Religion Dispatches
…ve politicized Twelver Shi‘ism, though there are some disagreements with parts of the latter’s theology and creed. Despite the increased regional influence of Iran, and Twelver Shi‘i political parties in Iraq and Lebanon, there is little actual evidence validating the fears of al-Tayyib and other Sunni leaders that there has been or will be a mass conversion of Sunnis to Shi‘i Islam….
Read More…presents the US and other Western governments with a similar but far more significant quandary. The nightmare scenario involves free and fair elections in Egypt that put a “radical” Islamist government into power. This government then enacts foreign policy decisions hostile to US (and Israeli) interests and hence serves to “destabilize the region.” The US and Israel lose a key ally in the region, ushering in a new period of unrest. Forestalling…
Read More…both chaplains and officers, and in the process, portrayed the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as epic confrontations between Christianity and Islam. Now, with its military evangelists in place, the religious right is taking one of its civilian crusades — to paint homosexuality as a religious war between the equal rights of sexual minorities and the supposed “right” of “Christians” to preach against homosexuality — to the military. At its core, t…
Read More…o a 10th c. Shi’ah rationalist, philosophical movement based in modern-day Iraq. According to the Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS), publishers of the most recent translation of the Epistles in English: Besides the filial observance of the teachings of the Qur’an and hadith, the Brethren also reverently appealed to the Torah of Judaism and to the Gospels of Christianity. Moreover, they heeded the legacies of the Stoics and of Pythagoras, Hermes T…
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…rd Holbrooke’s Afghanistan-Pakistan team, whose recent works have received significant attention. This, his most recent work, urges our reconsideration of the Muslim world by looking at its economic and social realities in another light. Both offer the gravity, subtlety, and statistics that the discussion deserves. We do not know what will become of the processes these authors point to, but we can after these books no longer deny that Muslim (and…
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…4, the Florida Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional Terri’s Law, a hastily signed and highly publicized law designed to keep Terri Schiavo, a patient in persistent vegetative state for 14 years, on artificial sustenance against the wishes of her husband. The next year, in the midst of a media storm, the US Supreme Court refused to hear the Schiavo case, allowing for the removal of her feeding and hydration tubes. Despite extensive last-minute effo…
Read More…d this tactic. The main issue on the mind of the electorate was the war in Iraq, and public opinion had moved so far in opposition to that war that the Democratic leadership in the House was pushed to proclaim that it would cut off funding for the war if Democrats won control of Congress. Well, the outcome was that Democrats did win control, but since the candidates that Emanuel picked were more conservative and militarist than the mainstream of t…
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…lic gesture would inspire? A few ideas: Captain Pratima Dharm: A decorated Iraq veteran, Dharm is the first Hindu chaplain appointed by the US Army. Rabbi Sharon Braus: Braus is founder of the progressive non-denominational IKAR Jewish community in Los Angeles and a respected Jewish voice on matters of social justice and spiritual revitalization. Sanaa Nadim: Nadim (pictured above in official White House photo) is one of the first Muslim chaplains…
Read More…n Hawke, who’s only too well acquainted with death—the death of his son in Iraq, the death of his marriage, and his own impending death from what he rightly surmises to be an undiagnosed cancer. Rev. Toller both has and has not lost his faith. Like writer/director Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, The Last Temptation of Christ), and like the Bible’s Jacob, Toller still wrestles with God and thus also with the inescapable question of theodicy: i.e., if G…
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…which is a Sunni phenomenon. Therefore, this unorthodox move could act to significantly improve sectarian divides that continue to harm Sunni-Shia communities in places like Iraq, Pakistan, and Lebanon. The Bad: In a perfect world, Ahmedinejad would be an unpopular stand-up comedian. Yet, sadly, he was serious when he claimed there are no gays in Iran. He is also less-than-friendly to Israel (to put it mildly), and persists with belligerent rheto…
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