The New York Times has a video posted on the first Muslim college fraternity at the University of Texas Dallas. Check it out at here.
Category Archives: Islam in America
New CyberOrient issue is out
The latest issue of CyberOrient (Vol. 7, Iss. 2, 2013) is now available online as open access. Here are the contents:
Editorial
Orchestrating Hip-hop Culture Online: Within and Beyond the Middle East
Anders Ackfeldt
Articles
Muslimhiphop.com: Constructing Muslim Hip Hop Identities on the Internet
Inka Rantakallio
Hanouneh style resistance. Becoming hip-hop authentic by balancing
skills and painful lived experiences
Andrea Dankic
“I Am Malcolm X†– Islamic Themes in Hip-hop Video Clips Online
Anders Ackfeldt Continue reading New CyberOrient issue is out
Islamophobia in the deli
This is a fascinating ABC video about attitudes towards Muslims in America. It was filmed in a small town in upstate New York. There were two actors, one an obvious “Muslim” looking man selling sandwiches and another an actor being a bigot. The film captures people’s reactions, most of whom were appalled by the bigot. It is well worth watching.
Shock Value and nothing to snore about
Billboard ad of SnoreStop, top: the actress sans hijab, bottom
Given the range of images available with a click and the sensationalism-hungry news media, it is hard to find anything that has shock value anymore. PETA asks Hollywood celebs and beauty queens to take off their clothes so rich people will shun mink fur. But there is so much nudity on the web that it hardly raises an eyebrow any more. Spencer Tunick, the Brooklyn photographer who invites several thousand people to don their clothes for a mass aesthetic photograph, sends few shock waves through the media. Gay marriage is slowly becoming a Blue State inevitability; even the new pope has asked Catholics to chill over the hot button moral issues that abort civil dialogue. So what can still be shocking? How about a billboard ad showing an American soldier embracing a Muslim woman in hijab?
This is an ad put up by “SnoreStop,” a pharmaceutical company with a slogan of “keeping you together.” Having identified one of the primary causes of relationship breakups (ahem), they offer a medicalized kit for only $14.95 that will pinpoint where your snoring occurs and zap it with a pill. Here is how the website explains it:
Every night in America and throughout the world millions of spouses have to make a decision about leaving the bedroom in order to get a good night’s sleep, which destroys all intimacy. When we lack a good night’s sleep, we break down emotionally, mentally, and physically. Moreover, snorers have sex less often or have a decreased interest in sex due to being tired. SnoreStop® saves relationships by ‘bringing peace to the bedroom.
Green Pharmaceuticals, a “woman-owned company,” is turning heads (the oldest and easiest way to stop snoring, although the company does not note this) with an ad that will definitely be a cup of tea for conservatives. According to a spokesperson the ad is not just about selling a product but making a wholesome point about people being together. So they went and looked for real couples and found the oddest couple an ad maker could imagine. Yes, this is supposedly a “real couple,” Jamie Sutton or Paul Evans (depending on the news source) and Aleah or Lexy, although it does not appear that the Aleah or Lexy normally wears a hijab, nor if either of them suffer from the trauma of snoring. As it happens “Aleah” is Lexy Panterra and she has a saucy video in which there is no niqab in sight but plenty of flesh. And it seems her boyfriend is not the soldier in the ad. No niqab, no snoring (well, I can not confirm this) and no soldier husband (or at least no longer). Her boyfriend is, appropriately for Instagram fame, Aladdin. How shocking: an ad campaign that deceives in order to sell a product that nobody probably needs. Continue reading Shock Value and nothing to snore about
Muslim Journeys
The National Endowment for the Humanities has a fantastic website on Islam with a variety of resources, especially valuable for teaching about Islam, but also just for browsing. The outreach part of the project is “The Muslim Journeys Bookshelf,” a collection of 25 books and 3 films, noted as “a collection of resources carefully curated to present to the American public new and diverse perspectives on the people, places, histories, beliefs, practices, and cultures of Muslims in the United States and around the world.” American libraries can apply for receipt of this collection. Available on the site are images, samples from texts, audio recordings and short film clips, web links and a bibliography.This website is worth spending a few hours on and coming back to; it is precisely what a virtual museum should be.
