Whose body is it anyway?

"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, CyberOrient, Gender and Sexuality, Islamophobia

Last Thursday was dubbed “Topless Jihad Day,” a call by the feminist group FEMEN for women to protest in support of a Tunisian woman who posted photographs of herself topless (with remarks on her body that many would consider tasteless) on her Facebook site and soon received condemnation and calls for punishment. The result was hardly an outpouring of indigenous support like the “Arab Spring” that flooded the main squares of Tunis, Cairo and Sanaa. The FEMEN website has posted images of women baring their breasts in Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco, Montreal, Paris, Milan, Kiev, Brussels, Berlin and a few other major cities. Two things stand out about this day of protest. First, it takes place only in cosmopolitan Western cities, not in Muslim-majority countries. Second, several of the scenes focus on the protesting women being arrested for breaking the law. The patriarchy that is being protested is not, therefore, only an issue about Islam.

There is a basic principle of physics that every action results in a reaction. The moral code that would cause a Tunisian cleric to condemn a young Tunisian woman for exposing her breast on Facebook causes a protest from an international feminist organization. And, not surprisingly, there is a counter to this from a “Muslimah Pride” network. As the young woman in the image above indicates, she does not feel liberated by exposing her body. But perhaps even more poignant is her comment that she does not need saving. It is not clear if this Muslim woman is condemning the Tunisian woman at the center of the current protest, but she is definitely making a statement about her own body. Whose body is it anyway?

FEMEN has attracted followers for a variety of reasons. I suspect that some testosterone-loaded males in the West cheer wildly whenever a woman shows her bare breasts. These hardly support the stated goal of FEMEN: “sextremism serving to protect women’s rights, democracy watchdogs attacking patriarchy, in all its forms: the dictatorship, the church, the sex industry.” Historically there is no question that women have not had equal rights with men in economic, political or legal contexts; this is true for almost all cultures, ranging from those with despicable patriarchal rules to democracies with permanent glass ceilings. Secularism has challenged many (but not all) of these inequalities, giving women the right to own property, vote, and theoretically have equal opportunities in education and the workplace. Appeals to women’s rights resonate with most people, whether secular or religious, but the devil is in the details.

There is also an elephant in the room, in everyone’s room: who decides what women’s rights are? Continue reading Whose body is it anyway? →

Arabic Papyri Online in Utah

Egypt, Islamic Economics, Islamic Texts


Arabic Papyrus #1564: Receipt for agricultural tax (1/3 of a dinar: from Ushmunayn in Middle Egypt. Compete scroll with seal in fine quality light brown papyrus. 9.3 x 8.3 cm written in black ink. Recto: 6 lines. In good condition. Verso: Two lines occupying the middle of the scroll. In good condition. 249 AH/863-4 CE

The Arabic Papyrus, Parchment & Paper Collection at the J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah is the largest of its kind in the United States. It contains 770 Arabic documents on papyrus and more than 1300 Arabic documents on paper, as well as several pieces on parchment.

Professor Aziz Suriyal Atiya, founder of the Middle East Center and the Middle East Library, compiled the collection. Dr. Atiya and his wife, Lola, purchased the collection over a period of several years from dealers in Egypt, Beirut, and London. The bulk of the collection originated in Egypt, in addition to a small group of fragments from the University of Chicago. A large number of pieces date to the period between 700 and 850 CE. The collection includes a significant number of documents from the pre-Ottoman period and thus offers unique source material on the political, economic, religious and intellectual life of Egypt during the first two centuries of Islamic rule and the period up to Ottoman domination.

Farid Esack in New York

Conferences and Talks, Islam and Christianity, Islamophobia, Scholars, Terrorism Issue


Farid Esack

The Academic Study of Islam and/in/for the Wounded Empire
A Lecture by Dr. Farid Esack
Fri, 5 Apr, 2013 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM

Union Theological Seminary
3041 Broadway at 121st Street
New York, NY 10027

The September 11, 2001 attacks in the USA significantly impacted Islamicists (scholars in the Study of Islam). These events contributed immensely to the growth of irenic scholarship, in which Islamicists increasingly dove into the trenches in order to help save Muslims and the image of Islam from the attacks of different quarters—primarily Western governments and armies and the mass media. This defensive engagement of the Islamicist, described as ‘bunker scholarship’, raises significant questions about fidelity to the post-Enlightenment foundations of critical scholarship. What is more, such scholarship often plays a significantly accommodationist role in co-creating compliant Muslim subjects in a larger hegemonic project.
About Dr. Farid Esack

