Category Archives: Teaching Resources

How I Almost Became a Terrorist

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Islamophobia 101, Teaching Resources, Terrorism Issue


left, 1967 cover of Life Magazine; right, Dr. Alan Singer in the classroom

How I Almost Became a Terrorist
Not Everyone Who Opposes U.S. Policy is a Fanatic

By ALAN J. SINGER, CounterPunch via Maiz Centeotl Chicomecoatl, January 7, 2010

In May 1967 I was a seventeen-year old high school senior and a not particularly religious Jew. I was born in New York City, as were my parents, although my grandparents were immigrants from Eastern Europe. My family strongly identified with the state of Israel and at the time my stepmother was visiting her brother who had emigrated there to fight for independence after serving in the U.S. army during World War II.

The survival of Israel as a Jewish state was important to my identity and the identity of my friends and family members. My friends, siblings, cousins, and I grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust and we had family members who were murdered. Jews had been victims for two thousand years but the survival of Israel meant we would be victims no more.

As the crisis in the Middle East intensified Americans were evacuated. My father and I spent a night at Kennedy Airport waiting for my stepmother to return home. The next morning two friends and I went to the Jewish Agency to sign up to go to Israel as volunteers in the event of war. We hoped to fight but said we would do anything that was needed.

On June 5, 1967 Israel launched a preemptive strike. The Third Arab-Israeli War lasted six days and ended with a resounding Israeli victory. American volunteers were not needed so we never went. But we would have gone and we would have fought for the survival of Israel and of Jews, whether the United States government gave permission, looked the other way, or even if it tried to stop us.

I am no longer a Zionist and I have not supported Israeli policy, especially the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, since the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. I now see Israel as the aggressor in the region, but that is not the point. Continue reading How I Almost Became a Terrorist →

Lane at your fingertips

Languages, Scholars, Teaching Resources


The Arabist Edward Lane

No Arabist library, for an English speaker, is complete without Edward Lane’s Arabic-English Lexicon, despite the fact it was never finished. There are several reprints out there, but now the original is available to read online. If you want to look up a word, go to http://www.tyndalearchive.com/TABS/Lane/. The text is in pdf but can be searched by root, although the server is somewhat slow to respond.

For an interesting article on the travels of Edward Lane, check out the Saudi Aramco World article.

Contesting Islamism

Anthropology/Sociology, Books You Should Read, Ethics, Islam in America, Islam in Europe, Islam: Introduction, Islamophobia, Scholars, Teaching Resources, Terrorism Issue

Stanford University Press has just published Islamism: Contested Perspectives on Political Islam, edited by Richard C. Martin and Abbas Barzegar. In this book Political Scientist Donald Emmerson argues for an inclusive use of the term “Islamism” in order to rescue the term from its misappropriation in the media. This is followed by my essay, in which I argue that the term “Islamism” is as tainted as “Mohammedanism” and should be avoided as a replacement for fundamentalist and political Islam. Our two essays are followed by twelve short responses from a variety of perspectives, Muslim and non-Muslim. The contributors include Feisal Abdul Rauf, Syed Farid Alatas, Hillel Fradkin, Graham Fuller, Hasan Hanafi, Amir Hussain, Ziba Mir-Hosseini and Richard Tapper, M. Zuhdi Jasser, Bruce Lawrence, Anouar Majid, Angel Rebasa and Nadia Yassine. Given the range of perspectives on one of the hot topics of the day, this volume will be a great addition to courses on Islam or the Middle East.

The publisher’s description is presented below: Continue reading Contesting Islamism →

Mapping the Global Muslim Population

Anthropology/Sociology, Islam: Introduction, Teaching Resources


The “President’s Mosque” in Sanaa, Yemen

Mapping the Global Muslim Population
A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Muslim Population

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, October 2009

Executive Summary

A comprehensive demographic study of more than 200 countries finds that there are 1.57 billion Muslims of all ages living in the world today, representing 23% of an estimated 2009 world population of 6.8 billion.

While Muslims are found on all five inhabited continents, more than 60% of the global Muslim population is in Asia and about 20% is in the Middle East and North Africa. However, the Middle East-North Africa region has the highest percentage of Muslim-majority countries. Indeed, more than half of the 20 countries and territories1 in that region have populations that are approximately 95% Muslim or greater.

More than 300 million Muslims, or one-fifth of the world’s Muslim population, live in countries where Islam is not the majority religion. These minority Muslim populations are often quite large. India, for example, has the third-largest population of Muslims worldwide. China has more Muslims than Syria, while Russia is home to more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined. Continue reading Mapping the Global Muslim Population →

Lisân al-‘Arab Online

Languages, Scholars, Teaching Resources

The digital world is an extraordinary boon to those of us who depend on a variety of Arabic resources. One of my mainstays is the multi-volume Lisân al-‘Arab of the great lexicologist Ibn Manzur (died 1311 CE). I picked up my copy in 1979 in Dâr al-Muthana in Baghdad. Now I discover that this major classical lexicon, along with al-Fayrûzabâdî’s Qâmi¨s al-muhît and two other dictionaries are online at http://baheth.info. One can type in the Arabic word desired and all references to that in the extensive commentary will be highlighted. All the prompts are in Arabic, although I note that the one Google Ad prompt across the top in English advertised “Arabic Girls.” Poor Ibn Manzûr would no doubt roll over in his qabr, were he around to click his way today. On the right hand side notable quotes are posted. On one recent day I found one by Lenin. Ah, the power of words…

Sociology of Islam and Muslim Societies Newsletter

Anthropology/Sociology, Islam: Introduction, Journalism and Media, Teaching Resources


Charles Kurzman, Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina

The Sociology of Islam and Muslim Societies website is an important resource for anyone interest in the study of Islam from a sociological perspective. The current summer issue is available online at the main website. In the current edition, Charles Kurzman has an introduction well worth reading. He observes,

The sociology of Islam and Muslim societies is “hot,” for all the wrong reasons. It is not because globalization has drawn the world closer together, or because sociology is internationalizing its focus beyond its historical interest in Western Europe and North America. No, the sociology of Islam is “hot” because of the common but inaccurate association of Islam with terrorism and international conflict. The world wants to know why we are seeing such violence in the name of Islam, and sociologists — along with other social scientists — are expected to have answers. Violence and stereotypes related to Muslims are, sadly, good for business in the sociology of Islam. Continue reading Sociology of Islam and Muslim Societies Newsletter →

What Students are Reading in Dayton

Books You Should Read, Islam in America, Islamophobia, Teaching Resources

Book about Islam required reading for UD freshmen

By Dave Larsen, Dayton Daily News, July 26, 2009

More than 1,700 incoming University of Dayton students are required to read “War on Error: Real Stories of American Muslims” before they arrive on campus Aug. 22 for first-year orientation.

The book, an award-winning collection of essays about young American Muslims, was written by Melody Moezzi, a 1997 graduate of Centerville High School and an American Muslim of Iranian descent.

UD is a Marianist Catholic university.

Moezzi’s book will serve as the basis for a series of student dialogues on the issue of diversity and differences, said Kathleen Webb, UD dean of libraries. Continue reading What Students are Reading in Dayton →