماني“ السادس الذي عقد في التاسع والعشرين من شهر اذار/مارس الماضي في برلين. لكن يبدو أن الوزير الجديد أخطأ الحروف فتحول المؤتمر إلى خلاف بدل أن يكون مؤتمر حوار لوضع خطط تساعد على ”إندماج“ المسلمين في المجتمع الألماني ووصل الأمر إلى أن تطلب النائبة عايدان ازوغوز (عن الحزب الديمقراطي الإجتماعي الألماني) من المسلمين أن يقاطعوا المؤتمر مستقبلاً إلى أن يأتي من هو أكفأ وأجدر من وزير الداخلية، ليترأس مؤتمراً من هذا ...
Keep Reading »What Wasn't Said at Senator Durbin's Hearing on “The State of Muslim Civil Rights in the US”
![[Senator Durbin at press conference before hearings. Image from ForwardSTL]](/content_images/3/sm_Durbin_ForwardSTL.jpg "[Senator Durbin at press conference before hearings. Image from ForwardSTL]")
Senator Dick Durbin, the senior Democrat from Illinois, held a historic hearing last week on “The State of Muslim Civil Rights in the U.S.” The hearing, called by Durbin as the Chair of the Senate’s new Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, took place on March 29, 2011 – and it was reportedly the first-ever Congressional hearing on these issues. Durbin said that he called the hearing because of recent increasing bigotry against Muslims, including the massive outcry the Park51 community center in lower Manhattan, which coincided with a steady increase in hate incidents at mosques around the country. Witnesses at the historic hearing included ...
Keep Reading »Don't Blame the King for Islamophobia, Blame the Kingdom
![[Image from unknown archive]](/content_images/3/sm_iphobe1.jpg "[Image from unknown archive]")
Peter King and the Homeland Security Committee’s hearings on the radicalization of American Muslims are upon us. Mainstream op-ed pieces have increasingly suggested the "divisiveness" of this New McCarthyism, especially after the Southern Poverty Law Center listed Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller’s Stop Islamification of America as a hate group and after the Nuremburg-like Tea Bagging of a Yorba Linda Mosque. Muslim-baiting is not new nor is the strategy to divide and quarantine immigrant communities. Daniel Pipes has long portrayed the Muslim and Arab American communities as a seditious “Danger Within.” Tea-Baggers, pro-Israel ...
Keep Reading »The Marriage of Sexism and Islamophobia; Re-Making the News on Egypt
![[Online Real Time Sexual Harassment Map of Egypt; Image by Harassmap.org]](/content_images/3/sm_Screenshot2011-02-20at6.43.52PM.png "[Online Real Time Sexual Harassment Map of Egypt; Image by Harassmap.org]")
I find myself intermittently infuriated and nauseated by the news coverage of the sexual assault on a female CBS reporter in Tahrir Square during the celebrations the day that Husni Mubarak resigned. This coverage has ranged from the disappointing silence of Al-Jazeera to the blatant racism of Fox News. What actually happened that day to Lara Logan, chief foreign correspondent for 60 Minutes, is not yet known and I have no interest in speculating over the lurid details of a sexual and physical assault, particularly while the victim remains in recovery. In this post, I want to focus on how much of the coverage of this “affair” has revealed the ways in which female ...
Keep Reading »Islam in American Barrios & Prisons: Converts Reclaim Moorish Spain, Reject Church
![[Image by SpearIt]](/content_images/3/sm_SpearIt.jpg "[Image by SpearIt]")
For those in the US typically designated as “Latino” or “Hispanic,” the historical legacy of Islam plays a role similar to that in the African-American context. As the term “Moor” was embraced by various African-American leaders to unite poor, disenfranchised blacks with the glory of Islam, the connection to Moorish Spain provides a powerful tool to re-imagine Latino identity. Converts learn that popular Latin American terms like ojala (“may God will”) derive from the Arabic allah and that their African ancestors used to chant “Allah, Allah, Allah,” which in Spain became “Ole, Ole, Ole.” Such connections offer evidence of Islam’s influence on Spanish pedigree, regardless ...
Keep Reading »Guilty of Being Muslim: Review of “Entrapped”
![[Image from Democracy Now!]](/content_images/3/sm_entrapped.jpg "[Image from Democracy Now!]")
Review of "Entrapped" (Produced by Anjali Kamat and Jacquie Soohen) The new documentary “Entrapped,” which was aired as a special report by Democracy Now! on October 6 and is due to be released on DVD by Big Noise Films, is that rare documentary that not only informs us about an issue, but in doing so, actually transforms our understanding of this issue. “Entrapped” is a thirty-five-minute documentary that encapsulates months of investigations and interviews by the filmmakers — Anjali Kamat, a producer at Democracy Now!, and Jacquie Soohen, a member of the Big Noise Films collective — involving cases of government surveillance aimed at Muslim ...
Keep Reading »Turkish Translation of "After Oslo: Europe, Islam and the Mainstreaming of Racism"
[This article was written in English by Miriyam Aouragh and Richard Seymour, and translated/published in Turkish by www.birikimdergisi.com] Avrupa medyası, Norveç trajedisini, failin kimliği doğrulandıktan sonra bile, “aşırı İslamcılık” ve çokkültürlülük üzerine tehlikeli ve klişeleşmiş savlarla ele aldı. Basın böylece, Breivik’i olduğu insan haline getiren ırkçılığın yaygınlaşmasına katkıda bulundu. Anders Breivik, masumların katliamını gerçekleştirmeden bir saat önce, internet üzerinden ...
