Saturday, April 10, 2010

'The Countryside and the City' from Islam Between East and West

I'm loving this book!
A country man has the opportunity to watch the starry skies, fields, flowers, rivers, plants, and animals. He is living in touch with nature and its elements. The rich folklore, the wedding customs, the folk songs, and dances offer a kind of cultural and aesthetic experience almost entirely unknown to a man of the city. In most cases, the urban man is living in the barracks of a big town, crammed with passive knowledge of the mass media and surrounded by ugly objects of mass production. Has not the sense of rhythm, possessed by all primitive peoples, almost died out with modern man? The opinion that an urban dweller has more opportunities for the artistic or aesthetic experience is one of the most grotesque mistakes of our day. As if the concerts, museums, and exhibitions frequented by a very small percentage of the city inhabitants could be a compensation for the everyday perhaps unconscious but very strong aesthetic excitement of the countryman who witnesses the wonderful sight of the sunrise or the awakening of life after winter! Most of the urbanites experience their strongest excitement in the naturalistic setting of a football or boxing match. Overall, a country man is alive and genuine; overall, an urban industrial worker is dead and mechanical.
-Islam Between East and West by 'Alija 'Ali Izetbegovic, pg. 57

Recording of Thursday night's event with Tariq Ramadan in NYC

http://www.tariqramadan.com/spip.php?article11094

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association Wants to Deport American Muslims

http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/bryan_fischer/0018023

Friday, April 9, 2010

"The Politics of the Veil" by Joan Scott




"Brilliant, crisp, and cogently argued. Joan W. Scott's novel and trenchant discursive analysis exposes the prejudices of the reductionist French versions of secularism and feminism regarding Islam and French Muslims from North African and Arab origins. The study is illuminating far beyond the French case, as former colonial and/or working subjects struggle for integration and recognition of their difference."
—Abdellah Hammoudi, Princeton University"

Carefully argued, insightful and humane, Joan Scott's The Politics of the Veil is far and away the best account of France's identity crisis that was signaled by the famous headscarf affair. The final chapter, on the symbolic meanings of the headscarf/veil, is the most original and brilliant piece of writing that I have read on this topic. This is an indispensable book, transcending the particularity of French obsessions and forcing the reader to think about wider political problems that concern us all."
—Talal Asad, author of "On Suicide Bombing"

Scott traces the history and politics of veil controversies in France and draws apart intertwined strands, starting with the legacy of racism from the colonial past. She persuasively argues for the negotiation of cultural and religious differences rather than their negation. This book will be required reading for all those concerned with the integration of Muslims into Western Christian societies."
—Beth Baron, author of Egypt as a Woman: Nationalism, Gender, and Politics

"This is an important and timely book that will challenge the dominant terms used to debate the French government's ban on the veil in public schools. Through a careful analysis of historical and contemporary Frenchdiscourse on Muslims and Arabs, Scott helps us see how the controversy over the veil is indexical of a deep paradox that haunts the ideology of French Republicanism of which the principle of laïcité is a crucial part."
—Saba Mahmood, author of Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject


"Scott does a good job of conveying the hysteria that surrounded the foulard debate in France...Scott's broad and exhaustive research makes for a bracing account of the debate."--Laila Lalami, The Nation

"Veil-bashing is suddenly socially acceptable among not merely tabloid-reading Little Englanders, but also metropolitan sophisticates...Why should a bit of cloth so threaten the French republic? That is the central question posed by [this] subtle new study...Many French commentators cast the debate about the veil as an issue about Muslims, Islam and integration. Scott, a distinguished historian at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, shows that it revealed rather more about the French themselves."--Carla Power, New Statesman

"This book will undoubtedly rank as one of the best Anglo-American critical commentaries on the affaire du foulard and the 2004 law banning religious signs in schools...[Scott] succeeds in providing a magisterial demonstration of the power of discourse--of the ways in which abstract ideas, when mediated through a vibrant political culture, can influence collective thinking and practice."--Cécile Laborde, La Vie Des Idées

"The Politics of the Veil is a propitious contribution to the exploration and analysis of the complex meanings and purported meanings of these phenomena that have come to symbolise for Turkey and France the struggle to defend the foundations of their Republic against forces that allegedly undermine all that is glorious and good about these 'singular' or 'exceptional' states."-- Elif Aydýn, The Muslim News




"Dua for You" a video by the Berkeley MSA guys :)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqmjvmAXBOA




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uKs8liDb-c

Democracy Now: Once-Banned Muslim Scholar Tariq Ramadan on His First Visit to US in Six Years, President Obama and Why Muslims Should Make Their Voices Heard

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/9/once_banned_muslim_scholar_tariq_ramadan

Thursday, April 8, 2010

an interview with Tariq Ramadan on The Immanent Frame blog

http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2010/04/07/all-about-reconciliation/

"The meaning of art, philosophy, and religion

 is to direct man's attention to riddles, secrets, and questions. It sometimes leads to a certain knowledge but more often to an awareness of ignorance or to transforming our ignorance of which we are not aware into ignorance of which we are aware. This is the diving line between the ignorant and the wise. Sometimes both of them know very little about some question, but the ignorant, contrary to the wise, takes his ignorance as knowledge and behaves accordingly.

