From Clay

Embarrassingly Bad

2012-01-09T07:52:00.000-06:00

Interesting piece in the London Review of Books.

Embarrassingly Bad

About Libya and Italy

2011-06-28T09:01:00.007-05:00

When things really start to heat up in Libya, Qaddafi accused the Libyan rebels of being high on drugs or on Al Jazeera. When NATO started to become involved, Qaddafi tried to call upon all the Arabs to rise up against what he called a colonial aggression. Qaddafi seems to have been calling to a generation of Arabs that no longer exists in a time that has long gone by. The greatest threat that the current generation of young Arabs perceives is precisely the current "Arab" leadership, of which Qaddafi is a member.

But if anyone is interested in some context about the Libyan experience with Italian colonialism and its lasting impact, please read this article of mine in the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Douthat's Two Minds

2010-08-17T03:59:00.002-05:00

If you have an ounce of sincerity, it's difficult to write a thousand words without tipping off some of your intentions. An overrated opinion writer for the New York Times wrote yesterday a column ("Islam in Two Americas") in which he starts out surprisingly well, but then the dark spirits take over. Essentially, as Joan Walsh of Salon remarks correctly, "Not surprisingly, Douthat made his astonishingly ignorant remarks in a column defending prejudice against the so-called 'ground zero mosque,' which, again, isn't a mosque, and isn't at ground zero. The controversy, ginned up by Republican opportunists and kept alive by cowardly Democrats (thanks, Harry Reid!) is bringing out the 'Know-Nothings' in American politics again -- and I mean that in both senses of the word."

Walsh takes down Douthat in good and convincing manner. You may read it here.

Seriously, just when you think the political tenor of America can't get worse ...

What did Orwell really do?

2010-07-30T07:30:00.006-05:00

What did George Orwell's prognostications ultimately do? Like many people, I like to cite him and even leave Orwellian quotes at the end of an email and stuff. But what did his "big brother" warnings and tales of the seductive relationship between power and corruption (among once subjugated talking animals) really achieve? Seriously. The last time I checked, big brother ignored Orwell—not even bothering to slow down to show the man contempt. Without much resistance, Brother's cameras, listening devices, search engines, tweets, legal cover, and public complacency are all over the place. The penetration is more than what we think. In a given work day, for example, the image of a law abiding person is recorded dozens of times and possibly kept in some digital archive in perpetuity. If he carries a cell phone, his whereabouts can be traced easily. Does privacy have much meaning?

We are familiar with Animal Farm and 1984, insightful stories of human vulnerabilities and manias. The question though comes down to this (ok, maybe): do good ideas really matter as active forces that direct and reset courses of life and that expose unexamined presumptions? What recent narrative can we recall that really changed things beyond integument? Civil Rights perhaps? Not sure really.

Orwell did not waste his time. I'm not saying that. His non-fiction work (his essays and personal experience narratives) remain quite moving ... but only for a few people, elitist as this may sound. Beck and Limbaugh have broadcast pulses because they are supported by millions of viewers and listeners. If Orwell had a radio show today, he would be unplugged in a week. He couldn't compete with these guys. In the same vein, I don't really think the Tea Party movement will really last long (if it does, well the Mayans maybe on to something after all), but look at how the movement is changing the political game. Listen to their "ideas" and notice their racist bearing (Civil Rights really change the essence of things?), the dribble of their inspiration sources (Sarah Palin, for example), their unfocused and highly generalized aims (details disable things in a heartbeat), and the political fear they provoke.

What good idea out there today really matters as a challenge to our disabling paradigms?

More Amish

2010-07-21T07:19:00.003-05:00

Apparently the population of Amish communities and, in fact, the number of Amish settlements have increased in recent years. I read this in a year-old National Geographic magazine as I was waiting at a doctor's office with ailments that are almost certainly stress induced and happily supported by habits of modern requirements of earning. Later that week, I visited a friend in far western Wisconsin, where Amish folks have been thriving for generations. To be honest, when I see the Amish, I almost envy their way of life. I know that they toil hard, working the land and taking care of routine amenities of life; but that kind of work does not grate the soul or offend it, nor does it stress the mind and heart. That's what I think. And from what I hear from my friend, it's sounds true.

At first glance, it seems counter intuitive to see the number of Amish settlements increase (and all that this may mean), but when you think about it, it's really something to expect. Something has to give. Our over mechanical and pixel world would naturally drive people to seek out simplicity. Not the casual kind of simplicity, but simplicity as a way of life. No one lives without complexity or trial, but you have to suspect that some of the nonsense and subjugation we have to deal with is derived from an outlook that's alien to our Adamic natures.

I see good folks on their horse-drawn carriages, and, as I zoom by in my motor car, I try to imagine that kind of life. That's imagination speaking. Not sure how I would really react if I were suddenly in suspenders holding on to the reins. Something to think about.

"The Lottery" and Its Author

2010-05-22T03:39:00.003-05:00

I don't remember exactly when I first read the short story "The Lottery," but I know that I was young enough to think it was interesting and a bit confusing. I had to ask questions about the ending because in my mind I could not understand why people would willingly accept this game of choosing who would be killed. Really, why didn't anyone do anything about the practice; you know, social opprobrium? (The question is still urgent for a bunch of things in our world.) So then in school I learned about metaphor, even those that the author did not intend.

Here's an interesting short essay in TNR about "The Lottery" and Shirley Jackson, who wrote it in a single sitting. Now that is more mind-boggling than the short story itself. The essay begins like this:

The idea for “The Lottery,” first published in 1948 and now one of the most widely anthologized works of American fiction, came to Shirley Jackson while she was pushing her baby daughter in her stroller. When they got home, she writes in an essay included in the new Library of America collection of her writings, she put away her groceries, put the baby in a playpen, and in a single sitting wrote the story ...

Our Contemporary Disaster Movie

2010-04-26T14:08:00.002-05:00

Essayist Rebecca Solnit says that we're in a disaster movie but we're not following the script. As an asteroid tumbles toward earth, the earthlings of all shapes and persuasions tend to rally together around a single leadership to solve a global problem, according to fiction. But according to nonfiction, suggests Solnit, today we're not so good at rallying or solving. She says, "The movie is called 'Climate Change,' and you can tell its plot in a number of ways. In one, the alien monsters taking over the planet are called corporations, while the leaders who should be protecting us from their depredations are already subjugated and doing their bidding. Think of Chevron, Exxon, Shell, and the coal companies as gigantic entities that don’t need clean water, or food, and don’t care much if you do (as you can see from the filthy wreckage in their extraction zones and their spin against the science of our survival)."

Most people I know rail against corporations mainly because they don't own one. But there is something to say about the reach and calamity that global warming represents. And there's something to say about demystifying the potential of leaders making boneheaded decisions that truly ignore the drama of our day and that genuflect before the loins of political interests that blind and bind.

Speaking of disasters, I've blogged about this before, Solnit's article in Harper's magazine a few years ago made this very interesting observation about human reaction to disaster:

In his 1961 study, “Disasters and Mental Health: Therapeutic Principles Drawn from Disaster Studies,” sociologist Charles Fritz asks an interesting question: “Why do large-scale disasters produce such mentally healthy conditions?” One of the answers is that a disaster shakes us loose of ordinary time. “In everyday life many human problems stem from people's preoccupation with the past and the future, rather than the present,” Fritz wrote. “Disasters provide a temporary liberation from the worries, inhibitions, and anxieties associated with the past and the future because they force people to concentrate their full attention on immediate moment-to-moment, day-to-day needs.” This shift in awareness, he added, “speeds the process of decision-making” and “facilitates the acceptance of change.”

The state of mind Fritz describes resembles those sought in various spiritual traditions. It recalls Buddhism's emphasis on being in the moment, nonattachment, and compassion for all beings, and the Christian monastic tradition's emphasis on awareness of mortality and ephemerality. From this perspective, disaster can be understood as a crash course in consciousness.

. . . . The aftermath of disaster is often peculiarly hopeful, and in the rupture of the ordinary, real change often emerges. But this means that disaster threatens not only bodies, buildings, and property but also the status quo. Disaster recovery is not just a rescue of the needy but also a scramble for power and legitimacy, one that the status quo usually-but not always-wins. The Bush Administration's response after 9/11 was a desperate and extreme version of this race to extinguish too vital a civil society and reestablish the authority that claims it alone can do what civil society has just done-and, alas, an extremely successful one. For the administration, the crisis wasn't primarily one of death and destruction but one of power. The door had been opened and an anxious administration hastened to slam it shut.

Reading Wallace in Qatar

2010-04-19T15:00:00.006-05:00

I revisited recently a volume of essays edited by the late postmodern writer David Foster Wallace. I was living in the Arab Gulf for less than two months when I read about his suicide back in 2008, late summer. The 2007 volume of "Best American Essays" remains current, its essays urgent, and questions raised unanswered.

I wrote this review essay called "Reading Wallace in Qatar." In the review, published in one of my favorite book review and essay sites (The Millions), I mention my response to the volume and the pathologies it alludes to. I hope you like it.

News Flash, Literally

2010-02-17T11:19:00.002-06:00

I attended a town hall meeting here in Qatar, at Doha's Education City, in which Hillary Clinton took questions from an audience of mainly students and an Al-Jazeera moderator. The event started at 10 am and ended in an hour. After the event, many of us mingled for a bit to share our impressions. In about 20 minutes I was back in my office on the third floor of the same building. At my desk, I checked my email and then surfed to the New York Times, and, behold, it had a front page article about the town hall event I had just attended. The Associated Press around the same time shot around the world its wire story about Hillary in Education City. Their leads were similar, as if the journalists knew what the latest talking point would be. In fact, it was apparent that much of the article was written before the event even began.

Really, we should stop "marveling" about the speed of news and its publication. By the time you're done explaining your astonishment, something "new" happens. Even talking about the pace of "new" is passe. About 12 hours after the news spread that Hillary mentioned that Iran is heading toward a military dictatorship, the Iranians came back with a statement that rebuked the allegation. And the band played on ...

Covering Bombs, Heat, and other articles

2009-12-28T05:30:00.001-06:00

While we wax nostalgic for the good ole days when Nigerians dealt with spam and not bombs, I thought to pass along to you links to important articles that have appeared in the last few days. One of them is by Glenn Greenwald in Salon about the press coverage of airstrikes in (where else?) Afghanistan and Pakistan. He says,

Each time the U.S. bombs a new location in the Muslim world, the same pattern emerges. First, officials from the U.S. or allied governments run to their favorite media outlet to claim -- anonymously -- that some big, bad, notorious, "top" Al Qaeda leader "may have been" or "likely was" killed in the strike, and this constitutes a "stinging" or "devastating" blow against the Terrorist group.

Then he says:

As a result, and by design, there is never any debate or discussion over the propriety or wisdom of these strikes. After all, what sane, rational, Serious person would possibly question a bombing raid or missile strike that "likely" killed a murderous, top Al Qaeda fighter and struck a "devastating blow" to that group's operationg abilities?

He ends with this:

The whole process is blatantly designed not to convey what happened, but to obscure what happened and to prevent any discussion of its consequences.

To read the whole thing, you may go here. Then I'd like to direct you to a thoughtful essayist Rebecca Solnit's prognostications about the Copenhagen climate "talk" and the Terminator.

I hope you all had a great and rewarding Ashura.

"Usury" in Discussion

2009-12-14T05:42:00.002-06:00

I normally stop reading a blog post when it begins like, "It's been a while since I last posted." So I won't do it. Now to the point, I've always felt that we need to stop sounding all religious-like when we want to make a point about ethical or moral issues. Any discussion worth its sodium should really stand on the merits of its clear appeal. There's wisdom in the fact that we have to listen to a sermon only one day a week, and surely there's wisdom in having praise attached to a sermon's brevity. Well, if you're wondering, "usury" has been making a come back. I don't mean banks and credit companies charging crazy interest rates. That's been going on for a while, as you know. I mean discussions about "usury" as a bad thing hitting mainstream. You may want to look at this article in the Nation about usury, called "Stop Usury Now." When was the last time you read that phrase in a left-leaning, popular magazine, written by a person without the title "Rev" or "Shaykh" or "Rabbi" or "Minister" or "Priestess"?

"The Democratic party brushed aside the question of usury last spring when Congress decided not to impose any limits on the ruinous interest rates charged by major banks and other lenders. But usury is now back on the table, put in play by Metro IAF, an alliance of two dozen faith-based community organizations affiliated nationwide with the Industrial Areas Foundation. These politically savvy community groups draw their members from diverse religions and across the usual divisions of race and class. They are staging face-to-face "actions" to confront bankers and politicians around the country with a blunt moral message. Usury is a sin, Judaism, Christianity and Islam agree, and must be stopped."

Doha Tribeca Film Festival

2009-11-03T07:58:00.004-06:00

The film festival came and went. For many of my friends and colleagues, it was a big deal, which I truly understand and respect. They teach film and film making, so they're happy that something like Tribeca would come here. I thought months ago that I should see a few of the flicks and perhaps run into Bob (that's Robert De Niro to the rest of you). But when it finally came, I couldn't find the enthusiasm to fight the traffic, ignore the pretense that often accompanies these things, and watch premiers of blockbusters and independents alike. In fact, I couldn't even reference the enthusiasm I thought I had when I first learned that Tribeca was coming.

Well, Malika Bilal, a fellow Chicagoan and Medill graduate who now works for Al-Jazeera English, wrote a fine piece on the festival and had some good meta-festival observations. Here's an excerpt of her reporting:

Dr Hamid Naficy, a professor of communications in the radio, television and film department at Northwestern University's Qatar campus, says the recent emergence of film festivals, museums and universities in the Gulf are all part of a wider push to develop a "post-petroleum culture".

"There's a desire to create – for those who have oil – a post-petroleum culture because they realize petrol is not permanent," Naficy says. "For those who don't have petrol, it's a desire to create a culture that is less crass … and [based] on a completely consumerist value system. That has to be remunerated by the introduction of deeper cultural values, so that's another reason for film festivals."

Naficy, a filmmaker who has also published several books on cinema in Iran and the Middle East, says the push for film festivals in the region also indicates a sense of rivalry between the Gulf cities. "It's a desire to become modern and to be in the forefront of culture and civilisation," Naficy says. "The problem is population. Small populations don't generally produce major film industries. You will have individual filmmakers. But whether [the Gulf] can become a mecca for filmmaking is not clear."

If you want to read the whole thing, you may go here.

Woodstock, Group Think, and Neil Young

2009-10-21T09:29:00.006-05:00

Within 48 hours, “Woodstock” (the original) came up twice in conversations with two colleagues and friends, one here in Doha and one in Santa Barbara. They both were at Woodstock. I was alive when it happened but too young to do anything about it, and “getting high” still meant to me something that kites and clouds do. I make no secret about it, the music of that era moves me. The lyrics were raw (sometimes raunchy) and honest. They were bold and resistant to group think.

Neil Young (of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young) a couple of years ago was on the "Charlie Rose Show" and he mentioned his new found appreciation for religious experiences, including Islam's. I don’t remember his exact wording, but I remember feeling that he said it as a matter of fact and not as a self-conscious act of countering the expensive and persistent decolorizing of Islam by extremist right-wingers.

His song “Ohio” was in response to the Kent State disaster in May 1970, when the U.S. military opened fire on student protesters, killing four. Shortly thereafter, Neil wrote and sang this:

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming

We're finally on our own

This summer I hear the drumming

Four dead in Ohio

Gotta get down to it

Soldiers are gunning us down

Should have been done long ago.

What if you knew her 

And found her dead on the ground 

How can you run when you know?  

Gotta get down to it 

Soldiers are gunning us down 

Should have been done long ago.

What if you knew her 

And found her dead on the ground 

How can you run when you know?  

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming

We're finally on our own

This summer I hear the drumming,

Four dead in Ohio

.........

Here's a link to "Woodstock Memories" of a good friend and former teacher.

Snowball Prize and Changing Subjects

2009-10-11T11:24:00.011-05:00

What does a person have to "do" to win a Nobel Prize? I didn't realize how many people knew the answer to that question, especially news blog authors and radio sycophants, left and right. The reactions ranged crazy: some with apoplexy and others with those oversize foam hands with the index finger raised on high, waving, "We're number one." A new media obsession begins. Can we live on earth for a couple of weeks without a loss of news composure? Folks I work with are very happy about Norway's decision. Maybe I should be too. I mean, the Pres. is from Chicago. So am I. He taught at University of Chicago. So did I way back when (a neuroanatomy lab). He's terrible at bowling. Me too. People think he's Muslim. Wow. People think I'm Muslim (correctly). He's tall, thin,and really good at basketball and dancing ....

