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Debunking Myths About Islam and the Muslim World (Part 5)

This is the fifth post in a series commenting about The Debunking Handbook from the perspective of debunking the myths about Islam and the Muslim world.

Filling the Gap with an Alternative Explanation

The previous three posts focused on various backfire effects that may occur when trying to debunk misinformation. In this post, we look at how to provide the correct information to the misinformed.

When people hear misinformation, they build a mental model, with the myth providing an explanation. When the myth is debunked, a gap is left in their mental model. To deal with this dilemma, people prefer an incorrect model over an incomplete model. In the absence of a better explanation, they opt for the wrong explanation.

For many non-Muslims, this situation, opting for the wrong explanation, is not only all too commonplace, but is very frequently the preferred situation. Many non-Muslims want to believe the misinformation because to believe the correct information is too threatening, especially to their worldview.

The most effective way to reduce the effect of misinformation is to provide an alternative explanation for the events covered by the misinformation.

For the alternative to be accepted, it must be plausible and explain all observed features of the event. When you debunk a myth, you create a gap in the person’s mind. To be effective, your debunking must fill that gap.

From an Islamic perspective, what we must do is provide a new orientation to non-Muslims when discussing Islam and the Muslim world. We must cast a new light on these topics. With respect to discussions about the Qur’an and ahadith, we must explain this information with respect to the contexts that are most applicable, whether they be theological, historical or linguistic (in my experience, these are the three most important contexts to understanding Islam). With respect to the Islamic world, we must explain as best we can the cultural contexts that shape the Muslim world and the non-Muslim’s interpretation of our world. For example, back in December 2007, I wrote a post about a picture of an Afghan wedding.



At the time of this picture, the girl was eleven-years-old and the man was forty. Here’s what I wrote about this photo:

The problem I have with this photo in that, without context, the image may lead to wild conjecture. What is the man's motive for marrying this young girl? We don't know. I'm sure most Westerners would focus on the sexual aspect. I think this is what most Western men would first think of if they were given the chance to marry someone as young as this girl. That being what they would do, they ascribe this motive to the Afghan man.

But we don't know what's really in this man's heart, and his having sex with her may be years away. In a country where the average life expectancy (for both men and women) is less than 44 years (CIA World Factbook), the chances of him surviving much longer are not too good. Is she an orphan and he's providing a stable home for her? Does she come from a poor family and marrying her is a way for him to help provide for her now and later, after death, through an inheritance? Allahu alim.

Unfortunately, people often judge other cultures through their own cultural biases and, all too often, find the other culture wanting, even though they rarely have enough information to make an informed judgment. This is culture shock, no different than if a person went to Afghanistan and witnessed this scene him or herself.

We Muslims know there are alternative explanations that are perfectly logical and feasible to explain this type of situation; the thing we must do is make the explanation, to fill the “gap” in the non-Muslims’ minds.

One gap that may require filling is explaining why the myth is wrong. This can be achieved by exposing the rhetorical techniques used to misinform. … The techniques include cherry picking, conspiracy theories and fake experts.

We Muslim writers do this to a degree, especially when pointing out that various verses in the Qur’an either have been taken out of context or that they are only a partial answer provided by the Qur’an (meaning only part of the verse has been shown, or the following verse or verses have been conveniently ignored because they show the proper way in which the verses are to be understood; for example, verse 9:5, in which the second half of the verse is often ignored (…but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity, then open the way for them: for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.)

Another alternative narrative might be to explain why the misinformer promoted the myth. Arousing suspicion of the source of misinformation has been shown to further reduce the influence of misinformation.

What we Muslims should work harder at is to expose the conspiracies and the fake experts (the two go hand-in-hand). Fortunately, much of the dirt on the fake experts has been gathered by others, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Center for American Progress. Frauds like Brigitte Gabriel, Pam Geller and Robert Spencer need to be exposed to the general public again and again, showing that for them, Islamophobia is a get-rich-quick scheme. (Follow the money.)

Another key element to effective rebuttal is using an explicit warning (“watch out, you might be misled”) before mentioning the myth. Experimentation with different rebuttal structures found the most effective combination included an alternative explanation and an explicit warning.

Now this is something that I had not considered before, but I think the use of an “explicit warning” is great advice.

Graphics are also an important part of the debunker’s toolbox and are significantly more effective than text in reducing misconceptions. When people read a refutation that conflicts with their beliefs, they seize on ambiguities to construct an alternative interpretation. Graphics provide more clarity and less opportunity for misinterpretation. … If your content can be expressed visually, always opt for a graphic in your debunking.

I am not sure just how relevant this suggestion will be for Muslim writers. When we discuss Islam we are dealing primarily with concepts that may or may not be well-presented graphically. This may be easier to do with respect to the Muslim world, where we can deal with people and different aspects of culture, such as food or clothing. Once again, however, if you incorporate the technique into your writing, go for it.

Next: Anatomy of an Effective Debunking

"Muslamic Ray Guns"

Now, to get full enjoyment from the second video, you should watch the first video first. This first video is a brief interview with some EDL skinhead done by Press TV and was originally aired on March 9, 2011.



Now, allegedly, this guy is complaining about "Muslim rape gangs," but it comes out garbled as "Muslamic ray guns." :) Enjoy!

Tintin and the Muslims

I was asked to comment about a blog post from June 2008 entitled "Europe" vs. "Western Civilization". The post is primarily a commentary about the Adam Tooze book, Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (with which I am not familiar), that has the unusual linkage of comparing Tooze's book to Hergé's comic book, Tintin in America (originally published in 1931). I will also admit to ignorance about Hergé's work, although I've tried to do a quick review about Hergé and the comic book in question.

The author of the blog post, "CPA," makes his primary argument in the following two paragraphs:

After reading Tooze's book, the answer I think is pretty plain: Nazism wasn't just about racism, it was also about Europeanism. In other words it was not just about making "Aryans" triumph over Jews, Roma, and other inferior races in Europe, it was also about making Europe as a continent triumph over rival continents. And by rival continents, the only one really in question was North America. One could even go so far as to say that the racism was instrumental to the "continentism"; that grinding inferior races in Europe into the dust was only a means to the end of keeping Europe the world's leading continent. What is so striking about this is how geography trumped race even in the strategy of the most justly notorious racists in history. How could this be?

Here is where Tintin in America comes in. To understand European fear of North America, one needs to understand the European image of America. Tintin's America is a gangster paradise, a land of skyscrapers and anarchy, of grotesque slaughterhouses and industrialized food, drunken sheriffs enforcing Prohibition while citizens have fun at a lynching parties, a land where oil companies routinely dispossess Indians, where you can go to sleep in a prairie one day and wake up in a traffic-jammed metropolis the next. Now, this is Tintin, and it is all fairly light-hearted. ... As Tintin leaves on a steamer back for Europe, he sighs, "Funny, and I was just starting to like the place." But make no mistake, America is not part of some "Western civilization" -- it is just as alien to Herge's European readers as Africa, the Soviet Union, or the Arab world and India, scenes for his immediately preceding and following Tintin volumes.

Now I bring up the stereotypes presented in the Tintin comic book because the specific request made of me was, "Do you have any thoughts regarding it [the blog post], perhaps on what it means on Muslim relations with America versus Muslim relations with mainland Europe?" Hergé's work seems somewhat similar in its "production values" (for want of a better term) to the current situation between Muslims in the United States and Europe.

