Author: Eamon O'Connor

Daily Links: “Which Reminds Me” Edition

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Hear Kathryn Joyce, The Revealer’s former managing editor, talk about personhood bills, the Quiverfull movement, and the patriarchy movement here, on Tulsa public radio.

Nicole Neroulias writes at The Scoop that despite common reporting, same sex marriage is about a lot more than religion.

Yesterday the USCCB spelled out exactly why they are opposed to the Obama administration’s provision of birth control to all insured women without a copay.  The Church would strongly prefer to tell employers and employees, at least the ones that answer to Catholic leadership, how to manage their reproductive rights.  If the issue were just money (no Catholic money used to “subsidize” contraceptives), the compromise that Obama and Sebelius struck with insurance companies–that companies will provide contraception to individuals directly, without implicating the employer–would satisfy the USCCB.  It doesn’t.  Which reminds me, will Kathleen Sebelius still give the graduation speech at Georgetown University?

The Economist follows up on a May 6th New York Times feature about “The Life of Jesus Christ,” a play performed by the inmates of Angola prison in Louisiana, with an article of its own.  The New York Times used the title, “In Prison, Play With Trial at Its Heart Resonates,” The Economist, “Enacting forgiveness and redemption.”  Both remind me of the brilliant piece by Liliana Segura at Colorlines last year, “Dispatch From Angola: Faith-Based Slavery in a Louisiana Prison.” Continue Reading →

“Traditional” and Reformist Practices: Advanced Islamic Education in Northern Nigeria

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This post is the third in a series on Muslim schooling in Northern Nigeria. The first post gave an overview of the series, and the second discussed Qur’anic schools.

by Alex Thurston

In Nigeria, advanced Islamic education–the step following one’s basic instruction in the Qur’an–takes various forms. Here, I’ll examine the traditional settings for advanced Islamic education. The term “traditional” is a problematic one, as “traditions” are sometimes much more recent – and more consciously invented – than outsiders might assume. But the term has some use for describing systems that have evolved over time and were not directly created by colonial or postcolonial governments or by postcolonial reformist movements. “Advanced Islamic education,” meanwhile, refers here to training beyond the memorization of the Qur’an and instruction in the basic ritual requirements of Islam.

This kind of training has occurred for centuries, and still occurs, in the homes and schools of individual teachers. Many Northern Muslims begin (as do their counterparts elsewhere in West Africa) by studying the Qur’an and basic religious instruction with their fathers or with other family members, but advanced training usually necessitates outside mentors. Religious seekers most often proceed from the Qur’an to introductory texts of Maliki fiqh (jurisprudence). The Maliki School, one of four main Sunni schools of legal thought, is the most widespread in North and West Africa. Introductory Maliki texts (some of which are available in Arabic and in translation here) treat similar issues, ranging from the requirements of prayer to the rules of inheritance. The curriculum proceeds not thematically, but in levels of complexity; each text deals with the same issues in greater depth, meaning that the student who advances to the level of mastering the Risala (Epistle) of Ibn Abi Zaid al Qayrawani or the Mukhtasar (Compendium) of Khalil ibn Ishaq has a deep grasp of fiqh. Sheikhs often teach by parsing Arabic texts line by line in local languages until students have mastered each lesson; even at this stage, memorization can play a large role in learning. Continue Reading →

“But Marriage is No Sacrament.”

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From Gary Wills’ new article at New York Review of Books:

The early church had no specific rite for marriage. This was left up to the secular authorities of the Roman Empire, since marriage is a legal concern for the legitimacy of heirs. When the Empire became Christian under Constantine, Christian emperors continued the imperial control of marriage, as the Code of Justinian makes clear. When the Empire faltered in the West, church courts took up the role of legal adjudicator of valid marriages. But there was still no special religious meaning to the institution. As the best scholar of sacramental history, Joseph Martos, puts it: “Before the eleventh century there was no such thing as a Christian wedding ceremony in the Latin church, and throughout the Middle Ages there was no single church ritual for solemnizing marriage between Christians.”

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Manufacturing Visions:A Review of “The Virgin, the Copts and Me”

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By Abhimanyu Das

Namir Abdel Messeeh’s highly entertaining documentary The Virgin, the Copts and Me is a curious beast, a bit like one of those clever New Yorker articles that start off making you think it’ll be about Batman but end up being about the tax obligations of the 1%. Only, in this case, it’s not entirely clear whether the thematic sleight-of-hand was artistic choice or just lucky accident. Either way, this narrative slipperiness is both what’s interesting and troublesome about this frustrating picture, easy to like but difficult to recommend.

The saga begins with the French-Egyptian filmmaker (the family emigrated to France in 1973), sitting down with his family to watch a fuzzy videotape of an alleged sighting of the Virgin Mary. Further discussion reveals that this is one of a spate of such sightings, experienced mostly by the oft-persecuted Christian Coptic community in Egypt. Interestingly, a few Muslims had claimed to experience these holy visions as well. This curious cultural hook is all Messeeh – a secular skeptic – needs to decide on making a documentary about the phenomenon.