But ... getting to my point: Are we mistranslating the Norwegian word for "distraction" into "prize"? Why is Obama getting so much time-wasting flack for "winning" (actually he was "awarded") the prize? Unlike the sham Olympic choice of Rio over Chicago and Obama's flight to Copenhagen, what did the man do other than have a pulse to get a long distance call from a country with a high suicide rate? What volition was involved on his part to have created so many critics and so much vitriol?

The powers that be in our land are so overwhelmed with partisan politics, it is beyond commentary. And they're rewarded with puerile news judgment and silly globs of space. Meanwhile, the problems that can use serious adult attention get worse and those who profit from them are all too pleased, along with the devil, with the distractions.

Frank Rich, of the NYT, to his credit, pounds the hawks who "now" clamor to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan, which in real terms is infinitely more important to debate than the Nobel Prize. It is about the Afghan "war" that people should censure Obama, who should have included Afghanistan in his anti-war stance. Too bad he didn't. What a major lapse in judgment.

Violence in Chicago: What Does It Mean?

2009-10-08T12:33:00.000-05:00

Violent deaths are a scourge in Chicago among school-age children, especially on the South Side, where I had once lived in my childhood (Walcott Avenue to be exact). It’s become a statistic to keep track of: the number of school-age children who are murdered, sometimes on school grounds, during a school year, which means the academic year is properly hyphenated. The punctuation gives bone to the unholy facts, but it also creates another set of suburban record-keeping to conjure with. In other words, it makes the reality more abstract, a bit easier to study as citizens.

This is an excerpt of what I've written on violence among school-age kids in Chicago, which has attracted national attention. It's published now in Religion Dispatches, in case you're interested. Many thanks.

Expanded Comment about Polanski and Burqa

2009-10-07T09:53:00.000-05:00

I don't know if it's new and improved or simply longer, but I have a fuller comment about the Polanski flap and the burqa. It's an indictment of a widening culture of duplicity that knows no borders. If you're interested, you may go here to the Altmuslim site. Otherwise, thanks for dropping by just the same.

Gaga for Al-Jazeera

2009-10-05T04:47:00.007-05:00

Two recent articles, one in The Atlantic Monthly and the other in The Walrus, have said some nice things about Al-Jazeera. That's not really new, nor are the bad things said about Al-Jazeera. But the "gaga" I refer to (what's the etymology of "gaga" anyway?) is about the notion that Al-Jazeera is making U.S. journalism appear overly parochial, if not silly.

Before he contradicts himself at the end of his Atlantic article "Why I love Al Jazeera," well-known journalist Robert Kaplan--who has covered the Middle East for about as long as Larry King has been alive (well almost)--has this to say:

The Qatar-based Arab TV channel’s eclectic internationalism—a feast of vivid, pathbreaking coverage from all continents—is a rebuke to the dire predictions about the end of foreign news as we know it.... The fact that Doha, Qatar’s capital, is not the headquarters of a great power liberates Al Jazeera to focus equally on the four corners of the Earth rather than on just the flash points of any imperial or post-imperial interest. Outlets such as CNN and the BBC don’t cover foreign news so much as they cover the foreign extensions of Washington’s or London’s collective obsessions. And Al Jazeera, rather than spotlighting people who are loaded with credentials but often have little to say, has the knack of getting people on air who have interesting things to say, like the brilliant, no-name Russian analyst I heard explaining why both Russia and China need the current North Korean regime because it provides a buffer state against free and democratic South Korea.

Al Jazeera is also endearing because it exudes hustle. It constantly gets scoops. It has had gritty, hands-on coverage across the greater Middle East, from Gaza to Beirut to Iraq, that other channels haven’t matched.

In The Walrus, a well-known Canadian magazine, Deborah Campbell, in her article "The Most Hated Name in News," wonders out loud if Al-Jazeera English, now with Tony Burman, formerly of the CBC, at the helm, can cure "what ails North American journalism." It's actually a bold curiosity. She visits Al-Jazeera English (AJE) and observes

"a classic AJE story: a local reporter familiar with the language and culture investigates a place where few foreign correspondents venture to any depth, focusing on the plight of ordinary people and putting the story into context for a global audience. This kind of intrepid field reporting is how Burman made his mark as a producer for Canada’s public broadcaster in the ’80s and early ’90s, when he covered conflict in South America, civil war in Sudan, Mandela’s release from prison in South Africa, and the famine in Ethiopia. His crew famously broke that last story for North American viewers, in the process discovering three-year-old Birhan Woldu, who became the face of international relief efforts like Live Aid.

The author meanders up and down, left and right with AJE and Tony. Both of these articles are good to look at if you're interested in the news. Tomorrow, inshaAllah, I'll be visiting AJE and Tony Burman with our students. It should be interesting.

Polanski and the Burqa

2009-09-30T01:19:00.014-05:00

Most of you may know that Swiss law enforcement authorities recently arrested Oscar-winning film director Roman Polanski for an outstanding U.S. arrest warrant. Apparently Mr. Polanski pleaded guilty more than 30 years ago for having illicit sex with a 13-year-old girl, which is considered rape. He was offered a plea agreement, according to press accounts, but the judge reportedly reneged after agreeing, and Polanski was looking at serious jail time. So the director, in good movie drama, fled the country and has lived in France since then and has been a frequent visitor to many European countries. According to a NYT op-ed piece by a Polanski friend, Polanski dined with three French presidents and has lived a life unmolested by French political and law enforcement officials for decades. According to a Slate "Explainer" article, France and the United States have an extradition agreement in which both countries must agree about extraditing fugitives. The Americans wanted Polanski, but the French dissented, hence the man's freedom in France.

Now I will make no judgments about this case. But here's what comes to mind: the French, including the nation's current president, have no problem granting freedom and privilege to a man who "drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl in the home of actor Jack Nicholson" (says Slate), yet the president of the country may declare, with little public dissent, that a woman who wears a burqa is not welcome in France because the burqa is a symbol of a woman's repression. So just to be clear, rape of a girl, then, has no negative symbolism? And if there is such symbolism, then its life expectancy is rather short and, in fact, rushed along nicely by a rapist's association with the arts and that whole aura that the creative types seem to have? Is this what we may infer from this French quandary? To recap: a child rapist is welcome in France to live, work, sign autographs, and dine at high levels, but a woman who dresses like the mother of Jesus (God bless mother and son) will be told that there's no room at the inn.

Ok, now back to important stuff. Gotta look up stuff about the value of eating raw foods, like carrots and almonds.

Interesting Readings

2009-09-26T12:41:00.013-05:00

What better way to get back to posting--after a short summer (five weeks) back home in Chicagoland, back to Doha for year two of NU-Q, and a brief Jane Austen tour in England--than to offer links to interesting articles. Religion Dispatches (a daily stop for me) has had a flurry of good essays and reviews, like Haroon's Moghul's review of Zeitoun, a novel by Dave Eggers. Then Jocelyne Cesari writes about "Rarefied Islamophobia: When Americans Duplicate the European Cultural Talk." I recommend the site.

Eid mubarak to one and all. Thank you for visiting. I hope to be posting more regularly. Here are a few photos from a couple of our stops in the UK (my first trip there), the estates where they filmed the two versions Pride and Prejudice (aka "Pemberley")--my first and last foray into chick lit.

Repression and Literature

2009-07-02T09:03:00.006-05:00

James Wood writes a review in The New Yorker of a novel of an Iranian novelist living in the United States. Wood opens his review with a savvy observation about the relationship between restriction and literary creativity:

Sometimes, the soft literary citizens of liberal democracy long for prohibition. Coming up with anything to write about can be difficult when you are allowed to write about anything.... Nothing constrains us. Perhaps we look enviously at those who have the misfortune to live in countries where literature is taken seriously enough to be censored, and writers venerated with imprisonment. What if writing were made a bit more exigent for us? What if we had less of everything? It might make our literary culture more “serious,” certainly more creatively ingenious. Instead of drowning in choice, we would have to be inventive around our thirst. Tyranny is the mother of metaphor, and all that.

I've read similar comments about the state of American literature: suburban, minivan ordinariness. I've heard it also said that in the Western hemisphere the most time-worthy novels come out of Latin America. I'm sure it's not so black and white, but I can see the reality alluded to in this quote above.

The Meaning of the Moonwalk

2009-06-28T13:00:00.010-05:00

It's always interesting to see how swift and how far and wide the blow darts of media hype can fly. I first heard of the news of Michael Jackson's collapse on AlJazeera. It was breaking news in Doha and, therefore, every other Arab city that carries the news network. In no time, after it was confirmed that Jackson had died and after Jermaine Jackson made his moving statement, Muslim bloggers and notable figures alike have had something to say about the man, mainly because of his alleged, reported, suggested, rumored, or bona fide conversion to Islam. The Michael Jackson story is, of course, hardly hype alone. The man was big for many reasons that we're all familiar with. And I don't think it's because the cult of celebrity has become the national religion. Michael Jackson actually "said" something about modern life, whether he meant to convey it or not.

Artists, as they say, lose interpretative control over their art. Just look at Picasso's paintings, for example, and you'd be "correct" to notice a theme of the disconnect and disjointedness of the modern human mind and the life of disproportion and of a severe crisis of emphasis. His depictions of the human form, those circus freaks, reveal to the beholder a diaspora at the level of limbs and body bulges.

Now look at Michael’s moonwalk, his most mimicked move. Unintentional or otherwise on the dancer's part, we may easily see it as the postmodern view of progress: the motions of walking forward while actually moving in reverse, a regression marketed as advancement, steps ahead. But the good news is, you can't really do it for long.

It's been widely reported that Michael in recent years has turned his attention to review his spiritual condition. I hope it's true, and if so, I hope it bodes well for him, as his fans emulate his moves of old and as music promoters struggle to save their investments.

Between Two Abysses

2009-06-25T01:14:00.003-05:00

Coming across a good passage of words is like walking out of your home and beholding something spectacular in the sky, like a crimson sunset or a majestic halo around a full moon. You want to rush back to tell your family and friends to put down their smokes and Monopoly cards to "see this!" I like this quote here by Philip Zaleski, editor of Parabola Magazine and The Best American Spiritual Writing series. It resonates with a few verses of the Quran that speak of competing disparate conditions of a human being, the two "roads" available to him or her, for example.

The greatest art considers the human being sub specie aeternitatis,[*] in the light of eternity. In doing so, it discloses both our meanness and our majesty, in keeping with Pascal's dictum that we dwell between two abysses, the Infinite and the Nothing, that every person is "nothing in comparison with the infinite, an all in comparison with the nothing, a mean between nothing and everything." Art that sustains this transcendent perspective, percieving in us both angel and beast ... offers us, each time we stand before it, more truth about ourselves, about the cosmos, and about the relation of the one to the other. On rare occasions, it may even hand us the keys to our existence.
--From the Philip Zaleski's foreword to the 2006 edition of The Best American Spiritual Writing.

* Sub specie aeternitatis, from the Philosophical Dictionary, Latin for "under the aspect of eternity"; hence ... an honorific expression describing what is universally and eternally true, without any reference to or dependence upon the merely temporal portions of reality. In clearer English, sub specie aeternitatis roughly means "from the perspective of the eternal". Even more loosely, the phrase is used to describe an alternate or objective point of view. (Wiki)

Ibn Battuta Earthwork

2009-06-08T10:19:00.014-05:00

Interesting tribute to Ibn Battuta in unlikely Kansas. If he were alive, he'd probably want to travel there. Stan Herd is the artist behind the "earthwork." (Thanks for the help in embedding this video properly. See comment 1 below.)

Servants of Power

2009-05-31T02:34:00.007-05:00

At the recommendation of a close friend, I've started to read Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism. I am drawn to read it also because of what Noam Chomsky (an over-quoted gentleman) had to say about the book, as related on the front cover: "Edward Said helps us to understand who we are and what we must do if we are to aspire to be moral agents, not servants of power."

If Said’s book can really do that, then we all need to read it. Like now. This phrase “servants of power” is something to keep in mind. I'm not sure "exactly" what it entails or where its conclusions ultimately march to, but some things are not meant to be learned with the precision of a watchmaker. What comes to my mind is this: Muslim Americans awkwardly attempting to figure out things related to identity and their relationship to a larger and powerful cultural vortex. It's possible for people to unwittingly become “servants of power” when they espouse such progressive-seeming, independent-appearing work (or terminologies) like reform or a certain identity or even tradition, that vague but often-trumpeted word.

I’m still in the introduction of the book. By all signs, it’s going to take a while to read it, and it’s not because I’m a slow reader (which I am, and slow walker, too), but for the fact that when you read something that speaks about an issue that’s very big and that gives form to something that has been roving around in your mind as a nebulous disquieting feeling, you want to read carefully.

Here are a couple of excerpts so far:

Readers of this book will quickly discover that narrative is crucial to my argument here, my basic point being that stories are at the heart of what explorers and novelists say about strange regions of the world; they also become the method colonized people use to assert their own identity and the existence of their own history....

The power to narrative, or to block narratives from forming and emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism, and constitutes one of the main connections between them.

Fish on God

2009-05-19T05:01:00.002-05:00

Stanley Fish of the New York Times writes again about "God Talk." Fish's articles on religion are interesting, and he has become a person to dislike among "new atheism" authors because Fish calls them out on what they don't know and how they gleefully still write about it. Fish's column is a good, quick read. It's not the only "fish" in the sea on this topic (couldn't resist), but his articles get good traction.

Gilead and Ms. Robinson

2009-05-16T04:21:00.021-05:00

Some of you may have read Marilynne Robinson’s novel Gilead. It’s really a very nice read, often profound, and generally just well done. The technique of the narrative has been used quite a bit: a letter from someone to someone else, usually an elderly person writing for his or her own posterity. The narrator of the Pulitzer winning Gilead is an old preacher who married and fathered late in life. He writes a long letter to his rather young son telling him a story about the preacher's father, grandfather, atheistic sibling, wife, morose preacher friends, church flock, and ordinary things about life and their connections to religion, God, history, and imminence.

Now, there are risks in writing these kind of “letter-to-someone” narratives. Any flaws in the story-telling or writing itself become magnified when you choose a cliché form. You run the risk of sounding trite. Robinson has something important to say, pointed observations that we all probably have sensed or thought of, but were unsure of ourselves to think highly of them, so we let them go or belittle them because we haven’t learned how to receive “inspiration” that comes to ourselves in the real sense of the word.

Here's a passage that I’ve underlined in her book. I like it, but there are dozens of sidebars to the narrative that make the book layered and nuanced. The narrator, the old preacher, says out of the blue, a good color for writers:

This morning I have been trying to think about heaven, but without much success. I don’t know why I should expect to have any idea of heaven. I could never have imagined this world if I hadn’t spent almost eight decades walking around in it. People talk about how wonderful the world seems to children, and that’s true enough. But children think they will grow into it and understand it, and I know very well that I will not, and would not if I had a dozen lives. That’s clearer to me every day. Each morning I’m like Adam waking up in Eden, amazed at the cleverness of my hands and at the brilliance pouring into my mind through my eyes—old hands, old eyes, old mind, a very diminished Adam altogether, and still it is just remarkable. What of me will I still have? Well, this old body has been a pretty good companion. Like Balaam’s ass, it’s seen the angel I haven’t seen yet, and it’s lying down in the path.

Thanks for reading this. Enjoy your Saturday.

Along the Bosphorus

2009-05-05T01:42:00.002-05:00

We took many photos during our trip to Istanbul. Most of them are of the usual suspects: domes, minarets, and colored mounds of spices and stuff. But this one is my favorite. I took it on a boat ride down (or up) the Bosphorus or Bosporus, a marine strait that separates European Istanbul from its Asian half. Hope you like it.