In Wikipedia's article on the Tintin series (The Adventures of Tintin), it notes that Hergé did research on the people and countries to which Tintin traveled. However, one of the specific criticisms regarding Tintin in America is that "much of the sequence in the American West is less realistic, as it depicts the West as it was in the days of the Wild West, complete with cowboys and Indians", as opposed to the American west of the 1930s. (Much of the story takes place in Prohibition-era Chicago, with Al Capone being a character in the book.) So my thought is, what media was available to Hergé for his research at that time? Books, photographs and news accounts, certainly, but not much else. One wonders if the "cowboys and Indians" portion of the comic was influenced by Hollywood Westerns that had crossed the Atlantic into Europe in the 1920s and early 1930s. My point here is that with limited research materials, for Hergé and the rest of Europe at that time, was this a reason why there are the various European stereotypes of the United States as depicted in Tintin in America?

I would like to say that Muslim relations in America and Europe (indeed the rest of the world) follows along a similar vein, that the relationships between Muslims and non-Muslims depends upon how well non-Muslims know Muslims, not just Muslim society in general but individual Muslims personally. (For North America and Southeast Asia, I think this theory works pretty well, but I'm not as convinced for Europe. More on that later.) If a non-Muslim knows a Muslim personally, he or she should (in theory) be less likely to demonize Islam and Muslim society. One would hope that a non-Muslim who personally knows a Muslim or Muslims won't think of Muslims in general as a dangerous "other," but that they are like Muhammad who works in the office or Yasmin who presents the news on TV.

In North America (and the U.S. in particular), I think that most non-Muslims are terribly ignorant about Islam and Muslim society, and that this ignorance has driven most of the fear and myth-making. (Myths about Islam including, "Muslims want to dominate the world," "Muslims want to impose Shari'ah on non-Muslims," and so on. That sort of nonsense.) Some of the problems facing the American Muslim community include the fact that Muslims make up a small (but growing) percentage of the total population, and that Muslims have been largely invisible to the American public for most of the country's history. I think Muslims only started coming into the American public's consciousness around 1973, when OPEC punished the U.S. for supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Of course, since then, most reactions among Americans toward current events involving Muslims and Muslim countries have been negative (e.g., the Iranian Revolution and the Iran Hostage Crisis, hostages in Lebanon and the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, Israel/Palestine, Iraq before, during and after the two Gulf Wars, 9/11 and other terrorist attacks around the world, Afghanistan, etc.). Never mind the fact that the vast majority of Muslims in Western countries are peaceful, law-abiding citizens; never mind the fact that most non-Muslims don't recognize their own countries' actions as contributing to the Muslim world's problems. We're all innocent of any wrong-doing; don't you know? ("The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do." (p. 51 of Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations))

Another problem in America is simply that this type of behavior has a long history in the country. White Protestant culture has a difficult time accepting other people. The same problems Muslims face today have happened to the Blacks, Chinese, Hispanics, Jews, Gays, Catholics, and other groups, cultural, ethnic, religious, and so on. Racism and bigotry in America may have been tamped down in the 70s, 80s and 90s, but it never died out completely. It simmered on the back stove for several decades, and began to become unleashed once more in the 90s. Add to the fact that some Islamophobes have found fearmongering to be lucrative financially, and the lies began to be promoted much more strongly than in the past. The good news is that, in both the U.S. and Europe, people of good conscious have begun to fight back with the Muslims and other discriminated groups. Muslim projects such as the building of mosques in America have found supporters from non-Muslims.

In Southeast Asia, Islam has been a significant religion for centuries (roughly 900 years for Malaysia and 1,000 years for Indonesia). With majority populations in Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia, plus significant minority populations in the southern Philippines, Singapore and southern Thailand, most non-Muslims in this region are much better acquainted with Islam and Muslim culture than non-Muslims are in America and Europe. The problems that exist in the U.S. and Europe between Muslims and non-Muslims don't really exist in Southeast Asia. (Of course, there are other problems here between the two communities, but these issues don't seem to be as severe as in the West.) I think one of the key differences between America and Southeast Asia is that Asians are much more conducive toward tolerance between different groups. There are so many different ethnic and religious groups here that people are more willing to make a multicultural society work. (This is one of my complaints with Europeans who proclaim that multiculturalism doesn't work. Not true; it has and does in Asian cultures. Europeans just aren't trying hard enough.)

The question, then is, "Why aren't European non-Muslims more like Asians in their relations with Muslims? Why are they more like Americans?" On the one hand, you have a continent that is neighbors with the Muslim world and, in fact, has several distinct European Muslim communities within Europe itself (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Macedonia). Likewise, the absolute numbers and percentages of Muslims throughout Europe are much greater than they are in North America. For example, the Pew Foundation estimated that there are 38.1 million Muslims in Europe, comprising 5.2% of the total population, whereas the total number of Muslims in the Americas (North, Central and South America) totals 4.5 million, or 0.5% of the total population. (Pew estimates that there were 2.454 million Muslims in the U.S., or 0.8% of the population.) So, theoretically, there should be more interactions between Muslims and non-Muslims throughout Europe, even in countries with smaller Muslim populations, which should lead to less ignorance on the part of non-Muslims. But, based on my observations from afar, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Which makes me wonder, could any or all of the following be part of the problem: 1) Economic insecurity - Are worries over Muslim populations in Europe due to the same sort of worries regarding "Polish Plumbers?" In other words, that the cheaper labor coming from Muslim countries will take jobs away from Europeans of a lower socioeconomic level? 2) Racism - Are Europeans worried that Muslims represent a "browning" of the European gene pool similar to the miscegenation fears of Germans intermixing with Jews through World War 2 (or between blacks and whites in the U.S.)? 3) Socioeconomic status of Muslims (and non-Muslim Islamophobes) – One of the known differences between the American and European Muslim communities is that the American Muslims tend to be richer and perhaps more educated than European Muslims. This is due in part to American immigration policy, which, like many countries, encourages people with wealth, high levels of education (normally a minimum of a graduate degree), and/or vital-skill jobs (e.g., IT, medical, education, etc.) to move there. The immigrant Muslim community in the U.S. was able to move to America because they had these qualifications. European Muslims, on the other hand, aren’t necessarily as rich or well-educated; many families, of course, immigrated to European countries due to either post-WW2 labor shortages and/or relaxed immigration rules for countries that were once European colonies. This issue might tie in with the first issue mentioned above, economic insecurity. Perhaps the lower socioeconomic levels of Muslim immigrants in Europe are too similar to that of the native population, leading to the economic and/or xenophobic insecurities? (This issue is less of a problem in the U.S., where Islamophobia tends to be driven either by xenophobia or ideology (hatred of Islam as an ideology/religion).) 4) Tribalism in European society – I’ve read enough European history to know that, deep down, Europe is just as tribal as many other “tribal cultures.” (In today’s vernacular, most tribal conflicts are described as ethnic disputes between two or more groups, or international conflicts in which nations composed of different ethnicities clash over various issues.) I wonder if conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims in Europe might be considered a form of tribal conflict; for example, between the Germans and Turks living in Germany or the French and Muslims who come from the various North African countries?

(I claim no expertise regarding the European relationships between Muslims and non-Muslims; this is based solely upon what I've read on the Internet. If Muslim bloggers from or living in Europe wish to correct me on this section, I'd be happy for their input.)



* * *
John Espinoza brought up several good points in a recent essay at Huffington Post. On the one hand, he writes,

…those that think the root cause of Muslim-West tensions is political are more likely to see it as avoidable. Those who see it as religious are more likely to believe it as unavoidable. Therefore, if the conflict is framed as "political," people are more likely to work to find a solution.

