Category Archives: Islam in America

The World’s Muslims

Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islam in Europe, Islam: Introduction, Teaching Resources


The Pew Foundation has recently released a major worldwide survey of religion. As can be seen from the basic breakdown, Christianity is the largest in number of adherents, with Islam in second place. Here is the discussion of Islam:

Muslims number 1.6 billion, representing 23% of all people worldwide. There are two major branches of Islam – Sunni and Shia. The overwhelming majority (87-90%) of Muslims are Sunnis; about 10-13% are Shia Muslims.8

Muslims are concentrated in the Asia-Pacific region, where six-in-ten (62%) of all Muslims reside. Many Muslims also live in the Middle East and North Africa (20%) and sub-Saharan Africa (16%). The remainder of the world’s Muslim population is in Europe (3%), North America (less than 1%) and Latin America and the Caribbean (also less than 1%). Continue reading The World’s Muslims →

ISLAM IN THE COLUMBIA CURRICULUM, 1886-2012

Conferences and Talks, Islam in America, Scholars


This photo shows Jackson with his student Dhalla, the financier Henry Clews (1836-1923), and Djelal Munif Bey (d. 1919), the Ottoman Consul General in New York. The other two men are unidentified.


The Columbia University Seminar on Religion and Writing and the American Institute of Iranian Studies are pleased to announce:

ISLAM IN THE COLUMBIA CURRICULUM, 1886-2012: FROM ORIENTAL LANGUAGES TO AREA STUDIES AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES

Thursday, January 31, 2013
Faculty House (400 West 117th St)

The one-day conference will explore the history of Islamic Studies in North America in general, and at Columbia University in particular. Its starting point is the observation that Islamic Studies slipped into the Columbia curriculum when in the late 1880s Oriental languages were first added to the fledgling University’s course offerings. For a detailed schedule, please see the conference website at
https://researchblogs.cul.columbia.edu/islamicbooks/religionwriting/conference/

The conference accompanies the exhibition “Collecting Oriental Books for the Columbia Libraries, 1886–1936” in Columbia’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The exhibition explores the beginnings of the University’s Islamic book collections, and will be on view in the Chang Octagon from December 19, 2012 until March 2013.

This conference is open to the public, but we request that you register, as seating is limited. Please RSVP to icc1886@gmail.com.

For further information contact icc1886@gmail.com.

Two documentary films on Islam in NYC

Anthropology/Sociology, Film and Video, Islam in America

For those in the New York area and who have power (I still do not after Sandy hit last week), there are two films that will be of interest to those who read this blog. One is American Imam by Donya Ravasani. It is showing twice at the IFC Center: Saturday, Nov 10 at IFC 11:15am and Thursday, Nov 15 at IFC 1pm

It will be screened together with Building Babel, David Osit’s documentary about the developer of the so called Ground Zero Mosque.

For details on New York’s Documentary Festival, check out their website.

Ayatollahs in America (starting in Oz, Kansas)

Bible and Holy Land, Election 2012, Film and Video, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islamic Law, Islamophobia 101


A few months ago, before Big Bird got his “laid off” notice from Mitt Romney, the state of Kansas passed a law “to prevent Kansas courts or government agencies from making decisions based on Islamic or other foreign legal codes.” This passed by 33-3 in the Kansas senate and 120-0 in the Kansas House. Despite the fact that there is no indication that anyone ever tried to use Islamic sharia or any other “foreign” legal system to thwart existing law in Kansas, the legislators thought it prudent just in case. Despite the fact that the U.S. legal system does not allow any other kind of legal jurisdiction to trump it, who knows how many Muslim clerics may be thinking about moving to Kansas and issuing fatwas. Although Kansas is not the only Republican-controlled state legislature to declare jihad on Islamic law, it does have a reputation for reacting to other great moral dangers in our country, like the teaching of scientific evolution rather than creation in science classrooms. When the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz blurted out ” I *do* believe in spooks, I *do* believe in spooks. I do, I do, I do, I *do* believe in spooks, I *do* believe in spooks, I do, I do, I do, I *do*!”, who would have known how much like the Kansas legislators he was.