-Islam Between East and West by 'Alija 'Ali Izetbegovic, pg. 31

"A human being is not the sum of his different biological functions,

just like a painting cannot be reduced to the quantity of the paint used or a poem to its syntax. It is true that a mosque is built from a given number of stone blocks of definite form and in definite order, from a certain quantity of mortar, wooden beams, and so forth: however, this is not the whole truth about the mosque. After all, there is a difference between a mosque and military barracks. It is possible to write a perfect grammatical and linguistic analysis of a poem by Goethe without coming anywhere near its essence. The same goes for the difference between a dictionary and a poem in the same language. A dictionary is exact but has no plot; a poem has a meaning and an unattainable essence. Fossils, morphology, and psychology describe only man's external, mechanical, and meaningless side. Man is like a painting, a mosque, or a poem rather than the quantity or quality of the material of which he is made. Man is more than all the sciences together can say about him. 
 -Islam Between East and West by 'Alija 'Ali Izetbegovic, pg 8-9

Monday, April 5, 2010

The Rise of Intellectual Reform in the Islamic World

Tuesday, April 20
7:00pm
Proshansky Auditorium


In a world increasingly governed by ideals of democracy and pluralism, this program will explore both the evolution of religion and freedom in Islam – focusing on the recent rise of intellectual reform and the role of the religious intellectual – as well the debate surrounding these changes. Featuring Baber Johansen, Professor of Islamic Religious Studies at Harvard Divinity School; Ebrahim Moosa, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University; and Abdulkarim Soroush, philosopher, reformer, Rumi scholar, and former professor at the University of Tehran. Talal Asad, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center, will moderate the discussion. Co-sponsored by the Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center at the Graduate Center.



http://www.greatissuesforum.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=266:the-rise-of-intellectual-reform-in-the-islamic-world&catid=35:upcoming-conversations&Itemid=55


EVENT:
Great Issues Forum: The Rise of Intellectual Reform in the Islamic World

DATE:
4/20/2010

TIME:
7:00 PM— 8:30 PM

REGISTRATION:

ADDRESS:
365 Fifth Avenue
Manhattan

PHONE:
212-817-8215

BUILDING NUMBER:
Graduate Center

ROOM NUMBER:
Proshansky Auditorium

PRIMARY EVENT
SPONSOR:
Public Programs

WEB ADDRESS:
Event Web Page
SUMMARY:
A panel will discuss intellectual reform in the Islamic World. Participants will include Baber Johansen, Ebrahim Moosa and Abdulkarim Soroush; moderated by Talal Asad.

DESCRIPTION:
Featuring Baber Johansen, Professor of Islamic Religious Studies at Harvard Divinity School; Ebrahim Moosa, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University; and Abdulkarim Soroush, philosopher, reformer, Rumi scholar, and former professor at the University of Tehran. Moderated by Talal Asad, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center. Historically, Islam has enjoyed a rich intellectual tradition, which has often been obscured by conservative extremism. In a world increasingly governed by ideals of democracy and pluralism, this program will look at both the evolution of religion and freedom in Islam, focusing on the recent rise of intellectual reform and the role of the religious intellectual, as well the debate surrounding these changes. Seating is limited, reservations are required. Click the e-VENTS online reservation icon; for more information call 212-817-8215. Unclaimed reservations will be released to a standby line at the event on a first-come, first-served basis.

ADMISSION:
Free, reservations required



http://www.gc.cuny.edu/events/details_landing.asp?EventId=25893

Thanks Justin!

Shaykh Yahya Rhodus - On the Passing of Habib Abd al-Qadir bin Ahmad al-Saqqaf

http://seekersguidance.org/blog/2010/04/on-the-passing-of-habib-abd-al-qadir-bin-ahmad-al-saqqaf-shaykh-yahya-rhodus/

Kierkegaard's world, part 4: 'The essentially human is passion'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/apr/05/kierkegaard-philosophy-passion

Kierkegaard's world, part 3: The story of Abraham and Isaac

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/mar/29/kierkegaard-philosophy-abraham-isaac

Thanks Khalid

Moustafa Bayoumi: 'Where are you from?' is not the right question

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/04/05/bayoumi.who.am.i/

via Sana

Sunday, April 4, 2010

"Though it is from the East that the sun rises,

showing itself bold and bright,
without a veil, it burns and blazes with inward fire
only when it escapes from the shackles of East and West.
Drunk with the splendor it springs up out of its East
that it may subject all horizons to its mastery,
its nature is innocent of both East and West,
though in origin, true, it is an Easterner."

-Muhammad Iqbal, Javid Nama

epigraph to Islam Between East and West by 'Alija 'Ali Izetbegovic