Monthly Archives: February 2008

God’s Crucible Reviewed

Islam and Christianity, Islam in Europe, Islamic History, Teaching Resources, Terrorism Issue

Detail of Carl von Steuben’s depiction of the Battle of Poitiers, fought in 732, the year Muslim armies crossed the Pyrenees.

A Better Place

What if the Muslim armies hadn’t been stopped at the French border?

by Joan Acocella, The New Yorker, February 4, 2008

In 610 A.D., Muhammad ibn Abdallah, a forty-year-old man from a prosperous merchant family in Mecca, repaired to a cave on nearby Mt. Hira to meditate—a retreat he had made many times. That year, though, his experience was different. An angel appeared and seized him, speaking to him the words of God. Muhammad fell to his knees and crawled home to his wife. “Wrap me up!” he cried. He feared for his sanity. But, as the voice revisited him, he came to believe that it truly issued from God. It called on him to reform his society. Poor people were to be given charity; slaves were to be treated justly; usury was to be outlawed. Muhammad’s tribesmen, the Quraysh, were polytheists, like most people in the Arabian Peninsula at that time, but this God, Allah, proclaimed that he was the only God. He was the same deity that the Jews and the Christians worshipped. Jesus Christ wasn’t his son, though. Christ was just a prophet, like the prophets of the Old Testament. Their word was now superseded by Muhammad’s, as their creeds were supplanted by this new one, Islam. Continue reading God’s Crucible Reviewed →

International Conference: The New Draft Constitution of Turkey

Islam in Europe, Turkey

The conference entitled “The Draft of the New Turkish Constitution” will bring together academics and politicians who have drafted the new constitution with scholars of democratic theory and comparative constitutions in a way that both side exchange critical views and share them with the public audience. The declared aim of the new constitution project is to contribute to the process of liberalization of Turkey’s political and legal systems as part of its integration to the European Union.

Monday, March 3rd: 9:00-6:30
International Affairs Building, Room 1501

This conference is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR) and the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life (IRCPL) at Columbia University, and Turkish Cultural Center (TCC).

For more information, please contact Ahmet Kuru: ak2840@columbia.edu Continue reading International Conference: The New Draft Constitution of Turkey →

The Letters of Badr Shakir al-Sayyab: #15

Iraq, Literature, Poetry


The Iraqi Poet Badr Shakir al-Sayyab

[Note: This is the 15th in a series of translations of selected letters of the noted Iraqi poet Badr Shakir al-Sayyab. For more information on the poet, click here.]

Letter #15

Basra 3/16/1962

My Dear Brother Yusuf (al-Khal),

I miss you very much, but we will meet soon, God willing. I received a telegram from Simon Jarji in which he asks me if I can be in Beirut between the 10th and the 17th of April. He also says that the International Organization for the freedom of Culture will bear the expense of my travel and lodging. I will be in Beirut between these dates, with God’s help.

I now have “21” new poems, and I will strive to find a buyer for these poems in Beirut. I am in extreme poverty and will come to Beirut carrying only a few Dinars in my pocket. Perhaps you will be able to arrange something for me while I am in Beirut. As for waiting for a month, this is extremely difficult. I will write the “The Iraq Message” for you while I am in Beirut. All the literary news is in Baghdad…I will visit Baghdad on my way and will gather from there all the news that fits to be included in the “Message.” Continue reading The Letters of Badr Shakir al-Sayyab: #15 →

Dreams Stifled, Egypt’s Young Turn to Islamic Fervor

Egypt, Gender and Sexuality, Islamic Rituals

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
The New York Times, February 17, 2008

CAIRO — The concrete steps leading from Ahmed Muhammad Sayyid’s first-floor apartment sag in the middle, worn down over time, like Mr. Sayyid himself. Once, Mr. Sayyid had a decent job and a chance to marry. But his fiancée’s family canceled the engagement because after two years, he could not raise enough money to buy an apartment and furniture.

