Yes, we can … chew qat

Election 2008, Yemen


qat market in the Cheikh Othman area of Aden

Qat sales tripled on the eve of American Elections
by Mohammed al-Kibsi, Yemen Observer, Nov 5, 2008 – 2:05:47 AM

For the first time in Yemen’s history Yemenis at large spent the Wednesday’s night till Wednesday morning following up the American elections results. Abdul-Ghani al-Kazan a Yemeni lawyer said he didn’t sleep the whole night till the results were released and till Obama displayed the winning speech at 7 :30 am Sana’a local time.

Ali al-Thawr a qat dealer said he sold four folds of the daily quantity last Tuesday afternoon and night. “After I had finished selling the daily quantity of qat at 3 pm. I found more people searching for qat so I phoned a qat farmer to send me one more shipment of qat” said al-Thawr.” Continue reading Yes, we can … chew qat →

A Fatwa that Hits Back

Gender and Sexuality, Islamic Law, Turkey

Fatwa Gives Women the Right to Hit Husbands

Riyadh, Asharq Al-Awsat – A fatwa originating from Turkey has given women the right to strike their husbands in cases of self-defense.

Sheikh Mohsen al Obeikan, an adviser to the Saudi Ministry of Justice and a member of the Saudi Shura Council agreed with some Islamic scholars in Turkey and Egypt in this regard. “This [issue] is acknowledged by Islamic jurists and it has roots in Islamic Shariah, the Quran and the Hadith [Prophetic traditions],” said the Sheikh. He referred to the following excerpts of the Quran: ‘The recompense for an injury is an injury equal thereto (in degree),’ [Surat Ashoura: 40] and ‘…whoever then acts aggressively against you, inflict injury on him according to the injury he has inflicted on you…’ [Surat al Baqara: 194] Continue reading A Fatwa that Hits Back →

Obama and Islam

Election 2008, Islam in America, Islamophobia

American Muslims overwhelmingly voted Democratic
Lorraine Ali, NEWSWEEK, November 7, 2008

For the past few months, not a day went by without the words “Muslim” and “Obama” being mentioned in the same sentence. From the divisive shouts and jeers at McCain rallies to the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times to an interview with Colin Powell on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Muslims—or at least the mention of them—have been more prevalent this campaign year than “Joe the Plumber.”

But beyond the use of the term Muslim as a pejorative, and accusations by the far right that Obama was himself a secret follower of the Quran, what did real Muslim-Americans think of the Chicago senator? And how did they vote? The American Muslim Task Force on Civil Rights and Elections released a poll today of over 600 Muslims from more than 10 states, including Florida and Pennsylvania, and it revealed that 89 percent of respondents voted for Obama, while only 2 percent voted for McCain. It also indicated that 95 percent of Muslims polled cast a ballot in this year’s presidential election—the highest turnout in a U.S. election ever—and 14 percent of those were first-time voters. The Gallup Center for Muslim studies estimates that U.S. Muslims favored Obama in greater numbers than did Hispanics (67 percent of whom voted for Obama) and nearly matched that of African-Americans, 93 percent of whom voted for Obama. More than two thirds who were polled said the economy was the most important issue affecting their decision on Nov. 4th, while 16 percent said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan informed their vote—numbers that put Muslims roughly on a par with the general population. Continue reading Obama and Islam →

Sex and the Islamic City

Gender and Sexuality, Morocco, Terrorism Issue

[The following is a review by Omar El Kouch of Al-Madina al-Islami wal-Ouçoulya wal-Irhab: Muqaraba Jinsya, (Islamic City, Fundamentalism and Terrorism: a Sexual Approach), Beirut, Arab Rationalist League, Dar Es Saqi, 2008, 208 pages, ISBN 978-1-85516-287-7 by Abdessamad Dialmy. The review is translated here from Arabic into English by Said Allibou and Imad Mahhou (Mohamed V University, Rabat, Morocco).]