In Istanbul

2009-04-29T14:23:00.007-05:00

I've never been to Istanbul before, though I've wanted to for a long time. Badly. I'm here for a conference. Signs of the city's imperial past and swagger are hard to miss. The adhan here is actually "awesome." The words expand the sky, especially "ashahadu anna Muhammadan rasulu'llah." Don't know why, but that phrase arrests. The twin testimonies: one affirms the primordial, changeless Truth, and the other protects its endurance and its place in a temporal setting, the bazaar of distractions, i.e., world.

Good kebabs in Istanbul, too.

First Outrage: Reminiscing

2009-04-21T03:16:00.007-05:00

(Seymour Hersh)
My oldest memory of political outrage was about the massacre in My Lai, Viet Nam in the late 60’s. I was not more than 10 years old when the story broke some time after the gruesome fact. I remember bringing to class a magazine (most likely Life Magazine) with photos of the corpses of children, women, and men. (I’m not sure how I got the magazine or how my parents let me take it.) I have a solid recollection of indignation when one of my classmates defended the massacre with some kind of security argument that he must have borrowed from his parents the night before. I held up a photo of dead toddlers and asked him, “Do these babies look dangerous?” My teacher said nothing, but had a smile of approval ... at last. She was quietly proud of me. I remember her face to this moment. Then she readjusted her face and told us to stop arguing.

I didn’t know it at the time, but journalist Seymour Hersh was instrumental in exposing My Lai and American military culpability. Recently, Sy Hersh, the most respected investigative journalist in America, spoke to our journalism students here in Qatar and gave a narration of his reportage and its mixture of doggedness, smarts, and luck. The coverage handed him a Pulitzer Prize. I had never met him before. I’m glad I did. Recall Hersh’s recent article (a couple of years back) in the New Yorker that exposed the Bush Administration’s plan (alleged, I should say) to attack Iran. Hersh’s article put a damper on the plans, many speculate. Probably true.

Well, you got to be angry at times. What’s “anger” for? To overstate and under-support, I have to believe that many of the problems we have are about misplaced angry: passive about oppression and, ah, torture, but wild about silly things not much worse than spilt milk. I’m very disappointed that Obama is not actively seeking out prosecution for torture-gate. There’s no high ground in that. None.

Review of Eric Reitan's Response to New Atheism

2009-04-20T01:32:00.004-05:00

It's been a while since I've last posted. I'd like to start up. So let it begin with a link to a review I wrote of Eric Reitan's book, a response to many of the atheistic treatises that have sprung up over the years. You may read it here. Thanks.

Lighthouses and Violence

2008-05-21T12:29:00.003-05:00

Here's my post in other|matters inspired by a conversation with an elderly lady who loves lighthouses. The talk touches upon gun violence in Chicago, reminders, and the need to think about something else once in a while.

Demons and Clarity

2008-04-30T13:30:00.002-05:00

I'm doing more posting on other|matters than here. Like I mentioned before, not sure what to do with the blog. Anyhow, here's a post (taken from a previous post I had here on From Clay). Thanks.

Why al-Ghazali Matters

2008-04-16T17:05:00.003-05:00

Here's a post on other | matters, if you'd like to read it. It's about the powerful influence of the works of Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali after nearly a thousand years.

Magicians' Epiphany

2008-03-26T08:42:00.005-05:00

Here's a post on team-tagged other|matters. It's a condensed version of an already condensed essay about the Magicians of Pharaoh's court and their stunning conversion and prostration before the "Lord of Moses and Aaron." It is published in the current edition of Seasons Journal of Zaytuna. Thanks for your interest. Happy epiphanies! (Interesting. Maybe there should be a national day in which we devote ourselves to epiphany-seeking.)

Blog Snooze

2008-03-21T08:27:00.004-05:00

I've been hitting the snooze button on this blog for many weeks. Not sure what to do with it. I've thought about putting it down gently, but felt bad about the thought. I've considered an "hiatus," but I dislike that overused word in the blog-context. Well, for me it's a combination of things: busy with school; working on stuff; ready to make a major decision, if the opportunity presents itself; and bored with blogs. I still peek in on various blogs, but it's clear that the pressure to keep a blog going begets pedestrian observations left and right (just like that one to the left).

In the non-pedestrian blog thimble, you may want to read this brief personal essay by G. Willow; or read Baraka's light flashes; or Prof. Ingrid Mattson's essay on Dutch desecration and extremism; or read the transcript of Sen. Obama's obscure speech on racism (ever hear of it?).

Well, happy Friday. Try to think of good things.

Anthologies and Working Out the Mind

2008-02-25T10:54:00.006-06:00

I think it’s good to pay attention to the kinds of things we like to hear or read. For example (as if I didn’t intend to bring this up), I’m drawn to anthologies of almost any kind: essays, short stories, travel writing, spiritual writing, some poetry (volumes like, “Best Poems Ever in the History of Mankind” so I don’t have to sift through the soil), scientific treatises (a volume of string theorists), etcetera. The older I get, the more impatient I am with one-author volumes. There are exceptions and necessities, but for the most part, I’m uninterested in reading 400 pages from one person, one mind, one angst, or one imagination. The rule has legs. So I have often counseled folks who come within five minutes of me to never take, for example, your religion from one living person; never take your understanding of the Quran from one commentator or translator (alive or otherwise); and never have your reading experience dominated by one author over a significant period of time. Essentially, never unwittingly make vague or pointed loyalty your spiritual or intellectual limitation. You will regret it. Whenever you have serious conversations with others, it will not be about content, but an invisible defense of a narrow band of learning you’ve accepted as some “whole.” And just about everything you read or hear will be filtered or tweaked to match your prefabricated thoughts.

I’m especially talking about the post-college, or post-graduate life, when our critical thinking skills and other tools and parts of our acumen are pretty much established. The world is big. If something like a leaf has nuance, then imagine what words, ideas, perspectives, and their heirs have in terms of shade, gradation, and distinction. It’s hard to accept that God would create uncountable shades of green but would limit our minds (far more complex than color) to a small sample of perspectives.

Dumb, Dumber, and Who Cares?

2008-02-14T11:17:00.006-06:00

There's always the risk of sounding sanctimonious when talking about what people don't know (to avoid the word "ignorant"). This is especially true when taking a shot at "society" and its struggle with not knowing, for example, how to locate China on a map, the national language of the Arabs, the color of snow, or, slightly more important, Gitmo (waterboarding as a new Olympic sport?).

I'll try it anyway through the convenient filter and refuge of citing others. It's one thing being confronted with not knowing things, but when combined with apathy, something else is happening. Read this in NYT.

On the other side of the coin, listen to Pulitzer Prize winning journalism, Andrea Elliot, describe her Islam beat for the New York Times, particularly her story about "An Imam in America." It's pretty good, an interesting story-behind-the-story talk.

Disease and Metaphors: Sontag

2008-02-07T14:49:00.000-06:00

Lonely office hours again, therefore I read. I’m reading Susan Sontag’s AIDS and Its Metaphors--a short book (or long bound essay) of 1989 vintage. With familiar candor and clarity, Sontag speaks of disease and the metaphors people use when forced to discuss the human body when it’s invaded or its organs morph out of control. On almost every page, Sontag does something that I admire: she draws out insight from something that's hopelessly worn or ordinary. (A couple of years ago, Sontag passed away from cancer.) Here's a snippet:

There are famous diseases, as there are famous countries…. AIDS did not become so famous just because it afflicts whites too, as some Africans bitterly assert. But it is certainly true that were AIDS only an African disease, however many millions were dying, few outside of Africa would be concerned with it. It would be one of those “natural” events, like famines, which periodically ravage poor, overpopulated countries and about which people in rich countries feel quite helpless. Because it is a world event—that is, because it affects the West—it is regarded as not just a natural disaster. It is filled with historical meaning.... Nor has AIDS become so publicized because, as some have suggested, in rich countries the illness first afflicted a group of people who were all men, almost all white, many of them educated, articulate, and knowledgeable about how to lobby and organize for public attention. AIDS occupies such a large part in our awareness because of what it has been taken to represent. It seems the very model of all the catastrophes privileged populations feel await them.

It's good to be blogging again. One more thing, I recommend that you read her short comment about September 11, 2001, just days after it happened. It was published in The New Yorker here. Scroll down NYKer page and please read.

What Barak's Sister Says on Islam

2008-01-20T20:54:00.000-06:00

As posted in the NYT, this is what Maya Soetoro-Ng, Barak Obama's half-sister, says about Islam in an interview. It would be better to hear a fuller comment. But here's what she says so far:

NYT: Your mom has been described as an atheist.
MAYA: I wouldn't have called her an atheist. She was an agnostic. She basically gave us all the good books — the Bible, the Hindu Upanishads and the Buddhist scripture, the Tao Te Ching — and wanted us to recognize that everyone has something beautiful to contribute.

NYT: You didn't mention the Koran in that list, although Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country in the world.
MAYA: I should have mentioned the Koran. Mom didn't really emphasize the Koran, but we read little parts of it. We did listen to morning prayers in Indonesia.

NYT: Are you worried about mentioning Islam because it has already been evoked by negative campaigners trying to tarnish your brother?
MAYA: I'm not worried. I don't want to deny Islam. I think it's obviously very important that we have an understanding of Islam, a better understanding. At the same time, it has been erroneously attached to my brother. The man has been a Christian for 20 years.

Ode to Melancholy

2008-01-16T12:14:00.000-06:00

English professor Eric G. Wilson has a really interesting essay on melancholy and the dangers associated with trying to avoid it at all costs. It's analogous to a society hyper-concerned about microbes; people who bleach their bodies after pressing a button in an elevator; and anti-biotic prescriptions written faster than blogs. So any serious bug goes around, we drop like flies because our immune systems have been overly coddled, placed in a retirement trance. Wilson makes the connection between culture and sadness. He says, "What are we to make of this American obsession with happiness, an obsession that could well lead to a sudden extinction of the creative impulse, that could result in an extermination as horrible as those foreshadowed by global warming and environmental crisis and nuclear proliferation? What drives this rage for complacency, this desperate contentment?"

Wilson also says.

I for one am afraid that American culture's overemphasis on happiness at the expense of sadness might be dangerous, a wanton forgetting of an essential part of a full life. I further am concerned that to desire only happiness in a world undoubtedly tragic is to become inauthentic, to settle for unrealistic abstractions that ignore concrete situations. I am finally fearful of our society's efforts to expunge melancholia. Without the agitations of the soul, would all of our magnificently yearning towers topple? Would our heart-torn symphonies cease?

My fears grow out of my suspicion that the predominant form of American happiness breeds blandness. This kind of happiness appears to disregard the value of sadness. This brand of supposed joy, moreover, seems to foster an ignorance of life's enduring and vital polarity between agony and ecstasy, dejection and ebullience. Trying to forget sadness and its integral place in the great rhythm of the cosmos, this sort of happiness insinuates that the blues are an aberrant state that should be cursed as weakness of will or removed with the help of a little pink pill.

Read it here. It's brief ... just right for attention spans like mine.

Obama's Ideals and Abstractions

2008-01-14T08:30:00.000-06:00

I highly recommend that no one swoon before the Obama phenomenon. If we have learned anything from the "past" (please don't let me name him), the American Muslim electorate must not fall to its knees over the silliest of phraseologies and promises. The Republicans at least have shown the courtesy of unabashedly deciding to ignore the over-touted "Muslim vote" and are competing as to who sounds the most militant against "Islamic extremism," a short phrase whose first word will be remembered most.

But here’s what interesting about the Obama debate. His opponents assail not merely his “inexperience” but his use of abstractions and ideals, his academic style. This is a problem, not for Obama, but for this country. We must remember that ideals and abstractions sound startling alien because they have been conspicuously absent for many years now. We've been subjected to decisions that are severed from any discernible ideal that can be debated or examined with some degree of rigor. Instead, we have been expected to "trust" that the decisions that move on the ground are based on sound judgment (usually invisible to the public for "security" reasons) or some clinking beer-steins, gut level earnestness. When abstractions or ideals are pulled from sight, how do we make any kind of moral or ethical analysis of major decisions? For huge frickin example, take the Iraq war. The debate was about WMD's and security. There was hardly a public debate on the very notion of applying violence to spread an ideal like democracy. Even as a pretext (ie, oil), the democracy card was used. Does anyone remember a robust discussion on whether or not it is even possible to cram a new political system down a nation's throat? Has it ever worked? Can we have the dignity of exploring that possibility before the bombs fall? Islam spread by sword, the nut-jobs invent and complain. And what of democracy?

Political Ads and Anthology Deadline

2008-01-10T07:41:00.000-06:00

Most of the country is isolated from the political ads that appear in states having primary elections. We should be grateful here in Illinois because usually by the time the primary comes here, the "decision" is a done deal. Well, Florida voters are being told to vote for Giuliani if they feel like living another day without the menace of radicals (Muslims of course). Really, look at one of Rudy's political ads. What's missing is an image of Rudy in drag, his full battle gear. AND Baraka at Rickshaw Diaries would like to remind you all of the deadline for a new literary anthology of narratives penned by Muslim women.

Quotes on Lies, Tolerance, and Minorities

2008-01-03T15:23:00.000-06:00

“I notice that in spite of the frightful lies you
have printed about me, I still believe everything
you say about other people.” Robert Maynard Hutchins

“We are tolerant enough of those who do not agree
with us, provided only they are sufficiently miserable.” David Grayson

“Of late, I have no friends; I must be doing something right.” Somerset Maugham

“Majorities, of course, are often mistaken. This is why the silencing of minorities is always dangerous.” Alan Barth

Thomas Cleary on the Quran

2007-12-28T13:13:00.000-06:00

Well-known translator Thomas Cleary had this to say about the Quran in his introduction to his abridged translation of the Book. I like Cleary's full translation quite a bit. It's not for everyone, I know. But his minimalist style appeals to me, though you have to overlook some "things" like a word choice or two. I wish that he would have included an introduction in the full translation, but he was adamant about not doing so. He wanted the reader to have an immediate experience with the translation. This quote is well-worded. It does show that he did engage the Quran at a deep, if not profound, level. To attempt any study or translation of the Quran requires an understanding of its place in the history of scriptures.

The Koran is undeniably unique in [sacred] tradition, indeed unique in the entire context of classical sacred tradition throughout the world, in having been revealed in the full light of history, through the offices of a Prophet who was well known. As the last link in a chain of revelation going back to time immemorial, even to the very origin of humankind, the Koran has the special function of recollecting the essential message of all the revealed Books. -- The Essential Koran: The Heart of Islam

The Pull of Political Orthodoxy

2007-12-28T08:45:00.000-06:00

I’m reminded this morning of a great decision of mine to stay as far away as possible from group discussions about major events in the Muslim east. It all ended, if I remember right, on September 12, 2001. For too many years, in big groups and small, the “elders” have shown me (and many others) this amazing ability to turn political positions and views as some kind of orthodoxy, a test of sorts. What I mean by this is that one’s personal piety or religious rank somehow became subtly measured by (or at least associated with) one’s take on some political event that emanated from or affected the Muslim mind or world. It was required, for example, to discuss (or at least imagine) the return of the Caliphate. If you had any misgivings of this whole proposal and had the guts to express it, then glances turned askance, as if you had fallen into heterodoxy and schism or had said something outrageous. Again, I don’t know much about Pakistan’s political variegated landscape, but I do remember that when Bhutto became Pakistan’s leader (not sure which term), it was expected to be “against” her, some vague position accompanied by religious swagger, primarily of Jamat-islami vintage.

Something Good to Read

2007-12-27T12:00:00.000-06:00

Nawawi Foundation has posted its latest paper (a pdf), Living Islam with Purpose, by Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah, a good look at five "operational principles" that can help inform the Muslim perspective. If you're tired of today's big news, read this.

Noise from Pakistan

2007-12-27T09:46:00.000-06:00

I don't know much about Pakistan's Rubik's politics. It seems to be more than complex — somewhat chaotic in a sense that predictions and forecasts always seem to be wrong. I get this impression not only from the American and European press, but from those who have more awareness of the situation there. Most of them are "surprised" about the assassination of Bhutto, just months after the last assassination attempt took more than a hundred lives.

