Stephen Colbert Opens Up About His Devout Christian Faith, Islam, Pope Francis, and More

2015/09/11 Leave a comment

From the interview and his noting historical parallels:

Colbert, who taught Catholic Catechism for several years, says he thinks there is a responsibility with devotion. When Rosica asked him about religious fanaticism and the Charlie Hebdo murders, Colbert said that the Catholic Church was once that extreme. He also said he’s relieved he wasn’t doing a show when the Hebdo massacre took place. “There’s no sufficient response I could’ve thought of at that moment, and I felt very lucky not to be on-air at that time,“ said Colbert. “When a big story happens, I would think, ‘I wish I were on-air to talk about this,’ that one was like, ‘I’m so glad I’m not because I don’t have anything I think that approaches it.”

But he said his second reaction to the murders was to look at his own faith. “If this were the 14th Century, Christians could have done this,” he said. “If the 15th Century Christians might have been offended to the point of violence, at blaspheme. You know, check your history books. So, in an ultimate sense, I do not perceive that action, is indicative of Islam…I’m not trying to make a moral equivalency between the Christianity of the Middle Ages and these people, who are doing this horror right now, but every religion has been so defensive of its beliefs that it has actually abandoned its beliefs at times.”

Colbert said that he hopes his connection to his faith helps him find his humor. “We know that I could do my show and make jokes about the Church, and now sit with a priest and laugh about it, that’s a fairly modern behavior,” he said. “That’s not a hundred-year-old behavior, this is a modern behavior—this is, I hope, the right relationship to have with your faith, which is to love it, but not to exclude it from your intellect.”

Source: Stephen Colbert Opens Up About His Devout Christian Faith, Islam, Pope Francis, and More – The Daily Beast

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Iranian epic ‘Muhammad’ aims to change Islam’s image – Business Insider

2015/08/27 Leave a comment

Interesting that such a film received approval to be made and shown in Iran and how audiences inside and outside Iran (those that can see it) react:

The award-winning director of Iran’s most expensive ever film, “Muhammad”, says he hopes it will improve Islam’s “violent image”, but the religious epic risks angering many Muslims despite not showing the prophet’s face.

The huge production about the childhood of the prophet cost up to an estimated $40 million and took more than seven years to complete.

The 171-minute film, which stars many top Iranian actors, premieres on Wednesday in 143 theatres throughout Iran, the day before it opens the Montreal Film Festival.

In an interview with AFP in Tehran, its director Majid Majidi, 56, said extremists and jihadists such as the Islamic State group “have stolen the name of Islam”.

In the Western world, “an incorrect interpretation of Islam has emerged that shows a violent image of Islam, and we believe it has no link whatsoever” to the religion, he said.

“Muhammad” is the first part of a trilogy on the life of the prophet. The film depicts events before his birth and up to his teenage years, before he became prophet, which according to the Koran was at the age of 40.

While Iran has denounced cartoons of the prophet like those published by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, Shiite Muslims are generally more relaxed than Sunnis about depictions of religious figures.

While many planned screenings of “Muhammad” in Shiite-majority Iran have already sold out, in the Sunni Muslim world the production has triggered controversy.

Iranian epic ‘Muhammad’ aims to Islam’s image – Business Insider.

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Overcoming Islamophobia: Fear is never the best basis for action – William Macdonald

2015/08/26 Leave a comment

Good essay on the need for perspective and mutual accommodation by William A. Macdonald in the context of Canadian Muslims but applicable more broadly:

The numbers tell their own story. There are about a million Muslims in Canada, and 1.6 billion around the world, one-quarter of whom reside in India and Indonesia. Despite the current problems particular to Islam, there is no irresistible link between Islam itself and terrorism. No Muslim country is in the world’s top 20 in terms of homicides per capita, nor is Islam associated with any of the 10 largest genocides in history.

The only long-run solution to the relationship between Islam and the rest of the world is rooted in mutual accommodation. Whatever is being done to fight terrorism must always keep that reality in mind. Words matter, and we should avoid to the extent possible including the terms Islamic or Muslim in our descriptions of extremism or terrorism, even if the violence is being done in the name of Islam. Readers already know that’s what al-Qaeda and Islamic State claim.

Islam is no different from any other religion in its need to examine itself critically. The thinking mostly has to come from within, while the challenges will often come from outside events. The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding gay marriage is a good example: Religion not only challenges the world; the world challenges religion. Institutional religions, if they are to survive and thrive, need to communicate with their adherents, and everyone else. For example, the Pope challenges the world to do better at the very moment when the acceptance of gay marriage challenges his church (and not very long after it was challenged by the adverse reaction to its reluctance to respond to the sexual abuse of young people in its care).

David Brooks, the insightful conservative columnist for The New York Times, described the current post-gay-marriage situation in the United States very well. True believers – mostly of a religious persuasion – have a choice, he says; one way is to keep fighting for what they believe by seeking to change laws so that they can impose their views on society. The other, as Mr. Brooks and I both believe, is for these groups to accept that they are special communities of individual believers who can make their best contribution to their members and to society, not by trying to impose their views on others, but by the strength of their own communities of faith.