I agree with this, and perhaps this is a factor that should be considered for relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in America and Europe. (I don’t think a political/religious dichotomy is as apparent in Southeast Asia. Most people in this region, I think, recognize that tensions here are mostly political rather than religious in nature, even when the personalities involved are deeply religious.) I’m not able to judge how well the European non-Muslim population views their conflicts with Muslims between politics and religion; however, I do think that most Americans view conflicts with Muslims as being religious in nature instead of political. (This is ironic considering that the far right in the U.S. has begun to argue, fallaciously, that Islam is not a religion but a political ideology.) In fact, I would even go so far as to say that many Americans find it difficult to distinguish the political context for many conflicts. If a conflict involves groups with different religions, Americans will tend to define the conflict in terms of the religions involved instead of the political factions. This happens often with "Muslims vs. ..." whomever (Jews, Christians, Hindus, etc.), but also with conflicts that don't involve any Muslims (Northern Ireland in particular). The problem, of course, is that while religious beliefs may play a part in the conflict, other factors are often involved that have nothing to do with religion (e.g., conflicts between ethnic groups, calls for self-determination, control of natural resources, economic inequalities, etc.).

Esposito provides potential solutions that Muslims offer to help improve relations with non-Muslims:

Majorities of Muslims expressed their deep concerns about this lack of respect but they also offered positive solutions: stop desecrating the Quran and religious symbols, treat Muslims fairly in the politics that affect them and portray Muslim characters accurately in popular media.

The problem is, I doubt that even these simple solutions can be performed by non-Muslim society. There is just too much profit (figuratively and literally, as I mentioned above) to be gained from not improving relations between non-Muslims and Muslims.

Update: Quarkstomper wrote a very good comment over at Street Prophets, where I had cross-posted this diary, regarding Hergé and his research:

Hergé did a great deal of research for his later Tintin stories, but not at the beginning. His first one, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, was based on material from a book about the Soviet Union that his editor gave him. (The paper Tintin originally appeared in was a Catholic one with a strong conservative and anti-communist slant). His second one, Tintin in the Congo, was likewise written at his editor's request and was an embarrassing pro-colonial apology. After that, Hergé was permitted to write pretty much what he wanted, which was to take Tintin to exotic places that captured his imagination. Like America.

After Tintin in America and The Cigars of the Pharaohs (taking place in Egypt and India), Hergé announced that he would next take Tintin to China. He received a letter from a Roman Catholic priest asking him to please take care to portray the country accurately. The priest introduced him to a young Chinese student from his school named Chang. The young man became Hergé's assistant for the next story, The Blue Lotus, and provided him not only with factual information and calligraphy, but also a bit of cultural understanding. The Blue Lotus gave a much more sympathetic view of China and the Chinese people than was common in western media at the time.

After The Blue Lotus, Hergé took the lesson about research to heart, and his later adventures were all meticulously researched.

Update #2: Quarkstomper has expanded upon his comment, and has written the diary Hergé and Tintin, which gives a brief biography of the cartoonist and the cartoon strip. I've also cross-posted this essay over at Daily Kos (glutton for punishment that I am ;) ).

Preaching the Qur'an in Church

Larry Reimer, a minister of the United Church of Gainesville, Florida, has decided to use selected verses from the Qur'an to preach in a sermon against the proposed Qur'an burning by the Dove World Outreach Center, also of Gainesville. His attitude is, "If they can burn it, we can read it." (Read the full story here.) Several other ministers have said they will join Reimer in preaching from the Qur'an as their way of protesting the Qur'an burning.

I had been thinking about what surahs and/or verses these ministers might use in their sermons. On the one hand, I'd want something that a Christian audience could well relate to but also something that provides some foundation for trying to understand Islam (such as could be provided in 10-15 minutes). If I had a lot of time, I'd be tempted to discuss Surah Yusuf, which is the story of the Prophet Joseph (pbuh). The Qur'anic text closely follows that of the Bible and would be a familiar story to a Christian audience; alas, it would probably take too long to cover, even in a very abbreviated manner.

So, keeping things short and to the point, I would first use Surah Al-Fatihah (#1), using the Pickthall translation, which I think is more powerful in its impact:

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds,
The Beneficent, the Merciful.
Owner of the Day of Judgment,
Thee (alone) we worship; Thee alone we ask for help.
Show us the straight path,
The path of those whom Thou hast favored; Not (the path) of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray.

This surah has been rightly compared to the Lord's Prayer, and is the most important surah in the Qur'an, bar none. At least one author has written an entire book on this one surah alone. The remainder of the Qur'an is, in essence, a response, an answer to this surah. Each Muslim, if he or she does all five prayers required, will have recited this surah at least seventeen times each day.

The second surah I would use is Surah Al-Iklas (#112), "The Unity":

Say: He is Allah, the One!
Allah, the eternally Besought of all!
He begetteth not nor was begotten.
And there is none comparable unto Him.

At a mere four verses, this surah is not quite the shortest surah in the Qur'an, but it is probably the second-most important, after al-Fatihah. It has been described as being equivalent to one-third of the Qur'an because of its focus on Allah (swt) and the Islamic concept of Tauhid, strict monotheism.

I would wrap up the sermon with a longer passage, an excerpt from Surah Mariam (#19:16-35):

Relate in the Book (the story of) Mary, when she withdrew from her family to a place in the East.

She placed a screen (to screen herself) from them; then We sent her our angel, and he appeared before her as a man in all respects.

She said: "I seek refuge from thee to (God) Most Gracious: (come not near) if thou dost fear God."

He said: "Nay, I am only a messenger from thy Lord, (to announce) to thee the gift of a holy son.

She said: "How shall I have a son, seeing that no man has touched me, and I am not unchaste?"

He said: "So (it will be): Thy Lord saith, 'that is easy for Me: and (We wish) to appoint him as a Sign unto men and a Mercy from Us': It is a matter (so) decreed."

So she conceived him, and she retired with him to a remote place.

And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm-tree: She cried (in her anguish): "Ah! would that I had died before this! would that I had been a thing forgotten and out of sight!"

But (a voice) cried to her from beneath the (palm-tree): "Grieve not! for thy Lord hath provided a rivulet beneath thee;

"And shake towards thyself the trunk of the palm-tree: It will let fall fresh ripe dates upon thee.

"So eat and drink and cool (thine) eye. And if thou dost see any man, say, 'I have vowed a fast to (God) Most Gracious, and this day will I not enter into talk with any human being'"

At length she brought the (babe) to her people, carrying him (in her arms). They said: "O Mary! truly an amazing thing hast thou brought!

"O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a man of evil, nor thy mother a woman unchaste!"

But she pointed to the babe. They said: "How can we talk to one who is a child in the cradle?"

He said: "I am indeed a servant of God: He hath given me revelation and made me a prophet;

"And He hath made me blessed wheresoever I be, and hath enjoined on me Prayer and Charity as long as I live;

"(He) hath made me kind to my mother, and not overbearing or miserable;

"So peace is on me the day I was born, the day that I die, and the day that I shall be raised up to life (again)"!

Such (was) Jesus the son of Mary: (it is) a statement of truth, about which they (vainly) dispute.

It is not befitting to (the majesty of) God that He should beget a son. Glory be to Him! when He determines a matter, He only says to it, "Be", and it is.

[All of this post, except for the first paragraph, was originally published at Street Prophets: A Call to Progressive Christian Ministries: Read the Qur'an on 9/12.]

Sam Seder: Mosque at Ground Zero: That's Bull$#|+

Response to George

Would reducing or eliminating America's dependence on foreign oil undercut the economic basis of Islamophobia?

It might to a degree, but not nearly to the extent that it might have if this was the mid 70s. Although I was only a teenager at the time, the mid 70s seemed to be the main era when Islamophobia was based largely on economics. The trigger event was the oil crisis of '73-'74, which awakened the Western public to both their oil dependence and the fact that Middle Eastern society (in particular) was being built upon petrodollars. This awakening brought about a number of articles that I remember reading which tended to be anti-Arab, anti-Islam. One cartoon I remember from that era showed an Arab sheikh in his thobe and kaffiyah standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon and being told by a man in a business suit behind him that "It's not for sale." (This reminds me of the late 80s, when Japanese businesses began buying up a lot of American businesses and properties, with a resultant backlash against the Japanese at that time; Michael Crichton cashed in on that xenophobia with his book (and movie), Rising Sun.)

