https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/opinion/McCarrick-Catholic-sex-abuse.html
Thursday, November 12, 2020
A fascinating article about Muhammad Asad's life (1900-1992) by Shalom Goldman in the Tablet (July 1, 2016)
It was during those years in New York City that Asad reestablished connections with some of his Jewish relatives, including relatives who lived in Israel. And it was in New York that he wrote The Road to Mecca, an autobiography published by Simon and Schuster in 1954 and very positively reviewed in the leading journals and newspapers of the day. The New York Times reviewer called it an “intensely interesting and moving book.” Disillusioned with the Pakistani politics, he then made the transition to the world of Islamic scholarship, moved to Europe, and between 1964 and 1980 produced what many today deem the finest translation of the Quran into English, accompanied by an extensive scholarly commentary.
[...] And in the following year, 2012, Asad’s widow Pola Hamida (his third wife), assisted by the Pakistani scholar M. Ikram Chaghatai, published Home-coming of the Heart, a compilation of previously unpublished writing by and about Asad. Within that volume is Hamida’s memoir of the mid-1950s, the period in which Asad left the Pakistani U.N. delegation and wrote his best-selling book The Road to Mecca. Hamida notes that Asad’s political adversaries among the Pakistani elites spread the rumor that Asad, living in New York City, had “abandoned Islam and reverted to Judaism.” To clear his name of this accusation Asad wrote detailed and lengthy letters to Pakistani newspapers, where the controversy about him raged for a few months in 1954. Subsequently Asad was “exonerated” of this charge of apostasy and his good name restored.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/jew-helped-invent-islamic-state
Monday, November 9, 2020
Imam Zaid Shakir: "Trump: Hawk or Dove" (2/27/2020)
During his recent State of the Union Address, President Trump boasted of his record levels of military spending. Despite that boast and its deadly implications, there are those who naively believe that Mr. Trump is rolling back America’s military presence in the world, some even going so far as to describe the President as “antiwar.” This naiveté has been encouraged by the ongoing negotiations to “end” the Afghan war. Contrary to popular perception, President Trump is escalating America’s military presence globally in ways that not only expand American military footprint but create unprecedented dangers to the world community.[...]
In conclusion, it is true that Trump did not start the militaristic policies he perpetuates with great gusto. He is, however, doing nothing to alter those policies in ways that would allow anyone to entertain the illusion of his somehow being anti-war or in any way less militaristic than his predecessors. In addition to what has been mentioned above, Trump has glorified the military with rhetoric, symbols, and ceremonies, such as his proposed Kremlin-style military parade, in ways that create an atmosphere conducive to further entrenching militarism as an inextricable facet of American life and society. Those who see the inherent danger of the denigration of American diplomacy, the expansion of American military adventurism, arbitrary nuclear proliferation, reckless arms sales, and the corrosion of American society by the leeching of a toxic militarism into ever deeper recesses of our body politic, cannot be silent. We must decry this madness and help organize to bring it to an end.
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