Mr. Sayyid spun into depression and lost nearly 40 pounds. For months, he sat at home and focused on one thing: reading the Koran. Now, at 28, with a diploma in tourism, he is living with his mother and working as a driver for less than $100 a month. With each of life’s disappointments and indignities, Mr. Sayyid has drawn religion closer.

Here in Egypt and across the Middle East, many young people are being forced to put off marriage, the gateway to independence, sexual activity and societal respect. Stymied by the government’s failure to provide adequate schooling and thwarted by an economy without jobs to match their abilities or aspirations, they are stuck in limbo between youth and adulthood. Continue reading Dreams Stifled, Egypt’s Young Turn to Islamic Fervor →

To Sing or to Sin? Is that the Question?

Islamic Law, Music and Dance, Yemen

Music is alive and well in Muslim societies; Arab, Persian, Indian and Indonesian pop stars abound on the satellite channels and perform at weddings and other celebrations. There are also famous music festivals, the Baalbek Music Festival being one of the most known venues. So it should not be a surprise that the Yemeni port of Aden, long a crossroads of Muslims traveling east and west, should be the home of an Arab music festival. The Aden Festival was booked for February 14 with the Syrian singer Asalah Nasri and Egyptian star Issam Karika. As noted in an article in the current Yemen Observer, the director of the Aden cultural office, Abdullah Kudadah, considers the festival as a primary step for creating a tourism culture that will contribute to the economic and cultural renaissance of Yemen.

He further mentioned that this coming concert was among several proposed festivals for singers from different Arab states, as well as the fact that Yemen is launching four new satellite channels.

“Music is an international language. We know how the ancient Arab tribes used to celebrate their poets because they used to believe that their poets would promote the tribe. The success of a poet is the success of the whole tribe,” said Kudada. He added that Ukadh used to be the forum for all Arab poets from different Arab regions.

The director of Aden festival, Marwan al-Khalid, said the festival is the first of its kind organized by the Aden governorate. He said the festival will be held in the 22 May stadium and that more than 400 prizes will be given to the audience. In addition to 400 cell phones and one million Yemeni riyals divided amongst twenty winners, the grand prize of a Hyundai automobile will also be given away. Al-Khalid added that there would be VIP tickets costing $100 each, which include dinner and beverages. Ordinary tickets will cost YR3000 each.

Organizers have also decided to donate 30 percent of the concert proceeds to the aid of the Palestinian people in Gaza and to cancer health care in Yemen.

Al-Khalid expected a great turnout for the festival due to the fame of the Syrian singer.

Cultural expression and tourism: what could be wrong with that? The Devil, quite literally it seems, is in the details, also noted in the Yemen Observer article: Continue reading To Sing or to Sin? Is that the Question? →

Strolling Through Tarlabasi

Anthropology/Sociology, Contemporary Art, Travel, Turkey


Tarlabasi, 2004, by Gamze Olgun, Oil Painting.

by Jenny White
Kamil Pasha Blog
Posted on January 24th, 2008

Tarlabasi is a district on the backside of the Beyoglu hill falling from the crest at Pera – where all the foreign embassies were in Ottoman times, now demoted to consulates – down in the direction of the Golden Horn. In The Abyssinian Proof, Kamil chases a wily criminal to his lair in Tarlabasi. The district is picturesque in the way of crumbling majesty on its last legs (a large part of Tarlabasi will be razed in 6 months, probably replaced by hotels). The steep, narrow lanes are strung with laundry, bustling with locals shopping at an outdoor market crammed into one of the lower streets. At the top of the hill near Istiklal Bouelvard are some lovely stone houses, now ruined or so shabby as to be nearly uninhabitable. A large stone house cracked down the side like an egg is posted for sale. As you walk down the hill, the houses become smaller, shabbier, sometimes outright ruins, less stone and more wood. In Ottoman times, Catholics and Greek Christians (Rum) lived near the top — shop owners, employees of the embassies — and poorer families near the bottom. Taylor Pepo’s apprentice lived in Tarlabasi with his family (The Abyssinian Proof). Today Tarlabasi is inhabited by Roma (gypsy), Kurds, the very poor, and social outcasts of various kinds. Continue reading Strolling Through Tarlabasi →

