All posts by tabsir

Islam and the Goal of Love

Ethics, Islam: Introduction, Muhammad, Qur'an, Sufism


Islam and the Goal of Love

by William C. Chittick, The Huffington Post, November 6, 2010 08:20 PM

Muslim scholars who claimed that Islam specifically and religion generally are based on love were not simply talking through their hats, as many readers of my previous post seem to think. They offered plenty of evidence. In order to see its logic, however, we need to remember the two axioms upon which all Islamic thought is built: the reality of God and the messengerhood of Muhammad.

The first axiom does not depend on the Quran. It needs to be accepted before there is any reason to consider Muhammad and the message. If God is not real, then God’s “messages” will be even less real.

This first axiom states that there is only one true reality. Everything else — the universe and all it contains — derives from it. What we call “realities” are in fact non-realities dressed up in fancy clothes.

In the language of Islamic theology, this axiomatic notion is called tawhid (pronounced “toe-heed”), meaning “the assertion of unity,” that is, the unity of the ultimate reality, which is commonly called “God.” Any close reading of the Quran (and the works of practically any Muslim theologian, Sufi or philosopher) will show that tawhid is taken as self-evident to any healthy intelligence. If people miss it, the problem is “forgetfulness,” the outstanding characteristic of the human race. According to the Quran, Adam did not “sin”; rather, “He forgot” (20:115). Continue reading Islam and the Goal of Love →

Those Yemeni parcels

Anthropology/Sociology, CyberOrient, Islamophobia, Journalism and Media, Terrorism Issue, Yemen


Armed Yemeni police stand guard next to the closed UPS office Thursday, Nov. 4, 2010, in Sanaa, Yemen

[Webshaykh’s Note: The latest from Greg Johnsen, one of the most informed commentators on AQAP and one who needs to be much more widely read.]

Initial Notes on AQAP’s statements
by Gregory Johnsen, Waq al-Waq, Friday, November 5, 2010

I have just finished a first reading of the three statements AQAP posted to jihadi forums earlier today. The one that is getting the most attention – not surprisingly – is the one that takes credit for two parcel bombs and the downing of a UPS plane in Dubai in September.

But for me, by far the most interesting statement is #27, which denies that AQAP had anything to do with two bombs outside a sports club in Aden on October 11. I will return to this below, and talk about why I think this statement is so significant. but first a couple of notes.

Note 1: Statement #28 talks about the fighting in Mudiya on October 14, 2010. I wrote about this fight here, in which the brother of the governor of Abyan was killed. Now we have AQAP’s version of the fighting, interesting details, but probably only to me. So I’ll save you the full discussion.

Note 2 : Another thing that I have noticed is the change in references to President Ali AbdullahSalih now and in the pages of Sada al-Malahim back when it was under the editorial guidance of al-Qahtani, who was killed in an airstrike. Continue reading Those Yemeni parcels →

Lauren Booth on Lauren Booth

Gender and Sexuality, Islam in Europe, Islamophobia 101, Journalism and Media, Palestine


I’m now a Muslim. Why all the shock and horror?

by Lauren Booth. The Guardian, November 3, 2010

It is five years since my first visit to Palestine. And when I arrived in the region, to work alongside charities in Gaza and the West Bank, I took with me the swagger of condescension that all white middle-class women (secretly or outwardly) hold towards poor Muslim women, women I presumed would be little more than black-robed blobs, silent in my peripheral vision. As a western woman with all my freedoms, I expected to deal professionally with men alone. After all, that’s what the Muslim world is all about, right?

This week’s screams of faux horror from fellow columnists on hearing of my conversion to Islam prove that this remains the stereotypical view regarding half a billion women currently practising Islam.

On my first trip to Ramallah, and many subsequent visits to Palestine, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, I did indeed deal with men in power. And, dear reader, one or two of them even had those scary beards we see on news bulletins from far-flung places we’ve bombed to smithereens. Surprisingly (for me) I also began to deal with a lot of women of all ages, in all manner of head coverings, who also held positions of power. Believe it or not, Muslim women can be educated, work the same deadly hours we do, and even boss their husbands about in front of his friends until he leaves the room in a huff to go and finish making the dinner. Continue reading Lauren Booth on Lauren Booth →

Guardians of the Sacred

Bible and Holy Land, Calligraphy, Islam and Christianity, Islamic Texts, Judaism

by F. E. Peters, NYPL Website, October 18, 20120

For very long time, Jews, Christians and Muslims have behaved toward one another like members of a dysfunctional family, like the competitors for an immense inheritance, the favor of Almighty God. But the current exhibition at the New York Public Library uncovers quite another strain of familiarity among the three, their devotion to the book.

Many cultures value the written word, the art of writing and a reverence for books, but Jews Christians and Muslims are unique in their devotion not merely to books – the scribe was always among their elite members before the age of printing – but to the Book. Continue reading Guardians of the Sacred →

Sudan Open Archive

Anthropology/Sociology, Development, Sudan


The Sudan Open Archive offers free digital access to knowledge about all regions of Sudan. It is an expanding, word-searchable, full-text database of historical and contemporary books and documents. The current version, SOA 2.0, incorporates a comprehensive, interactive guide to internet resources on Sudan.

The Sudan Open Archive (SOA) is designed and implemented by the Kenya and UK-based Rift Valley Institute, working with institutional partners in the north and south of Sudan. The Archive was created by DL Consulting using open-source Greenstone archive software developed by the New Zealand Digital Library project at the University of Waikato. It is maintained with support from the J.M. Kaplan Fund. Other partners include UNICEF, UNEP and the Southern Sudan Centre for Census, Statistics and Evaluation.

A Biography of Defiance

Morocco, Photography, Poetry, Travel


Henri Matisse, The Moroccans, 1915-16,The Museum of Modern Art, New York,

A biography of defiance by Hassan El Ouazzani

It was better for the world not to have existed. It was better
for the dynasty to have kept its desire for another evening party.
It was better for the master to have been tired that night, for the earth
to have been dismal. It was better for something to have happened so that
the very semen be assassinated,
the semen whose descendant
is this one resident
in the home
of anguish.

That one
to whom the sky did offer but the robe of fire
now consuming his limbs. Continue reading A Biography of Defiance →