Enemies Within: AP reporters versus the state
Jared Malsin reviews Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman’s book Enemies Within: Inside the NYPD’s Secret Spying Unit and bin Laden’s Final Plot Against America Continue Reading →
Tag: muslims
Muslim Attitudes
Comment by NYU assistant professor/faculty fellow Jeremy Walton on yesterday’s New York Times article, “Koran burning in NATO Error Incites Afghans,” (February 21, 1:39 pm):
These comments are, on the whole, atrocious and disturbing, for two reasons. First, there seems to be absolutely no interest or concern on the part of most NYTimes readers to comprehend Muslim attitudes toward the Qur’an. As a professor of Islamic Studies, I begin every class on the Qur’an by emphasizing that it should not be understood as a mere ‘book’–it is both more and less. Less because Muslims don’t read the Qur’an cover-to-cover like a novel; more because it is, along with the exemplary conduct of the Prophet Muhammad, the authoritative source of wisdom about the universe and humanity’s place within it for Muslims. Qur’anic passages suffuse Muslim life and worship. The performance of salat, the five daily prayers, is an embodiment of the Qur’an, and Qur’anic verses saturate daily speech and life in most Muslim contexts. Muslims who cannot fully comprehend the linguistic meaning of the text due to illiteracy in Arabic respect the Qur’an no less because of this fact. Is it any surprise that some devout Afghani Muslims take umbrage to the disrespectful actions of their military occupiers? Of course, dismissal of religious attitudes is a secular privilege that we all share, but this brings me to my second objection to the bulk of the comments here: Even if you choose to denigrate the actions of some Afghani Muslims, do not make the vicious mistake of all prejudice and bigotry, the substitution of the actions of a few (the protesters) for the whole.
Keeping Up with the Kanasanis
Ashley Baxstrom: Step aside, Kardashian family. “Jersey Shore”? So last season. If you totally want to be on the cutting-edge of today’s reality tv-world, you need to really venture into the fascinating unknown. Pageant moms for the under-age? Been there. Swamp people? Done that. So what’s the most out-there, the scariest, and most interesting social group in America today?
Muslims! Thanks, TLC. Continue Reading →
Terry Jones Takes Dearborn
Yesterday Terry Jones held another rally in Dearborn, Michigan, outside the Arab International Festival, to raise awareness for the encroachment of Islam in America. Abby Ohlheiser was there.
This was the plan: Terry Jones would speak at City Hall then march with his supporters up to the annual Arab International Festival in Dearborn, MI, a city with one of the largest Arab populations in the country. The walk is 13 blocks. He got half a block before police put him in a car. Six protesters from the affirmative action group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) were arrested. The rest stood in his path, yelling, getting as close as they could without touching. Jones wore a bullet proof vest under his white t-shirt, as did his friend and fellow speaker pastor Wayne Sapp.
Last time Jones was in Dearborn, he was pelted with shoes and water bottles, something repeatedly referenced today. But he keeps coming back. Regardless of the angle, there’s something going on here, some importance perceived by, at least, Jones, that his message be heard in this place at this time. He’s going to return again, he said, even after the mob. And likewise, his presence makes Dearborn a site for others–his detractors, his supporters with side causes of their own–to get attention for their messages.
Before the rally began, Jones asked his supporters to join him for a pep talk. “If you’re taking a stand with us we’d like you up to the fence real quick,” he said. Jones told the small gathered crowd, maybe 30 people, about the size of the counter protest (and the media presence, who were pushed against the edge of the press pen trying to hear), “What’s very important is that we will not in any way retaliate…in every sense they will see god’s love and patience.” Continue Reading →
Muslims Get Their Own Prisons
John Dillingham at The Scoop writes about a recent NPR report that exposes secretive Communications Management Units — prisons in all but name — where two-thirds of the inmates are Muslim. Continue Reading →
Sinful Tavis Smiley
Letters to Michael Getler, Ombudsman for PBS, after show host Tavis Smiley said that Christians were as responsible for a comparable number of terrorist attacks in the US as Muslims:
“I am ashamed that PBS would sponsor the uninformed or outright lying as was perpetrated by Tavis Smiley on his recent program. In stating that Christians murder more people that fundamentalist Islamists, and that the do so on a daily basis, and attributing post office and Columbine massacres to Christianity is . . . Sinful.” — Mike Ship, San Antonio, TX Continue Reading →
The Only Good Muslims
11 January 2006 Christian apocalypticist and host of the recently cancelled Trinity Broadcast Network show, “International Intelligence Briefing,” Hal Lindsey takes his case to Fox’s “Hannity & Colmes,” defending himself against TBN’s publicized concerns Continue Reading →