Lost in the Lost Archive

Bible and Holy Land, Islam and Christianity, Islam in Europe, Qur'an

The following is a reaction to the article “The Lost Archive” in The Wall Street Journal Jan 12, 2008, page 1 (US edition) by Michael Marx (marx@bbaw.de), Director of Research, Centre Corpus Coranicum (Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften)

The lost archive, the myth of philology, and the study of the Qur’an
by Michael Marx

The belief in the myth that old manuscripts should be mysterious and powerful is part and parcel of the age of Modernity. That such expectations were operative in the discussion on the Qumran fragments is still remembered, and more recently the Da Vinci Code, in itself a quite shallow story, sold extremely well. The fact that the Wall Street Journal placed an article on the “lost Bergstrasser-film archive” of Qur’anic manuscripts on its front page on 12th of January seems to be due to the myth of “textual wars” taking place in the world. Labelled as a clash of civilizations or war of religions, conflicts today in the Middle East and Europe involving Christians, Muslims and Jews are likely to be perceived in isolation from their economical, social, or political preconditions. On September 12th 2001 a friend of mine bought a copy of the Qur’an in order to “understand what is going on”. Indeed, as if in the spirit of the protestant slogan of “sola scriptura” (= “through scripture only”), the idea of deciphering the software of “Muslim patterns of action” through the Sacred Book of Islam is tempting. As superficial as it may look, this very perception of the direct causal link between “what Muslims do” and passages of the Qur’an seems to be widespread. No article on the missing enlightenment in “Islam” without pointing to a still missing “but urgently needed” critical edition of the Qur’an. Almost no coverage on warfare in the Middle East and suicide bombings without the attempt to dig out passages from the Qur’an and pictures of praying and reciting Muslims. The cultural, social, and religious diversity of a whole region, the Middle East, that European and American history labels as the cradle of civilisation and the birthplace of Judaism and Islam appears transmuted into a “disturbing” monolithic religious monster. Continue reading Lost in the Lost Archive →

Brothers of the Book

Art, Islam and Christianity, Islamic History

by Robert Lentz

In 1219 St. Francis and Brother Illuminato accompanied the armies of western Europe to Damietta, Egypt, during the Fifth Crusade. His desire was to speak peacefully with Muslim people about Christianity, even if it mean dying as a martyr. He tried to stop the Crusaders from attacking the Muslims at the Battle of Damietta, but failed. After the defeat of the western armies, he crossed the battle line with Brother Illuminato, was arrested and beaten by Arab soldiers, and eventually was taken to the sultan, Malek al-Kamil.

Al-Kamil was known as a kind, generous, fair ruler. He was nephew to the great Salah al-Din. At Damietta alone he offered peace to the Crusaders five times, and, according to western accounts, treated defeated Crusaders humanely. His goal was to establish a peaceful coexistence with Christians.

After an initial attempt by Francis and the sultan to convert the other, both quickly realized that the other already knew and loved God. Francis and Illuminato remained with al-Kamil and his Sufi teacher Fakhr ad-din al-Farisi for as many as twenty days, discussing prayer and the mystical life. When Francis left, al-Kamil gave him an ivory trumpet, which is still preserved in the crypt of the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi.

This encounter, which occurred between September 1 and 26, is a paradigm for interfaith dialog in our time. Despite differences in religion, people of prayer can find common ground in their experiences of God. Dialog demands that we truly listen to the other; but, before we can listen, we must see the other as a precious human being, loved by God. There is no other path to peace in this bloody 21st century. Continue reading Brothers of the Book →