Religion Dispatches
…t this did make me think about the phenomenon of interfaith as it is being promoted these days. First of all, this is not an idea promoted by the oppressed to invite others to celebrate their faith. It is something those already in power or with privilege extend to make an opening or orchestrate a collective. This means, those who do get invitations are usually at a disadvantage. If nothing else, it could be from the mere organizational standpoint…
Read More…t well in advance, two maybe three years. I first tried to go on hajj from Egypt (in 1981-2) because the total airfare was like 250 US dollars. I had my air ticket before I applied for a visa locally. In the end, the quota prevented me from going, despite the “reasons” given. We don’t have a quota in the United States. So when I first went online to get general information (earlier this year while still in Indonesia listening to my friends’ incred…
Read More…ructs: “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.” Leviticus 19:34 is even more direct: “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.” 4. Ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. So much for “blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9) or Jesus’ admonishment to “Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the…
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…observances. The biblical commandment to commemorate the liberation out of Egypt understood that the non-Israelite community who joined the Israelites were required to undergo circumcision before eating the paschal offering. So, clearly the Bible in Exodus understands that this is indeed an exclusive, even tribal, celebration and experience. More importantly is that the seder itself is a rabbinic institution, not a biblical one. Suggesting that th…
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…ities woven together with literary freedom. “There was no mass Exodus from Egypt,” write historians Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman. Forget the fictional frogs and the sea engulfing the bad guys. What happened from 1250 to 1050 B.C.E. was not history but a psycho-political, epochal breakthrough of social imagination.* Outstripping Homer and Virgil in wit and wisdom, these Hebrew poets imagined a move from the one-percent rule of Egypt to the…
Read More…t know if it’s any consolation but on my first attempt at making hajj from Egypt in 1981 I was stopped at the gate because I did not have a mahram. This was a question I asked my travel agent before I submitted my deposit. At my age there is no restriction, but for all you young and fine ladies, there are ways to get around it— including what they did in Egypt but I did not learn about in time, and that is that the hosting travel agent can act as…
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…ecrease. A Dawoodi Bohra woman with children at the Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Egypt. Image via Scott D. Haddow/Flickr. 2. The Year 2070 Means Muslim Plurality For the first time ever (or perhaps just since sometime between 1000 and 1600 CE when The Plague decimated the European Christian population, according to footnote #2 of the report), in 2070 there will be more Muslims in the world than Christians. Between 2010 and 2050 the Muslim population is…
Read More…se he preached rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery; he has tried to turn you from the way the LORD your God commanded you to follow. You must purge the evil from among you. 6 If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your fathers ha…
Read More…ccording to every empirical indicator. Sexual harassment in a country like Egypt was rare and a far cry from the pandemic it is today with a <90% hijab rate among Muslims. People who know women from these cultures today understand the tremendous pressure all Muslim women can be under to veil. The pressure can be so severe that one does have to problematize notions of “choice” in some contexts. – In view of this last point: something happened to ch…
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…politics can be fused.” But how do we get to that point? We have seen, in Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria, that Saudi Arabia and Iran are willing to kill large numbers of civilians to defeat democracy. (The very thing, incidentally, Iran complains about—our 1953 role in the return of the monarchy to absolute power—is what Iran has been doing day in and day out in Syria for years now, and at far more brutal cost in lives lost.) But, sadly, Saudi A…
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