MetaFilter posts tagged with Muslim

Worth scrolling down for the owl

fearfulsymmetry — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 06:46:52 -0800

Racial Misprofiling When "Arab" stock photos go terribly wrong (SLTumblr)

Not Talking About Pakistan

the man of twists and turns — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 11:22:40 -0800

Questions about Pakistan are now a fact of living here, no different from damp weather or calls from salespeople. Some I deflect, and others I frame around my own terms.

Part II

Many conversations about Pakistan would contain the expectation that perhaps I might have more to say on the failures of the country (these usually revolved around an excess of Islam and a general shortage of women’s rights) by virtue of being from there. But this would be coupled with the assumption that I could not be entirely objective about Pakistan given that I was, after all, from there. Unless I nodded and agreed like a good native informant on the failed state that was Pakistan, I was either out of touch with reality, or sentimental about the place for unknown reasons. The word “Pakistan,” itself would summon up a cluster of images with fire in them—assassinations, suicide bombs, and car burnings, and always the bearded men. But my map of everyday violence in San Francisco was populated by several actors of whom none had beards and none believed themselves to be violent, but whose attacks invaded almost every space I occupied.

Part III

The trust that sustains the imaginary line around our classroom is difficult to build. Sometimes, we are angry with one another and confused about ourselves. The pain in the room is tangible when one person’s sense of threat clashes with another’s. I know there are times I’ve been irreverent towards things my students hold sacred, and I love them for the generosity with which they tolerate this. We talk about Pakistan, even when it gets difficult to reconcile one person’s Pakistan with another’s. And we talk about blasphemy, even when it means flooding the room with religious beliefs and their opposite and bracing ourselves for more hurt. We talk about how much we hate this place and we hurl our rage at each other and expect to be forgiven. Or, there are periods of calm in which we remember that we hate this place because we feel betrayed by it, and because somewhere underneath anger, there’s love.

by Dr. Taymiya R. Zaman, from Critical Muslim 04

"we are all actors trapped in the plot of history, playing roles most of us haven’t chosen."

the man of twists and turns — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 06:35:53 -0800

A Lost Map On The Tramway In Istanbul

In Turkey, there lives a mysterious minority known as the “secret Armenians.” They have been hiding in the open for nearly a century. Outwardly, they are Turks or Kurds, but the secret Armenians are actually descendants of the survivors of the 1915 Genocide, who stayed behind in Eastern Anatolia after forcibly converting to Islam. Some are now devout Muslims, others are Alevis –generally considered an offshoot of Shia Islam, even though that would be an inaccurate description by some accounts–, and a few secretly remain Christian, especially in the area of Sassoun, where still there are mountain villages with secret Armenian populations. Even though Armenian Gypsies wouldn’t strictly qualify as Secret Armenians, they share many traits with the latter, including reluctance or fear to reveal their identity even to fellow Armenians.

Secrets Revealed In Turkey Revive Armenian Identity Crypto-Armenians: Silent Survivors Of Genocide Turks and Armenians: The Cost of Reconstruction - "It takes many hands to reconcile two peoples so divided by history" The BBC ran an obituary for Hrant Dink. Earlier this year, three more men were sentenced in connection with his murder, and nineteen aqcuited, with no investigation into any larger conspiracy. Metafilter posts on the Armenian Genocide: 1, 2, 3, 4.

"I played so much tragedy and woe on stage that in the end, the woe is on me as well."

Fizz — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 07:04:39 -0800

When Satire Conquered Iran: [NYR Blog] Molla Nasreddin, an early twentieth-century Azerbaijani magazine that “attacked the hypocrisy of the Muslim clergy, the colonial policies of the US and the venal corruption of the local elite, while arguing repeatedly for Westernization, educational reform, and equal rights for women.” From a commenter on the NYR Blog:

1. The full version of the Slavs and Tatars edition of "Molla Nəsrəddin" can be accessed at the publisher's website [Note: PDF file, 19 MB]: http://www.slavsandtatars.com/MOLLA.pdf 2. While “Molla Nəsrəddin” had a broad readership all across the Middle East and Central Asia, most of the authors and artists who contributed their work were Azerbaijani writers and artists - Cəlil Məmmədquluzadə (the editor and author), Mirzə Ələkbər Sabir, Əzim Əzimzadə (cartoonist), Ömər Faiq Nemanzadə, Əbdürrəhim bəy Haqverdiyev, Məmməd Səid Ordubadi and others. Here is a short scene showing some of these figures at work and Mirzə Ələkbər Sabir reciting one of his poems: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk3_2TXszoE&feature=youtu.be&t=48m [Film: “O olmasın, bu olsun”, Baku, 1956]. ~ Farid Guliyev

