Niqab and the Social Contract

Ethics, Gender and Sexuality, Immigration Issues, Islam in Europe

Remember your Rousseau: “man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains.” Updating the male-oriented language of his day, women must also be born free. Feminists would argue that everywhere she is also bound in chauvanistic chains, but what would Rousseau say about women who in some places are hidden away head to toe in full-length veils? To veil or not to veil: that has become more than a philosophical question these days. A recent legal opinion in France denied Faiza Silmi, a Moroccan woman, French citizenship because of her insistence on wearing the niqab, which obscured all but a narrow slit-view of her eyes in public. In a similar context, a Muslim woman in Florida was not allowed to have her driver’s license picture taken without showing her face. While relatively few Muslim women in Western societies choose to be chador laden or walk around in full-length woven tents, the few that do invariably stir strong feelings. If the intention is to be invisible, the opposite response is inevitable. In both these cases the issue was not one of physically removing their choice of dress in public, but one of a lack of the conformity necessary for negotiating individuality in the public sphere. If you want to become a French citizen, an option rather than a natural right, then you must accept the range of behavior agreed upon as acceptable in secular French culture. Dressing like Muhammad’s wives supposedly did in the 7th century may convince the authorities in Saudi Arabia, but modern France freed itself from the bloody history of religious bigotry that such symbols often cover. If you want the privilege of driving a car, then you need to pass a driving test and not obstruct your vision or prevent authorities from identifying you by failing to show your face. Continue reading Niqab and the Social Contract →

Milking the Camel

Animals, camels, Film and Video, Islamic Sciences, Orientalism, United Arab Emirates

One of the most common Orientalist tropes about the Middle East is the image of the camel, the ship of the desert. Bernard Lewis angered Edward Said by comparing one of the Arabic terms for revolution (thawra) to a camel’s rising, a point made in the old Arabic lexicons. But the camel strikes back on Sharjah Television. On the program “Medicine and Islam” the benefits of camel’s milk are spelled out, including some rather grand claims.

The video on Islamic Tube is accompanied by the following article from the Khaleej Times:

SHARJAH. A research body here is seeking global tie ups to produce drugs to treat deadly diseases including Aids from the unique antibodies found in camel`s milk. Continue reading Milking the Camel →

Lebanon Cluster Bomb

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Film and Video, Lebanon, Shi'a

Screening and Discussion:
Sneak Preview Screening of Jawad Metni’s “Lebanon Cluster Bomb”

To mark the 2nd anniversary of Israel’s brutal war on the people of Lebanon, Alwan for the Arts and Deep Dish TV present four evenings of films from Deep Dish TV’s new eight part television series NOTHING IS SAFE. The screenings are on consecutive Wednesdays July 23, July 30, Aug 6, and Aug 13.

July 30, 2008 Program
Free and Open to the Public
A sneak preview of Jawad Metni’s new feature documentary “Lebanon Cluster Bomb”

LEBANON CLUSTER BOMB
Sneak preview (2008, Jawad Metni, 90 min)

LEBANON CLUSTER BOMB follows the men and women of South Lebanon who were hired and trained to clear unexploded cluster munitions after the July 2006 war. The Israeli Defense Forces dropped nearly 1 million of these dangerous weapons across 40 million square meters of South Lebanon. Hundreds of thousands failed to explode, and continue to kill and maim civilians 2 years after the war. The film is a primer on the cluster munition problem in Lebanon, but much more so an intimate portrait of those struggling to rebuild their lives after the devastating 2006 war. The under-represented of South Lebanon are given voice here, as they work shoulder to shoulder to return the land back to their fellow Lebanese. Continue reading Lebanon Cluster Bomb →

Dinosaurs in Yemen

Animals, Yemen


(A)-Map of tracksite with ornithopod (trackway o1) and sauropod (trackways s1–s11) trackways, (B)-Trackway of the ornithopod (trackway o1: steps 3–10), and (C)-Sauropod left manus and pes print (trackway s6: step 12).

Scientists have discovered the first dinosaur tracks on the Arabian Peninsula. In the May 21 issue of the journal PLoS ONE, they report evidence of a large ornithopod dinosaur, as well as a herd of 11 sauropods walking along a Mesozoic coastal mudflat in what is now the Republic of Yemen. “No dinosaur trackways had been found in this area previously. It’s really a blank spot on the map,” said Anne Schulp of the Maastricht Museum of Natural History in The Netherlands. He conducted the study with Ohio University paleontologist Nancy Stevens and Mohammed Al-Wosabi of Sana’a University in Yemen.

