Religion Dispatches
Of all the monotheisms, Christianity has come to depend the most on the idea of belief, or doctrine. But there is a strong countertradition, now submerged, that insists that any time we say we know who God is, or what God wants, we are committing an act of heresy.
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The national conversation about health care has been about everything but care, or compassion, for those truly in need. Isn’t it simply wrong for religious leaders to sit this one out?
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While the rioting over the Danish cartoons seems to be well behind us, Yale University Press recently removed the images from a new scholarly work on the topic. Do Muslim extremists need a scholarly book as pretext with two wars being fought in Muslim nations and an ongoing crisis in Gaza? The problem isn’t with these images, but with the ubiquitous Islamophobia in the United States.
Read MoreA religious scholar in Egypt recently warned against listening to broadcasts of the Qur’an, as the mediating influence is disrespectful to the text. But what of disregard for human agency?
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By presenting itself as a disinterested collection of “facts” and “data,” an alarmist new book about the Muslim threat to Europe has been taken more seriously than your standard Islamophobic pamphlet.
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The face of modern global feminism is wearing hijab. The director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement talks to us about the new “Jihad Against Violence” and other developments in the worldwide Muslim women’s movement.
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An interview with a singer marked for death by the Taliban. Curiously, while the Taliban claims that music is a violation of Islamic law, they do have their own melodies and hymns.
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An interview with the director of Afghan Star, a documentary that follows a tense but cathartic talent competition.
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A young Muslim woman is denied entry to a public pool because of her body-covering swimsuit, a “burqini,” and authorities insist that it has nothing to do with Islam. What, then?
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Christopher Caldwell’s new book on Islam and the West is fraught with inconsistency, selective history, and outright error. But, for all that, it is a must-read.
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