For the first time in Olympic history all the participating teams will have female athletes

MuffinMan — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 06:30:57 -0800

The London Olympics has been billed as a notable step forward in gender equality. It is the first Olympics with female representation from all countries despite the many and several barriers to female sport participation that still exist in some countries (including developed ones). These Olympics have female boxers, female athletes from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Brunei and male medal bearers But despite Jacques Rogge's declaration in his opening ceremony speech, some are more equal than others. Australia and Japan are reviewing their athletes' travel arrangements after women were given second class tickets and there is a small, but growing campaign to see male synchronised swimming form part of the program (one of two sports, the other being rhythmic gymnastics, with no male competition). The challenge after the games will be maintaining the momentum for female sports once the cameras switch off, the media coverage moves on and the sponsors renew deals. The discrepancy is arguably most stark in earnings: precisely 2 of the top 100 highest earning sports stars are women - Maria Sharapova and Li Na. Previously, and previously and previously.

'consider the Geneva Conventions against protecting civilians in wartime “no longer relevant.”'

the man of twists and turns — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 13:51:01 -0800

Last year, Wired reported that 'The FBI is teaching its counterterrorism agents that “main stream” [sic] American Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers; that the Prophet Mohammed was a “cult leader”; and that the Islamic practice of giving charity is no more than a “funding mechanism for combat.”' (previously) The FBI pledged reform, but the materials appeared to be deeply embedded. After the President ordered a review, the FBI 'purged' the documents from training materials. Earlier this year Wired reported that 'U.S. Military Taught Officers: Use ‘Hiroshima’ Tactics for ‘Total War’ on Islam.' The course was shut down by order of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the existence and persistence of the course blamed on 'institutional failures.' Wired has been doing a bang-up job. Lots and lots more on their site - images, PDFs, and other articles.

To Profile or Not to Profile?

brundlefly — Tue, 29 May 2012 12:56:25 -0800

To Profile or Not to Profile? A Debate between Sam Harris and Bruce Schneier.

States Target Foreign Law

reenum — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:36:55 -0800

There are several groups trying to pass bills in different states to ban the application of foreign laws in a US court, especially Sharia law. These groups are almost all using model legislation drafted by anti-Muslim activist David Yerushalmi.

Bollywood's Soft Power

reenum — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:54:34 -0800

What might help defeat Muslim extremists in Pakistan for good? Bollywood!

Warning: May Contain Learning

Potomac Avenue — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:57:22 -0800

All-American Muslim is a reality show on TLC which takes a look at life in Dearborn, Michigan--home to the largest mosque in the United States--through the lens of five Muslim American families. The participants are depicted dealing with lives far more familiar than extreme. But some are unhappy with the very existence of the series. Citing pressure from far-right wing groups, the home improvement chain Lowe’s has pulled its advertising from the show. Online, boycotts of the store, and other methods of protest, are multiplying. Meanwhile the controversy has put the show, as well as the little known group that takes credit for the Lowes advertising pull (the Florida Family Association), on the national media map.

"I felt like I'd been catapulted from one end of the universe to the other"

Rhaomi — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 11:17:51 -0800

This weekend marks the time of the Hajj, a core pillar of Islam in which great tides of humanity venture to the ancient city of Mecca to honor God. Predating Mohammed's birth by centuries, the pilgrimage comprises several days of rites, from congregation like snow on Mount Arafat and the ritual stoning of Shaitan to the circling of the sacred Kaaba (the shrouded cubical monolith Muslims pray toward daily) and kissing the Black Stone (colored by the absorption of myriad sins, and believed by some to be a fallen meteorite). While the city has modernized to handle this largest of annual gatherings -- building highway-scale ramps, gaudy skyscrapers for the ultra-rich, and tent cities the size of Seattle -- it remains mysterious, as unbelievers are forbidden from entering its borders. Richard Francis Burton became famous for touring the city in disguise to write a rare travelogue, but contemporary viewers have a more immediate guide: Vice Magazine journalist Suroosh Alvi, who smuggled a minicam into the city to record The Mecca Diaries [alt], a 14-minute documentary of his own Hajj journey. Browse the manual to see what goes into a Hajj trip, or watch the YouTube livestream to see the Grand Mosque crowds in real time.

Irvine 11 Guilty Verdict

jabberjaw — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:38:59 -0800

In February of 2011, eleven students that attended UC Irvine and UC Riverside went to a fundraising speech featuring Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, at the UC Irvine campus. During Oren's speech, students would stand up, shout an objection to Oren's speech, and then would allow themselves to be escorted by security, essentially causing a "heckler's veto." They were arrested, charged, and today found guilty of disrupting Oren's speech. Some of the students were part of the campus's Muslim Students Union, which was suspended for a year due to the protest. Prior to trial, several members of the prosecuting team was discharged due to using privileged documents in preparing the case. During trial, both the D.A. and the defense cited First Amendment rights as the fundamental principle supporting each side. Reactions have been mixed. (Previously, Muslims in Orange County.) This is not the first time that the free speech rights of protesters has been put on trial.

