All posts by tabsir

Signing off?

"Arab Spring", Ali Abdullah Salih, Yemen


The fat lady has sung…

Yemen’s beleaguered president Ali Abdullah Salih has finally signed off on his role after several aborted efforts earlier this year. He has arrived in Saudi Arabia and even the official Saba news agency is reporting that he has agreed to finally sign the GCC-brokered resolution. One can still find a November 15 item in which Salih denies not agreeing to sign the deal. It is hard to imagine that he can back out of this after signing it, especially on Saudi soil. If the fat lady is not singing, she is at least clearing her throat and it sounds like music to those opposing him … But signing does not make it a “done deal” given the stalemate within the army and the dissension between the groups opposing Salih. The next few days will be vital, as the various groups jostle for power and influence, no matter what the GCC deal entails in principle. One result is that Salih receives immunity, a rather sore point that will not go away. The historic deal was covered live on al Jazeera. Stay tuned…

A Madventure in Yemen

Animals, Film and Video, Food and Drink, Humor and Satire, Orientalism, Terrorism Issue, Travel, YouTube Watch


Take two rather weird Finns, a camera and a mountain of jocularity. The result is one of the stranger travelogues you will ever encounter: Madventures YEMEN. This film was made shortly after the attack on the U.S. Embassy in 2008. The two travelers are hardly experts on Yemen and much of what they say (about tribes and geography, for example) should be taken with a grain (at times a pillar worthy of Lot’s wife) of salt. But I love this film, once you get by the Ali-G-ness of the two f-ing (a word they use to the hilt) Finns. First, the cinematography is fantastic and you hear from a number of Yemenis, who often make far more sense than their guests. Second, it does not treat qat as a drug and the Yemenis come across as anything but the “terrorists” portrayed in the media. Indeed, at one point, the traveler Rika notes that despite the number of weapons in Yemen it probably has less crime than the country you are watching the film from.

Check it out and enjoy…

There are three parts to the film available on Youtube: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Robert Spencer and the Stealth Jihad

Islamophobia 101, Terrorism Issue

Robert Spencer and the Stealth Jihad
by David L Johnston, Humantrustees.org, November 1, 2011

A reader of my previous blog, “McCarthyism Returns in the 2010s,” asked a very reasonable question [when it was first posted on the Peace Catalyst website]. He or she had wondered how accurate my placing Robert Spencer among the “purveyors of hate and misinformation” actually was. I like this. I want feedback and the opportunity to promote an honest and transparent conversation. What is more, I write this answer trying to emulate the Apostle Paul by “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15).

I used “purveyor of . . . disinformation” as a blanket statement on the heels of Fear, Inc.’s Chapter 2 title, “The Islamophobia Disinformation Experts.” In that sense, this covered Spencer and several others, including Frank Gaffney and Daniel Pipes.

Yet Spencer is the most prolific – at least 11 monographs on Islam, including the 2005 title, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), with hundreds of newspaper articles and blog entries to his name. He’s written nonstop on Islam since his Masters Degree in 1980 (Religious Studies, University of North Carolina), and though he’s accumulated a good deal of knowledge, his sources are either secondary or translated into English.

For this blog I have carefully combed through two of his more recent books, as I discovered that his works do overlap a fair amount. I also glanced at a large volume he edited in 2005, The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims. None of the authors of that volume are scholars with academic posts, and they are generally considered too biased to be taken seriously by Islamicists in the academy.

Nevertheless, two of these writers have international reputations. Bat Ye’or, who has specialized in the historic treatment of the dhimmis (“protected minorities”) under Muslim rule, authored seventeen chapters in The Myth of Islamic Tolerance; and Ibn Warraq, the pen name for a former Muslim from Pakistan who writes scathing critiques of Islam, contributed the Foreword and a chapter on apostasy. As the other contributors to this volume, they clearly have an axe to grind. Continue reading Robert Spencer and the Stealth Jihad →

The Nation on The Arab Spring

"Arab Spring", Journalism and Media, Teaching Resources, Terrorism Issue


The Nation‘s special issue on The Arab Awakening (September 12, 2011) is available free and is a useful resource for anyone teaching (or wanting to learn more) about the political protests. Click here to get a pdf of the issue.

“Articles are devoted to the situations in Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Palestine and Israel, as well as thematic issues affecting the entire region, such as the struggles for social justice, labor rights and self-determination. Wrapping it all up is an analysis of Washington’s response to these cataclysmic events.”