But since the mid 70s I'd say that the economic basis for Islamophobia has dwindled fairly dramatically. American Islamophobia today tends to be rooted in a lot of other, non-economic factors (e.g., terrorist acts committed by Muslims, American military misadventures in the Middle East (Lebanon, Iraq) and Central Asia (Pakistan, Afghanistan), the Iranian hostage crisis and the dysfunctional diplomatic relationship between the US and Iran ever since, America's blind support for Israel, and the rise of a more visible, more active Muslim community, both in the U.S. and worldwide, that scares American non-Muslims both politically and religiously).

As for foreign oil, as of two years ago (June 2008, when I last wrote about this), five of the top ten countries the U.S. imported oil from were non-Muslim: Canada (who was the #1 seller of crude oil to the US at the time), Mexico, Venezuela, Angola and Ecuador). The first three of those countries provided over 44% of all the U.S.'s imported crude oil. So the U.S. is not quite as dependent upon oil from Muslim countries as perhaps they were in the past.

Personally, I don't think that, even if the U.S. didn't buy a single drop of crude oil from a Muslim country, that would stop all the Islamophobia in the U.S. Many Americans simply can't live without having someone else to hate. Some Muslims haven't helped the American (and worldwide) Muslim community with their actions, but Muslims aren't the only group currently being vilified in the U.S. at the moment. The Hispanics can attest to that.

Are Muslims Organized to Resist Bigotry?

There was an interesting comment over at Daily Kos on a diary that discussed the Cordoba House community center and mosque (the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque"). Here is the original comment:

I wish Muslims were organized to resist bigotry
I don't think they realized the importance of political engagement or are simply unprepared to deal with this level of discrimination that came after 9/11. It is time they learned from the civil rights movements and get very active. The fact this bigotry is tolerated demonstrates how much bigotry our media is willing to propagate at the expense of those who don't loudly resist.

And this is my response:

It's not that Muslims aren't organized to resist bigotry or that we don't realize the importance of political engagement. On the contrary, there are several organizations that engage in both of these aspects every day, including CAIR and MAS among others. Could these organizations do a better job than they are now? I'm sure they would say "yes," along with a request for more manpower and money.

But let's be realistic here: the real issue is not the Muslim community's level of organization vis-a-vis bigotry, it's the level of bigotry among non-Muslims. And the real problem there is that these types of attitudes, once set, rarely change. There are a number of Islamophobes here at Kos who one might think would change their opinions and attitudes toward Islam and Muslims after participating in so many discussions on these topics, but I have yet to see any evidence that those attitudes have changed at all. They have had the opportunity to learn about Islam and the Muslim world, they have discussed Islam and the Muslim world with a number of different Muslims here at Kos, but there is no change. They continue to sputter in their rage against Islam.

If the 2008 presidential campaign and the Obama presidency have shown anything, it is that racism never died out. The success of the civil rights movement may have caused racists to lower their profile in the 70s and 80s, but their attitudes never went away. They were the true sleeper cells within American society. Muslims have been doing their part to resist bigotry and to organize politically, but I don't ever expect Islamophobia to ever go away in American society. For that to happen, American would need to revert en masse to Islam. Not that that couldn't happen; it's done so with a number of different cultures before, but I'm not holding my breath until that time.

The Fine Line

Several recent diaries over at Daily Kos have touched on the topic of Islamophobia. One question a number of people, both diarists and commenters, have wrestled with is whether Islamophobia is racism or bigotry. But even more fundamentally, one diarist asked, if someone publicly disagrees with Islam, does that make him or her a bigot? What follows is my answer:

As a Muslim, even I would say that not all publicly expressed disagreements with Islam classify a person as a bigot. But there is a fine line between bigotry and non-bigotry; on the Internet, this bigotry - Islamophobia - is usually expressed through the tone of the person's writings. The writer usually takes an attacking, accusatory mode, and rarely allows him or herself to acknowledge that he or she is wrong, let alone that the Islamic/Muslim point has merit. Moreover, the bigot/Islamophobe has no real desire to learn about Islam or Muslims. They already know what they know, so to speak, and are content to remain in a state of ignorance. For a Muslim to correct them would be "to confuse the issue with facts."

Ironically, this is the correct tact to take with Muslims: instead of attack, attack, attack (and showing we Muslims just how ignorant and closed-minded you really are), try asking questions instead and creating a dialog. Instead of assuming that Western conventional wisdom is correct for interpreting Islam and Muslim society, try asking Why? Most often, Western conventional wisdom is wrong in that it doesn't understand why the way things are (with respect to the Qur'an, with respect to Islamic practices, with respect to Muslim society, and so on). Context matters, and most Muslims understand that context far better than non-Muslims do. So don't be afraid to admit to yourself that maybe, just maybe you don't really know the subject as well as you think you do and that you may very well be wrong, and respectfully ask a Muslim for their point of view.

Very few Muslims, if any, would think of a person who comes across as sincerely desiring to learn about Islam and Muslims as an Islamophobe.

Rep 4 That

Obviously, this video was made before the incredibly stupid and Islamophobic accusation by Reps. Trent Franks and John Shadegg (AZ), Sue Myrick (NC) and Paul Broun (GA) that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was "planting spies" among members of Congress through the use of Muslim interns. Otherwise I think you'd have seen the latter three Congressmen in the video. Franks, whom I'm familiar with from Arizona politics in the 80s (and was a wingnut Republican before "wingnut" came into vogue), is already in the video for other BS.

Republicans in Congress: Everything your demagoguery democracy needs.

Yeah, no $#|+!

American Qur'an

I came across this news article yesterday about an art project entitled American Qur'an by the American artist Sandow Birk. Birk has been working on illustrating all of the Surahs in the Qur'an (he's about half-finished) in an effort to show other non-Muslims (American Christians in particular) how the Qur'an relates to life in the 21st century.

In Birk's version, each chapter of the Quran has been carefully copied in English in a calligraphy modeled on the urban graffiti of America's inner cities. The stark black text is bordered by scenes from American life both mundane and extraordinary: gangsters flashing signs, Hurricane Katrina's devastation, migrants working the fields, a crowded airport lounge and a raging California wildfire among them.

Each painting relates to the sura, or chapter, it illustrates, either literally or metaphorically, Birk said.

Although Birk doesn't use the actual Arabic Qur'an, he flouts one Islamic art tradition by incorporating images of people in the paintings. I understand why he has done this and, in certain ways, it has brought some of the surahs to life in a way I think many non-Muslims wouldn't otherwise get. But I also find myself preferring our way of doing art, without the humanity involved in the picture.

Some of the reactions to the project have been predictable. On the one hand:

Koplin Del Rio Gallery owners Sugar Elisa Brown and Eleana Del Rio braced for controversy when the show opened last month. They have been surprised and encouraged by the muted reaction: they have received only a handful of odd or threatening e-mails and some Muslims have written to express their appreciation. Surprisingly, some of the most vocal critics have been those who believe Birk's work portrays Islam in too positive a light, they said.

How terrible! Islam is being shown in "too positive a light." On the other hand:

Still, not everyone has appreciated the exhibit, including some Muslim religious leaders who believe the project degrades the Quran. Critic Mohammad Qureshi, administrator of the Islamic Center of Southern California, has refused to visit the gallery or look at pictures of the panels posted on the Internet.

