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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…rming Saddam Hussein against Iran, and stationing thousands of soldiers in Saudi Arabia. This, as Obama well knows, is the primary (though certainly not the only) reason Al Qaeda has targeted the United States. The religious diatribes of a handful of zealots are secondary. They provide window dressing for what is at its root a conflict over land, influence, and oil. Maintaining American influence in the Middle East has been (and likely remains) in…
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…d more technical talks are over and the political ones are about to begin. Saudi Arabia seems to be everybody’s favorite bad guy at the moment. France, China, the United States seem to be in favor. And people are looking for a place beyond the lines, outside the reach of the police, to express themselves. The weekend has been called “A TIME OF GLOBAL REFLECTION ON CLIMATE DISRUPTION.” Time to pray, while waiting. Time to meditate, while waiting. T…
Read More…oint, and this party of five would see me through until my entire visit to Saudi Arabia was completed. It is not true that my only contribution was 100 riyal. When we left the Ramy Jamarat, I was the only one who knew the way back to our tents in Mina because I had carefully plotted the course from the first time I made Ramy with our tour leader. We rejoined our camp around 11 p.m.—then, my last night in Mina was over. One last Ramy Jamarat and I…
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…ions with the fetus. Even today, many Muslim majority countries, including Saudi Arabia—a nation rarely associated with women’s rights—have more flexible laws on abortion than what is allowed under SB 8. To be sure, Muslim traditions, texts, and communities aren’t free from the problems of sexism. And yes, the Taliban are unquestionably a repressive regime that denies the rights of Afghan women. But using Muslims and Islam to represent the essence…
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…nues as it always has. We hear Newt Gingrich say all sorts of things about Saudi Arabia, but do we really think that if Newt Gingrich was in power he would suddenly drop that alliance? The Brotherhood’s position on foreign policy reflects to some degree a wider Arab and Muslim opinion on the region, and a vacuum in power which has emerged since America’s relative decline in the region has become increasingly obvious. We’ll simply see more countri…
Read More…don’t really get much choice…I would like to find a way in which people in Saudi Arabia could learn that they can be something other than a Muslim. Some people may not realize this. Of course, there is the problem that you can get in trouble or get stoned. IC: Small side effects. In the past, Dawkins has made blanket statements about the Muslim world without regard to politics, colonial history, the stifling effectof petropolitics, or, you know, a…
Read More…uch as Hosni Mubarak, King ‘Abdullah II of Jordan, and King ‘Abdullah I of Saudi Arabia, fear the increased popularity of Twelver Shi‘ism, which they connect with the regional influence of Iran, which is ruled by a Twelver Islamist government. Limited “conversions” of Sunni Syrians and Palestinians following the Summer 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah—the Lebanese Shi‘i political party and paramilitary organization—did not help assuage these…
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…d gain a lot from getting to talk to one another. Like Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, America is creating Islamic networks. Except America’s strategy, like the radicals’, is truly global. Nothing else could compete, and nothing less matches Obama’s ambitions. Rashad Hussein, US envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), closed out the conference. Hussein’s remarks were grounded in Obama’s belief that “the fundamental aspirations…
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A gay Muslim student whose family comes from Saudi Arabia worries that they will have him executed if they discover his identity. The parents of a lesbian Catholic Latina college student seek counsel from their priest, and he tries to perform an exorcism urging her “evil spirit” to flee. A young gay man who attends a black church echoes the sentiments of others from across the American religious spectrum, “I doubt myself… Why am I this way?” As c…
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