“What Kind of Islam Is That?”: Talking With Refugees From ISIS
“They believe in some strange religion, not Islam,” a Muslim refugee from the Iraq city…
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The Jersey Shores of Tripoli: MTV and Arab Revolution
Along comes Jersey Shore with its cast of self-described Italians. These are not the magical white folks of world-conquering, democracy-building myth-but they’re still “white”. They behave like the Museum assumes only people of my color behaved. The sum total of their television life is a kind of late-capitalist tragic anthropology: doing laundry to go to parties, in order to have sex. For me, it’s been tremendously liberating to know that people of my color and faith are not the only people who are embarrassing to watch on television.
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No Fireworks, Only Candles: Our Work as Americans and Muslims
I have no desire to set off fireworks, jump into a car and yell out the window while waving fists and flags. If I were in New York City, I would light a candle at the memorial and keep vigil. In San Francisco, I pray in a room lit only by a streetlamp, filled with sadness for those who have died in America, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, and apprehension at the terrorism-related deaths to come. Our work as Americans and Muslims is far from done.
Read MoreTurkey and Egypt: Islam’s Future?
If Egypt’s democracy takes hold it will, along with Turkey, help elbow out the Islamist movements we’re used to hearing about.
Read MoreDispatches From the Site of a Massacre
My journey to Bosnia is deeply personal, and urgently universal. The war not only gave ammunition to radicals but it forced Muslims to question the compatibility of the West and Islam.
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On Eve of Sudan Split Clashes Continue
When the Southern Sudanese declare independence from the Islamist regime in the North ending a half century of civil wars many, like William Maddeng, a refugee in Israel, won’t be celebrating.
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Museum of (In)tolerance for Divided City
New Yorkers may be grappling with conflicting ideas about how best to honor the sacred real estate around Ground Zero, but they got nothing on Jerusalem, where a California-inspired Museum of Tolerance is being constructed on what is said to be the site of an ancient Muslim cemetery.
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Excerpt: The Christian Roots of Zionism
20th century Jewish aspirations for a revived national home were supported by three centuries of Christian enthusiasm—bolstered by biblical literalism—for the return of the Jews to “their land.” In this excerpt from the newly-released Zeal for Zion, Shalom Goldman traces the Christian roots of Zionism.
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Jewish Past/Israeli Future: A Review of The Invention of the Jewish People
The reactions to the English-language publication of a book deemed “a scandal” reveal as much about the politics of contemporary Israel (and of its relation to the American Jewish community) as they do about the history the book describes. It’s not that Shlomo Sand believes that the Jews are not the chosen people—he argues that they might not be a people at all.
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The Arab, the Feds and the Flood: Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun Rescues America
A Muslim everyman paddles his canoe to the rescue of a drowned New Orleans, and gets, for his pains, locked up in a local version of Guantanamo. This novel—a chronicle of faith and romance, of crisis and conversion—demands not just reading, but recommending.
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