So I have the right to be surprised this morning. The news does sadden me. I don't know if she really held any promise for Pakistan's welfare; not sure if the compelling charges of corruption against her are true; I can't tell if her idea of "democratic" reform amounts to just enough "reform" to get elected, then "meet the new boss, same as the old boss"; nor do I readily accept the media's beatification of Ms. Bhutto. The trauma and moral ugliness of the murder aside, this killing can't bode well for Pakistan. Paraphrasing Shakespeare, violence is a ridiculous argument. If Bhutto was gaining ground in the coming elections, then either she's striking a popular cord or her opponents are a bunch of inept, self-serving nimrods who continue to depend on corruption to keep power and would lose an election to Satan if it was fair. I can hear the typical dribble now: America set her up in Pakistan, therefore -- ipso facto, abracadabra, open sesame, dull is my mind -- she was bad and deserved her fate.

And if it's true that so-called "Islamists" are responsible, then really they should consider converting to another religion (like Coulterism) or, better yet, rename the mendacious twisting of Islam to something else, so they can be called "Bombists" or "Get-a-kid-to-blow-himself-up-ists" or "Frustrated-hasbeen-ists". And if it's the political establishment or any of its wild tributaries that's responsible, then ... what the heck.

Eid(s) Mubarak: Now Fret-free

2007-12-18T12:00:00.000-06:00

Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday (in Latin, ennie, meenie, miny mo), three separate days declared as the Muslim holiday. At least they're consecutive. (Ever see a straight line in the Middle East?) I used to fret about this. Now, it's all good. Until I'm elected Caliph, I will enjoy my non-responsibility and unabashedly partake of the "convenience" of choosing my day. I hope it's all accepted. May it be blessed and well received despite of ourselves -- as it always has been.

Meanwhile, gone fishing for a few days!

Waterboarding Language

2007-12-18T09:00:00.000-06:00

Caring about language is not an egghead sport. Nothing exists outside of its reach. Like the corruption of the environment, the corruption of language can go unnoticed or suffer the plague of apathy until essentially it’s almost “too late.” Language is the first front in the pursuit of manipulating the public mind. Apparently, the struggle for the meaning of words (especially common words) seems to precede the struggle for control, be it political, social, or even religious. I know that I’ve quoted from this book before, but Death Sentences by Don Watson is an important book, though foreign to any seller list. I like it for its content, but also because it is the kind of work that helps us decipher meaning from background noise.

"All totalitarian regimes, regardless of their ideological origin, pervert language to delude, intimidate, and mystify their subjects. They also take the humor out of it, even when the circumstances are laughable. Stalin sent his erstwhile comrades to their deaths confessing ludicrously concocted crimes, and countless intelligent people were persuaded to believe them. What is it that torture and brainwashing try to extract? Words. They need the word as the corpse. If words define reality, you cannot control the one without controlling the other."

Love in the Time of Opera

2007-12-14T08:02:00.000-06:00

These days are associated with introspection and forgiveness that covers a lot of ground. Pardon, mercy, and forgiveness are good things to want; and it makes good sense to offer them too, even when it's difficult, when our egos and thrones get in the way. There's nothing like reprieve and pardon when you don't expect it. It's better than finding ten dollars in an old jacket pocket. Even if it's a buck or a good stick of gum, we're still happy about it, mainly because it's unexpected or even undeserved. For a reason I keep private, I remember the operatic story Orfeo Ed Euridice (the version I saw), which delivers a positive message of love and redemption in cascading fashion. If you'd like to know more about this narrative, please go here to read. I love happy endings. The best "art" ends that way, me thinks. Thanks.

Meccan Chronicles: Sadness

2007-12-11T17:54:00.000-06:00

We're pretty sad around here. A year has already passed since we left for Hajj. However sappy or mandatory it may sound, we miss it dearly. When I came back from Hajj, I was elated to be home and felt that it'd be good to go again in, say, three years or five. I was exhausted, with bronchitis, and was happy to do something (anything!) without waiting in a "line" and holding on to my garb lest it slip. Well, if you're interested, here were my Hajj reflections, "Pilgrim's Progress," most of it was published in Seasons of Zaytuna.

Every year, people I know make their way to the Hijaz, the cradle of religion. My father-in-law has made the Pilgrimage his annual wird, sacred litany, for the last 20 years, truly a grace from above. But he takes the nomadic approach and goes off to negotiate his own program, a concept that I cannot begin to imagine. My personality -- requiring structure in unfamiliar grounds -- could not countenance such a move. But there is something addictive about Makkah and its environs. It is "home" in a primordial sense, no matter what race or former tradition a pilgrim comes from. This may rub people the wrong way, but there's subtle "proof" in this rite and venue. Abstractions and platitudes take form. Real comes within reach. In the West, the Pilgrimage is reduced to 20 seconds of a nightly news reel, or, God forbid, a report about a tragedy (fire, trampling, or other unfortunate events).

The first time I visited Makkah was in the summer of 1984, Umrah during Ramadan. Four of us from Chicago went, and we've remained friends ever since. Some of my Pilgrim-mates are tested severely these days, and I hope for their relief. Something about Makkah: you remember forever your Pilgrim-mates. For my 1984 visit, I packed everything to only lose my luggage. The airlines, Royal Jordanian, was "on it" and made promises. But I never saw my luggage until the day I returned home. Covered only by our ihram tunics, we made Umrah and then ran around to find clothes to wear. We lived on two jalabiyyas, slept in the haram (the Sacred Mosque), showered in the bathroom stalls, and ate humus and crushed fava at night in crowded "restaurants". I remember the first dawn. It came fast, and we had been too busy that night to hydrate ourselves. When we heard the Call for Prayer, we were shocked. It's an understatement. We were very thirsty already. We slept after the prayer. When we woke up, we each had the feeling that we had slept through the noon and late afternoon prayers. It was death-level sleep and the sun was slanted downward. We got up to make ablution, make up the prayers, and prepare to break our fasts. By that time, we were thirst-crazed. But when we saw a clock, it was still 8:30 in the morning, with a full day of blaze and sun until we could break our fast. We couldn't believe it. We needed more evidence. We looked at other clocks and saw the same information. We stared at each other with the looks of dread. It was, no doubt, the longest day of my life. When my friends gather together, invariably that story comes out. We remember and laugh, although, at the time, mirth was not our first reaction.

It’s hard to keep a dry eye when recalling memories like these. Memories are complex and what they do to you now is nuanced. I have more memories that are not related to the rites per se, but stuff that I can never forget, like the tall beggar who looked like a saint in disguise or an old Yemeni man showing me amazing patience that to this day comes to my mind when I read about sabr (patience and/or perseverance). Anyhow, thanks for indulging me in my ramblings. These "things" truly flavor life.

Brass Knuckles

2007-12-04T15:23:00.000-06:00

From Clay is honored to be nominated for a Brass Crescent Award. I already read several of the other bloggers nominated and also learned of really good blogs mentioned on the nominations page. Thanks to those who visit this site and who recommended From Clay.

Heavenly Foretastes and Childhood

2007-11-30T15:47:00.000-06:00

It’s Friday and you got to do something with your mind during the 40-minute drought of a Friday sermon (khutbah). My latest Friday speculation comes down to this: something about childhood having a sacred purpose that goes beyond God-blank anthropological or biological theses.

The way I see it, the innocence of childhood — for those who were fortunate enough to have innocence (and invariably everyone has something very good to remember) — intentionally previews, however faint it may be, what we really want all the time: joy, sinless freedom, boundless bliss, fidelity, purity of heart, no Veils, no obligations; again, all of this forever, without death, spoilage, surprise misfortunes, or bounced checks. Now add to this the bonanza of having advanced intelligence, privileged acumen, and spiritual gifts that far exceed what we’re capable of on boxed Earth. In other words, the highlights of childhood offer prelibations of the "Garden"—for those who believe in it or at least permit the possibility of it once in a while. It’s not merely eternity that makes "Heaven" appealing, but an eternity of a kind of happiness and joy that is beyond our imaginations, but that still faintly mirrors the best days (or even hours) of our childhood when innocence (al-bara') had real meaning beyond a kind of dreaminess.

Almost universally, childhood is something that people love to remember. Monotheistic scriptures speak of "Heaven" (janna in Arabic, literally the paradisal “Garden”), in part, to serve as some kind of incentive to take a path that is often steep, strained by the spread of the profane, and involves true struggle and frequent difficulty. An incentive, however, does not work well, nor long, when confined to an abstraction. We’re charged to believe in the unseen, not the unfelt. It is intuitive to expect that a Merciful God would make some merciful connection between Heaven and some perceptual experience in the now, a slight crack of a door that shows, even dimly, what people are promised in an afterlife whose rules, physics, and confines are beyond empirical formulations. Childhood may hold such experiences. Again, they are shadows, since the Reality cannot be shown in a context that is simply too “small” in every conceivable way.

We know of no other system of existence other than being born as infants that slowly grow as adults. An all-powerful God is not without options and what He does or chooses is never random, since randomness is a product of imperfect power. As such, somehow the choice of “youth” is integral to His plan. When we disallow the possibility of the boon of youth again—times that we all enjoy talking about—our memories and the nostalgia they create lead to momentary feelings of joy but then are slowly pushed aside by subtle melancholy and then we’re not sure where the down feelings are coming from.

But we pine and have memories because they too serve a sacred purpose, beyond what the fundamentalists of empiricism insist, who may say that memories evolved to help us survive in the human Serengeti, to remember our foes and where we buried the carcasses. We should bear in mind how often we wish the clocks would turn back to a time when we had every right not to be responsible to carry adult problems that can reduce a man and woman to tears, when we face loss, fear, injustice, betrayal, heart break, thoughtless duplicity, planned duplicity, authority complexes, ingratitude, and so on.

We remember the great days of old because it is likely part of a deeper and native yearning for a different kind of life. It is in us, as Muslim theologians have said, part of our fitra (the primordial essence of our souls originally created uncorrupt and, in fact, in a state of grace).

It’s important to notice straightjackets that otherwise suppress or discount our intuitive reception of what numerous passages of the Quran emphasize: there are signs all about us, everywhere, in fact—in our past, in the woods, in the sky, in the rivers, in the leaves, in sidewalks, in our memories, and in our own souls. These signs, Muslims believe, are a kind of nexus in which information about the great Unseen (including eternity) is intentionally placed in our perceivable material world. The thing is, you have to believe or be willing to believe in order to “see” them. Faith is the key to divine literacy; it is the Rosetta Stone that helps us make sense of the glyphs in nature and understand what they’re saying about God and our ultimate return. A thirteenth-century Islamic scholar known as Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali explained it this way: “God intended for the human being to live forever. He simply takes a soul from one realm of life to another.” This suggests that death as we know it is a traverse that all of us must pass in order to get to the other side, where we no longer need signs, since veils will be dropped and a new and more absolute reality greets us.

As an aside, the greatest achievement of parenthood must be in allowing or engendering “great memories.” The duty of moral teachings and ritual practices can be overrated or at least become desiccate when rubbed by sternness. In the end, it could be that the acts associated with the salvation narrative are best kept in the bezels of the really good times of yesteryear and our memories of them.

-- Sermon over.--

Billion Year Carbon

2007-11-26T11:38:00.000-06:00

I know I'll age myself with this post, but these lyrics came to mind today, written by Joni Mitchell and performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young. A couple of lines really jut out as cosmologically resonating. The title is "Woodstock."

......

We are stardust, we are golden,
We are billion year old carbon,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Well, then can I walk beside you?
I have come to lose the smog,
And I feel myself a cog in somethin' turning.
And maybe it's the time of year,
Yes and maybe it's the time of man.
And I don't know who I am,
But life is for learning.

....

We are stardust, we are golden,
We are caught in the devil's bargain,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Galileo's Heresy: Sun or Atoms?

2007-11-21T10:48:00.000-06:00

We all are attracted to certain disciplines that we really like a lot and wish that we would have devoted more academic time to (when we were younger, of course), like, say, the history of science.

So whoever is interested in the history of science and the science of debunking “intentional” history, I recommend the following book. Published back in 1989 and written by historian Pietro Redondi, Galileo: The Heretic (finally down from an under-loved bookshelf) is a compelling and extremely well told narrative of the Church’s cover up of the actual purpose behind the prosecution of Galileo. The popular Galileo narrative that most of us have been exposed to is that Galileo’s acceptance of the Copernican heliocentric view of the solar system (earth moves around the sun and not vice versa) directly confronted the teachings of the Church, which saw the earth as the center of God’s plan and, therefore, the physical cosmos. Apparently, this charge was a pretext; the ulterior motive behind the trial was Galileo’s advocacy of the atomistic view of material, which, evidently, undermined the presumption of the sacrament of the Eucharist (body and blood of Christ).

To uphold the atomistic view meant you believed that the materials of earth, including wafers and wine, were composed of irreducible parts that have specific behaviors and properties that cannot, therefore, undergo transubstantiation, that is, changed into something like body and blood. This Aristotelian view confronted the more Eucharist-friendly Platonic view of the composition of matter, which tended to be more ethereal. To undermine the very ideal of the Eucharist was considered serious heresy punishable by death. The Copernican red herring turned out to be good for Galileo in the end, for advocating heliocentricity was a breach not so sternly punished: banishment, house arrest, no TV, etc.

Pietro Redondi, associate director of the Alexandre Koyre for the History of Science, had firsthand access to sealed documents kept in the Vatican, signed off and kept under lock by the chief Galileo prosecutor, Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino, a Jesuit who was elevated to sainthood in the 1920’s but not without controversy, resistance, lengthy adjournments, and stormy debate. Many within the Church itself had long resented what the Cardinal did to Galileo and, perhaps, to independent thought, which, again, contrary to popular thought, was important to many of the intellectuals of Catholicism, who were plenty and actually quite brilliant.

I recommend the book for many reasons, among them is the way the narrative is told. It is scholarly and reads with compelling fluency. The early development of Galileo’s heresy goes back to an early time when he was presented with a rock that glowed, a material of the earth emitting light though it was disconnected from any light source. For Galileo and his students, this phenomenon needed study, but also an interpretation that had “religious” connotation. They were not out to debunk religious tenants, but they could not ignore the function of reason. The rock and light raised questions about the particles in the rock that were obviously capable (because of their unique “properties”) of giving off light. It was a kindling of what would lead to an alternate theory about matter.

It’s important to remember that Galileo’s heresy occurred in the 1600’s, centuries after the Islamic world defrocked the hold of superstition and “theological” locks, and when Muslims had long observed in nature what nature revealed . . . without the “fear” that it would upset or challenge scriptural elan or apparent precepts. This is a broad generalization. But this is the blog-world where generalization is usually the rule.

Sumeia Williams in NYT Blog

2007-11-16T12:39:00.000-06:00

Here's a link to a nice, short, and real-deal essay by Sumeia Williams (of Ethnically Incorrect Daughter blog fame). She speaks about her experience in her "road to find out" of her adoption circumstances. She says: "The words of Bryan Thao Worra, a Laotian adoptee and poet, reverberate through my mind as I make yet another necessary edit to my story: 'For transcultural adoptees, our lives are written in pencil. Everything you think you know about yourself can change in an instant.'”

My Brother's Anger & Old Photos

2007-11-12T08:00:00.000-06:00

I keep in my left-hand desk drawer a black and white photo of myself when I was about 6 years old. I'm with my older brother who's holding a handful of cattails. We're somewhere in Cook County Forest Preserves, and behind us is a lake and, more immediately, our father's 1964 Buick (I think). My brother is looking at the camera (without a smile and naturally angry), while I'm happy-seeming, distracted, and pointing toward the ground at something. It looks like I'm saying, "Wow!" or "Look!" I'm sure it was nothing more than a caterpillar or my stunning discovery of the earth.

When I open the drawer to rummage for something like a paperclip, I look at the photo, especially toward my brother, and remember the problems he's been facing lately -- actually his whole life. It's about difficult demons connected to vague things like upbringing, early injury, immigrant funks (born in the village, unlike me), Chicago's South Side, bad friends, and anger that almost controls him. He is the most intelligent of us siblings but is attracted to those "things" that hurt him and, therefore, all of us. After our mother died, we went through a period in which we did not speak to each other for more than a year, although he lives in the north of Chicago. We didn't have a falling out at all. But his phones were out of order, and he never gave me his address . . . he gave it to no one when he divorced (after twenty-five years of marriage) and moved on north. I worry about him a lot, everyday. (It's complicated worry that covers much ground and history.) There was a time when I wasn't sure if he was alive, to be candid. I spoke to him a few days before this past Ramadan, and I now can't reach him for the same reasons. There is such enormous loss of potential in him. He's in his fifties now. He never found his place in life. Cliché, I know. But it's not an abstraction. Human beings really don't live anywhere except in some "place," and if we don't trust it, or can't find it, or if we see it as irrelevant or mismatched, then maladjustment is the only way to be. This is not a criticism, but an honest view.

