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Is the meaning of hajj being lost?

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Syed Neaz Ahmad - Nov. 22 (Opinion) - Hajj is meant to bring Muslims together in brotherhood. But in 2009, more than ever, security is getting in the way "The hajj is one of the great cultural and spiritual events on earth, but one which most of us know far less about than we do about things that happen in outer space and under the sea", says Taran Davies co-producer of Journey to Mecca a new Imax film about the hajj. The hajj, of course, is nothing new. Muslims have been performing this once in a lifetime act of worship for 1430 years. The institution is as old as the Ka?bah itself which according to traditions was established some 4000 years ago in the barren lands of central Arabia. The ceremony is commemorative of Prophet Abraham?s acts of devotion. However, over the centuries perceptions and expectations have changed. This change presents new challenges every year. What with the threat of security, accidents, fire and terrorists, the House of Saud finds every hajj season a bit unnerving and it is not surprising that – ...

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Temple Mount, also known as Noble Sanctuary, is a Jerusalem flash point

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Howard Schneider - Nov. 17 (Special Report) - It is one of the most watched pieces of real estate in the world, 35 acres where an under-the-breath prayer or a whiff of a rumor can rouse warnings of war.

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Renouncing Islamism: To the brink and back again

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Nov. 16 (Opinion) - In the mosques across the city, I hear a fringe of young men talk dreamily of flocking to Afghanistan to "resist". Yet this whisper never has an immigrant accent. It shares my pronunciations, my cultural references, and my national anthem. Beneath the beards and the burqas, there is an English voice.

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The Missing Link From Killeen to Kabul

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Frank Rich - Nov. 15 (Opinion) - THE dead at Fort Hood had not even been laid to rest when their massacre became yet another political battle cry for the self-proclaimed patriots of the American right. Their verdict was unambiguous: Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an American-born psychiatrist of Palestinian parentage who sent e-mail to a radical imam, was a terrorist.

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Why Hillary Clinton babies Indonesia and bullies Pakistan

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Christian Science Monitor - By John Hughes - Nov. 14 (Opinion) - When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Indonesia earlier this year, she said: "If you want to know whether Islam, democracy, modernity, and women's rights can coexist, go to Indonesia." When she visited Pakistan recently, she was polite but much more critical in her words, basically accusing some government officials of sheltering Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists.

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Does Obama need to speak more harshly about Islam?

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Slate - By Jacob Weisberg - Nov. 14 (Opinion) - Obama's olive-branch strategy may make America safer over the long term. In the short term, there's no empirical evidence that it has done so.

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Priest Attack in Florida Worries Muslim Leaders | Not in Our Town

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Not In Our Town - By Suefish - Nov. 13 (News Report) - Muslim leaders in Tampa, Fla., are concerned they might be seeing a backlash from last week’s attacks at Fort Hood. On Nov. 9, a Marine reservist attacked a Greek Orthodox priest who was visiting Tampa from Crete because he thought the clergyman was a Muslim “terrorist.” According to the police report, the priest followed the reservist into a parking garage to ask for directions. The reservist hit the priest with a tire iron, and called 911 to report a “terrorist” had attacked him after shouting “Allahu Akhbar,” "God is great" in Arabic. The priest does not speak Arabic. The reservist’s attorney countered that the priest had followed his client into the garage to sexually assault him. Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy disputed that, telling reporters that Bruce did not mention a sexual attack when he called 911, and later changed his story several times.

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The Rush to Therapy

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By David Brooks - Nov. 10 (Opinion) - The well-intentioned public commentary that followed Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s rampage at Fort Hood shrouded the role militant Islam played in his actions.

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'Going Muslim'

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Forbes - By Tunku Varadarajan - Nov. 09 (Opinion) - "Going postal" is a piquant American phrase that describes the phenomenon of violent rage in which a worker--archetypically a postal worker--"snaps" and guns down his colleagues. As the enormity of the actions of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan sinks in, we

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Fort Hood gunman shouted 'Allahu Akbar' as he opened fire

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Ewen MacAskill - Nov. 06 (News Report) - A US army psychiatrist about to be deployed to Afghanistan allegedly shouted "Allahu Akbar", or "God is greatest", as he opened fire at a military base in Texas, killing 13 people and wounding 28. The gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, shouted the Arabic phrase just before he began his shooting spree at Fort Hood military installation yesterday, according to the base commander, Lieutenant General Robert Cone.

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Suspect Nidal Malik Hasan in stable condition after Fort Hood killings

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

CNN - Nov. 06 (News Report) - The suspect in Thursday's deadly shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, is in stable condition, the hospital commander at the base said Friday. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychiatrist practicing at Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood, was shot multiple times and was taken into custody, ending the shooting rampage Thursday afternoon, Fort Hood officials said.

