a review of religion and media
By Saba Imtiaz A violent mob ransacked and burned the homes of more than a hundred Christian families in Lahore on Saturday in the wake of an alleged incident of blasphemy. Continue Reading →
By Saba Imtiaz A violent mob ransacked and burned the homes of more than a hundred Christian families in Lahore on Saturday in the wake of an alleged incident of blasphemy. Continue Reading →
By Saba Imtiaz In 1984, Pakistan’s military ruler, General Zia-ul-Haq, changed the country’s Constitution, making it a crime for Ahmadis to identify themselves as Muslims. Since then, more than 200 Ahmadis have been assassinated in Pakistan. Continue Reading →
By Natasja Sheriff The latest news on religious freedom, at home and abroad, provides the focus of this week’s In The World. Continue Reading →
by Austin Dacey The Indian Penal Code was drafted in 1837 by the Indian Law Commission…In their commentaries, the commissioners observed that India is “pregnant with dangers” because of a susceptibility to “religious excitement” peculiar to Muslims and Hindus. Continue Reading →
A Q&A with biographer Deborah Baker, author of The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism, released last month by Greywolf Press.
by Ashley Baxstrom
When biographer Deborah Baker came across a collection of letters at the New York Public Library, she opened a window into a particularly complex life. The letters told the story of Margaret Marcus, a Jewish woman raised in post-World War II upstate New York. Peggy, as she was known to her family, lived in search of community.
Marcus was a “social misfit” with a passion for National Geographic articles who found distressing the Israeli treatment of Arabs. She painted and wrote but couldn’t hold a job. Her parents sent her to a psychiatrist and, for a time, a mental institution. She exchanged letters with a noted Pakistani Muslim intellectual, Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudi, who would become a leader of the radical political Islamic group Jamaat al-Islamiyya. In 1961, under Mawdudi’s tutelage, Peggy, then 27, converted to Islam, changing her name to Maryam Marcus. Then she packed her possessions and moved to Lahore to live as a guest of her mentor.
Maryam’s writings on Islam have been widely read in conservative Muslim circles, and may have played a role in the rise of militant jihad over the past half-century. As narrated in The Convert, just as interesting, however, is Maryam’s personal life – particularly as we, and Baker, come to realize that she may not have been as honest, or perhaps even as sane, as we first thought. Continue Reading →
Kathryn Montalbano: This week, the Bangladeshi government has pushed to retain the state’s Islamic status, a move that requires an amendment to the constitution that originally declared Bangladesh secular and independent from Pakistan in 1971. Bangladesh’s path to independence could almost be credited to Indian Muslims, who sought reprieve from social and political marginalization in 1947 for their new state, Pakistan.
Newly independent Bangladesh was intended to serve as an egalitarian nation in which Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, and Hindus could peacefully coexist. Continue Reading →
Of course we don’t endorse primary candidates (Mitt Romney 5.0)! But if we could…
Reading, writing and the absolute horrors of being in divinity school.
Old evangelical wine in old evangelical wineskins?
The Archbishop of Canterbury designates a Pakistani martyr.
Alabama Rep on Shari’ah: I don’t know what it is but I’m gonna ban it.
To the victim goes the forgiveness.
And today’s must-read is Tim Nafziger’s fantastic romp through Mennonite “institutions and bureaucracy” at Young Anabaptist Radicals, parts one and two. (Read Tim’s columns at The Mennonite here.) Continue Reading →
“That’s Simply Not True.” Cheers to Anderson Cooper for breaking out of the “objectivity” mold that usually lets guys like Jerry Falwell present theology as fact. God / Spy Retired FBI Special Continue Reading →