There are good memories. He's the one who taught me how to fish and how to walk across a muddy creek when I was terrified to do so. All of my friends were already on the other side of the creek, and I was the last one on the near bank still "thinking" about it. My brother walked back across the creek, grabbed my arm, and said, "F-k it! Come with me!" We waded across, and it wasn't so bad after all. (For the record, I was always the youngest of my friends. My blush gone now?)

I will try to connect with him. I have had dreams about stuff that leads me to think that I really have to connect with my brothers with no agenda but brotherhood (including my other older brother). I am not judgmental of them. If anything, maladjustment is not a trauma per se. It could be that they didn't sell out to the fraud of the way things are, especially in suburbia (we moved), nice but pointless. And maybe, as the over-doted kid, I did buy into something back then--Pollyanna, rosy, some holodeck experience.

But I do feel partially responsible for something. When I "rediscovered" my own faith, Islam (in the early 80’s), something in me changed. It's a terrible thing to report, but I imbibed the over-present religious superciliousness and played the role of the one who will rescue his siblings. It was a ridiculous failure. I pushed them away, subtly. Our relationships changed. I was no longer their brother with an interesting story to tell or a joke or someone to confide in or someone who always wants to borrow an album. I became a highhanded missionary, no longer cool nor the guy who loved fishing, baseball, music, and chatting with anyone, a social butterfly who accepted anyone “as is”. Instead, I looked for any angle to slip in a line or two about mission, the pre-modern version of spam "da'wa". They never showed me that they were offended, but it did alter things. I regret it. Badly. But I know also it's not the whole story. My brother struggled from very early on, before I could walk. My parents had a hard time with him. When he was old enough, my brother joined the US Army and was stationed in Munich. This was during the 70's, when Abba ruled and backstage in Germany shared bongs and laughs with American soldiers, my brother one of them.

I hope good things will come. We're aging and time moves ... nothing like an old photo to remind you of the "ride," steady and relentless. Old pictures are amazing things to look at, and if you've lived long enough, they produce a smile taken over almost immediately by melancholy and sadness. The strong emotion is usually about a "time" no longer with us. And if you're of my generation ("Talk'n about my generation," The Who), then it's especially "boss". I look at the black and the white and see the route of time, not "time frozen," but this unstoppable movement, this thing, this plasma, this ferry, this phenomenon, this proof of God. Nothing moves alone and to nowhere.

Myth Busters

2007-11-02T04:30:00.000-05:00

At a certain level, I think that the kind of reform we need, whether it involves matters like the environment or political and social patterns of thought, requires the kind of courage to confront not fear but what makes us comfortable and satisfied and all the paradigms that we have inhaled without inspection. Christopher Lasch says it light and right:

How does it happen that serious people continue to believe in progress, in the face of massive evidence that might have been expected to refute the idea of progress once in for all? The attempt to explain this anomaly--the persistence of a belief in progress in a century full of calamities--led me back to the eighteenth century, when the founders of modern liberalism began to argue that human wants, being insatiable, required an indefinite expansion of the productive forces necessary to satisfy them. Insatiable desire, formerly condemned as a source of frustration, unhappiness, and spiritual instability, came to be seen as a powerful stimulus to economic development. Adam Smith argued that ... civilized men and women needed more than savages to make them comfortable, and that a continual redefinition of their standards of comfort and convenience led to improvements in production and a general increase of wealth. There was no foreseeable end to the transformation of luxuries into necessities.

The problem with things like "fixing the environment" and the ridiculous notion (a manufactured commodity to keep us busy and to change the subject) of "religious reform" is that it does not touch (in fact, it deliberately untouches) the subdermal altering of assumptions, like the myth of material progress as a sign of human progress.

Lasch's quote is taken from his preface to: The True and Only Heaven.

Fears and Checks

2007-10-31T00:01:00.000-05:00

It is interesting to imagine life without fear. It is inconceivable for humanity to have survived more than a generation without it. The world would dissolve into utter chaos if one day we all wake up and find that fear and all of its checks have been completely extinguished from the human creation (an interesting movie idea). Civilization and dignity would be impossible: schools, libraries, marriage, families, education, property, fidelity, personal effects, ownership, monetary currency, traffic lights, deterrence, laws, religion, authority, respect for life (one's own and others) etc. All of these things would become meaningless without fear and its guidance. The fear of losing knowledge or the fear of ignorance, in itself, has propelled astounding institutions.

Each day, we all make decisions that are informed by fear or influenced by it. Overt or subtle, palpable or hidden, fear counsels us all the time. Sometimes we ignore it, but more times we bow: fear of danger, death, illness, loss of wealth or job (we get to work on time); fear of disappointing others whom we revere; fear of tyranny, imprisonment, oppression, harassment; fear of rejection, failure, success; fear of invisibility, loss of renown; fear of fame, center stages, runaway egos; fear of getting caught; fear of pathogens; fear for our children, for society, for the environment, for the future; fear of infamy and scandal; fear of truth and honest reflection; fear of nuance; and, of course, for many, fear of God, His retribution, His gaze, His judgment, wrath, His power, and fear of how we will be received on His Day.

There are several words in the Quran that refer to the general classification of fear. One of them is closely associated with taqwa, one of the most often cited terms of Islam, which is derived from the root waqaya. Its original meaning is to shield and protect. Taqwa is not an easy word to translate, although fearing God is pretty much the standard fare. And personally, I think there’s not much we can do about it. I’ve read God-consciousness and Wary of God and the like, but these attempts draw attention to the strivings of the translator and not the meaning itself. So fear (fear God! or God-fearing or Godfearingness) still makes more sense in the larger scheme of things. But it’s good to keep in mind what taqwa is in relation to fear itself. The Arabic word khawf refers to a purer meaning of fear, the emotion itself, while taqwa is the result, the actionable, observable, deliberate reaction to fear. When one has taqwa, his or her fear or direct awareness of God is not hinged to the emotion per se and things like being startled, but is manifested in behavior, choices of conduct and course of action—criterion of morality and ethical living. While I respect the argument that love is a higher motivation than fear, and that's probably true in many respects that Islam upholds and champions, but fear and love are kin. Early on in our lives, we fear disappointing our parents, for example, not because of punishment but because we love them or, at the very least, acknowledge and recognize their authority over us.

The word taqwa is completely overtaken by its religious connotation, and rarely does one think of taqwa in terms of shield. And perhaps this is what religion is supposed to do to language. Words (like people) go through a conversion process. (There are instances in the Quran in which sister words of taqwa appear and that relate to protection, as in: "Our Lord, give us good in this life and good in the Hereafter, and save us (or protect us) from the torment of the Fire.")

A note on translation: Often a translator is unfortunately limited by what can pass muster among readers. It’s really too bad that a word like remembrance, for example, has lost its verbal meaning, as in the command, Remembrance your Lord, which is far stronger and meaningful than Remember your Lord. In this context, Remembrance evokes a deep and profound sacred use of “memory” and “remembering,” while Remember is dogged by the casual sense of “bringing to mind” or “recalling something” and other slapdash usages of this amazing human faculty. God have mercy on his soul, Martin Lings uniquely had the intellectual accoutrement and “guts” (for lack of a better word) to translate like this: Be a remembrancer, for remembrancing profiteth the believers (Quran, 51:55). (This is God’s command to His Messenger (Muhammad).)

Wrath of Nationalism

2007-10-26T08:47:00.000-05:00

Identity politics is one of the main driving forces of modern societies and individuals. Many make decisions that are bound to the ground, to such a thing as the “accident of birth,” as William Pfaff words it. It’s becoming more prominent and controlling. It’s hard to tell what we attach our sense of ethics to: something higher than our heads or to the geography of our birth, the land in which we felt the first slap? Pfaff’s book, The Wrath of Nations, is an interesting read, though his section on the political organization of classical Islam is weak and, unfortunately, political in itself. But he does say this:

“Nationalism, of course, is intrinsically absurd. Why should the accident—fortunate or unfortunate—of birth as an American, Albanian, Scot, or Fiji Islander impose loyalties that dominate an individual life and structure a society so as to place it in formal conflict with others? In the past there were local loyalties to place and clan or tribe, obligations to lord or landlord, dynastic or territorial wars, but primary loyalties were to religion, God or god-king, possibly to emperor, to a civilization as such. There was no nation. There was attachment to patria, land of one’s fathers, or patriotism, but speak of nationalism before modern times is anachronistic.”

Short Story in Mizna

2007-10-19T15:20:00.000-05:00

Ramadan has its dynamics, some of it blog-dragging. May we reap its benefits. Here's a short story I wrote and is currently published in the literary journal called Mizna. It's about 3000 words long and didn't want to post the whole thing here. So I posted it here on wordpress. Thanks.

The 20-Percent Rule of Teaching

2007-09-30T11:44:00.001-05:00

One of the classes I teach is a required writing course full of college freshmen. It's difficult because America's high schools (in the main) have failed to impart some of the most fundamental skills that students should have, writing high among them. So it's very tough, especially when my mandate has little to do with teaching the mechanics of writing. Rather, my calling (in this class) is to teach various genres of academic writing. The majority of papers I read, however, are filled with mechanical problems: grammar, word usage, sentence structures, and punctuation stuff. I then recommend that they go to the "Writing Center," a service staffed by volunteers who help students with the basics of writing. Most of my students, however, do not avail themselves of the service and hand into me terrible papers, which I then hand back with shocking results. The first paper I hand back invariably hushes things down in class. Faces are sullen, ashen, solid, ... some in disbelief. They look at the paper and then back up at me. They're not mad at me, but surprised at the red-ink, the grade, and their crappy writing. Things then change.

At this point, the class suddenly becomes important to them, and it's the portal I wait for, the invitation to begin the 20-percent rule. It's not about failing or grades in general. From that point onward in the semester, I spend about 20 percent of the classroom time about the importance of writing in their lives. Even if they want to become pilots, nurses, psychologists, or whatever, they can never be counted as educated unless they know how to write. I must stress this, and remind them of the stress, about the embarrassment of not knowing how to communicate effectively in their own language. When I do that, I notice a sharp increase in attention. The students are far more aware of the class (meta-awareness) and self-aware of where they should be in four years. I'm not mean about it, but totally serious and committed to having them know with certitude that it's a lie to reckon themselves educated while not knowing how to make a cogent, logical, and literate argument on paper.

I do this, like I said, often, and the results are gratifying. I get more yellow notices from the Writing Center in my mailbox about students coming in. Finally, they're taking the class and themselves more seriously. Now THAT is what makes teaching fun: good response from the students.

Death of Languages

2007-09-18T16:22:00.000-05:00

This year, we've seen many reports about the inexplicable drop in bee population and what that means in terms of agricultural devastation. Same thing with many garden variety song birds. Just to pile up on the world of "loss," we now may learn that many of the earth's languages are in danger of disappearing forever, at least as spoken currency even within a small group of folks. According to the report of the National Geographic Society, "Every 14 days a language dies. By 2100, more than half of the more than 7,000 languages spoken on Earth—many of them never yet recorded—will likely disappear, taking with them a wealth of knowledge about history, culture, the natural environment, and how the human brain works."

Losing stuff is never fun, but when we start talking about such fundamental things like bees, birds, and languages, don't you think the collective world mind should be wondering, "What are we doing wrong?"

Ramadan and Empathy

2007-09-13T15:28:00.000-05:00

Here's an article posted at altmuslim.com about Ramadan and empathy. I hope you find it useful. Thanks. Ramadan kareem. Part of reads like this:

It’s a marvel how a geologist can take a soil sample and come up with thunderous conclusions about the physical condition of the earth and the mad culture of consumption that’s ravaging it. Seeing the big picture in something small and self-contained is the definition of sagacity. When Ramadan comes, things change. We all know it. It’s an interruption in routine, a time that agitates a rote existence. This interruption has many purposes, but it comes down to this: It is said that if you want to see how your life is going, then look at your day, your sample, and realize (hopefully enchanted) that we are and always have been in this constant state of returning, a procession of hours and days that’s taking us to nowhere but God, who made us and eventually wants us back. To live with that consciousness and awareness of the grand ride is among the highest achievements of revealed religion. It affects everything. That awareness is also extraordinary and cannot be scaled with the ordinary.

Stories and Impact

2007-09-08T18:29:00.000-05:00

I came across this nice quote on the puissance of stories and what they do in human life. The Quran (and probably all scriptures before it, known or unknown) employs stories; they carry urgent meanings. Thank God for stories, indeed. It remains a marvel how we humans, creatures of common flesh and mean fluids, can be so suspended, arrested, guided, and moved by stories.

Thank God for stories--for those who have them, for those who tell them, for those who devour them as the soul sustenance that they are. Stories give shape to experience and allow us to go through life unblind. Without them, everything that happens would float around, undifferentiated. None if it would mean anything. Once you have a version of what happened, all the other good stuff about being human comes into play. You can laugh, feel awe, commit a passionate act, get pissed, want to change things. — Tomas Alex Tizon

The Artery of Language

2007-08-31T11:02:00.000-05:00

The quote below is an unintended insight I came across when looking for something else in a highly recommended book called Death Sentences (by Don Watson), a serious critique of how political- and business-speak are damaging language and its use in public dialogue.

[A] cathedral is the property of the church, whereas a language belongs to civilization, and if [language] is dragged down it takes civilization with it. Language is not just a preserver or bearer of tradition. Words do more than the elemental thing of linking one generation to another. The great works of public language like the Book of Common Prayer are poetic works. In the poetry is the mystery with which religion is concerned and on which it depends. . . . Many churchpeople will tell you that when it adopted everyday modern prose, the church cut off an artery to its soul.

I would extrapolate a bit and say: The style of scripture, in other words, is part of the message and the lasting hope that what the words say will always have a chance at influencing people because of how they are stated.

Inclement Weather

2007-08-23T18:24:00.000-05:00

I don't remember storms like this in August. It's so wet, windy, and wild in Chicagoland. I had to stop and take a couple of photos as I was driving. And as I write this now, the late afternoon skies have turned black. God help.

Saturday Links

2007-08-18T10:52:00.000-05:00

Interesting links for this Saturday: Article on Islamic inventions (not bid'a, that is) but the kind we like to talk about .... Why not start the controversy now, but if you haven't heard, ISNA declared that Ramadan will begin on Thursday, September 13, and, to boot, Eid al-Fitr will be celebrated on Friday October 12 .... I'm sure you heard of this: "A Roman Catholic Bishop in the Netherlands has proposed people of all faiths refer to God as Allah to foster understanding." This is good, in terms of sheer accuracy, in my opinion, since Jesus never used the word "God" but the Aramaic "alaha." So while this gesture is actually thoughtful and should be fielded that way, it is also a move toward an objective origin, the Semitic word for God .... A Republican Congressman finally apologies for saying that America's founding fathers never intended for Muslims to serve in Congress (but bigots and Armageddon freaks seem acceptable). So Rep. Bill Sali of Idaho says sorry, and Rep. Keith Ellison is officially safe ... Interesting article on the influence of the preachers of doom on DC policies and politics.

Gutenberg Project

2007-08-13T12:30:00.001-05:00

Most of you may know this already, but I thought to share with you (or remind you of) a pretty awesome site in which you can download or view (text or html) thousands of full-length books that are in the public domain. Almost all of the classics are available: fiction and nonfiction, prose and poetry: Greek epics (in translation) to Victorian literature, as well as American literature of high repute, like Twain, Poe, and Melville. Russian authors, too, not to mention philosophical texts (Greek, European, German, etc). In other words, there's a lot, including narratives with Islamic or Muslim themes. You may go here, Project Gutenberg, to scroll, find, read, or download.

