Akram's Razor - Reflections on Islam, Muslims & America

Virtually Islamic

Thought I'd share a very interesting blog that charts the intersection of Islam and the Internet called Virtually Islamic.  It's by Gary Bunt, the author of a number of cutting-edge books and articles on Muslims and the Internet. 

If you're a techie like me, you're sure to find it entertaining.  For example, he reports on a stink in Saudi Arabia at the moment over an imam who was punished for using his laptop during the khutbah (Friday sermon).

It's inelegant and undesirable in most situations, sure.  But haram?  The Khutbah is the Muslim community's most important forum and a place where practical matters are discussed and public announcements made.  Some topics could require visual aids, which today in practice means laptops and projectors.

Another example of how Saudi religious authorities  (such as they are) go overboard in protecting Islam from "corruption", in the process illegitimately imposing their own arbitrary opinions on other Muslims.  Not that it's a big surprise coming from the land of the mutawa.

At least there's a debate in Saudi over this, though.  That's a healthy sign.

Must Sufis be Muslims?

In the West, there are many who identify themselves as Sufi but not Muslim.

Kabir Helminski questions whether Sufism can be disconnected from the Islamic faith and tradition in which it developed over the centuries in  "What is Truly Universal Spirituality".

Why European women are turning to Islam

I'm not one of these Muslims who measure Muslim "success" or Islam's validity by conversion rates, but I found this article enlightening: "Why European women are turning to Islam" by Peter Ford.

The death of Muriel Degauque, a Belgian convert who blew herself up in a suicide attack on US troops in Iraq last month, has drawn fresh attention to the rising number of Islamic converts in Europe, most of them women.

This subject is close to my heart, as my mother was a European convert, albeit from very different times.  She converted in 1970 (on her own, before meeting my father, an American who converted in 1957) in Copenhagen. 

It's tragic that this phenomenon is automtically viewed through the prism of security and terrorism, rather than religion and psychology.

Guantanamo Action Center

Check out the Center for Constitutional Rights' Guantanamo Action Center. 

This article in The Washington Post on suicide attempts in Guantanamo (one individual appears to have been so desperate that he made the attempt while his lawyer was visiting) makes for depressing reading.  Subhanallah.

Blood-thirsty bigots in Washington and in "patriotic" corners of the media will no doubt spin this as a cynical PR ploy by those cunning, fatalistic Moslem fanatics to deceive  the world rather than an example of human beings being pushed beyond reason by inhumane circumstances.    Muslims are always at fault regardless of circumstance, after all. Even when Muslims hurt only themselves, they're violent and dangerous.

Seeing this done by "your" government makes you sick to be an American. 

Perhaps we need to importing rather than exporting democracy?

(A tip of the topi to Ateqah for both links.)

SunniPath.com on Tariq Ramadan and reformists

Shabana has written a fresh and thoughtful analysis of her concerns about SunniPath.com's view of Tariq Ramadan, orthodoxy and reform in general.   It's really been making the rounds, Masha Allah.  Even SunniPath picked it up (which I think is a credit to them).  Be sure to check it out.

The Next French Revolultion

Another great article on the recent unrest in France in CSM:
"Next French Revolution:  a less color-blind society" by Peter Ford, The Christian Science Monitor

The bittersweet lot of the immigrant

My wife Shabana has written with eloquence and profundity about "being an immigrant".   

My favorite part:

Such is the lot of being an immigrant. It's not all about "seeking/finding a better life" and making truckloads of money. Some of it is about giving up some life.

How about defining "al-Qaida"?

This is a really informative and stimulating review by noted terrorism expert Peter Bergen of an explosive new documentary by Adam Curtis called The Power of Nightmares. 

It argues something that I have long believed, that the al-Qaida threat has been hugely exaggerated by warmongering neocons and a sensationalistic media.  They have created a largely fictious construct that takes spontaneous and independent acts of terrorism, crime and resistance around the world as part of a shadowy, world-spanning conspiracy.  There is a threat, to be sure, but we are not helped by weaving over-the-top worst-case scenarios that are utterly out of touch with reality.

It also provides some really telling examples drawn from the Cold War about the methodology (or really lack thereof) used by the neocons in making their wildly exaggerated threat assessments.  The example about their "proof" that the Soviets had created super-silent subs is really a classic. 

It sounds like a far more profound and hardhitting contribution to the 9/11 debate than Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11".

Friedman wrong (again) on Muslims & OBL

"Friedman Wrong About Muslims Again
And the Amman Statement on Ecumenism"

http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/friedman-wrong-about-muslims-again-and.html

A great piece by Juan Cole exploring the latest politically convenient oversimplification made by Thomas Friedman to blame Muslims for problems that aren't entirely of their making.