-
Surveying Muslims & Surveys About Muslims
Last week, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public life published the results of a survey titled “The World’s Muslims,” exploring the views of 38,000 Muslims from 39 countries across Europe, Asia, and Africa who were interviewed, in person, in …
-
Boston Marathon Catch 22: Reactions, Apologia and Narrating the Blame
On Monday April 15th, two blasts sent ripples of fear, panic and confusion across the faces and minds of thousands of people as the first group of runners approached the finish line at the Boston Marathon, one of the world’s …
-
Battlefield Mosque: Patriotism, Space and Faith in American Mosques
Last week, in the first part of our series on Muslim-American religious spaces, we briefly explored the history and function of mosques. As the piece discussed, mosques were not just places of ritual worship but functional worship; they were the …
-
The Mosque: History, Representation and Role
The sacred architecture of Islam par excellence is the mosque which is itself but the ‘recreation’ and ‘recapitulation’ of the harmony, order, and peace of nature which God chose as the Muslims enduring house of worship. In praying in a …
-
Re-Engaging with the Other “Liberation Theology”
Complete with your standard extreme close-up of a hijab-clad woman confusingly looking at the voyeuristic lens before her, the Guardian’s “Comment is Free” section recently featured a piece by writer Nadiya Takolia, entitled: “The Hijab has Liberated Me From …
-
Asma al-Assad as a hope for peace because she wears Louis Vuitton? Pah
It seems as though the obvious, apparently, needs to be repeated again. Bear with me, it’s painstaking for me too.
When Vogue infamously featured Asma al-Assad during the early period of the Syrian uprising in 2011, most level-headed folks were …
-
First Lady Dictators Are Not Sexy Headlines
Exactly a year ago on March 15th, the official day of Syrian uprising, I wrote about the Vogue feature on Syrian first-lady Asma al-Assad, which glamorized the haute couture-clad co-dictator while painting a painful picture of a …
-
Foursquaring the Hajj
Recent images of a newly rebranded cosmopolitan Mecca show Islam’s holiest site lit by skyscrapers towering over the Ka’aba, the shrine built by the Patriach Abraham and his son Ishmael. The Ka’aba is a modest but overpowering, cubed brick building, …
-
The Kill Team and the Culture of Militarism
There is something deeply troubling about the lack of outrage shown when photos of those we’ve entrusted with great responsibility, certainly with much naivete and self-induced delusion, emerge as testament to their complete abuse of power and disregard for human
…