Cosmology and Newton’s Magic

2007-08-08T10:14:00.000-05:00

Science, as it was once practiced, devoted much of itself toward the sacred. I've heard this said many times, and, in general, understand something about what this means, but only a little. For help, I came across this quote in an anthology called The Practical Cogitator (I highly highly recommend it). John Maynard Keynes says this about Isaac Newton, a great mathematician whose discovery or "invention" of calculus made modern technology possible, a man who, in his later years, was chastised by the Church of England for his scandalous conclusions, such as a Creator needing to be unlike His creation, if only we looked closely at nature to fully realize that. Anyhow, here's what Keynes says about Newton and what went through his mind as he examined the world:

Why do we call [Isaac Newton] a magician? Because he looked on the whole universe and all that is in it as a riddle, as a secret which could be read by applying pure thought to certain evidence, certain mystic clues which God had laid about the world to allow a sort of philosopher’s treasure hunt to the esoteric brotherhood. He believe that these clues were to be found partly in the evidence of the heavens and in the constitution of elements. . . . He regarded the universe as a cryptogram set by the Almighty—just as he himself wrapt the discovery of calculus in a cryptogram when he communicated with Leibnitz.

Victims of the Bridge Collapse

2007-08-05T12:22:00.000-05:00

This is a family photo of two (actually three) of the victims who either perished or presumed perished in the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. God have mercy on their souls and grant patience to their families and friends. Her name is Sadiya Sahal, a Somali refugee, and her daughter Hana. Sadiya Sahal was five months pregnant and a nursing student. They are listed as confirmed missing and presumed perished. There are couple of stories in the press about Sadiya: you may find one here and here and here.

Murdoch-izing Journalism

2007-08-04T19:46:00.000-05:00

I’m reading now Commodify Your Dissent, an anthology comprised of articles taken from the very liberal Chicago journal The Baffler, edited by Thomas Frank. There are offerings in this volume that do what good essays are called to do: articulate what we already sense but are unable, unwilling, or too busy to map words to. But considering the poetic take over of the Dow publishing enterprise (including The Wall Street Journal) by Rupert (al-Fox News) Murdoch, it’s good to be reminded of what this means in a larger “context,” if that word has kept any meaning. Here’s one salvo to consider:

With the consolidation of the Information Age has come a new class of executives who deal in images rather than triplicate forms. Management theorist Peter Drucker calls them “knowledge workers,” former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich dubbed them “symbolic analysts,” but the term applied to them by the nation’s premier ass-kisser, Vanity Fair, . . . seems more appropriate: “The New Establishment.” Learn to revere them, the magazine wetly counseled its readers, for they are the new captains of industry, the titans of the future, “a buccaneering breed of entrepreneurs and visionaries, men and women from the entertainment, communications, and computer industries, whose ambitions and influence have made America the one true superpower of the Information Age.” As Americans were once taught to regard the colossal plunderings of Rockerfellers and Carnegies with patriotic pride, now we are told to be thankful for this “New Establishment”: it is, after all, due to figures like Murdoch, Geffen, Eisner, and Turner that the nation has been rescued from the dead end of “military-industrial supremacy” and restored to the path of righteousness. . . . These men have struggled their way to the top, not just to corner the wheat market, buy up all the railroads between here and New York, or bribe the odd state legislature, but to fabricate the materials with which the world thinks.

Murad On Islam (Newsweek/WashPost)

2007-07-31T21:58:00.000-05:00

I make it no secret that I am of the opinion that there is hardly anyone more eloquent and erudite in speaking about Islam and its various "affairs" than Abdal Hakim Murad, at Cambridge (UK). So again I'll link to an article of his, this time published in the Newsweek/Washington Post series. He speaks of jihad and sundry hot topics.

About apostasy, Murad says:

Traditional human communities believe that truth leads to salvation, and error to damnation. It is probable that very many religious people in a variety of denominations still believe this. Historically, religiously-faithful princes have therefore seen it as necessary to use the coercive power of the state to forbid apostasy. One of the most powerful and persistent manifestations of this understanding in history was the Inquisition, which was definitively abolished in 1834. Protestant countries also respected this drastic principle; in fact, the first converts to Islam in Britain were impaled on stakes. In a Hindu context, ‘apostasy’ was often classified as violation of caste rules and boundaries, and similarly drastic consequences could follow. After the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1253, Buddhists who converted to Islam were routinely put to death.

The four canonical schools of Sunni Islamic law, and also most pre-modern Shi’a jurists, recommend similarly drastic penalties, although the judge is enjoined to ‘look for ambiguities’ in order to avert the death penalty wherever possible.

The Ottoman Caliphate, the supreme representative of Sunni Islam, formally abolished this penalty in the aftermath of the so-called Tanzimat reforms launched in 1839. The Shaykh al-Islam, the supreme head of the religious courts and colleges, ratified this major shift in traditional legal doctrine. It was pointed out that there is no verse in the Qur’an that lays down a punishment for apostasy (although chapter 5 verse 54 and chapter 2 verse 217 predict a punishment in the next world). It was also pointed out that the ambiguities in the hadith (the sayings of the Prophet) suggest that apostasy is only an offense when combined with the crime of treason. These ambiguities led some medieval Muslims, long before the advent of modernisation, to reject the majority view. Prominent among them one may name al-Nakha’i (d.713), al-Thawri (d.772), al-Sarakhsi (d. 1090), al-Baji (d. 1081), and al-Sha’rani (d.1565). The debate triggered by the Ottoman reform was continued when al-Azhar University in Cairo, the supreme religious authority in the Arab world, delivered a formal fatwa (religious edict) in 1958, which confirmed the abolition of the classical law in this area.

"Pornifying Politics" Interesting Read

2007-07-29T11:16:00.000-05:00

Columnist Kathleen Parker, whom I've never heard of before, writes this interesting piece found in many papers across the country. So if you happen to remember Ms. Parker writing unflattering things about Islam and Muslims and whatever, then excuse me and, if you feel compelled, register your complaint here.

If our enemies don't hate us, it's an oversight. The confluence of the worst of modern American trends -- national narcissism, the sexualization of all things animate and otherwise, and the devaluing of currencies from literature to public discourse -- has reached a perfect storm of idiocy in the form of MTV-style political videos. Can the culture possibly go any lower before the barbarians simply waltz through America's front door, left lazily ajar by the last one to shake her booty? The videos are the latest rage in virtual politics: Pouty girls, scantily clad, bump 'n' grind their luv for this presidential candidate or that. . . .

The attention-seeking, self-important desperation that drives today's virtual world is boundless and, apparently, boundary-less. What's next? Photoshopped porn flicks featuring, well, take your pick? . . . Here's the truth: The girly tapes of the 2008 election make Hillary Rodham Clinton look like Margaret Thatcher, reminding all that America has never been more in need of grown-up women in high places.

Egypt's Mufti on Apostasy

2007-07-26T08:21:00.000-05:00

For what it's worth, below is a statement (or clarification) by Egypt's Grand Mufti (love those title translations) about apostasy and the right of a person to make choices. (Thanks to Leena al-Ali for sending it.) Apparently rumors flew about Sh. Ali Gomaa's original statement and alleged retraction. Not to revisit the Afghan apostasy "thing," and I know it's unimportant, but I caught some flak for saying this about the Afghani apostasy circus in an article: "It's important to note that apostasy rulings have rarely been used in the heyday of Islamic civilization. . . . There's absolutely nothing in the Èlan or sacred paradigms of Islam that makes a religious choice an anathema to Muslims. Not one reference in the Quran that refers to people leaving the realm of faith suggests the penalty of death."

I'll stop quoting myself (with color too), and now here's part of the Grand Mufti's comment (the forum he speaks of may be viewed here):

I never retracted my statement on apostasy and freedom of religion. On Sunday I published an article in the Washington Post-Newsweek "OnFaith" forum discussing the Islamic perspective on apostasy. I affirmed the freedom that God has afforded all of humanity in their right to choose their own religion without it being imposed upon them from the outside. Choice means freedom, and freedom includes the freedom to commit grave sins as long as their harm does not extend to others. This is why I discussed the fact that throughout history the worldly punishment for apostasy in Islam has been applied only to those who, in addition to their apostasy, actively engaged in the subversion of society. . . . This balanced opinion is one that I have held for years and I have included in both my books and lectures. It is a position that I have never retracted. Unfortunately, some members of the press and the public understood this statement as a retraction of my position that Islam affords freedom of belief. I have always maintained the legitimacy of this freedom and I continue to do so.

Sport of Narcissism

2007-07-24T16:56:00.000-05:00

These are hard days for professional sports, veil-lifting perhaps. Here's a rundown: American football player Mike Vick, of the NFL's Atlanta Falcons, is indicted for illegal dog fighting (and cruelty); four or five bikers in the Tour de France (the biggest bike race on the planet) are suspected of (or caught with) illegal performance enhancing drugs in their systems (one of the favorites pulled out of the race after failing a drug test); Barry Bonds is about to break professional baseball’s most coveted record but with the glaring and sun-sized asterisk pointing toward steroid use (suspected and now under investigation), though he's one of many modern professional baseball heroes associated with a "little help from my friends" (not exactly Ringo's drugs, but steroids); a St. Louis Cardinal pitcher dies earlier this spring in a traffic accident with high alcohol levels found in his blood, the same alcohol that sponsors (actually “funds”) the sport, an ironic connection nobody in the sport is willing to make; “professional” fake wrestler Chris Benoit commits suicide (after taking the life of his wife and son) and found with steroids in his system; a referee of the National Basketball Association is accused of and under Federal investigation for gambling on games that he himself officiated (and thus in the convenient position to alter the outcome and point spread of a game); professional athletes are increasingly paid astronomical amounts of money (poor kids suddenly millionaires with no clue of how to manage the cash or the culture); the teams can pay the cash because the public's paid engagement does not seem to be ebbing.

Athleticism has always been a human fascination, and not without validity. I myself follow a team or two. And from the essence of things, it does not seem so sinister, this primordial appreciation for people able to apply their practiced physical craft in wondrous ways. (Maybe there's something true about adults playing out their fantasies through the feats of others, a narcissistic attempt at being greater than what they really are.) But with bad news dropping in almost all the time, corruption may irreversibly alter the games. It is inevitable, when you think about it. Why should professional (and even amateur) sports be spared the culture of cheating, a corruption with fake results, no weapons of mass destruction, and still keep the stadiums filled, lackeys of journalism unable or unwilling to confront reality, a public too sedated to demand answers, to speak truth to power?

MSN Report: Islam in America

2007-07-24T10:28:00.000-05:00

We need another "Islam in America" report like we need another penguin movie. But this one was actually pretty good and interesting, I declare in blogspeak. (Thanks to my sister for sending me the link.)

Hitchens' Book is Not Great

2007-07-15T13:24:00.000-05:00

Here's a nice review of Christopher Hitchens' God-awful book, "God is Not Great." The reviewer makes an observation that readers of Hitchens (of the 80's and early 90's) wonder about: the reincarnation of Hitchens into a neo-con-sounding hawk (with an application for US citizenry), self-appointed attorney general of atheism:

But as Mark Twain once mused, give a man a reputation as an early riser and he can sleep until noon. With God Is Not Great, a caustic polemic on the evils of religion, Hitchens has earned the dubious honor of confirming Twain’s aphorism. Anyone expecting a masterful demolition of all things sacred will be disappointed. Bullying and shallow, God Is Not Great is a haute middlebrow tirade, a stale venting of outrage and ridicule. Beneath his Oxbridge talent at draping glibness in the raiment of erudition, Hitchens proves to be an amateur in philosophy, an illiterate in theology, and a dishonest student of history. Too belligerent to be nimble and too parochial to be generous, the once-captivating Hitchens demonstrates why he has forfeited any claim on our attention.

Debt of Religion: Dîn (Quran Vocabulary)

2007-07-13T08:52:00.000-05:00

The Arabic word commonly translated as “religion” is dîn. “Religion” is a fairly good translation, but as many will point out, there is a problem in the modern idea of religion that diminishes the value of the word for this translation. (This is a linguistic argument, not a point to make against modernity.) Religion has come to mean different things because of secular cultural pressure, which is a common influence in definitions: Religion may mean certain hollow rites that people do during certain seasons of the year; or peculiar acts taken over by culture or family pressure, although they once were connected to devotion; or charming involvement with some vague tradition, with shades of transcending meaning or none at all, stuff that add color to how we live. The relationship of religion binding with the unseen and the Hereafter has become almost vestigial. That really creates a translation problem for dîn (although "religion" is still hard to replace, if not impossible). “Religion” means literally to “reconnect” or “form a bond,” namely, to bind one’s will with God (“lig” as in “ligature,” to tie together something, and “ligament,” the connective tissue that binds bone to bone). "Religion" has lost its sense of a way of life, for if you connect with God, it becomes a relationship that takes over.

Sermon-talk aside, way of life really does inform what the Arabic word dîn implies, for dîn is actually a short explanation as to why we live at all, if we look closely at the word’s original meaning. Linguistically, dîn comes from root word dayana, from which dayn derives—"debt" that must be paid back. So there's connection between debt and religion, as one considers that we are essentially accountable beings who come into this world with a debt to fulfill, a debt due to God—a debt that grows as we mature into adults, charged with volition and discernment. Daily in our prayers, we recite that God is Mâlik Yawm al-Dîn: Master of the Day of Judgment — a day in which all debts are settled, a day of retribution—pay back in other words. Sermon-talk resumed, had it not been for His mercy and grace, it would be impossible to fulfill that debt to God. Yet He makes it easy through religion, which magnifies the small things we do: He reveals human obligations and a Sacred Law that has a mighty purpose, live right (live a good life) and to prepare us for a Day of Debt—a day in which there is no mercy but His, no refuge but with Him. To devote some time in a day, an hour of a week, or a month in a year, by all logic, should appear to be short in paying our debt, especially when we consider the payoff in the Hereafter of an eternity in Gardens of amazing peace, bliss, and constant fulfillment, with never a burden or fear—always lucky. Today, I have perfected your religion [dîn] for you, and completed My blessing upon you, and I have chosen Islam as your religion (Quran, 5:3). Clearly, dîn is the medium through which we understand our purpose and the path that helps us fulfill a purpose that, on our own accord, would be beyond reach, hence the grace of dîn, a religion that multiplies a small investment into what is beyond calculation. We tend to forget, at a deep level, that God created us, blessed us with existence, and has given us all that we make use of, all that we see, all that we spend and consume, all the senses that we apply to learn and find relief—all of everything. If we reflect on what we owe to our parents for their care and nurturing, then imagine what we “owe” to God?

"Ruins" on Live Earth

2007-07-09T17:07:00.000-05:00

Haven't been posting lately, and I have a lot I want to say. Need to get through the bottleneck. Well, here's something that was sent to me: Yusuf Islam at the Live Earth concert singing a couple of his well-known songs, plus one lesser known but almost prophetic tune called "Ruins," which you'll find on the left scroll. Some of the lyrics go like this (composed back in the 70's):

"Oh Lord and you'd better watch your eyes
'Cause if smoke gets in them, baby you won't rise again.
Where's it leading to freedom at what cost
People needing more and more and it's all getting lost
I want back, I want back
Back to the time when the earth was green
And there was no high walls and the sea was clean
Don't stop that sun to shine, it's not yours or mine...no."

Ode to Incompetence

2007-07-02T14:55:00.000-05:00

Today, my friends, we gather to celebrate incompetence. We are grateful for the fumblings of rogue dimwits who feel it virtuous to destroy innocent people by driving a car, packed with self-righteousness and explosives, and ramming it into an airport terminal with only one aim: to harm as many people as possible, the sure way to restore the Caliphate and demonstrate the truth of God, His Messenger of Mercy, and Islam, the religion of reason and peace. Cuffed and burned, they were whisked away from the flaming skeleton of their holy weapon, the automobile, and, we hope, imprisoned forever, joyfully reunited with their minds, previously jailed by the bloviations of damaged sermon-makers. Let us also celebrate the incompetence of owners of Mercedes packed with sacred nails and combustion, gilded with infested thoughts of heavenly rewards awaiting those who dismember children walking leisurely with their parents on a rare sunny London day.

On Denial and the Mind

2007-07-02T10:19:00.000-05:00

Interesting article in Tikkun by Hamza Yusuf. The arguments he makes are appealing, but not to those groupies of heads of states who indulge in denial theories while their people continue to suffer from corruption, economic decline, and tightening grips on basic freedoms. What a great way to govern countries of vast human and natural resources: changing the subject.

