Religion Dispatches
…I have some flexibility. Keep in mind, for example, that people already in Saudi Arabia, and even some minimalists from outside, will only come for the hajj proper. Although it tends to be crowded there starting with Ramadan, there is some semblance of ‘before and after.’ To maximize my before, I think having some time to be there, but not in the ihram for umrah will give me a kind of spiritual quiet in the storm of people and practice. I’ll need…
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…s on human rights—the usual suspects include China (Tibet), Russia (LGBT), Saudi Arabia (women), etc—but why does a resolution from the American Studies Association not address the American sources and causes of the problems faced by Palestinians? Noam Chomsky made this point in an earlier interview about the broader boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement (BDS): why stop with Israel? Why not boycott U.S. institutions? The focus on Israel appe…
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…hear the word “Shari’ah” and reflexively think of oppressive regimes like Saudi Arabia. Fish heightens such anxieties when he passes along a generalization about the difference between Muslims and the West made by Ann Black in her book Shari’a in the West (Oxford, 2010), “Muslims do not conceptualize Islam in terms of the Westernized sociological categorization of religion which places the individual at the centre of all analyses.” This isolated…
Read More…don’t know where the money comes from before asserting that it comes from Saudi Arabia) in “residential neighborhoods where there are no Muslims… If you build it they will come.” But building a worship center isn’t a protected religious right, according to Guandolo, “this isn’t about the First Amendment it’s about Article 6 of the Constitution.” Ironically, while Article 6 lays out the sovereignty of the laws of the United States. it is also proh…
Read More…as Muslim equals some 20.3 million people—a population almost as large as Saudi Arabia’s. (More to the point, as one of China’s ethnic minorities, Muslims are not bound to the one-child per family policy.) Notwithstanding the fervid prayers of some Olympic contestants, religion probably won’t be a major story during the Summer Games. But the Pew Forum’s findings are worth remembering: A growing number of urban, educated, 20-something Chinese men…
Read More…terpretations. It takes a certain amount of mind-twisting logic to look at Saudi Arabia’s laws that it calls shari’ah, where women are not allowed to drive and Iran’s laws that it calls shari’ah, where women are integral part of the government, and say that these systems form a unitary whole. There are certain laws that come out of Qur’an for which all Muslims agree are clear limits. These include commands not to murder, not to steal, to give char…
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…rs” indeed. So if it takes the former president many more years of golf in Saudi Arabia (or another, similar nation without an extradition treaty) to ensure that these concerns about democracy are addressed well then so be it. I’m not above a bit of strategic prayer (and whether you’re a praying person or not, I hope you’re not either). One of my touchstone thinkers, Walter Brueggemann, calls prayer “the theological imagination of the community”—w…
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…s of life in several Arab countries, including Libya, Oman, Palestine, and Saudi Arabia. One of them, Nuwas, has studied the Qur’an and describes his take on religion as “neo-Islam”: “In Oman, we have bars and clubs where alcohol is sold. Alcohol is explicitly mentioned in the Qur’an. We’re fine with people getting drunk, but being gay is frowned upon. “My atheist and agnostic friends are like ‘Come on, you’re not really Muslim’ and the Muslims ar…
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…was the Green Revolution in Iran in 2009. The current protests in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Libya face an uncertain end. Failure of nonviolent revolution has, in the past, been the occasion for renewed acts of violence. So the jihadi warriors may again have their day. For the moment, however, bin Laden is dead, and Tahrir Square has challenged both the strategic value and the moral legitimacy of the jihadi stance. The legion of young Muslim activ…
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…ion on “protection of the family,” which was introduced by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, affirms “the natural and fundamental group unit of society” and urges UN member states” to “strengthen and support families.” To observers at both ideological poles, this resolution is most significant for what it does not say. A majority of Council members rejected a reference to the “various forms of the family”—favored by Western European states, the U.S., and So…
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