"The Quran is above these things. It doesn't need to be depicted in that way," Qureshi said. "The Quran is accessible the way it is. It's been accessible for 1,400 years, so it doesn't need anything to make it more accessible."

I agree somewhat with this opinion; the Qur'an is above these things and is accessible the way it is. However, I feel the overall criticism is too heavy-handed. If the artwork brings the Qur'an to life in a way that brings non-Muslims to Islam, does that not make the artwork beneficial?

The art is currently being exhibited at two galleries in California, Koplin Del Rio Gallery, Culver City and Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco. The two links have a combined 50+ images, with the first link, to the Koplin Del Rio Gallery, having larger images that are easier to view. As for the English translations being used, Birk apparently is using several different translators for his work. Below are four pictures from the project that I found of interest. The first, of course, is Surah al-Fatihah:



This next picture is for Surah al-Adiyat (#100; The Chargers). It's an interesting juxtaposition between the first few verses of the surah with the colorful spectacle of NASCAR racecars thundering down the track:

By the (Steeds) that run, with panting (breath), And strike sparks of fire, And push home the charge in the morning, And raise the dust in clouds the while, And penetrate forthwith into the midst (of the foe) en masse;-" (100:1-5)

The last two are for Surah al-Qamar (#54; The Moon), showing a hurricane (Katrina?) raging over an ocean...



...with a space station and the moon floating peacefully overhead.

BBC: Muslim Demographics - The Truth

BBC Radio has looked at the claims made in Muslim Demographics, the Islamophobic video that came out in May, and has come out with their own report. In general, the BBC confirms what I and a number of other bloggers wrote a few months ago: that the video is largely erroneous in its facts and conclusions.

For example, one of the claims made by the video (that the Russian army will be 40% Muslim within a few years) was dismissed by one expert as "complete poppycock." In another claim (that Germany will become a Muslim-majority nation by 2050), the BBC interviewed the person who was quoted for that statistic, Mr. Walter Radermacher. Mr. Radermacher not only said that he was misquoted but that he was making the opposite argument!

The BBC's ultimate conclusion, that the makers of Muslim Demographics neither found accurate data nor handled what data they used with care, is spot on. The only surprise is why they didn't do this research and come out with their report back in May, when the video was first released.


HT: QuranClub

Muhammad Asad: The Story of a Story

The following is an excerpt from Muhammad Asad's book, The Road to Mecca. Despite the fact that this book was published back in 1954, I believe Asad's theory regarding the West's hatred for Islam (that it poses a significant challenge to Western concepts of spiritual and social life) rings very true, even today, 55 years later.

Conceptually, Islam is too close for comfort for a lot of Westerners. We believe in the same God, the same prophets (pbut) and angels and message. But, compared to most (but certainly not all) Westerners, we take religion more seriously (actually, a lot more seriously) than they do, and we may be a little more disciplined in applying religious principles to our daily lives. (One of the benefits of fasting during Ramadan, in my opinion.) And that, I think, scares Westerners the most, the thought that if they became Muslim, these Westerners would lose their party world: no more booze, no more pork, a lot less ogling of naked or nearly naked women in public, and a refocusing of their lives on prayer and spirituality. Westerners (especially whites) may not feel as threatened when darker-skinned Westerners become Muslim, but many are threatened at the thought of white Muslims (such as myself) because we don't fit into their notions of racial behavior. In the Westerners' racist view, Islam isn't and can't become acceptable for white people to join. Because once they see the tide beginning to turn against them, then all is lost from their narrow perspective.

“And this appeared very strange to most of my Western friends. They could not quite picture to themselves how a man of Western birth and upbringing could have so fully, and apparently with no mental reservations whatever, identified himself with the Muslim world; how it had been possible for him to exchange his Western cultural heritage for that of Islam; and what it was that had made him accept a religious and social ideology which – they seemed to take for granted – was vastly inferior to all European concepts.

“Now why, I asked myself, should my Western friends take this so readily for granted? Had any of them ever really bothered to gain a direct insight into Islam – or were their opinions based merely on the handful of clichés and distorted notions that had been handed down to them from previous generations? Could it perhaps be that the old Graeco-Roman mode of thought which divided the world into Greeks and Romans on one side and ‘barbarians’ on the other was still so thoroughly ingrained in the Western mind that it was unable to concede, even theoretically, positive value to anything that lay outside its own cultural orbit?

“Ever since Greek and Roman times, European thinkers and historians have been prone to contemplate the history of the world from the standpoint and in terms of European history and Western cultural experiences alone. Non-Western civilizations enter the picture only in so far as their existence, or particular movements within them, have or had a direct influence on the destinies of Western man; and thus, in Western eyes, the history of the world and its various cultures amounts in the last resort to little more than an expanded history of the West.

“Naturally, such a narrowed angle of vision is bound to produce a distorted perspective. Accustomed as he is to writings which depict the culture or discuss the problems of his own civilization in great detail and in vivid colors, with little more than side glances here and there at the rest of the world, the average European or American easily succumbs to the illusion that the cultural experiences of the West are not merely superior but out of all proportion to those of the rest of the world; and thus, that the Western way of life is the only valid norm by which other ways of life could be adjudged – implying, of course, that every intellectual concept, social institution or ethical valuation that disagrees with the Western ‘norm’ belongs eo ipso to a lower grade of existence. Following in the footsteps of the Greeks and Romans, the Occidental likes to think that all those ‘other’ civilizations are or were only so many stumbling experiments on the path of progress so unerringly pursued by the West; or, at best (as in the case of the ‘ancestor’ civilizations which preceded that of the modern West in a direct line), no more than consecutive chapters in one and the same book, of which Western civilization is, of course, the final chapter.

“When I expounded this view to an American friend of mine – a man of considerable intellectual attainments and a scholarly bent of mind – he was somewhat skeptical at first.

“‘Granted,’ he said, ‘the ancient Greeks and Romans were limited in their approach to foreign civilizations: but was not this limitation the inevitable result of difficulties of communication between them and the rest of the world? And has not this difficulty been largely overcome in modern times? After all, we Westerners do concern ourselves nowadays with what is going on outside our cultural orbit. Aren’t you forgetting the many books about Oriental art and philosophy that have been published in Europe and America during the last quarter-century…about the political ideas that preoccupy the minds of Eastern peoples? Surely one could not with justice overlook this desire on the part of Westerners to understand what other cultures might have to offer?’

“‘To some extent you may be right,’ I replied. ‘There is little doubt that the primitive Graeco-Roman outlook is no longer fully operative these days. Its harshness has been considerably blunted – if for no other reason, because the more mature among Western thinkers have grown disillusioned and skeptical about many aspects of their own civilization and now begin to look to other parts of the world for cultural inspiration. Upon some of them it is dawning that there may be not only one book and one story of human progress, but many: simply because mankind, in the historical sense, is not a homogeneous entity, but rather a variety of groups with widely divergent ideas as to the meaning and purpose of human life. Still, I do not feel that the West has really become less condescending toward foreign cultures than the Greeks and Romans were: it has only become more tolerant. Mind you, not toward Islam – only toward certain other Eastern cultures, which offer some sort of spiritual attraction to the spirit-hungry West and are, at the same time, too distant from the Western world-view to constitute any real challenge to its values.’

“‘What do you mean by that?’

“‘Well,’ I answered, ‘when a Westerner discusses, say, Hinduism or Buddhism, he is always conscious of the fundamental differences between these ideologies and his own. He may admire this or that of their ideas, but would naturally never consider the possibility of substituting them for his own. Because he a priori admits this impossibility, he is able to contemplate such really alien cultures with equanimity and often with sympathetic appreciation. But when it comes to Islam – which is by no means as alien to Western values as Hindu or Buddhist philosophy – this Western equanimity is almost invariably disturbed by an emotional bias. It is perhaps, I sometimes wonder, because the values of Islam are close enough to those of the West to constitute a potential challenge to many Western concepts of spiritual and social life?’