The new book of Prof. Dr. Abdessamad Dialmy holds a new treatment and handling, where the author attaches a particular importance to the sexual factor in the composition and the reasoning of a fundamentalist, radical and terrorist personality. This is a factor which is absent in the various studies on fundamentalist and radical movements in the Kingdom of Morocco and witnessed in the rise of radical movements and incidents of violence and bombings, fields of study and research. Continue reading Sex and the Islamic City →

Of Mullahs and Cardinals

Ethics, Islam and Christianity

The recent election coverage has so dominated the media that the rest of the world seems to have been put on hold. The whirling globe we live on did not stop mid-stream in anticipation of a phenomenal Obama victory as the sun is related to have done for Joshua on the battlefield. Bombs ticked off in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India; killing fields were heaped even higher in Congo; earthquakes buried the innocent; everywhere the economy continued to tank. But in all the bad news there are a few glimmers of hope, whether you regard it as audacious or not. Consider the Catholic-Muslim Forum just ending today in the Vatican.

FINAL DECLARATION OF CATHOLIC-MUSLIM FORUM

VATICAN CITY, 7 NOV 2008 (VIS) – Made public yesterday afternoon was the final declaration of participants in the First Seminar of the Catholic-Muslim Forum, which took place in Rome from 4 to 6 November on the theme: “Love of God, Love of Neighbour”.

Each of the two sides in the meeting was represented by 24 participants and five advisers who discussed the two great themes of “Theological and Spiritual Foundations” and “Human Dignity and Mutual Respect”. Points of “similarity and of diversity emerged, reflecting the distinctive specific genius of the two religions” the English-language declaration says. Continue reading Of Mullahs and Cardinals →

Barack Hussein Obama: We can say it now

Election 2008, Islamophobia

If it ain’t over ‘til it’s over, it’s over at last. Yes, he did it. The next President of the United States, it is finally safe to say with a loud voice, is Barack Hussein Obama. Not just Barry for the ESPN fans, nor Barack H. for those frightened of prejudicial backlash from the Bible Belt, but a candidate who won decisively despite a middle name of Hussein. There is no reason why President Obama should use his middle name. Bill Clinton resonated without a Jeffersonian middle and Jack Kennedy marched into Camelot without his Bostonian f-word on the lips of reporters. But neither is there any need to disguise the fact that a name like Hussein, or even Muhammad, is as American as Tom, Dick, Harry, Mario, Chang, Hideki, Prideep or any of the myriad names that grace American passports.

Names do matter, but nothing matters more than getting over the name blame game that highlighted the Islamophobia in this tense, mercifully past tense now, presidential campaign. Continue reading Barack Hussein Obama: We can say it now →

Showcasing Palestinian cinema

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Film and Video, Israel, Palestine


Jackie Reem Salloum, the director of Slingshot Hip Hop, wants to encourage Palestinians to tell their stories through artistic expression.

Showcasing Palestinian cinema
By Deena Douara, Al-Jazeera, October 29, 2008

On the heels of the Toronto International Film Festival comes another motion picture fete about a people trying to carve out a state in a war-torn region.

From October 25 to November 1, Toronto will showcase 36 films about the Palestinians as part of year-long commemorations marking the 60th anniversary of the ‘Nakba’, or catastrophe.

Kole Kilibarda, one of the Toronto Palestine Film Festival (TPFF) organisers, believes audiences will be surprised by “the amazing cinema produced even under the most difficult of circumstances”.

The TPFF will include Canadian, North American, and world premieres of award-winning documentaries, features and short films.

Palestinian films have gained prominence on the international scene in recent years, beginning with the enigmatic Divine Intervention (2002) and the controversial Oscar-nominated Paradise Now (2005). Continue reading Showcasing Palestinian cinema →

Guilty of Befriending Muslims

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Election 2008, Islamophobia, Taliban


Professor Rashid Khalidi

by Mark LeVine, Tikkun, October 30, 2008

With less than a week left before the most important Presidential election in at least a generation, the McCain campaign has decided that, having failed to convince most Americans that Barack Obama is actually a closet Muslim, its best hope for winning undecided voters is to accuse Obama of having Muslim friends.

Not just Muslim friends, Muslim Palestinian friends. Apparently there are few more fearful combinations in the American ethno-religious lexicon.

And so a McCain spokesman has accused the Los Angeles Times of “intentionally suppressing” a video that would “show a clearer link” between the Democratic candidate and Professor Rashid Khalidi, the most important scholar of Palestinian history in the world, who at the time the video was shot, was a neighbor of Obama and a colleague at the University of Chicago. Continue reading Guilty of Befriending Muslims →