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Protesters, Police Clash In Tehran On Anniversary Of U.S. Embassy Takeover

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Radio Free Europe - By Golnaz Esfandiari - Nov. 04 (News Report) - As Iran held anti-U.S. rallies to mark the 30th anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, security forces clashed in the capital with opposition supporters who renewed their protest against the reelection of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

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Teran again sees protests and violence

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

GlobalPost - By Iason Athanasiadis - Nov. 04 (News Report) - Iran’s opposition movement showed it may have staying power Wednesday as thousands of opposition protesters took to the streets alongside a regime-backed demonstration marking the 30th anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

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Islamic countries push a global 'blasphemy' law

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - Oct. 28 (Editorial) - Remember the Danish "Muhammad cartoons" that set off riots by offended Muslims more than three years ago? The debate pitted freedom of press and speech against notions of freedom from insult of one's religion. It rages still – but now in a forum with international legal implications.

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Which Way for Hamas?

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Nicolas Pelham, Max Rodenbeck - Oct. 22 (Opinion) - Amid the wreckage of Gaza, Hamas's officials struggle to sound upbeat. The burly interior minister, Fathi Hamad, whose predecessor was killed by an Israeli bomb, defiantly shuns security precautions at his makeshift office in Gaza City's main police station. "Claims that we are trying to establish an Islamic state are false," says the minister, who says his preference would be pursuing a degree in media studies. "Hamas is not the Taliban. It is not al-Qaeda. It is an enlightened, moderate Islamic movement."

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Terrorist suspect linked to ‘big bang’ facility

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Financial Times - By Ben Hall - Oct. 10 (News Report) - One of two men arrested in France on suspicion of having links with an Islamist terrorist group was working as a researcher at the Cern “big bang” laboratory on the French-Swiss border, the nuclear research body said

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Al Qaeda's on its way out

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

GlobalPost - By C.M. Sennott - Sep. 30 (Opinion) - The image of Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old Afghan-born bus driver from Denver and now a terror suspect, embodies the complex truths of where we are right now in the struggle against terrorism.

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The Meaning of Freedom

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - Sep. 29 (Editorial) - The question is far from academic, as illustrated poignantly by the case of brothers Bahtiyar Mahnut and Arkin Mahmud. As reported by The Post's Del Quentin Wilber, the brothers are Uighurs, Chinese Muslims who face oppression, intimidation and often

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Last gasp for global Islam

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Prospect - By Robin Yassin-Kassab - Sep. 14 (Review) - Surveying the Muslim world’s social, economic and moral failures, and the terror espoused by certain Islamist groups, Allawi suggests the problem might not be too much Islam, but too little. Islam is a civilisational framework that rests on the tripod of private ritual, public ethics and individual spiritual striving—and the legs of the tripod must balance each other. But, Allawi argues, the current Islamic “revival” is operating only in the field of religiosity: focusing on naked symbols and rules, proclaiming the superiority of Islam while adopting indiscriminately the technology, economics and cultural products of the west. It emphasises Sharia as a set of fixed punishments rather than as a framework of legislative principles. For the revivalists, the public sphere is too often reduced to the state—and their political project is simply to seize control of repressive state apparatuses.

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Interview: Jaswant Singh

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Aljazeera - Sep. 02 (Interview) - "Theocentricism", where society is centred on Islam - this is in line whether Pakistan, India or Bangladesh, where faith is of paramount importance. Pakistan is not theocratic in the sense it is not the Mullah that is governing Pakistan ... but Pakistan society is governed by Islam.

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Tumult in Iran Raises Questions About Negotiating Over Nuclear Efforts

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - Aug. 27 (Editorial) - THE PROTESTERS have been routed from the streets of Tehran, but the political turmoil in Iran continues unabated behind the scenes. The authority of both the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is being overtly challenged by religious and secular elites. Given the internal tumult and uncertainty, it looks increasingly doubtful that the regime will respond meaningfully to the Obama administration's deadline of late September to discuss curtailing its nuclear program or risk what Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has called "crippling sanctions."

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How the Grinch Stole Ramadan

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Jamal Dajani - Aug. 21 (Opinion) - The holy month of Ramadan will begin this Saturday in most Muslim countries, a tradition determined by the sighting of the new moon, the exact date of which often divides rival Islamic countries and sects. Muslims celebrate Ramadan by refraining from

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China’s wild west

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Le Monde Diplomatique - By Martine Bulard - Aug. 16 (Special Report) - With July's violence in Urumqi following last year's riots in Tibet, is China under threat in its frontier provinces? Xinjiang's minorities, the Muslim Uyghurs in particular, face discrimination. Though their dislocation is more social and cultural than religious, without real autonomy Islamic fundamentalism is set to growMy journey to China's westernmost province began this May in the backroom of an ordinary brasserie in one of Paris's eastern suburbs. The Uyghur man I had come to see was (...) - 2009/08 / Open access, 2009/08 - China

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Row over Afghan wife-starving law

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - By Sarah Rainsford - Aug. 16 (News Report) - An Afghan bill allowing a husband to starve his wife if she refuses to have sex becomes law, sparking criticism.

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Afghanistan passes 'barbaric' law diminishing women's rights

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Jon Boone - Aug. 14 (News Report) - Women wearing the burka in Baharak town, Afghanistan. Photograph: Tim Wimborne/Reuters Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands, despite

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