“And I went on to tell him of a theory which I had conceived some years ago – a theory that might perhaps help one to understand better the deep-seated prejudice against Islam so often to be found in Western literature and contemporary thought.

“‘To find a truly convincing explanation of this prejudice,’ I said, ‘one has to look far backward into history and try to comprehend the psychological background of the earliest relations between the Western and the Muslim worlds. What Occidentals think and feel about Islam today is rooted in impressions that were born during the Crusades.’

“‘The Crusades!’ exclaimed my friend. ‘You don’t mean to say that what happened nearly a thousand years ago could still have an effect on people of the twentieth century?’

“‘But it does! I know it sounds incredible; but don’t you remember the incredulity which greeted the early discoveries of the psychoanalysts when they tried to show that much of the emotional life of a mature person – and most of those seemingly unaccountable leanings, tastes and prejudices comprised in the term “idiosyncrasies” – can be traced back to the experiences of his most formative age, his early childhood? Well, are nations and civilizations anything but collective individuals? Their development also is bound up with the experiences of their early childhood. As with children, those experiences may have been pleasant or unpleasant; they may have been perfectly rational or, alternatively, due to the child’s naïve misinterpretation of an event: the moulding effect of every such experience depends primarily on its original intensity. The century immediately preceding the Crusades, that is, the end of the first millennium of the Christian era, might well be described as the early childhood of Western civilization…’

“I proceeded to remind my friend – himself an historian – that this had been the age when, for the first time since the dark centuries that followed the breakup of Imperial Rome, Europe was beginning to see its own cultural way. Independently of the almost forgotten Roman heritage, new literatures were just then coming into existence in the European vernaculars; inspired by the religious experience of Western Christianity, fine arts were slowly awakening from the lethargy caused by the warlike migrations of the Goths, Huns and Avars; out of the crude conditions of the early Middle Ages, a new cultural world was emerging. It was at that critical, extremely sensitive stage of its development that Europe received its most formidable shock – in modern parlance, a ‘trauma’ – in the shape of the Crusades.

“The Crusades were the strongest collective impression on a civilization that had just begun to be conscious of itself. Historically speaking, they represented Europe’s earliest – and entirely successful – attempt to view itself under the aspect of cultural unity. Nothing that Europe has experienced before or after could compare with the enthusiasm which the First Crusade brought into being. A wave of intoxication swept over the Continent, an elation which for the first time overstepped the barriers between states and tribes and classes. Before then, there had been Franks and Saxons and Germans, Burgundians and Sicilians, Normans and Lombards – a medley of tribes and races with scarcely anything in common but the fact that most of their feudal kingdoms and principalities were remnants of the Roman Empire and that all of them professed the Christian faith: but in the Crusades, and through them, the religious bond was elevated to a new plane, a cause common to all Europeans alike – the politico-religious concept of ‘Christendom,’ which in its turn gave birth to the cultural concept of ‘Europe.’ When, in his famous speech at Clermont, in November, 1095, Pope Urban II exhorted the Christians to make war upon the ‘wicked race’ that held the Holy Land, he enunciated – probably without knowing it himself – the charter of Western civilization.

“The traumatic experience of the Crusades gave Europe its cultural awareness and its unity; but this same experience was destined henceforth also to provide the false color in which Islam was to appear to Western eyes. Not simply because the Crusades meant war and bloodshed. So many wars have been waged between nations and subsequently forgotten, and so many animosities which in their time seemed ineradicable have later turned into friendships. The damage caused by the Crusades was not restricted to a clash of weapons: it was, first and foremost, an intellectual damage – the poisoning of the Western mind against the Muslim world through a deliberate misrepresentation of the teachings and ideals of Islam. For, if the call for a crusade was to maintain its validity, the Prophet of the Muslims had, of necessity, to be stamped as the Anti-Christ and his religion depicted in the most lurid terms as a fount of immorality and perversion. It was at the time of the Crusades that the ludicrous notion that Islam was a religion of crude sensualism and brutal violence, of an observance of ritual instead of a purification of the heart, entered the Western mind and remained there; and it was then that the name of the Prophet Muhammad – the same Muhammad who had insisted that his own followers respect the prophets of other religions – was contemptuously transformed by Europeans into ‘Mahound.’ The age when the spirit of independent inquiry could raise its head was as yet far distant in Europe; it was easy for the powers-that-were to sow the dark seeds of hatred for a religion and civilization that was so different from the religion and civilization of the West. Thus it was no accident that the fiery Chanson de Roland, which describes the legendary victory of Christendom over the Muslim ‘heathen’ in southern France, was composed not at the time of those battles but three centuries later – to wit, shortly before the First Crusade – immediately to become a kind of ‘national anthem’ of Europe; and it is no accident, either, that this warlike epic marks the beginning of a European literature, as distinct from the earlier, localized literatures: for hostility toward Islam stood over the cradle of European civilization.

“It would seem an irony of history that the age-old Western resentment against Islam, which was religious in origin, should still persist subconsciously at a time when religion has lost most of its hold on the imagination of Western man. This, however, is not really surprising. We know that a person may completely lose the religious beliefs imparted to him in his childhood while, nevertheless, some particular emotion connected with those beliefs remains, irrationally, in force throughout his later life –

“‘ – and this,’ I concluded, ‘is precisely what happened to that collective personality, Western civilization. The shadow of the Crusades hovers over the West to this day; and all its reactions toward Islam and the Muslim world bear distinct traces of that die-hard ghost…’”

pp. 2-7

Selling Salvation

One of the regional magazines I occasionally read, Marketing, has a cover story for the month of August about religious marketing, entitled "Selling Salvation." (Unfortunately, the article is not online.) The basic theme of the article is that "marketers have much to learn from religion"; more specifically, how religious institutions market themselves, especially to gain new followers. Most of the article focuses on two evangelical Christian megachurches (which is somewhat ironic, considering that Christianity is very much a minority religion here, behind both Buddhism and Islam). However, there is some interesting information about the various marketing methods the three main religions here use. More commentary follows at the bottom.

Muslims:

Islamic groups inform the public about upcoming religious events by advertising in Malay-language newspapers, paid for by travel agents which [sic] arrange travel plans for the Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimages [sic] to Mecca. Posters to encourage young Muslims to attend seminars, lectures and fun camps are hung outside mosques, where leaflets are distributed to promote a better understanding of Islam among non-Muslims.

Buddhists:

Buddhist organizations ... engage young people through cultural activities such as lion dances, charity shows and martial arts training, and through youth groups... Buddhists are active in universities, too, with religious societies set up in all the major high education institutions.

Christians:

First time attendees ... are ushered to the front of the queues that amass ... before each of four services on Sundays. After the service, new members are led to a "welcome room" where a white-shirted "server" takes down personal details and gives them a welcome pack.

Inside the pack is a booklet on the values of the church, a directory with information on services, meetings and contact details of cell group leaders, an introductory CD of sermons..., and a church magazine...

Outside the auditorium is a gift shop where CDs, DVDs, postcards, posters, books ... and other memorabilia are on sale. ...

Critics also like to point out that [the pastor's] teachings have such appeal because they push the "prosperity message" of financial and material gain. ...

...

A use of topical language delivered with local humor is combined with what observers say is these churches' most effective marketing platform: music.

"The evangelical Christian churches have been brilliant at drawing the young crowd with good-looking, witty pastors with sharp suits and gelled hair... But the secret is music. [Another church] is like one big karaoke session - a sort of religious version of Singapore Idol..."

