islamicate

Public Intellectual

Ran across this interesting article on how "grassroots" are Progressive Muslim academics.

If you haven't already read Edward Said's Representations of the Intellectual, you should.

©1974, my soul and my genetic material

Just so we are clear, I was "published" in 1974, and am exercising legal control over my soul and genetic material. My thoughts, until published, are part of the Creative Commons.

I was inspired to protect myself after reading a good post on copyright by Dawnsinger. More of my thoughts are in the comment section of his blog.

Left Behind

I read the book Left Behind a few months ago, and was quite taken by it. I'm intrigued by how other people view their own faiths, and theological texts are often not the best way to do so; I much prefer things like literature or autobiography, things that give me a greater sense of the lived tradition.

I was doing some research on the No Child Left Behind Act, and something occurred to me. According the Left Behind series children will experience the Rapture for two reasons, they have not consciously sinned and they are ignorant of the world. The entire work, while not anti-learning, is quite adamant about appropriate forms of learning. After reading the criticisms of the act, most importantly that the funding has to come from the local level, limiting other educational endeavors, something occurred to me.

Referral

Check out this story at The Revealer. What is going on in Afghanistan?

Silk Road

The Silk Road was a very cool trade route that joined civilizations and cultures. It now seems it's being revived. Aside from the physical reconstruction, you can see off to the side under "voices in our heads" a CD called "Silk Road Journeys: When Strangers Meet," put out by the Silk Road Project. They are committed to using the cultural synthesis that defined the Silk Road to help bring people closer together. They were part of the Folklife Festival at the Smithsonian in DC in 2002. The really nice thing is that they list the major funder and creative partner as being a Muslim group, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC). We can be involved in creation once more.

Adoption Game

I don't know what's going on at 20/20, and I'm surprised at Barbara Walters for doing an adoption game style promotion for a news piece. I'm shocked the challenge is on legal grounds to the theft of an idea instead of outrage that such advertising, and perhaps such games, are permissible.

Here's the Outrage

I'm wondering where the outrage is, and finally I see that Muslims are offended by the desecration of holy sites by other Muslims, if not by Muslim-on-Muslim violence. I'm glad to see the Shi'ah of Najaf are rising up against those who would take their (Najafi) Islam and use it for their own (non-Najafi) purposes.

Imam Ali (PBUH) was the son-in-law and cousin of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). He is regarded by the Shi'ah as being the heir to both temporal and spiritual authority of the Islamic community. He was martyred because he tried to peacefully end the first civil war in Islam, the insurrection of Mu'awiyyah. His son, Imam Husayn (PBUH), was slaughtered by General Yazid. The Beloved of the Beloved of God was trying to use peaceful means to re-claim his authority, when he was denied water and watched as his small band of followers, including women and children, were slaughtered.

What do these things have in common?

What do the movies The Passion of Christ and American Pie have in common?

I saw a report on CNN the other day about a new DVD player that edits movies on the fly to remove objectionable material. The story was recently posted on CNN.com. I thought it was worth mentioning because they interviewed a spokesperson for the company, and he said something that caught my attention, but that didn't make it into the print story. When the violence or language is integral to the story, it won't be edited. So The Passion and American Pie have integrated the objectionable material so well, that it can't be removed without damaging the artistic vision of the movie. You can't make this stuff up.

Which Muhammad? (More than a hand?)

I was watching the documentary The Rockstar and the Mullahs, and a particular segment leapt out at me. One of the self-styled mullahs (I say this because his formal education in the religious system seems to have been non-existent) says that the world will be better when we start doing things like cutting off the hands of thieves. He's quite happy to say only he and his followers know what true Islam is, and all others who call themselves Muslim are "sons of pigs." I'm sure he and his ilk would be more than happy to decry people like the Ahmadis as non-Muslim.

Who's this?

I just realized all the titles of my recent postings were questions. No conscious decision on my part, it just happened. I thought I'd keep the trend going.

In any event, wanted to welcome our latest posting member, this is me. Sitting on the side as a sounding board since we started, this is his/her first foray into the wild world of blogging. Hopefully (s)he'll be posting regularly now.