All-American Muslim

Film and Video, Islamophobia 101, Terrorism Issue


The Bazzy-Aliahmad Family

Watch ‘All-American Muslim’ This Weekend

By Alyssa Rosenberg, Thinkprogress.org, Nov 10, 2011 at 1:38 pm

Normally, I would never tell you to watch something just because it would make someone mad. But noted Islamophobe Pamela Geller is apparently vexed that TLC’s All-American Muslim, a new reality show about a group of Muslim families in Dearborn, Michigan, doesn’t achieve what she thinks of as balance, by which she means including storylines where Muslims commit crimes based on their faith. So I’d really like to see the show, which premieres at 10 on Sunday, do smashingly well as a rebuke to folks like her, and to the idea that we should based practitioners of a faith by its extremists.

You should also watch All-American Muslim because it’s a very good show: warm, funny, with great characters, high-stakes storylines, and the some of the most thoughtful discussions of faith I’ve ever seen on mainstream television, or in mainstream popular culture at all. First, the characters: it’s nice to have so many people to like on a television show. Blowsy Shadia’s the least observant member of her fairly observant family, but she’s sweet and funny. Nawal and Nader are expecting a son, and watching them attend a childbirth class, even though it’s not traditional in Dearborn’s Muslim community, or seeing Nader get extremely anxious when faced with a tiny, adorable baby in a tutu makes Up All Night‘s instincts for parenting comedy look clumsy. And seeing the Muslim football coach of Dearborn’s high school team explain to the Christian parents of a black player how he’s trying to balance the obligations of Ramadan for observant players with the need to get the team in championship shape is a great moment of dialogue. In an era of increasingly vile reality television characters, and in a fall television season that’s stumbled in part by relying heavily on abrasive main and supporting characters, it’s a nice to have people to get invested in and to root for. Continue reading All-American Muslim →

Will Congress disrupt diplomacy?

Anthropology/Sociology, Iran, Obama Administration


by William O. Beeman, Star Tribune, November 6, 2011

In an ill-advised piece of legislation, Congress is using opposition to Iran as an excuse to attack President Obama’s executive authority.

The “Iran Threat Reduction Act” (HR1905), passed on Nov. 2 by the House Foreign Relations Committee, neither reduces an Iranian threat nor puts significant pressure on Iran’s leaders to change policies.

The bill would make it illegal for any American diplomat to speak to or have any contact with an Iranian official unless the president certifies to Congress that not talking to the Iranian officials “would pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the vital national security interests of the United States” 15 days prior to that contact.

Minnesota cosponsors of this bill are GOP Reps. Michele Bachmann, Chip Cravaack, John Kline and Erik Paulsen.

A corresponding bill has been introduced in the Senate (S1048), cosponsored by Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, both Democrats.

In addition to tying the president’s hands on diplomacy, the bill also prevents the president from issuing waivers to existing Iran trade sanctions for any reason, singling out the sale of vital airplane parts for civilian aircraft.

Iran’s civilian air fleet is aging, and without replacement parts, air travel on Iranian carriers poses a danger to the public, including American citizens who travel to Iran. Continue reading Will Congress disrupt diplomacy? →

Eid Pictures

Islamic Rituals, Photography, Sanaa, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

There is a very nice photograph montage on Boston.com about the recent hajj and preparations for Eid al-Adha. Here are two of the photographs:


Yemenis shop at a market in Sanaa on November 3, 2011, in preparation for the Eid al-Adha feast, or Feast of Sacrifice, which marks the end of the annual hajj pilgrimage for Muslims worldwide. (Mohammed Huwais/AFP/Getty Images)


Tens of thousands of Muslim pilgrims move around the Kaaba (center) inside the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia on November 3, 2011. (Hassan Ammar/AP)

Tabsir Redux: Ibn Abī Bakr al-Azraq on Massage Oils: #1

Islamic Sciences, Scholars


The Arab physician Ibrāhīm ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Abī al-Azraq, wrote an important medical text near the end of the 9th century A.H./fifteenth century C.E. This is his Tashhīl al-manāfi‘ fī al-ṭibb wa-al-ḥikma, which was published in Cairo in the late 19th century and has been republished many times since then. One of his chapters deals with adhān, that is oils and lotions that were rubbed on the body either in the hot bath or just for general health. Here is my translation of his account on oils.

Section on the Benefit and Influence of Oils (adhān)

The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him salvation, said: “Eat olive oil (zayt) and rub it on the body.” It is a remedy for seventy illnesses, one of these being leprosy (judhām). He said: “For forty nights, Satan will not come near anyone who has olive oil applied.” Zayt is the extraction of the olive, according to al-DÄ«wān. Cold and wet, but said to be hot. It softens (yadbughu) the stomach, strengthens the body, energizes movement, and there is benefit for one in old age in applying it to the eyes against dimming of vision. According to Ibn ‘Amr the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him salvation, said: “Use it to season bread and rub it on the body, because it comes out of the blessed tree (al-shajara al-mubāraka). Continue reading Tabsir Redux: Ibn AbÄ« Bakr al-Azraq on Massage Oils: #1 →