[Both churches] have their own music publishing businesses that have propelled them into mainstream culture. Associations with celebrities have helped too.

An offshoot [of the second church] reportedly has plans to quite literally put its brand at the heart of the mainstream by building a mall with a church in the middle, and shops, cinemas and restaurants positioned around it.

High visibility and "mainstream appeal" has ... enabled the evangelical churches to attract affluent, upper-middle class Singaporeans who help the church expand faster (and spend more on marketing) thanks to the generosity of their donations.

The article continues with a brief section on how all three religions are taking advantage of the Internet, including Facebook, Twitter, blogs and Youtube. The article also describes how both Islam and Christianity have been using similar methods:

A strategic focus of Islam ... has been to instill moral values among youth, build self-esteem and temper the rise in delinquency and unwanted pregnancies. This is a worry for Christians too, and both religions have started to address the issue using the same marketing tool: cell groups.

"Youth are at an impressionable phase in their lives where they are discovering and building their identities. Religion is able to fulfill many voids that they might feel at this point ... Cell groups play a support function allowing them access to a trusted group that they can turn to for advice, encouragement and comfort."

The last column of the article has some of the best information:

"The peer-to-peer networking structure that religion employs, empowers followers on every level to be an advocate." ...

The value of the "feel good" factor is something else brands can learn from religion.

"One almost always feels good after going to the church/temple/mosque and making a donation because they believe they're earning good karma... This is a particularly important lesson for brands in light of the current economic situation where many are losing their jobs and have to tighten their belts. Those who have may feel guilty when they spend."

Brands can alleviate this sense of guilt by adopting CSR [corporate social responsibility] initiatives linked to the consumer experience. ...

One of religion's most successful strategies has been its immersion in local communities. Religions support local activities, raise funds for charities and set up schools. ...

Probably religion's biggest allure is that it gives consumers values they can live by. Brands should follow suit. ...

"The values that religions preach are open to interpretation, allowing followers to make it their own. In this way, they don't feel like they are buying blindly into something, but rather adopting a belief system that they genuinely aspire to and abide by in their daily lives." ...

"Religion helps people in their quest for a deeper level of fulfillment. This is their secret."

What the article doesn't mention regarding Islam in Singapore is that Muslims also employ a number of the other marketing tools that the Christian megachurches use. While almost every masajid in Singapore doesn't have anyone to greet non-Muslims who might want to look around the masjid (the most notable exception is Masjid Sultan), there is Darul Arqam - The Muslim Converts Association to Singapore, which provides numerous classes about Islam to those who are fairly serious about learning more about the religion. At Darul Arqam is a bookstore very similar to what is described in the article. New Muslim converts also receive a "welcome pack" as well; mine included a Yusuf Ali translation of the Qur'an, a prayer rug, a sarong, and a prayer compass, all packed into an attractive cloth briefcase. I also received (at the MUIS headquarters) S$40 as part of the zakat that's supposed to be given to converts, as mentioned in the Qur'an.

Should Muslims adopt other marketing techniques? I would say, it depends. As described in the article, music and the shopping mall experience? No way. (That passage reminds me all too much of certain passages in Robert Heinlein's novel, Stranger in a Strange Land, involving the so-called Fosterite Church.) On the other hand, I think Muslims worldwide could do a better job promoting ourselves through print media. Books we have aplenty; four-color offset-printed magazines can be found. (Do they add value to the marketing proposition, though, other than to say, "Look, we can be slick too with high production values.") What I would like to see more of is lower-cost, monthly-produced magazines. Despite the fact that both of the Jehovah Witnesses' two tracts, Awake! and The Watchtower and the infamous Chick Tracts are banned here in Singapore, I think, if done properly (and without the hate as in the latter publication), both formats could be successful as a means to educate non-Muslims about Islam and Muslim society.

On the digital front, the problem isn't that Muslims don't use the Internet to good advantage; on the contrary, I think we use Facebook, blogging and Youtube quite well. The big problem is that our message has become diluted through clutter, specifically, the hate messages spread by Islamophobes. Using a simple search term like "Islam" generally brings about 75% hate on blog search engines like Google and Technorati. Youtube isn't much better. How to rectify this problem? I'm not sure.

Islam/Muslim Blogs (3 July 2009)

Sometimes I feel lucky just to get one of these links posts done, ya know? ;) This particular subject (Islam/Muslim Blogs) is by far the most popular of all my links posts; what was interesting was that last week's post got some serious attention: a total of 17 hits from two different computers at the US State Department.

Austrolabe: Burka Ban: Not Just Black and White

Bin Gregory Productions: Wild Honey

Dr. Maxtor's Analysis: France's Mossad midget doth protest a bit too much...

Fragments of Me: Hijab Friendly

Fragments of Me: Natural Remedies

Grande Strategy: Are Non-Muslims Infiltrating Muslims? (I'm not sure I'd call it infiltration, but it does sound like the woman hasn't quite accepted the Muslim virtue of public modesty.)

Islam and Science Fiction: A Mosque Among the Stars (This is more of a website than a blog, but I discovered it yesterday. The Muslim brother who runs this website co-edited a science fiction anthology of stories written by Muslims and positive stories about Muslims and Islam by non-Muslims.)

Islamic Art by Morty: ALLAH Caligraphy Art in Arabic and English

A setback in the struggle against the Islamification of the West

Islamophobia Watch: Antwerp protests against schools' headscarf ban (Some very good comments by the students in this article.)

Islamophobia Watch: Muslims in Europe: The Scottish Example (An interview with Osama Saeed.)

Islamophobia Watch: Veil is 'a direct and explicit criticism of our Western values' (Have you ever noticed that when non-Muslims talk about Israel/Palestine, it's always a "religious" conflict, but when they talk about the hijab it's always a "political" issue? No wonder they're @$$-backwards.)

Islamophobia Watch: More Hysteria About Sharia Courts (Dennis MacEoin returns; will someone send him back? ;) )

Islamophobia Watch: The hijab debate: 'I don't want to be judged on my looks'

Izzy Mo's Blog: انا مشغولة (Izzy Mo finally gets a life. ;) )

The Zen of South Park: Quran Read-A-Long: Al-’Imran 55-63 Insists on Jesus’ Humanity, Not His Divinity

Umar Lee: Death

News Stories of Interest:
Muslims Not Just Concerned About US Policy: Envoy (Perhaps this woman, Farah Pandith, is the reason why we got all the attention from the State Department last week.)

Pastor Rick Warren to Address American Muslims

Islam/Muslim Blogs (26 June 2009)

Sorry for the lack of Links posts this week; I've been busy with little time to get onto the computer, let alone work on a post like this. Still, here's the latest for Islam/Muslim blogs.

Aqwaal-ul-Hikmah: The Worst Thing A Human Can Consume!

Austrolabe: Sarkozy wants “Burqa” ban

Austrolabe: Burka Ban: Not Just Black and White

Dictator Princess: Why should I help you if you can’t help yourself?

Dr. M's Analysis: The "Kosher tax" scam exposed

Fragments of Me: And I miss this place so much

Fragments of Me: And this is why we keep coming back… (I'm not familiar with Tioman Island, but looking up about the place I discovered that the beach scenes in the 1958 movie South Pacific were filmed here. This is "Bali Hai!" :) )

Islam in China: Chinese Muslim Scholar on Teachings of Islam (An interesting paragraph from The Tao of Islam.)

Islamic Art by Morty: Allah Art (Zebra Stripes)

Islamophobia Watch: West must respect the Muslim veil (John Esposito speaks out, although I wish this article appeared in Western newspapers.)

Izzy Mo's Blog: Mirage (Izzy has lived in Dubai for almost a year now.