Professor Farid Esack is a South African Muslim theologian who cut his teeth in the South African struggle for liberation. He studied in Pakistan, the UK and Germany and is the author of Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism, On Being a Muslim, An Introduction to the Qur’an, and Islam, HIV & AIDS –Between Scorn, Pity & Justice. He has published on Islam, Gender, Liberation Theology, Interfaith Relations, and Qur’anic Hermeneutics. Professor Esack served as a Commissioner for Gender Equality in South Africa and has taught at the University of Western Cape, University of Hamburg, the College of William & Mary, Union Theological Seminary, and Xavier University in Cincinnati. More recently he served as the Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal Professor of Contemporary Islam at Harvard University. Farid Esack is now Professor in the Study of Islam and Head of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Johannesburg.

Registration is required. RSVP online.

Sanaa Book Republished

Anthropology/Sociology, Archaeology and Antiquities, Architecture, Books You Should Read, Coffee, Food and Drink, Qat (Catha edulis), Sanaa, Shi'a, Travel, Yemen

One of the most important volumes for anyone interested in Yemen is San’a’ An Arabian Islamic City, edited by R. B. Serjeant and R. Lewcock for the World of Islam Festival Trust in 1983. Long out-of-print, it is now being brought back into print. And there is a discount, if ordered before April 30, 2013.

The published price is £85.00 but the book is being offered at a pre-publication price of £50.00 until 30th of April 2013, quote SP13 to receive this offer.

For details, contact:

Vicki Coombs
Melisende UK Ltd
G8 Allen House
The Maltings, Station Road
Sawbridgeworth
Herts. CM21 9JX
+44 (0)1279 721398
www.melisende.com

Tabsir Redux: This is not an Easter Egg

Central Asia, Food and Drink, Humor and Satire, Islam and Christianity

Christians around the world celebrate Easter with thoughts of the empty tomb and resurrection of Christ. But there is more. Weather permitting, children are let loose in their Sunday best to hunt for Easter eggs, adding a secular, healthy, dietary blessing to the baskets of chocolate bunnies and jelly beans waiting at home. Even the White House lawn is set for the annual Easter Egg Roll (minus the Christian Rock) on Monday. It is as though many Christians are not content to leave the tomb empty. Apparently egged on by the spring fever of long forgotten fertility rites, the main message of Christianity gets sidetracked to a debate of anything but intellectual designing: which comes first, the Easter egg or the Easter bunny?

Eggs are not the exclusive mystical domain of Christendom (although the ludicrous lengths taken to parade a sacred holiday into outrageous bonnets and Texas-shaped eggs suggest we have entered the dispensation of Christendumb). Secular folk and agnostics eat their eggs for breakfast with bacon, toast and diner coffee. But all God’s children like eggs, including Muslims with internet savy and a taste for the miraculous. Take a gander (but do not confuse his spouse’s eggs with those shown here) at the three eggs shown below. What do you see different in the middle egg than the ones on either side (hint: the left is from the White House State of the Union Eggroll and the right is reported from last year’s Easter Sunday):

Continue reading Tabsir Redux: This is not an Easter Egg →

Can Atheists and Muslims Support Freedom of Conscience Together?

Ethics, Islam in America, Qur'an, Terrorism Issue

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.”

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? →

Garden of Eden in Sanaa

Bible and Holy Land, Books You Should Read, Orientalism, Sanaa, Yemen


Could the biblical Garden of Eden really be a reference to the gardens of Sanaa, Yemen? If you think this is a crazy idea, you simply do not realize the genius of Voltaire, the 18th century savant whose Philosophical Dictionary is in itself a garden of intellectual delights. In his commentary on Genesis, Voltaire rejects the idea that Eden was between the four rivers mentioned, claiming another explanation is needed and other rivers should be searched for. Then he drops this tantalizing datum:

In any case, the garden of Eden was manifestly taken from the garden of Eden at Sanaa, in Arabia Felix, famous throughout antiquity. The Hebrews, a very recent people, were an Arab horde. They prided themselves on what was finest in the best canton of Arabia. They have always used for their own purposes the ancient traditions of the great nations in whose midst they formed an enclave.

So Sanaa once was paradise. Let us hope that it shall return to that state again, with fruit only from the tree of the knowledge of good and rivers flowing with the water Yemen so desperately needs.