Religion

Malaysian car maker Proton is creating an “Islamic Car” complete with compass to determine the direction of Mecca and compartments for the Qur’an and headscarves. Article here

A new Islamic themed comic book hit the shelves yesterday. Titled “The 99,” the comic features 99 different superheroes that each embody an attribute of Allah (swt). The Chicago Sun-Times published an article yesterday about the comic book and its creator Naif Al-Mutawa

The comic book was released in selected cities in the U.S. For an introduction to the comic and a multitude of other features, check out the site - www.the99.org.

Today, 138 Muslim scholars worldwide signed and sent a letter to Christian leaders calling for peace.

Check out the article - “Unprecedented Muslim call for peace with Christians”

From the article:

Aref Ali Nayed, one of the signatories and a senior adviser to the Cambridge Interfaith Programme at Cambridge University in Britain, said the signatories represented the “99.9 percent of Muslims” who follow mainstream schools and oppose extremism.

“In Islam we have had a problem for some time now where the mainstream voices are drowned out by a minority that choose violence,” he said.

This is quite a positive action performed by these scholars. I wonder, however, if people will continue to ask the usual “But why don’t the Muslims ever say anything!” argument in the future, disregarding the actions mainstream Muslims always put forward to separate themselves from extremists.

The BBC has the text of the article available as a PDF - An Open Letter and Call from Muslim Religious Leaders.

This is kind of cool - On Friday, October 12, the Empire State Building will be lit green in honor of Eid al-Fitr.

Article here .

Check out Empire State’s Lighting Schedule here.

Well known “Mideast Scholar” and bigot Daniel Pipes recently called for reform in Islam during a series of lectures in Michigan. The Michigan Daily reports almost a genial tone in Pipe’s speech and mentions that protesters, while present, did not disrupt the speech. In this article, it seems that Pipes only wants what is best for Muslims, saying that radical Islam is detrimental for both Muslims and non-Muslims. The protesters, however, saw through Pipes’s words:

“Henry Herskovitz, a member of Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends, was among the protesters opposed to Pipes’s visiting campus. Herskovitz, an Ann Arbor resident, said Pipes’s Zionist views “run contrary to the essence of Judaism.”

Zeeshaan Bhatti, president of the Muslim Students’ Association, described Pipes’ views on Islam as ‘biased, misinformed and distorted.’ “

In a related article entitled “Giuliani Advisor: Raze Palestinian Villages” published by Harper’s on September 14, reporter Ken Silverstein delves into the hypocrisy pertaining to Israel and Palestine. He cites how Daniel Pipes, who is also the new Foreign Policy Advisor for Republican Candidate Rudy Guiliani, can get away with proposing war crimes against the Palestinians. Meanwhile current Democratic Candidate Barack Obama has to scramble to distance himself from the book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, after a “sponsored by” link on Amazon.com’s page for the book included a link to Obama’s campaign, and ensure everyone knows his unwavering support for Israel.

Silverstein ends with these words: “For the record, there’s much I disagree with in the Mearsheimer/Walt Book [The Israel Lobby]. But there’s something terribly wrong with the American debate on the Middle East when, due to public criticism, Obama’s campaign flees from an unintentional link to that book, while a Giuliani advisor argues for a policy of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians and his comments pass unremarked.”

On September 23, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) held a fundraiser at Chandni’s Restaurant to raise awareness for their organization. The event featured Dr. Hatem Bazian, Imam Zaid Shakir, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, and Dr.Mohammad Rajabally to coordinate fundraising efforts.

Dr. Hatem Bazian, president of AMP, discussed that Muslims in the U.S. are not well informed about Palestine, citing self preservation as a big issue. He said that we all need to speak loudly (but politely, he added) and that history does not talk about the silent person. “History remembers those who stand up against great odds,” Bazian said.

Bazian detailed the plans that AMP, with its various chapters across the country, has to educate the masses. Potential endeavors include education projects for colleges that involve sending informational material, plans to have a study abroad program in Palestine, and podcasts. AMP’s website already features Fact Sheets discussing topics, such as the occupation and settlements, necessary for at least a basic understanding of the issue at hand.

Bazian also volunteered his organization to come to any mosque or other venue to talk about the Palestinian issue and AMP’s cause.

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For those of us going by the moon sighting to signify the start of Ramadan, check out www.MoonSighting.com and www.CrescentWatch.org for moon sigthing reports tonight.

Also, Zaytuna and the South Bay Islamic Association will keep their sites updated with moon sighting information.

The last two blog posts were about specific sessions that I went to but instead of giving reviews of all the individual sessions I attended, I’d like to give my thoughts about ISNA 2007 in general.

Alhamdullilah, I thought it went pretty well.

A theme that I found while spending most of my time in Meet the Author sessions is that Muslims need to step up and be part of the intellectual spectrum present in the U.S. and in the world. It’s evident that Muslims have lost their place among the intellectual elite, not to say that there isn’t work being done. For instance, Zaytuna has done quite a bit in this realm.

In his Meet the Author session for his book, A Muslim in Victorian America: The Story of Alexander Russell Webb, Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah said that he wrote the book for us and that his book is merely the ‘tip of the iceberg,’ indicating that further research can be conducted on Alexander Russell Webb, someone who seemed to be around many major historical events in the U.S. in his time period.

Ebrahim Moosa discussed his book Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination in which he argues that Ghazali “provides a sorely needed model for a cosmopolitan intellectural renewal among Muslims.”

Even in the session for Lost History, author Michael Morgan admitted that his sources were limited because he doesn’t know Arabic, Urdu, and other languages needed to gather material from primary sources firsthand.

I came away from ISNA really feeling the need to do improve myself and just try to learn because there is so much out there that Muslims need to educate themselves about in order to begin the process of contributing to the “intellectual renewal” as Moosa calls it.

In the end, I learned a lot, had a really good time, and met some interesting people. Perhaps I will attend next year as well.

Check out The New York Times about ISNA: Abandon Stereotypes, Muslims in America Say

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) is holding their annual convention at the Douglas E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL this weekend beginning August 31 with the theme of Upholding Faith, Serving Humanity. I’ll be there Insh’Allah and thought I’d highlight a couple of lectures that seem on point and interesting:

At 10:45am on Saturday, there is a lecture entitled Not in the Name of Islam-Addressing the Root Causes of Terrorism. Among the speakers are Dr. Hatem Bazian, professor at UC Berkeley and Robert Pape, author of Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, a very good book in which he discusses the origins of suicide terrorism (it didn’t originate from the Muslims) and the demographics of these terrorists since its inception.

At 9am on Sunday, author Michael Hamilton Morgan talks about his book in one of the convention’s many Meet the Author series. His book, Lost History: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers, and Artists delves into the contributions Muslims have made to society that have been forgotten and looked over. I’m about half way through this book and have learned quite a bit (full review to come soon). In a previous post, I wrote about an article in Salon.com that interviewed a Turkish physicist, Taner Edis who just came out with a book entitled An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam, so it is good to know that Morgan has written a book that can be an answer to Edis’s book (which I’ll still check out though and let you all know how it is).

Check out ISNA’s full program here.