Moon of Alabama: Burqas, Law And Freedom ("b", who normally writes about international politics, becomes conflicted over the idea of whether "burqas" should be banned or not. My response to Non-Muslims is: Mind your own business.)

Mumsy Musings: The Many Holidays (DramaMama has a personal post about traveling to Vietnam, and talks (among other things) of finding a mosque and various halal restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). Cool!)

Tariq Nelson: Fatherhood Involvement (Tariq returns after a brief absense.)

TBogg: The only good Muslim is a dea–. Oh. This is awkward…

The Zen of South Park: Quran Read-A-Long: Al-’Imran 42-54 Talks All About Jesus, Pre-Birth to Adulthood

Umar Lee: Rohingya Muslims, Iran Hype, and Sadaqa

Umar Lee: Sarkozy and Brown Didn’t Get the Message: Colonialism is Over

Umar Lee: Was Michael Jackson a Muslim?

Islam/Muslim Blogs (17 June 2009)

Austrolabe: Return of Ameer Ali

Bin Gregory Productions: Hidden Mosques

Islamic Art by Morty: Allah Gal Galalh Calligraphy in Boat Shape (Brother Muhammad has also done this work in a simpler black-and-white style.)

Islamophobia Watch: Muslim waitress awarded £3,000 for being made to wear low-cut dress (Good news for this sister. Unfortunately, she was ripped in a column in The Mail; see 'No, madam, it's you who have offended MY values'.)

Islamophobia Watch: Holocaust museum attack – Muslims are to blame (No doubt Debbie Schlussel would blame Muslims if she herself were to get into trouble with the law.)

Izzy Mo's Blog: ممتاز (Studying Arabic in Dubai)

The Zen of South Park: Quran Read-A-Long: Al-’Imran 31-41 Starts to Reveal Where This Surah Gets Its Name

Umar Lee: My Run in With a Real Life Jack Bauer Wanna-be

Umar Lee: Looking at the Question of the Arab Haram Stores

Islam/Muslim Blog Links (10 June 2009)

Austrolabe: Barack Obama Addresses the Muslim World

Bin Gregory Productions: Berjayalah Taskiku! (This was a very interesting and personal post about Muslim primary education in Malaysia and a sports day event that some of Bin Gregory's kids participated in. Very enjoyable to read.)

Dr. M's Analysis: Foiled Robber Begs For Mercy, Asks To Join Islam (See also Muslim Apple: Criticism: Muslim Storekeeper & the Robber Convert)

Fragments of Me: Longing for the Divine (An interesting comment in this post: "...every Muslim is a Sufi but not every Sufi is a Muslim.")

Grande Strategy: Islam Revives in Al-Andalus (Spain)

Grande Strategy: BBC: An Islamic History of Europe

Islamophobia Watch: Mad Mel explains the BNP's success

Islamophobia Watch: Thug demands 'what's your religion' before launching racist attack

Islamophobia Watch: Sharia law 'same as Krays', says Tebbit

Islamophobia Watch: Global Day of Prayer London convenor claims Muslims 'want to take over'

Islamophobia Watch: Resisting extremism in Luton

Izzy Mo's Blog: Reactions to the Nashia Post (A follow-up to Nasiha for Single Women.)

Izzy Mo's Blog: Obama's Speech to the Muslim World

Muslim Apple: What's in a Name?

Muslim Apple: Mormon Dawah, Witnesses, Shahadah Twice, & AlMaghrib

Naeem's Blog: Going Primitive

The Zen of South Park: Quran Read-A-Long: Al-`Imran 10-20 Discuss Hell and Surrender to God

Quran Read-A-Long: Al-’Imran 21-30 Speaks of Judgment Day and Allies

Umar Lee: A Story of the Stages to Being Homeless (The good news is that "B" is getting help, alhamdulillah!)

Umar Lee: Obama Speech to the Muslim World and My Thoughts

Links for 12 May 2009

Politics:
Jesse Ventura: You Give Me a Water Board, Dick Cheney and One Hour, and I'll Have Him Confess to the Sharon Tate Murders (This is the sort of straight talk one wishes for in politicians, which every serving politician runs away in fear from. There are some very classic lines in here: on W's intelligence (or the lack thereof), on Dick Cheney, on Colin Powell, on waterboarding.)

Chris Matthews Slams Harold Ford for "Cheney Talk" ("With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans?")

Wingnuttery of the Week: Stossel says we should eat endangered species if we want to save them (Also, be sure to check out the killer whale video!)

Naturalized Citizens Are Reshaping California Politics ("The new citizens are reshaping California's electorate and are likely to reorder the state's policy priorities, some political analysts predict. Several polls show that Latinos and Asians are more supportive than whites of public investments and broad services, even if they require higher taxes.")

Gov. Perdue: Georgia Can’t Afford Supply-Side Economics During The Recession

Clinton defends the U.N.: ‘If we didn’t have a United Nations, we’d have to invent one.’

Economics:
Rig Counts Still Falling ("In more bearish news for the oil market, rig counts as compiled by Baker Hughes are continuing to fall across the world, implying a radical investment pullback in future production — ultimately a bullish factor further down the line." In other words, expect higher oil prices in the future as production decreases.)

Islam/Muslim Blogs:
KFC and the BNP (More Islamophobic "outrage" as eight London KFC restaurants start serving halal chicken.)

Mohammad (Flower Calligraphy Noor Deen) (This is another Muslim blog that I recently added to my RSS reader. This revert to Islam is a very talented artist!)

Miscellaneous:
Forty Thousand Meteor Origins Across the Sky

W: As In WTF (Such long fingers you have, dear!)

Sci Fi Moms, Vol. 5

Links for 11 May 2009

Happy Vesak Day!

Politics:
Pakistani president believes Osama bin Laden is dead (Pakistan President Asif Ali Zadari believes Osama bin Laden is dead. "I don't think he's alive," Zadari told NBC's David Gregory. "I have a strong feeling and reason to believe that.")

The Faulty Logic of Tea Baggers (More proof that wingnuts have no intelligence.)

Coulter brings up a tender subject for Hannity: Fox anchors getting waterboarded (While I have no love for Ann Coulter, her twisting the knife in Faux News' Sean Hannity over his cowardice to submit to waterboarding - which he volunteered to do for charity - is a delicious irony.)

The Problem is Statelessness (Juan Cole: "In my view, the central problems in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are the statelessness of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and in their diaspora, the continued military occupation or blockade by the Israelis, and the rapid expansion of Israeli colonies, which are usurping Palestinian land and rights. ... Until the statelessness of the Palestinians is understood and seen as the central problem that it is, there can be no real progress on the issues.")

Generation Charlie X ("I think people who who spend their time worrying about other people comparing Obama to Spock and then use that as a launching pad to lament failing American/Israeli relations maybe need to spend less time with computers, fanboy movies, and The New Republic and a little more time exploring strange new worlds. You know, like girls; the final frontier.")

Iran Releases Journalist Convicted of Spying for U.S.


Economics:
More on Employment (Bonddad: "What I do see is the possibility of another "jobless" recovery on the horizon." Me: Unfortunately, that is an all-too-true possibility.)


Islam/Muslim Blogs:
Prisoners in Ranby jail make bomb to blow up Muslims ("A bomb made by jail inmates to blow up Muslim prisoners came within moments of exploding outside a prayer meeting. The device, made with fireworks and detonators smuggled in with a fishing rod, was put in a room where worshipers wash their hands and feet for Friday prayers. ... But a prison officer spotted it, picked it up and carried it into the middle of the playing field. A bomb disposal unit called to Ranby Prison in Retford, Notts, confirmed the bomb was a viable device primed to go off.")


Miscellaneous:
Top 25 Star Trek Characters