Keep Reading »Na Oslo: Europa, de islam en de normalisering van het racisme
[This article was written in English by Miriyam Aouragh and Richard Seymour, and subsequently translated/published in Dutch by www.eutopiainstitute.org] De verslaggeving over de Noorse tragedie in de Europese media werd aanvankelijk gedomineerd door clichématige argumenten over “moslimextremisme” en “multiculturalisme”. Dit ging zelfs door nadat de identiteit van de moordenaar bekend was geworden, waarmee zij bijdroegen aan en uiting gaven van de normalisering van het hetzelfde verwerpelijke ...
Keep Reading »After Oslo: Europe, Islam and the Mainstreaming of Racism
European media coverage of the Norwegian tragedy has led with dangerous and clichéd arguments about ‘Islamic extremism’ and multiculturalism, even after the identity of the killer was confirmed – thus contributing to the mainstreaming of racism that helped make Breivik what he is. An hour before Anders Breivik embarked on his massacre of the innocents, he distributed his manifesto online. In 1500 pages, this urgent message identified “cultural Marxists”, “multiculturalists”, anti-Zionists and leftists ...
Keep Reading »From Dance to Transcendence
Dunia: Kiss Me Not on the Eyes. Directed by Jocelyn Saab. Egypt/Lebanon/France, 2005. It might seem that a dance film about female circumcision can only devolve into a cliché-laden take on an over-exhausted (and over-analyzed) subject, but Dunia: Kiss Me Not on the Eyes manages to encompass both the drama of dance and the complexities of female circumcision without being hijacked by either. Refreshingly, Dunia is less about female circumcision (or khittan, as it is referred to in the film) or rigidly ...
Keep Reading »What is Sharia?
This question has animated scholarly, religious, and political debates for centuries. These debates have been lively, at times contentious, and have been held (under different circumstances and leading to different results) in different parts of the Muslim majority world as well as in parts of the world with few, if any, Muslims. More recently, it seems that the question “What is sharia?” has become a pressing concern in Western countries with growing Muslim minorities who continue to be unevenly ...
Keep Reading »Statement by Mother of Vittorio Arrigoni
[The below statement was originally issued in Italian by Bretta Arrigoni, mother of Vittorio Arrigoni. Translation by Sabastio Nascirmento.] One has to die to become a hero, to hit the headlines and to have TV crews around the house, but does one have to die to stay human? I recall Vittorio in the Christmas of 2005, detained and incarcerated in the Ben Gurion Airport, the scars left by the handcuffs that cut his wrists, the denial of any contact with the consulate, the farcical process. And I recall ...
Keep Reading »Update from Islamophoberia
Islamophoberia, a place millions of Americans call home, will get a lot colder come 2012 because the main gasbag is being shut down in December. The decision of Fox News to cancel The Glenn Beck Show will leave the idiosphere scrambling for a new source of fuel to motor anti-Muslim ranting. Sure, there are alternative sources, like bacon-bookmarked Qur’an burning proponent Ann Barnhardt, who admonished her blog readers: “Go out, buy a Koran, video yourself burning it and post that on YouTube. Do it NOW. ...
Keep Reading »Of Predators and Radicals: King's Hearings and the Political Economy of Criminalization
To understand Congressman Peter King’s (R-NY) hearings on the “extent of radicalization” of U.S. Muslims before the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security, one need not go so far back as the McCarthy era or Japanese interment (At the same time Congressman Mike Honda of California’s public stance connecting the King hearings to internment is worth noting here – and a powerful statement). Listening to the few, highly-orchestrated testimonies King assembled, I was brought back to a much more recent ...
Keep Reading »The Peter King "Radicalization of Muslims" Hearing and American Democracy
Republicans clearly think that they have found a political winner in Muslim-bashing. Peter King, Republican representative from New York’s Third Congressional District (in Long Island), is the new chair of the House Homeland Security Committee. He was way ahead of the Muslim-bashing curve. Most Republicans didn’t get excited about the possibilities of using an anti-Muslim platform as a wedge issue until 2010, after the wild popularity of the "Obama is a secret Muslim" meme and the meteoric rise ...
Keep Reading »Egypt, and the Post-Islamist Middle East
For years, western political elites and their local allies have charged the Arab peoples with political apathy and lethargy. The argument that Arabs are uninterested in seeking to wrest greater democratic freedoms from their authoritarian rulers always rested on shaky foundations. But now that millions of Egyptians, following the Tunisians’ example, have proved it wrong by mobilising against power, the sceptical ground has adjusted: toward the murmured fear that Egypt’s uprising would develop into an ...
Keep Reading »Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject
Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. Much of the implicit political background—the staging-point—of Saba Mahmood’s highly acclaimed ethnography of the women’s mosque movement in Egypt, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject, is laid out in the brief preface to the book. In a couple of pages, Mahmood discusses the sense of embattlement and alienation experienced by an entire generation of ...
Keep Reading »Can A Muslim Truly Be An American?
There are numerous ways to approach this question. From a legal standpoint, many Muslims are American, having been born in the United States. Many Muslim immigrants are in possession of a United States passport, an item that ideally would be the only criterion by which one is judged “American.” National identity is only partly informed by formal citizenship, however. In the United States today, as throughout its history, citizenship is invested with crucial symbolic ...
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