Teaching 9/11

nooneyouknow — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 09:09:24 -0800

The Challenge of Teaching 9/11 "The events of September 11th are being discussed, taught, and commemorated in high school classrooms throughout the nation this week. And in many of those classrooms, the students are increasingly too young to have many actual memories of their own of that day’s events. I visited two high school classes in the San Francisco Bay Area to see how teachers are approaching the topic, what the students know and don’t know, and how they feel about the events surrounding that day."

‘Who’s Osama bin Laden?’: Teaching 9/11 to Muslim youth "In the ten years since Sept. 11, many Muslim Americans feel they’ve had to deal with rising discrimination. Those who remember 9/11 at least understand how this started. But there’s a new generation of Muslim Americans who don’t. They were too young in 2001, or they weren’t yet born. But these children aren’t too young to perceive discrimination. At least one local Islamic school is still working through how, exactly, to teach its young students about 9/11."

“This Sharia Law business is just crap…I’m tired of dealing with the crazies!"

spitbull — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 06:52:11 -0800

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey defends his appointment of Sohail Mohammed to the state bench. Sohail Mohammed is New Jersey's first Indian-born Superior Court Judge. "After Christie nominated Mohammed in January for the judgeship, the former federal prosecutor found himself accused of cozying up to Islamic radicals. Mohammed’s confirmation hearing before the state Senate included two hours of grilling, including inquires about Sharia, jihad and Hamas." New Jersey has one of the highest concentrations of Indian Americans in the US. More from Mediaite.

Full veil banned for Muslim women in France.

dubold — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 02:51:23 -0800

A law has come into force in France which makes it an offence for a Muslim woman to conceal her face behind a veil when in public. In September, the French Senate approved a bill that would ban the wearing of the niquab or burkha in public. The bill was to come into effect in 6 months if not overturned by constitutional judges or the European Court of Human Rights. This bill would not ban the wearing of a hijab, or headscarf, but would apply to "any woman - French or foreign - walking on the street or in a park in France and wearing a face-concealing veil". The penalty for any woman wearing the veil will be a fine of 150 euros. She could also be required to attend citizenship classes. However, the penalty for anyone making a woman wear the veil will be 30,000 euros and up to two years in jail. The bill was not overturned by the French courts or the EU's Court of Human rights, and goes into effect today. The BBC's Gavin Hewitt writes: "For from today the wearing of full-face veils in France are banned. Overnight the woman from the suburb has become a dissenter. She says no law should tell her what she can't wear. She also believes that her faith trumps French law, and therein lies her problem in an avowedly secular French Republic. " Last April, a woman who was wearing a full-face veil while driving was fined. Police said that the veil restricted her vision and could have caused an accident. The woman, who is 31 and a French citizen, said her field of view was unobstructed. Critics of the bill say that Sarkozy is using a controversial situation to draw attention from his unpopular presidency and win easy votes. They say that only about 2,000 women in France wear a full-face covering. Supporters of the bill say that it is an issue of women's rights, and that wearing the veil creates an inferior status that is not compatible with the French values of equality. Previously on Metafilter: Les Niqabitches "stroll around Paris fully veiled from the waist up, but in hotpants and high heels waist-down, to protest the burqa ban in France." France denies citizenship to a Moroccan man whose wife wears the veil.

Yasir Qadhi, American Muslims, and Jihad

reductiondesign — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 11:04:37 -0800

“I want to be very frank here,” Qadhi said, his voice tight with exasperation. “Do you really, really think that blowing up a plane is Islamic? I mean, ask yourself this.” The New York Times' Andrea Elliott explores the fine line between Salafiya and contemporary American values. Multimedia slideshow. [auto-playing video] Qadhi, previously.

I just mailed you a bunch of Anthrax... CDs. I heard you were a big fan.

NoraReed — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 22:58:20 -0800

Some new advice dog style memes: Ordinary Muslim guy, business cat. Advice dog memes previously.

Orange Party racists/tea party members protest and hurl epithets at a local muslim organization's relief dinner to raise money for women's shelters and raise aid for homelessness and hunger in the US

wooh — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 20:24:37 -0800

Orange County tea party members protest and hurl epithets at a local muslim organization's relief dinner to raise money for women's shelters and raise aid for homelessness and hunger in the US Here is the video. Watch as members of congress show their support for this extreme show of xenophobia and racism.