Perhaps the Kansas politicians think that after Iran’s Ahmadinejad spoke (and spooked, of course) at the United Nations in liberal New York City that he might turn himself into the Wicked Witch of the East and start chopping hands of thieves and stoning men and women who engage in adultery (which does not appear to have reached epidemic proportions yet in Kansas but could if more Democrats are elected). Of course, this is not about hating Islam (a religion that in some respects can look a like that of the God-fearing Mormons not far away in Utah), but to protect the women of Kansas. As Republican State Senator Susan Wagle expressed it,

“In this great country of ours and in the state of Kansas, women have equal rights,” Wagle said during the Senate’s debate. “They stone women to death in countries that have Shariah law.”

Apart from the fact that the vast majority of countries that use Islamic law do not in fact stone anyone for adultery, you never know who might cast the first stone in a state like Kansas. Continue reading Ayatollahs in America (starting in Oz, Kansas) →

How to Defend the Prophet?

"Arab Spring", Ethics, Film and Video, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islam in Europe, Muhammad


Supporters of Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah wave Hezbollah flags and shout slogans at a protest against a film made in the US that mocks the Prophet Mohammad, in southern Lebanon, Sept. 19, 2012. The Arabic on the headscarves read, “In your name prophet of God.” (photo by REUTERS/Ali Hashisho)

by Alaa al-Aswany, Al-Monitor, September 19, 2012

Whether you are Muslim, Christian or follow any other religion, you have the right to practice your faith, and others must respect your religious convictions without anybody mocking or degrading your beliefs. Thus, every Muslim has the right to feel angry upon watching a pathetic and badly made movie that depicts their prophet in a shameful, deceitful and insulting manner. Muslims were also within their rights when they felt angered by the cartoons that mocked the Prophet that were published in Denmark a few years ago. Furthermore, they were right to be angered by the movie Fitna (strife) — a film produced by right-wing Dutchman Geert Wilders in 2006 — which derided the Muslim faith and considered it the source of all the world’s terrorism. In all of these instances, Muslims were justifiably angered, and they had the legitimate right to embark on a campaign aimed at convincing the world that they were entitled, as human beings, to see their religious beliefs respected without prejudice. But, unfortunately, and as a result of these campaigns, Muslims lost that aforementioned right, and themselves contributed in distorting the image of Islam and Muslims because they let their anger get the best of them by overlooking the following facts:

First: The nature of freedom of expression in the West Continue reading How to Defend the Prophet? →

The reform of the Islamic calendar: the terms of the debate, #2

Islam in America, Islamic Rituals, Islamic Sciences


Source of image

click here.]

The legal opinion of Qadi Shakir

Egyptian qadi Ahmad Muhammad Shakir (who was to become President of the Egyptian Supreme Court of the Shariah at the end of his career, and who remains to this day an author of reference in the field of hadith) (9), wrote a lengthy legal opinion in 1939 on the subject of the Islamic calendar, entitled : “The beginning of Arab months… is it legal to determine it using astronomical calculations?”. (2) According to him, the Messenger took into account the fact that the Muslim community of his time was “illiterate, not knowing how to write nor how to count”. So, he recommended to its members to observe the new moon to carry out their religious duties at the time of fasting and hajj. But the community evolved considerably over time, and some of its members even became experts in astronomy.