On Paradigms, Farce, and Nature

2007-06-18T10:03:00.000-05:00

“We live by a set of intellectual constructs first articulated by a handful of European scholars several hundred years ago. One of the architects of the modern world view, [Francis] Bacon laid out an approach to knowledge which we still hold to today. Bacon saw knowledge as a tool for gaining control over the environment. Bacon proclaimed that a new method for dealing with the world was called for; one that could ‘enlarge the bounds of the human empire, to the effecting of all things possible.’ According to Bacon ‘objective knowledge’ would allow people to take ‘command over things natural—over bodies, medicine, mechanical powers and infinite others of this kind.’ Every school child is weaned on Bacon’s scientific method. We are encouraged to create distance between ourselves and the world, to detach ourselves so that we can sever our natural relationships with things and turn them into objects for manipulation.”

— Jeremy Rifkin, Declaration of a Heretic

[What's interesting about this is that full-time Muslim schools in the West do nothing to confront prevailing notions. Obsessed with accreditation and "saving kids" from moral blights (which is not really working), the brains of these schools do not notice that the intellectual paradigms will continue the farce at their own hands. To many people, environmentalist Jeremy Rifkin comes off a bit too radical. Nonetheless, in his books Rifkin has made many insightful observations that make tolerant some of his own thick, doomsayer, conspiracy-paranoid style.]

“Our knowledge of nature does not reach to its human import, to questions of meaning and goodness. This gap between nature studied scientifically and life lived naturally opens directly and necessarily because of the deliberate choice of modern science for ‘objectivity,’ for a stance outside of and removed from the world of our experience, from the world as it presents itself to us and as we engage it. Our natural science is, quite deliberately, most unnatural, not only in what it enables us to do to one another, but even more in what it teaches us to think about who and what we are.”

— Leon R. Kass, Toward a More Natural Science

“Normally, new ideas in a field of science are advanced by young scientists, who often take a contrary approach. But younger cosmologists are even more intolerant of departures from the big bang faith than their more senior colleagues are. Worst of all, astronomical textbooks no longer treat cosmology as an open subject. Instead the authors take the attitude that the correct theory has been found. Powerful mechanisms encourage this conformity. Scientific advances depend on the availability of funding, equipment, and journals in which to publish. Access to these resources is granted through a peer-review process. Those of us who have been around long enough know that peer review and the refereeing of papers have become a form of censorship. It is extraordinarily difficult to get financial support or viewing time on a telescope unless one writes a proposal that follows the party line.”

— Geoffrey Burbidge,

Forty Years from 67, Brief

2007-06-06T08:31:00.000-05:00

I find that it's somewhat of a risk to put up a short story (partial to boot), especially if it's a bit long. The national attention span goes further south. So I took down the previous post and kept the part of the Six Day War and what I think it did to the Arab mind. It's obviously non-analytical and short as a stump, but it is a conclusion with a proof that only makes sense when you lived with people changed by one week forty years ago.

. . . But a warrior with an eye-patch and his Israeli armies routed Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in what was officially counted as six days. The small Arab community in Chicago was thunderstruck; fathers stayed home from the factories to work the knobs of the short-wave radios, hoping to learn that the reportage here was all a fraud. The pulse of the homes hastened and nothing was said unrelated to the war. The bond of the pan-Arab mind was snapped after nearly a century of hurried construction. These poor souls had become psychological orphans in less than a week. Foster ideals would be needed, and eventually and awkwardly they would come decades later, as you’ll see—like the religion. From nationalism to religion, the transition would not be smooth. Coercing religion into a horizontal thing, displaced of spiritual energy by patterns of socialist ideologies recent to the region, would never set nor keep all the faithful on board. The artists and intellectuals eventually would move on, while the others and their heirs would largely accept what we casually call “extremism,” producing sermons, books, and anger that achieved canon status but that only now are being called into question.

Thyroid Lumps and Blues

2007-06-03T10:26:00.000-05:00

Still in convalescence after thyroid surgery. The short of it: last year “they” saw a lump in my thyroid that initiated a reaction of the healthcare system of America. I did what I was told to do, going through progressively pinpointing tests, which in the end told me what I had already been alerted to: it’s better not to have a lump. Besides, “It could be cancer.” Interesting thing to hear. Mom died from cancer (God bless her soul). And so the lump now becomes an important part of my mental dialogue. But then they say that if you’re going to have cancer, hardly a better place than the thyroid because once cut out, it’s gone. “It’s one of the least aggressive malignancies one can have.” Fists of joy.

So I say, Ok, buying time to try remedies recommended to me, like eating blackberries everyday. I ate them and will most likely continue, but the lump didn’t change: 4.5 cm long, while the whole left thyroid is about 5 cm. So I’m in surgery for two hours, and, thank God, it’s not cancer, but one stretched-out tumor. So they saved the right side of my thyroid because it looked healthy. My surgeon was a good man and skilled. He himself called me the next day to tell me that the pathology reports said that it was not a carcinoma. Not many doctors in the draconian HMO circus would do that.

Something about healthcare when something goes wrong. You appreciate the care, but you also sense that, once it begins, you’re rendered prone on a long conveyor belt in which you are essentially powerless. I mean this metaphorically mainly, but concretely especially when rolled into surgery, and you look up and see a bunch of professionals with masks covering their faces and, therefore, something of their humanity. They scoot me over onto a thin table, and my arms are then stretched out on a couple of metallic extensions, and the anesthesiologist tells me that he’s going to intubate me after I’m “asleep.” Great. I tell him that I need to have my head propped up because I have a back issue. He promises, then explains some of the risks involved, like waking up in the middle of surgery. Great again. Then he sends some burning fluid into my IV and I feel my arm a bit on fire, then he takes a mask and covers my face. Gone.

After the surgery, I should say, I stayed in recovery for a full seven hours because the hospital was full. The wife stays with me the whole time, including an uncomfortable night on a chair in the hospital room. We go home the next day, and I’m sore everywhere. I had muscle soreness as if I had worked out every major muscle group, an odd experience for me. There’s no explanation except perhaps that I had been confined to a gurney in recovery for a long time in weird and uncomfortable positions, too weak to move appropriately.

At home, I take off the bandage and I see a smiley face cut (about four inches) on the base of my neck. Wife says that I look like Frankenstein, and I say, “I guess that makes you the Bride of Frankenstein.” Jokes over. More tests to see if I have to take pills the rest of my life or if the right thyroid will take over for its missing sibling. So I’m tired on and off, and will resume my usual work (at my usual slow pace), inshaAllah.

Lord's Style of Language

2007-05-24T13:45:00.000-05:00

I'm reading an essay by Robert Wilken, of the University of Virginia. He cites a very interesting observation made by St. Augustine. Wilken writes: “Ambrose told [Augustine] to read the prophet Isaiah. Augustine took his advice, but as soon as he took the book in hand he was perplexed by what he read. ‘I did not understand the first passage of the book,’ he writes, and he thought ‘the whole would be equally obscure.’ So Augustine laid it aside, as he explains, ‘to be resumed when I had more practice in the Lord’s style of language.’”

I really like this point of being practiced in reading the “Lord’s style,” which I would amend as God’s "style" in revelation in a manner that requires from the spiritual aspirant something more than cursory reading. More relevant, a handler of scripture really must avoid reading words with the identical meaning and importance that we ourselves apply to these words in our day to day lives. When words are lodged in revelatory context—a book meant to have the impact of guidance or, at least, influence—then we must receive the words with minds perched high on some transcending branch. Obviously words must be familiar and provoke from us some meaning that we have come to understand, but the point here is about expanding and heightening our sensitivity to nuance when reading the Quran. We can’t make something majestic as parochial, something layered as flat, something elliptical as a whole. Learned men and women have advised readers how to approach the Quran. So I’d like to add (or borrow) this: read slowly (very slowly); don’t let your mind wander; don’t jostle back and forth as if you’re in some “madarasa”; don't race or artificially compete; relax; remember the source; and lock in on something that really strikes you. Read out loud and, very important, once in a while read long passages slowly and silently. Something about the voice that can (sometimes) be distracting. Pray for an inkling for “the Lord’s style of language.”

Retention Pond Life

2007-05-16T08:23:00.000-05:00

Some days you feel like this. I went out yesterday before the rains came looking for a stray great white egret I had seen, those majestic birds you find near shorelines. They're magnificent creatures with long legs and elegantly curved necks; regal things when taking flight, with the tips of their broad wings tapping the water surface, leaving two long rows of perfect ripples. What brought it to a retention pond, I don't know. Poor thing. I saw it a few days in a row, which tipped me off that it may have started to actually nest. So I grabbed my camera and headed toward the pond, but the egret was nowhere. Same thing this morning: gone. Being the explorer (of the animal channel) that I am, I decided to photograph some other life forms. I came across this turtle. Perfect. The animal with the kind of speed that permitted me to "sneak" up and shoot. I walked around the pond and was excited to see a family of deer by a suburban fence. I sprung into my zoology mode and crawled up to the family of Odocoileus virginianus and took this stunning photo.

I frankly do not understand what fake yard ornaments like these bring to the owners. Oh well. Back to work.

Mass Extinction

2007-05-14T08:17:00.000-05:00

Mass extinction is a phrase we normally associate with the epochs of millions of years ago, something mentioned with the demise of dinosaurs. It's quite possible that each of us will have a front-row view of a mass extinction now. It is said that by the end of the century, "half of all species on Earth may be extinct due to global warming and other causes." Please read this article in Mother Jones about what I think is the biggest problem we face today, an issue that far eclipses the political machinations of our day and the artificial urgency of such things like madhhab strife (the desperate attempt to find identity and psychological comfort by attaching ourselves like barnacles to this or that school of sacred law with hardly a speck of thoughtfulness or intellectual engagement). I really wonder how a people who eagerly claim to represent the prophetic mission be so uninvolved with (or superficially aware of) the stewardship of the earth in a way that goes FAR beyond the silly mantras, "In Islam, the environment is important," followed by dead quotes of the past, as part of the feeble and terribly abused and misunderstood concept of da'wa (inviting).

Way of the Mystics: Smith

2007-05-11T07:18:00.000-05:00

I’m reading now The Way of Mystics: The Early Christian Mystics and the Rise of Sufis, by Margaret Smith, first published in 1931, and reprinted several times ever since. With some luck, the book can be found at large used bookstores in the “Islam” or “Eastern Religions” section. As you can tell from the title, this volume is both history and an attempt at finding the origins of an Islamic phenomenon widely known as Sufism or Islamic mysticism. In the first half of the book Smith focuses on the early Christian ascetic practices, monasteries, and heroes, with a few misplaced interjections that seem better suited for the second half of the book where she dives into her contention that one mystical phenomenon necessarily influenced or informed another. (I hope to write a fuller reaction to the book.)

In principle this kind of scholarship does not really bother me; the search for “origins” has always been a human obsession. We want to know where things came from, whether it’s life itself or ideas. Thrust in the pool of this “time” thing, we have an intuitive sense of “before” and “after.” So why shouldn’t the biggest questions of life involve time: “When and how did it all start?” And then, “Where to?” and “How long before we get there?” These are questions that couldn’t have been conceived had we not been inexorably lodged in a time-bound existence.

But still I can’t help but read in this seemingly well-intended work (and excellent historical survey), by an acclaimed and generally well-received scholar, typical Orientalist attitudes that strive to explain not just certain features of Islam, like Sufism, but the religion itself. I will be objective (as informed by what I have read in others): If I were not a Muslim and had an attachment to another monotheistic tradition, I would be curious theologically how or why heaven could have allowed, in a post-Jesus world, such a remarkably successful religious advent—miraculous-seeming phenomenon that produced a layered, profound, deeply artistic, intellectually vibrant, and flourishing civilization that covered much of the known world and reigned longer than any previous civilization—even though its salvation narrative is apparently at odds with God’s requirements as found in Judeo-Christian sources. What on earth (or above) can explain Islam and its stunning achievement in temporal and, especially, spiritual terms?

I have read over the past 20 years or so many works of scholarship from the Orientialist tradition, and too often have I found a nanny-reared Orientalist gliding his pen with the cultural demeanor of a well-born futilitarian. At times he emits an air of sympathy and the nasal erudition of a trained and subtle scholar. Turn up the lantern and the assumptions are not sophisticated. He needs to explain with the verve of a Crusader or as a eunuch of secular natural history the accident called Islam, how this peculiar social energy succeeded, how the mutation of Christianity crossed with Judaic lore and Bedouin wisdom leaped from the petri dish and spread in all directions—India to Morocco and too many points beyond. He must provide an explanation to the collars in the room how a simple caravan runner became the most revered man in human history, and how his band of Mohammadan companions humbled stubborn of regions and brought faith and culture to both the ruffians and the most sensitive of artisans and poets, and brought purpose and psychological sovereignty to the lives of the ordinary and the truly exceptional.

Back to the book, Smith does not sound like nor resemble an unethical scholar, an activist covered by tenure and published works. Like I said above, there is a lot to like about her book, and parts of it are actually inspiring. Reading some of the aphorisms of early Christian ascetics, like Ammon, Paul of Thebes, and various Anchorites, is actually enjoyable. They would say things like, “Fasting is the subjugation of the body, prayer is converse with God, vigil is a war against Satan, abstinence is the being weaned from meats, humility is the state of the first man, kneeing is the inclining of the body before the Judge, tears are the remembrance of sins, nakedness is our captivity which caused by the transgression of the command, and service is constant supplication to and praise of God.”

Her historical survey of early Christian mystics is a very good read. But then Smith begins to fall apart. She speaks of Christian contact with Arabs before Islam and contacts after the Prophet received his call, and that these contacts “prove” that Muslims lifted a lot of the spiritual practices of the faith (and tenets too) from these contacts. She offers no forensics as to how this happened. Contact, apparently, is sufficient to make the claim. No one disputes that Christians were somewhat known to pre-Islamic Arabs, but to trace influence and, more important, source requires more than presence and contact, a fact that Orientalist studies conveniently ignore when turning to Islam. In other realms of influence-scholarship and source-tracing, there is an expectation that a direct link be made between the formers and the latters. Also, content analysis is not always a reliable piece of evidence, which is even more true in religious history since revealed religions claim a connection with the same God who sent prophets and messengers with equally compelling messages that carry a common thread.

My point, though, is about this whole “origin” thing. If Islam does something or prescribe something that seems similar to other traditions, then we have ways of negotiating this information. One is that Islam borrowed from them as its formation was engineered; or the core message of Islam is what it claims for itself, a continuation and culmination of the religion project, the same thread from the same Weaver who sent emissaries to guide and warn the denizens of a temporal and accountable world. There are other options to consider, such as, the psychological security of Muslim giants of the post-prophetic period who felt completely unthreatened in learning secondary-traits found in other mystical traditions. It may be that they understood one important thing: sincerity (that primary and transcending principle), no matter who seeks it and finds it and puts into play, will generally lead to consonance more than dissonance, regardless of the specific religious stream or unorthodoxy or even heterodox permutations.

Let us not be squeamish about this or tread carefully like ballerinas fearing the appearance of crudeness when handling those Orientalist studies that are footnoted incarnations of Medieval polemics. There are so many attempts to find the “secret” source of Islam, the Quran, and Hadith, one wonders of the desperation and insecurities behind them. I apologize to the late Prof. Smith that she is mentioned in their company, but the point has to be made. A good portion of Orientalist scholarship either overtly or covertly dedicates itself to the core concern: explain the Islamic phenomenon. They are well known: Burton is one. Schact is another. Joynbol too. Rev. Rodwell, Richard Bell, and more recent, Michael Cook and Crune, postmodernists who are tempted to deconstruct the life out of Islamic sources. They are inheritors of what A. J. Arberry calls Disciples of the Higher Criticism, who “threw themselves with brisk enthusiasm into the congenial task of demolishing the Koran…. But having cut to pieces the body of Allah's revelation, our erudite sleuths have found themselves with a corpse on their hands, the spirit meanwhile eluding their preoccupied attention. So they have been apt to resort to the old device of explaining away what they could not explain; crushed between their fumbling fingers, the gossamer wings of soaring inspiration have dissolved into powder.”