Here is a sample text excerpt to whet your appetite. This is from al-Jahiz, who died in 869 CE, on “The Disadvantages of Parchmentâ€
Continue reading Muslim Journeys
Damned to be Devout
In much of the Western world Sunday is traditionally the day devoted to religion (and picnics and sports and going to the beach when the sun shines, etc.). Even those who are not devoted to a particular religion find something to devote themselves to. So today I would like to devote my comments to the very idea of what it means to be “devout.” The tragedy orchestrated two weeks ago by the Boston Bombers adds yet another milestone to those who see Islam as a religion that promotes violence. Yet the two brothers who senselessly took several lives and forever altered the lives of many others appear to have almost no real knowledge of their religion. I am struck by the widespread use in the media of the term “devout” to describe the older brother Tamerlane. I am not at all surprised that an Islamophobe like Pamela Geller writes that “Again and again we see that Muslims who commit jihad violence are pious and devout.” Geller was commenting on an AP report that Tamerlane’s aunt had said he was a “devout Muslim” who prayed five times a day. The phrase went viral in the news media in part due to this sound bite but also because it reflected a common stereotype.
It seems that all it takes to be labeled “devout” as a Muslim is to pray five times a day, believe that 72 virgins are waiting anxiously to serve you in Paradise and be hooked on Internet terrorist sites. I don’t remember anyone saying that Terry Jones, the lunatic preacher who says he has a divine mission to burn Qurans, is a “devout” Christian. The Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik is usually labeled a “right-wing extremist” yet his writings show a profound regard for Christendom über alles. A person can be “devoted” to anything, including evil, but if I think of a “devout” Christian, Jew or Hindu, I think of someone who has internalized the devotional aspects of their religion due to an insight into the theology. Continue reading Damned to be Devout
Pathologizing Islam and Pax Americana
by Timothy P. Daniels, The Islamic Monthly, April 22
In the aftermath of a week of mainstream media coverage and elite political figure’s statements related to the Boston Marathon bombing, the ongoing processes of pathologizing Islam and its significance for Pax Americana are made evident. Initial questions about whether this bombing was the work of domestic or foreign terrorists or the work of “lone†wolves quickly turned to claims about Arab individuals, international students, and dark-skinned men with foreign accents as “persons-of-interest†and “suspects.†The specter of dangerous foreign “others†in Boston overshadowed the likely homegrown white-supremacist-Christian terrorism lying behind the eerie fertilizer factory explosion in Waco, Texas close to the 20th anniversary of the FBI massacre of the Branch Davidian “cult.†Fourteen dead, scores injured, and an entire town left demolished; however this devastating event was hurriedly pushed out of the news cycle and political rhetoric without any answers for why this blast occurred. The irrationality of this differential response became even more apparent after the FBI released and posted pictures of two suspected bombers and the subsequent massive military mobilization of forces and technologies to corner, capture, and kill these young men. As their identities as Muslim Chechens became known, the media began to speculate about their links to international terrorism and their presumed religious motives. Continue reading Pathologizing Islam and Pax Americana
Can Atheists and Muslims Support Freedom of Conscience Together?
By Qasim Rashid and Chris Stedman, Religion & Politics, March 5, 2013
Thomas Jefferson once wrote: “But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.â€
For many of us, it’s easy to appreciate Jefferson’s eloquently stated advocacy of religious freedom of conscience, as well as the idea that all individuals should be able to express religious or nonreligious positions independent of others’ beliefs. Likewise, at the United Nations, both the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the binding International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantee “freedom of thought, conscience and religion†to all individuals. But, in spite of international agreements and Jefferson’s beautiful words, the reality is that these tenets are often forgotten.
Today, few corners of the world are immune from the oppression of conscience. Last year, Pakistan’s Malala Yousafzai captivated the world after the Taliban viciously attacked her for promoting education for girls and women. Nearby, Pakistani Christian Rimsha Masih’s future and safety are still uncertain after she beat a blasphemy charge. In 2010, the Taliban murdered 86 Ahmadi Muslims on account of their faith. In Indonesia, Alexander Aan continues to languish in prison for the “crime†of professing his atheism, and atheist Alber Saber has been persecuted in Egypt for his lack of faith. In Iran, U.S. Pastor Saeed Abedini is serving an eight-year prison sentence for the alleged crime of preaching Christianity. And these examples are just a snapshot of what Pew reports as roughly 75 percent of the world—5.25 billion people—that live under some sort of social or governmental oppression of religious conscience. Continue reading Can Atheists and Muslims Support Freedom of Conscience Together?