According to the principle of Muslim law which states that “a rule is no longer applicable, when the factor which justified its existence has disappeared”, the Messenger’s recommendation didn’t apply anymore to the Muslims, after they had learned to read and count and had ceased being illiterate. Therefore, according to Shakir, contemporary ulama’ commit an error of interpretation when they give to the Messenger’s hadith the same interpretation that applied at the time of Revelation, as if the hadith prescribed immutable rules. But, it has stopped being applicable to the Muslim community long ago, based on the principles of the shari’ah themselves. Continue reading The reform of the Islamic calendar: the terms of the debate, #2 →

The reform of the Islamic calendar: the terms of the debate, Part 1

Islam in America, Islamic Rituals, Islamic Sciences


[Note: This is a two-part article. After reading this you can proceed to Part two by clicking here.]

by Khalid Chraibi

Shortcomings of the Islamic calendar

A calendar associates a specific date with each day of any given week, month or year, to enable people to manage all their activities over an extended period of time. They must be able to anticipate, plan and organize in advance, using the information provided by the calendar, everything that they need to do. But, in Muslim societies, people wait to see, each country for itself, the appearance of the new moon at the end of each lunar month, before they declare the beginning of a new lunar month. As a result:
– the information in the Islamic calendar does not extend beyond the current month;
– and the data it shows each month differs from one Muslim country to another.
For instance, the first day of Ramadan 1427 corresponded to Saturday, September 23, 2006 in 20 countries ; Sunday, September 24 in 46 countries ; and Monday, September 25 in 5 countries. (1) This situation is in no way unusual, but can be observed every month.
Because of these shortcomings, after the major Muslim countries were occupied by foreign powers in the 19th and 20th centuries, Muslim people started using the Gregorian calendar to meet all their needs, and only care about determining Islamic dates on momentous Islamic religious occasions.

But, to this day, they regularly get puzzled at the inability of the Islamic calendar to predict precisely, well in advance, the day on which major Islamic events such as the first day of Ramadan, or eid al-fitr, or eid al-adha, or the first day of the new Islamic year are to take place. Continue reading The reform of the Islamic calendar: the terms of the debate, Part 1 →

Newsweak

"Arab Spring", CyberOrient, Egypt, Ethics, Gender and Sexuality, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islam in Europe, Islamophobia, Journalism and Media, Libya


Edward Said wrote a poignant critique of media coverage of the Iranian hostage crisis just over three decades ago. He called it “Covering Islam.” The subtitle was “How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World.” Once again Islam is being covered, the latest being the “cover” on Newsweek Magazine. Said’s [Covering Islam (1997 edition), p. lv.] assessment is as relevant as ever today:

For the right, Islam represents barbarism; for the left, medieval theocracy; for the center, a kind of distasteful exoticism. In all camps there is agreement that even though little enough is known about the Islamic world there is not much to be approved of there.

The latest Newsweek cover demonstrates just how weak its sense of responsible news reporting is. The trope of “Muslim Rage” conflates the cultural dimensions of politics with a religious faith. When Israeli planes bomb Hamas in Gaza, no major newspaper calls this “Jewish Rage.” When Terry Jones burns a Quran or when Anders Behring Breivik shoots fellow Norwegians, I have yet to see a headline of this act as one of “Christian Rage.” Rage is almost always political at base and the events subsumed under a blanket umbrella of “Muslim Rage” are local politics to the core. The fact that we see these images on CNN and the Internet tells us more about the audience than it does about those engaged in the activities.

The photograph captures “rage” to be sure, but the choice of turbaned and bearded protesters (when the majority in Cairo at least are young clean-shaven men in Western clothing lobbing rocks at the police) identifies rage with a style of dress and a style of dress with a violent religion. Ironically, the voices of those who are enraged are not to be heard anywhere inside the story. Instead, the cover boasts an article inside by Aayan Hirsi Ali, a controversial Somali whose claim to fame was posing naked with Quranic verses on her body and then becoming a darling of the Islamophobic mob. Her knowledge of Islam is so immature and biased that the very idea she might have something to contribute to the issue staggers my imagination.

I see little difference between this cover photo and that on the French tabloid Closer, which brandished the privately bared royal breasts of British princess Kate Middleton. Continue reading Newsweak →