Damned to be Devout

Central Asia, Islam in America, Journalism and Media, Terrorism Issue

Source

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 →

Too handsome for Saudi Women

CyberOrient, Gender and Sexuality, Humor and Satire, Photography, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates


Omar Borkan Al Gala

The news from the Middle East and broader Islamic World is as dismal today as it was yesterday. Syria continues to be a spiraling bloodbath, as does Iraq as we near the 10th anniversary on May 1 of the notorious Bush the Younger declaration of “Mission Accomplished.” Several hundred garment workers may have lost their lives in the collapse of an 8-story sweat shop in Bangladesh and the list goes on. There are times when those of us on the comfortable outside looking in need to take a breath and find something to laugh about in the onslaught of absurdity. The fact that yesterday I heard a lecture on Waiting for Godot is not entirely irrelevant for posting this blog.

For the Saudi purity police it seems that it is possible for a visitor to be so media-savvy handsome that local women need to be protected by deporting him. The case in reporting-stupidity point is about a certain Omar Borkan Al Gala, a fashion photographer, actor and poet from Dubai. England’s authoritatively silly tabloid The Sun carries the following subline: “THE internet is awash with speculation that one of the men deported from Saudi Arabia for being “too handsome” is a fashion photographer from Dubai.” For a pretend news source that Murdoch-murders the truth every chance it can get, there seems to be a voyeuristic fascination with Arab men’s bodies, including Saddam in his undies.

So is this guy really so handsome that he is a whipped-up man of mass distraction to the Saudi regime? Continue reading Too handsome for Saudi Women →

Pathologizing Islam and Pax Americana

Islam in America, Islamophobia, Teaching Resources

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 →

Would You Have Sex With an Arab?

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Ethics, Film and Video, Gender and Sexuality, Israel, Palestine

Sleeping With the Enemy? Review of “”Would You Have Sex With an Arab?

By Clara Abdulaziz,http://ta3beer.blogspot.com, April, 19

“One in five Israelis is an Arab, but it is difficult to find places where they touch fingertips.”

In her latest feature-length documentary, French filmmaker Yolande Zauberman ventures out into the nightlife of Tel Aviv and asks the people she meets a deceptively simple question: “Would you have sex with an Arab?” It is clear that sex serves merely as a proxy to grapple with a much larger question: can individuals transcend identities rooted in long histories of conflict, or is identity so rigidly constructed that it in fact defines one’s humanity?

Zauberman has said that she produced the film to “give space for awareness.” It is meant to be “a little bit sexy, a little bit funny.”

It is also, quite frankly, pretty depressing.

Zauberman’s choice of Tel Aviv for her film was not arbitrary. It is famous for its non-stop club scene, and is one of the most LGBT and queer-friendly cities in the world. She shows that even here, where most young residents seem more concerned with partying than religion and politics, the boundaries of Jewish and Arab identity remain stubbornly situated within the larger Arab-Israeli conflict. Continue reading Would You Have Sex With an Arab? →

Tabsir Redux: Animal House in the 15th Century: Part 1

Animals, camels, Islamic Texts, Orientalism

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 Tabsir Redux: Animal House in the 15th Century: Part 1 →