The film’s tendency toward distracting self-referentialism is already front-and-center. Messeeh spends a chunk of time ‘documenting’ his attempts to find a financier and win his family over to the project’s cause. All this is done with great comic flair. We get an early introduction to the most memorable character in the film – his domineering mother Siham who continually expresses doubts about her son’s ability to pull this off. Unfortunately, much of this feels staged. It seems unlikely that Messeeh happened to have an HD camera running at a family gathering during which he is hit by a perfectly blocked creative epiphany. The film is full of what look to be staged scenes, contrived narrative setups and pre-arranged dialogue, raising the question (unintentionally, in my view) of whether this is a documentary at all. Messeeh is in every scene, an unapologetic puppet-master. At every turn, the developments feel arranged as opposed to observed. Continue Reading →

Islam’s Mighty Wind

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From Peter Brown’s review of the Met’s “Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition (7th-9th Century),” at The New York Review of Books:

The exhibition takes us to the heart of this great detonation. It embraces the last century of the pre-Islamic Middle East and the first two centuries of Islam. To our surprise, we do not find ourselves in a world swept by a mighty wind. Instead, we enter a series of quiet rooms where time seems to stand still. Like a perfect late fall day, only the occasional rustle of a falling leaf startles us into realizing that the seasons are about to change. The few clear signs that Islam had, indeed, become politically dominant in the Middle East by the end of the seventh century strike us with almost ominous intensity. For there are so few of them.

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Laurel Snyder’s Jewish Dreams of Trees

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Amy Levin: Jewish parents today have their pick of ethically themed children’s books with just-enough-but-not-too-much religion. But there’s something refreshingly unique about Laurel Snyder’s new book, Good Night, Laila Tov. Snyder’s tale follows two children on an outdoor family vacation, replete with camping on the beach, walking in fields full of berries, and the catching shelter deep woods. Illustrated with lush greens and warm hues, Good Night, Laila Tov makes you want to take a nap on a rainbow after you’ve saved a coral reef from extinction. In other words, it’s the perfect blend of accessible environmentalism (the kids help their parents plant trees) and a rhythmic bedtime serenade. Continue Reading →

In the World weekly links, Pandora’s Box edition

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…most residents of Trivandrum had not been clamoring for the temple’s vaults to be searched. This had initially puzzeled me. In America…it’s inconceivable that a mysterious, locked door would be left alone. (Recall Geraldo Rivera breaking into Al Capone’s vault, in the nineteen-eighties). But in India the wealth stored in the vaults of Hindu temples is viewed in largely spiritual, not monetary, terms…

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…Men and women will carry back to their small villages and towns tales of the Grand Mosque’s splendor, which is the reward sought by every Muslim ruler who alters the mosque…

The New Yorker has been cleaning up in the religion-writing sweepstakes these past few weeks, particularly with two pieces that raise fascinating questions about wealth, expenditure and the preservation—or radical renovation—of sacred sites. If you missed them, it’s worth circling back. The pieces, read together, amount to a tale of two temples and the ripple effects of altering their physical and natural environments.  Continue Reading →

Northern Nigeria: Qur’anic Schooling and the Almajirai

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by Alex Thurston

This is the second post in a series on Muslim education in Northern Nigeria. Read the first post here.

Muslims believe the Qur’an to be the word of God as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, a revelation that corrects and completes earlier Messages to Prophets such as Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Muslims throughout the ages have considered study of the Qur’an one of the greatest forms of religious devotion. Memorizing portions of the Qur’an is important for performing the required daily prayers and is relevant to various domains of religious life. Muslim scholars I knew in Kano often quoted the Qur’an in the course of conversations about law, politics, and other topics. Memorizing the Qur’an, beyond its applications in daily life, is also seen to have transformative spiritual value. The Prophet’s wife A’isha, when asked once after his death what he had been like, replied, “His nature was as the Qur’an.” Her statement testifies to the idea that the Qur’an can be embodied, or internalized, in human beings, and manifested as virtue and piety.

The central position of the Qur’an in the spiritual life of many Muslim communities helps explain why Muslim parents in Northern Nigeria and elsewhere send their children to Qur’anic schools. In the archetypal Qur’anic school, children under the supervision of a scholar and his older students first learn the Arabic alphabet, and then proceed to learn the Fatiha, the opening chapter of the Qur’an, before moving on to other chapters, often beginning with the short chapters at the end of the Qur’an (the Qur’an’s chapters are arranged roughly from longest to shortest). In Northern Nigeria as in some other West African Muslim communities, portions of the Qur’an are often written out on wooden slates; verses can be erased and replaced as students progress. The master and the older students check in with the students frequently to evaluate their progress and correct their mistakes, sometimes using corporal punishment as a deterrent for errors and perceived laziness. Depending on the school and the student, students may complete portions of varying lengths before they graduate. Continue Reading →

Rolling the Dice: The Orthodox Church’s “Bet” on Putin

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by Irina Papkova

The recent Russian elections have highlighted the complicated relationship between the Orthodox Church with both state and society. In December, prominent clergy expressed their dissatisfaction with the evidently fraudulent nature of the parliamentary election, and even patriarch Kirill made statements that could be interpreted as calling upon Putin to reform the system. Yet, by early January the patriarch had clearly declared in support of Putin, as a man who “labored like a galley slave” for the good of the country. By the time the presidential elections came along, it seemed that the Church had finally resolved the vacillations visible in December by unequivocally “betting on Putin.”

Is this really the case? And if so, why did it occur?    The response to the first question is an equivocal “yes” – the Moscow Patriarchate, which is the administrative apparatus of the Russian Orthodox Church, has indeed expressed support for Putin 3.0. Whether or not the rest of the Church – the individual bishops, the lower clergy and the parishioners – have internalized the Patriarchate’s position is not clear, and, in the absence of systematic polling conducted among this subset of the Russian population, will likely remain so.  Based on anecdotal evidence we may surmise that the Church is divided in its attitude towards the new/old Russian president. It remains then to answer the second question – why, instead of following the example of the Islamic establishment in Egypt, has the Patriarchate decided to oppose an incipient “Russian spring?” Continue Reading →