The finding also is an excellent example of dinosaur herding behavior, the researchers report. The site preserved footprints of 11 small and large sauropods — long-necked, herbivorous dinosaurs that lived in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods — traveling together at the same speed. Continue reading Dinosaurs in Yemen →

Colonizing Iraqi Cuisine

Food and Drink, Iraq, Journalism and Media

by Omar Dewachi

On April 23 , the New York Times published an article, “A Bit of Old Baghdad With a Western Twist,” in its ‘Dining and Wine’ section, reviewing La Kabbr, an Iraqi restaurant in New York City. Instead of drawing on an expert of Iraqi cuisine, the author of the article chose to focus on the Times Bureau Chief in Baghdad, now the editor of the world section of the Times Magazine, who had spent 4 years covering the war. The article celebrated how this restaurant in New York has become a “clubhouse for journalists and officials who have spent time in Baghdad, and for Iraqi expatriates and Iraqi-Americans.” Aparisim (Byline, Bobby) Ghosh the Baghdad Bureau chief seems to speak as an authority of Iraqi cuisine when he is quoted in the article saying:

“I wonder why Iraqi cuisine is not more sophisticated,” he said. “It is essentially peasant food, which I happen to love because it fits my palate perfectly. But intellectually, you wonder why, with all of its influences, the food isn’t more complex.”

Continue reading Colonizing Iraqi Cuisine →

Can the Umm al Qura calendar serve as a global Islamic calendar?

Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islamic Rituals, Islamic Sciences, Saudi Arabia

by Khalid Chraibi

Over the past 50 years, the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and other similar bodies presented their member States with over a half-dozen proposals aiming at the establishment of a common Islamic calendar. Although none of these proposals was adopted, efforts in search of a solution that could be satisfactory to all interested parties continue to this day. For its part, the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) was also regularly confronted with the responsibility of telling its Muslim American audience when to start fasting, when to celebrate «eid al-Fitr», «eid al-Adha», etc. After several years of study of the legal issues involved, it reached a decision, which it announced in August 2006, to use henceforth a pre-calculated Islamic calendar, taking into consideration the sightability of the new moon anywhere on Earth. (1)

First, it retains the well-known principle of unicity of horizons (matâli’) which states that it is sufficient to observe the new moon anywhere on Earth, in order to declare the beginning of a new lunar month, applicable in all areas in which the information is received. Second, it uses the International date line (IDL) or Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) as its conventional point of reference to conduct its analysis. Continue reading Can the Umm al Qura calendar serve as a global Islamic calendar? →

Playing Games with Iran

Anthropology/Sociology, Arab-Israeli Conflict, Election 2008, Iran, Iraq War, Journalism and Media, Terrorism Issue


Clergymen watched a missile during war games Thursday near Qum, Iran. The exercise was conducted by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Fars News Agency, via Agence France-Presse

by William O. Beeman, Foreign Policy In Focus, July 21, 2008

By now the structure of the U.S. game with Iran is clear. In the first move, the United States and Iran make some small progress toward improved relations. In the counter move, hardliners in the United States and Israel launch attacks against Iran in order to sabotage these improving relations.

In the latest iteration of this game, the U.S. State Department has made an interesting gambit. It announced that Undersecretary of State William Burns would sit at the table on July 20 as members of the European Union entered into talks with Iran over its nuclear program. At the same time, the United States has been reported to be considering opening a formal American Interests Section in Tehran. These two actions will be the first serious public diplomatic activities between the two nations in nearly three decades. (Three earlier meetings in Baghdad between U.S. Iraqi Envoy Ryan Crocker and Iranian Ambassador to Iraq Hassan Kazemi-Qomi focused on security in Iraq). Continue reading Playing Games with Iran →

Animal House in the 15th Century: Part 1

Animals, Books You Should Read, camels, Folklore and Proverbs, Literature

One of the most entertaining Arabic compendia on animal life, taken in the loose sense of the term for things that breathe or are thought to breathe, is the Hayât al-Hayawân (Life of Animals) of the Egyptian savant Kamâl al-Dîn Muhammad ibn Mûsâ al-Damîrî. Writing a century before Columbus discovered America, al-Damiri spins stories about animals with a variety of folklore about uses of animal products and parts. A scientist would no doubt shudder at the magical and literary focus of the text, only occasionally finding description useful today. A partial English translation was made by a British officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Jayakar, and published in two volumes in 1906 and 1908 in India. Unfortunately, this text is virtually inaccessible. I have looked at two copies, one in the New York Public Library and the other at the Library of Congress, and only with trepidation have I turned the fragile pages in this poorly bound volume. So far there is no digital version, which is a shame, since it is a delight to read.

Our author was a prolific copyist, quoting from over 800 other authors and providing a thousand entries, some simply an animal’s name and its more common synonym. Ironically, Jayakar’s Victorian sensitivity makes the translation as much an oddity as the primary work. Continue reading Animal House in the 15th Century: Part 1 →