Modern Art Iraq Archive

sciurus — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 11:45:59 -0800

The Modern Art Iraq Archive (MAIA) is a resource to trace, share, and enable community enrichment of the modern art heritage of Iraq. Explore the works by artist, browse through related textual materials, or add your own images or stories to the archive.

Truth No Defense against Danish Hate Speech Law

shivohum — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 21:20:19 -0800

A Danish court rules that truth is not a defense to its hate speech law and fines Member of Parliament Jesper Langballe $1,000 for commenting that "Of course Lars Hedegaard [President of the Danish Free Press Society] should not have said that there are Muslim fathers who rape their daughters when the truth appears to be that they make do with killing their daughters (the so-called honour killings) and leave it to their uncles to rape them." Hedegaard had tried to explain that he was speaking in the context of an epidemic of honor violence within Muslim families when he said "They rape their own children"; he faces his own set of charges. (via Volokh Conspiracy) Section 266b of the Danish penal code reads "Whoever publicly or with the intent of public dissemination issues a pronouncement or other communication by which a group of persons are threatened, insulted or denigrated due to their race, skin colour, national or ethnic origin, religion or sexual orientation is liable to a fine or incarceration for up to two years."

Th Kingdom in the Closet

reenum — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 17:12:53 -0800

Even though it's punishable by death, homosexuality thrives in Saudi Arabia.

Officials Worry About Some Latino Converts To Islam

reenum — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 08:50:30 -0800

"Latino converts to radical Islam have been connected to terrorism cases in this country with increasing frequency — and officials are trying to understand why."

The Changing of the Guards: Naheed Nenshi

skwt — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 17:33:35 -0800

In stark contrast to the recent results of the Torontontian mayoral results, last week, Calgary, the third-largest "municipality" in Canada, elected the country's first Muslim mayor, Naheed Nenshi. Whereas Toronto's new "arch-conservative" Rob Ford displaces the extremely liberal, arts-friendly David Miller, whose 2003-2010 incumbency saw the rise of the idea of "Tor ont opia"/"uTOpia," a vision of the city as an environmentally-friendly, eminently-cyclable site of homegrown arts and culture accessible to all, in Calgary, Nenshi displaces Dave Bronconnier, who, while a liberal, was 35th in a long line of white men to hold the position, and as such, did little to challenge "the popular image of Calgary as a white-bread oil town with a tendency toward big hats during Stampede Week." An Ismaili Muslim, Naheed Nenshi's

parents emigrated to Canada from Tanzania when his mother, Nury Nenshi, was pregnant with Naheed. They settled in Toronto before moving to Calgary, where Naheed grew up. He attended Harvard University, and at the tender age of 22 was hired by McKinsey and Company, one of the world's top consulting firms. After about eight years at the company, he returned to Calgary to be with his ailing father. He has since worked for the United Nations, started his own business, and became a professor at Mount Royal University. He was a frequent commentator and columnist with a keen eye on civic affairs; this spring, he decided to throw his hat in. (Source.)

Most of this information is summed up in his 2-minute bio video. He’s the "lead author" of Building Up: Making Canada’s Cities Engines of Growth and Magnets of Development and his policies are based in part on Toronto darling urban theorist Jane Jacobs. With only a 6-week campaign and a grassroots campaign driven by volunteers known as the "Purple Army", he "went from 8 percent popular support to more than 40 percent [...] in a matter of four weeks" for a "surprise victory". International media outlets from Africa, In dia and the United States have picked up the story. However, some are saying the real story is not his ethnicity or religion, but rather his use of social media technology: "E-mocracy reigns as Twitter elects new Calgary mayor"; "Naheed Nenshi: Politician 2.0" (interesting analysis); "Naheed Nenshi and Social Media"; "[Nenshi has] taken a page out of U.S. President Barack Obama's campaign book by reaching out to young voters through Twitter and Facebook." "In 2009, [Calgary] earned [Macleans Magazine's] designation as Canada’s smartest city, and boasts the highest level of Internet usage in the country." His Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and iPhone app. Speaking of Obama, who's that on the t-shirts of both of his sister's kids in the 5-minute YouTube video "Naheed Nenshi: A Family Journey"? The comparison has been made ("He's the Obama of Calgary"), but some don't like it.

The Force of Virtue

Artw — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 11:48:21 -0800

The 99 (previously), the Islamic-inspired superheroes which have met both praise and somewhat batshit controversy, are crossing over with the DC Universe.

Canada's First Muslim Mayor

Alex404 — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 02:30:39 -0800

Calgary elects Canada's first Muslim mayor. Ostensibly he won by mobilzing the youth vote, and his platform includes limiting urban sprawl, and expanding transit and green space. Christopher Hume enviously compares the situation to Toronto's.