Ecumenical Origins

2007-05-09T07:40:00.000-05:00

"In the early Middle Ages, the caliphal courts of Damascus, Baghdad, and Cordova witnessed countless meetings of Jews, Christians and Muslims in which the learned adherents debated the three faiths. The reigning culture gave such honor to the three religions, such respect to their principles and institutions, that inter-religious debate was the subject of salon conversation, a public pastime. Their deliberations gave birth to the discipline of comparative religion (‘Ilm al-Milal wa’l-Nihal) which left us a great legacy. Hardly any of the great scholars who lived in or near these great cities did not find the interest or time to contribute significantly to that legacy of human learning. Since those days, unfortunately, no such encounters had taken place; and the discipline had been dormant until the present century. The works of al-Ash‘ari, Ibn Hazm, al-Baghdadi, al-Nawbakhti, al-Shahristani, al-Biruni, some of the luminaries of the discipline, are studied around the world; but these constitute only the exposed tip of the literature on the subject."

The late Isma’il Raji al-Faruqi

Whenever I read Faruqi, I find sadness within me. His was a significant loss of an important intellectual and fearless voice of American Muslims. Faruqi and his wife were murdered 21 years ago. At the time, I was asked to be part of a special edition of Islamic Horizons magazine that commemorates the lives of these scholars, husband and wife. The authors in the magazine included John Esposito, Fazlur Rahman, Syed Hossein Nasr, Tariq Qurayshi, and others. I was honored to have written the lead editorial. He was 65 at the time of his death, and he had firmly established himself as the leading Muslim intellectual of the day, peers with giants, namely, Fazlur Rahman and Syed Hossein Nasr. His grasp of philosophy was said to have been masterful, and his awareness of contemporary and classical issues regarding Islam was insightfully connected with the great debates of his day. Things changed, obviously, but I do wonder how he would have approached the post-9/11 world. To be candid, I’m not sure who could have handled things better than him. I’m reading now his (hard-to-get-and-find) book Christian Ethics. So far, really good. (The quote above is from Trialogue of the Abrahamic Faiths.)

To get a glimpse of his writings, you may visit this website dedicated to Dr. Faruqi (God's mercy on him and Lamya').

Alcohol and Sports

2007-05-04T11:03:00.000-05:00

For the second time in five years, a St. Louis Cardinal pitcher died. This time it was Josh Hancock who apparently perished about a week ago in a late night car accident in the St. Louis area. His car smashed into the back of a tow truck parked on the shoulder of a highway. He was declared dead on the scene. His team and all of baseball mourned. The Cardinals cancelled one game; and in parks around the nation, players and fans stood in a moment of silence to pay respects. Then it was play ball, the televised action brought to you by proud beer behemoths, brokers of alcohol, the substance that we now know imbibed Hancock in his final drive, according to reports in Chicago and St. Louis newspapers.

We may now expect public service announcements that caution sports fans and all motorists about the hazards of drinking and driving. What we will not hear are discussions about the intimate association between alcohol and professional (and amateur) sports, a relationship that is amniotic. Beer is the drug of choice at all baseball parks. Red-faced vendors log in several miles a night pushing their wares, shouting as colorful as possible the name of their beverage. The fans turn their heads from the action on the field and raise their fingers to place their order. But that’s not where it starts. There are interesting things to know about the metabolic relationship between alcohol and sports, such as this.

A U.S. study conducted in 2001 found that 93 per cent of young people between the ages of 8 and 17 view sports on TV, and close to one third use some kind of sports media daily (TV, videogames, magazines, newspapers, the Internet or radio). And it's not just boys who are fans. Although they consume the greatest amounts of sports media (97 per cent), at 89 per cent, the girls aren't far behind. Given the interest and passion young people bring to the sports they play and watch, it's easy to understand why there are ethical concerns when companies for adult-oriented products, such as alcohol, use sports to reach audiences. Alcohol companies are also huge sports fans. In 2003 the alcohol industry spent more than $540 million to place nearly 90,000 ads in sports programs on TV in the U.S.2 In fact, 60 per cent of all alcohol advertising on television occurs during sporting events.

Between This and That

2007-04-30T09:49:00.000-05:00

"The spiritual path is in one sense not so much a journey as a gradual attunement of the soul to the presence of the Spirit, a gradual reconciliation between the natural and the supernatural, between the lower waters and the upper waters, between mind and intellect, between Moses and al-Khidr."

Martin Lings (rahimahu'llah)

Strange Loss of Buzzing

2007-04-24T06:32:00.000-05:00

I realize that there's a lot of things going on, most pointedly violence and heartbreak here and abroad. I also know of the slow moan of life's stresses, this imposed sense that we're doing nothing if we're not chasing something, wanting something, grasping for something—something, of course, that can be bought, something that's built to fall into disrepair in relatively good time so the cycle starts again. But stories like this one here (the decrease in bee population, coined "disappearing bee syndrome") bother me at a different level. You sense a collective problem that knows no border, just like the melting of the arctic glaciers, which I spoke about before, a catastrophe in the making that will make the political intrigue and violence of headline vintage seem like something to long for. I'm not ready to walk around downtown Chicago with a cardboard sign: "The End is Near," but you sense something "near" that will alter the paradigms of our lives and our sense of normalcy and comfort.

So far, no one can say what is causing the bees to become disoriented and fail to return to their hives. As with any great mystery, a number of theories have been posed, and many seem to researchers to be more science fiction than science. People have blamed genetically modified crops, cellular phone towers and high-voltage transmission lines for the disappearances. Or was it a secret plot by Russia or Osama bin Laden to bring down American agriculture? Or, as some blogs have asserted, the rapture of the bees, in which God recalled them to heaven? Researchers have heard it all. The volume of theories “is totally mind-boggling,” said Diana Cox-Foster, an entomologist at Penn State University. With Jeffrey S. Pettis, an entomologist from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Dr. Cox-Foster is leading a team of researchers who are trying to find answers to explain “colony collapse disorder,” the name given for the disappearing bee syndrome.

"Palestine to Virginia"

2007-04-23T15:51:00.000-05:00

A Palestinian young man plants an olive on behalf of the victims of the Virginia Tech killings. The AP photo was posted in the NYT. The sign reads: "From Palestine to Virginia. We support you."

Psychobabble of the Media

2007-04-19T17:35:00.000-05:00

That the phrase “Fox News” and “Pathetic” should forever be linked is a given. Today, however, the cable network has expanded the frontiers of idiocy by posting a query meant to evoke an email response. Viewers were asked to weigh in on whether or not there is a Muslim link with the VTech massacre, as tenuously prompted by a report that the gunman Cho Seung-Hui had inscribed on his body the words “Ismail Ax.” The query flashed on Fox’s screen Thursday afternoon, long after the world directly watched and heard the unequivocal derangement of Seung-Hui and his psychobabble, in which he made numerous references to Christian symbolism, specifically the Christian narrative of the crucifixion. If I ran or owned a network, I would not ask (nor tolerate) an imbecilic query meant to dig up some link between the VTech massacres and Christianity, Christology, nor any other religious symbolism. However painful it may be, this horrific event needs to be comprehended without abstraction — with no stenciled typecast of “the Muslim” so pathetical accepted with unconscionable loss of rigor — that deflects the issue from its essence. This was an act that involved accomplices: mental illness, easy availability of weaponry, ubiquitous stream of images (particularly from entertainment) that glorify violence, and political posturing, speeches, and decisions that extol the virtues of violence as a solution to world problems and, worse yet, a means to bring about some perceived good (like democracy).

Before Seung-Hui’s written and video babble was released, The Chicago Tribune posted a similar query on the front-page of its online version, as did MSNBC in its broadcast. There were also attempts to associate Seung-Hui’s choice of video drama with videos we’ve seen of recent Middle Eastern vintage, as if the whole concept of a “suicide note” was invented in the region. The link is indefensibly feeble, and one wonders why the pundits and media brains of our land cannot find roots of violence except in the Middle East.

Writer and popular Muslim blogger Ali Eteraz had this to say about "Ismail Ax" and the desperation to connect it with Islam.

Integrity and Intelligence

2007-04-12T17:46:00.000-05:00

At best, integrity and intelligence go hand in hand to ensure against laziness, false analogies, pleaded connections, and sleight of word. Integrity demands of intelligence that it forge true connections on the page. Intelligence calls for integrity for the challenge of it, and from intelligence respect for the audience of literature, and respect for the art of literature itself, and for its capacity to mean. — Living by Fiction by Annie Dillard

No guesswork needed, right? I like what this author has to say, especially in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. But in this book, Living by Fiction, you’ll come across powerful and thoughtful arguments for fiction as a great conveyor of truth. Many may have a problem with fiction. They see in it feigned plot with unreal people saying things that never were said and doing things that were not really done, often in a place that is without map, and time that is never suggested—time unpaced, that is, ten years on one page, an hour in a lengthy chapter. But this is truncated insight. All art is somewhat unreal. To take it further, only the Real is real, and everything else is an attempt at reaching the Real. Art and scholarship may share a common motive on this count: piercing the veils to time-stopping sense of the “purpose of it all.”

As for intelligence and integrity, we need to think about relationships between virtues and how when one is separated from another, the virtue is either lost or severely diluted. The citizens of the modern marketing mind are taught to admire the shrewd, those who have high intelligence and apply it for ungainly profit. We read their books, buy their CD’s, want to learn their secrets—so that we too could be like them. Remember Korah, the Israelite who’s treasure houses required keys heavy enough to employ a band of men to carry. Remember how he was so admired that his folk wished they had the likes of his possessions. Remember when Korah and his home and riches were caused to sink in the earth, and those who admired him the day before were relieved that they had not been in his shoes after all. The obvious lesson is to not exult in one’s possessions. But there’s something else: admiring something is an act, a deed, a weighable work that has an ethical value attached to it. Intelligence requires integrity, just as accomplishment requires humility and gratitude. The modern method of bifurcation is simply bad ethos. Like whole wheat, we'd be better off with whole virtues—a connected package of virtues. (No gluten, too.)

False Guarantees and Character

2007-04-09T12:39:00.000-05:00

I attended a wedding this weekend and heard the usual hadith and verses of the Quran, and by “usual,” I do not mean uninteresting or boring, but passages that pertain to marriage and family building, typically cited at weddings. However, one of the “usual” statements poked out sharply. It concerns the Prophet’s statement that a family should accept the marriage proposal of a person who has demonstrated excellence in “his religion and his character.” It is interesting that “religion” and “character” are treated separately, and that the conjunction “wa” (or “and”) is not intended to make synonymy. Religion is understood here as one’s performance of basic rituals and devotion therein, while character brings to mind one’s manners, demeanor, and such things as honesty, promising-keeping, politeness, humbleness, fairness, reliability, and, especially, scruples—important “things” that are not automatically inculcated with the moves and postures of religion, and “things” that can be firmly and regularly part of a person who, in fact, has a problem with religion and openly rejects it.

We’ve all made the observation: people of excellent character—neighbor, colleague, or plumber—whom you can trust with a dime or your credit card, but who struggle with belief in any higher power, etc. And then we’ve met or known a person with darkened patches on the forehead caused by long and consistent prostration, but who mysteriously disappoints in matters of honesty, selflessness, and/or modesty—a person who struggles with living a principled life.

This is where the nuance-challenged among the Muslim ministerial class especially suffer. There is an over-emphasis on what is “showable” in terms of “religiosity,” and skipped over is the fact that religiosity and excellent character are not necessarily bound to each other. One does not prove nor train the other. I only underscore the point that how much a person knows and the ostensible moves of religion do not guarantee that a person is trustworthy, fair, nor psychologically secure. Nor, for example, is a Muslim woman who wears hijab necessarily of a higher character when compared to one who does not. I know this will beat the bushes a bit, but the reality is that we have politicized the outer form of religion, such that mere appearance and scholarly reputation (demonstrated or feigned) seem to confer upon a person the automatic right to enjoy an unexamined life. This is unfortunate, especially these days, when many young people sincerely eager to learn and offer their learning to others fall foolish at the thrones of those who seem to believe that it is their divine right to be served and, to add insult, have that service unacknowledged.

To make a larger point, we need to learn from the thieves and the charlatan beggars in Makkah itself—those who lie for charity, put on award-winning displays of hopelessness, and maim their children or strip them of their dignity to increase their begging profits—that goodness is not automatic, never was, not even in the holiest site in the solar system.

If the West has an addiction to oil, Muslims appear to have an addiction to “ideology,” the cliques we identify with. We have to remember that no matter how great or elite a clique is perceived, it can never replace one's personal sense of right and wrong, honorable and ignoble, and ethical and illicit—the stuff that so much of his or her Scales will be filled with. We will never sneak into Paradise riding on the coattail of some “movement.” These things completely lack the authority to excuse us of our own individual moral infirmity or supplant personal culpability for the daily decisions we make and then forget the next day, as if the invisible scribes have forgotten them just the same—as if thousands of prophets and messengers never came, never taught, and never warned. The store owner, for example, wants a caliphate so badly, he will rant until the blood vessels in his face turn blue, rise, and spell the word “Jihad.” But a minute later, he’ll put his thumb on the scale to make an extra thirty cents on a sale of bananas—all the while not noticing any contradiction.

There's waste in engaging too long in issues and debates that have nothing to say about what we should do in our day. We give sermons that make us not feel enthused about loving our neighbors. And we have allowed the Prophet’s most beautiful words—“I was not sent except to ennoble [human] character”—to be lost on a mindset completely unprepared for such a radical thought and, more important, unprepared for the obligations the statement suggests about our daily living.

Used Books and War Heroes

2007-04-05T08:12:00.000-05:00

I have a near obsession with used books. I like it when I come across pre-driven volumes with dedications scrawled on the inside cover pages and imagine the occasions that inspired them, with names of friends and parents, all anonymous, written on the interior folios. Yesterday I was reading Fortunate Son: The Healing of a Vietnam Vet, an autobiography by Lewis B. Puller Jr. It was an account of Puller’s experience in Vietnam and his injury, which Sen. John Kerry described, “He was cut in half. He should have died.” Puller spends considerable time in the book talking about his experience growing up with his father, the most decorated marine in US military history. Puller then speaks candidly of his own depression after suffering debilitating injuries in the unpopular war, his campaign to gain amnesty for those Americans who fled to Canada to avoid the draft, and his struggle with suicide thoughts.

As I flipped the pages, a newspaper clip gently fell into my lap. It was undated and the publication unknown. But clearly it was an obituary on Puller who apparently committed suicide. The obit spoke about Puller's book and the Pulitzer Prize he received for it in 1992. Before the clip fell out, I wondered what Puller was doing now, some 15 years after writing his book. Kerry said about Puller’s demise: “He had to will himself back to life [after his injuries]. Tragically, in the end he was not able to give himself the lift he gave to those who read his book.”

Enduring injury—having your flesh, limbs, or organs compromised—while in the service of one’s nation has always been associated with the highest of values. And when the compromise is “ultimate,” there is special remembrance offered. The earliest forms of literature include elegies of military heroics. There’s a universal appeal to courage in the face of battle. From the epic Greek poems to modern film, heroes draw us in. Muslims enjoy the stories of the Companions of the Prophet in their victories against tremendous odds, enduring injuries with complete personal abandon; and Biblical praise of war violence is legendary. When a person gives his “ultimate” sacrifice, he or she is called a martyr (in multiple contexts, religious and secular). In Islamic parlance one is a shahîd, literally a witness or one who gives testimony: witness or highest demonstration of one’s commitment to the defense of one’s nation; testimony of one’s complete selflessness; or witness to God’s pleasure, which immediately enwraps the souls of those who fall in battle.

Says MAS*H

2007-04-04T07:29:00.000-05:00

"I just don't know why they're shooting at us. All we want to do is bring them democracy and white bread. Transplant the American dream. Freedom. Achievement. Hyperacidity. Affluence. Flatulence. Technology. Tension. The inalienable right to an early coronary sitting at your desk while plotting to stab your boss in the back."

Dr. Hawkeye
Main character of the politcal sit-com "M*A*S*H"
set in a Korean War field medical unit.
Original airdate 8 October 1974
written by Larry Gelbart and Laurence Marks

Islam and Venice

2007-03-30T16:16:00.000-05:00

An interesting article in the NYT begins like this:

Told often enough that the West and Islam are natural enemies, we start to believe it, and assume it has always been so. But the Metropolitan Museum of Art argues otherwise in “Venice and the Islamic World, 828-1797,” a show that, with classic Met largesse, recreates the spectacle of two different cultures meeting in one fantastic city, where commerce and love of beauty, those great levelers, unite them in a fruitful bond.

For a splinter of time, it was on the front page of the online edition. Can't find it now unless I search. Too bad.