In recent weeks, the racist massacre in Charleston, S.C., has provided yet another example to our world, desperately in need of more compassion and a larger purpose than individuals themselves. It is difficult to imagine anything more powerful than the personal, face-to-face forgiveness of the deeply mourning relatives to the murderer of their loved ones. The authenticity of this forgiveness could come only from the force of their deep faith.

There is an urgent need to find the best strategy to address the double challenge presented by terrorist acts in Canada and terrorist recruits from Canada. Aside from that issue, how big a problem are Muslims? Or, from another perspective, is Canada a problem for Muslims? Canada’s history is all about a growing capacity for the inclusion of more and more differences in our society. Covering a woman’s face with a niqab is certainly incompatible with the openness that has become part of the Canadian way. Yet it represents no threat to anyone except on those occasions when there is a clear need to see someone’s face, such as for identification purposes or during testimony in court.

Overcoming Islamophobia: Fear is never the best basis for action – The Globe and Mail.

For those interested in his website and more of his views, his framing piece can be found at CANADA: STILL THE UNKNOWN COUNTRY along with other commentary at Canadian Difference.

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Is it ok to criticise Islam? | openDemocracy

2015/08/25 Leave a comment

Interesting column by William Eichler, defending free speech but underlying some of the complexities involved:

Speech always takes place within a context. Articles, cartoons and films are all embedded within a particular time and place. Behind each and every cultural product is a world of meaning constituted by the historical and socio-political context within which it is produced. And the manner in which it is received is shaped by this same context. Pre-fatwa Rushdie made this very point: “Works of art, even works of entertainment do not come into being in a social and political vacuum…the way they operate in a society cannot be separated from politics, from history. For every text, a context.”

What is the context of much of the criticism and satire that is levelled at Islam and Muslims today? Islamophobia from the far (and not so far) right; a “War on Terror” discourse that frames all Muslims as potential killers; the catastrophic invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq; and violent, political upheaval throughout the Middle East. Against this  backdrop it’s little wonder that many Muslims don’t feel like laughing at caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad or engaging in discussions about the flaws in their faith.

Many free speech advocates characterise this stance pejoratively as a “Yes, but…” argument—a pusillanimous defence of basic democratic values that cedes too much ground to terrorists. But this is nonsense buoyed up by macho rhetoric. The dispute is not about free speech, and to hunker down behind abstract principles while refusing to deal with the world as it actually exists is to opt for cheap moralising at the expense of rigorous analysis. This is what Rousseau meant when he wrote that, “Those who desire to separate politics from morals will understand neither.”

Free speech is a principle worth defending, and it should certainly be protected from theocratic thugs with guns as well as from anyone else who wants to curtail it. I’m happy to declare “Je suis Charlie” myself, no matter how tired a slogan it might sound. Nobody should be killed for drawing cartoons. But in order to show commitment to slain satirists and the inviolability of free expression, we don’t have to ignore the concerns of those at whom the satire is aimed.

There is nothing wrong with complexity. The world is full of ‘shadows’ and shades of grey that cannot be ignored. It is not morally weak to say ‘Yes, but I am also concerned about how free speech is used.’ In fact, this position is both intellectually and ethically stronger and more rigorous than a simple declaration of ‘Yes, I believe in free speech’ that’s followed by a hollow silence. Caveats don’t weaken a moral stance—they make the arguments that underpin it even stronger.

Is it ok to criticise Islam? | openDemocracy.

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Can a Song Change the Meaning of ‘Jihad’? – The Daily Beast

2015/08/25 Leave a comment

Interesting approach – using a music video to influence opinion:

Spiegel tries to correct the misunderstanding of the word within the first minutes of the music video for “Jihad Love Squad” with a title card that reads: “Jihad: The spiritual struggle within oneself between good and evil.”

Now just so it’s clear, there is a jihad within Islam that means a holy war. But to most Muslims, the concept of jihad is part of the everyday struggle to the best person you can be. That is why Spiegel’s friend wore a ring bearing that word and why I know Muslims with the first name “Jihad.” (I can’t even imagine how tough that name is at the airport?!)

Spiegel, who was born in New York but is now based in Los Angeles, increasingly became concerned over how the song, and especially the video, would be received by both the Muslim community and the Muslim haters as the released date approached.

He fully gets that the anti-Muslim bigots could target him. After all in 2013 when the Council on American-Islamic Relations spearheaded a campaign to redefine the word “jihad” with a series of ads, it was met with outrage by the queen of anti-Muslim bigotry, Pam Geller.  She even spent money to put up ads to define jihad in the most negative light possible in hopes of stoking the flames of hate against Muslims.

On the flip side, Spiegel is keenly aware that some Muslims may watch the video and believe that he’s not deconstructing a negative stereotype about Muslims, but perpetuating it.  And to be honest, some will likely see it as that. I showed the video to a cross section of Muslims and some did voice concerns that the video could be misunderstood.

The music video, which Spiegel directed, was beautifully shot in India. It opens with a woman greeting customers at a restaurant. She then goes into a backroom, straps on what appears to be a suicide vest, covers herself in a full burka and heads out in to the street.  She soon walks into a schoolyard where young kids playing see her and freeze in apparent fear. As the tension builds, she presses the button to activate the vest.

But as you can imagine, there’s a twist. Instead of an explosion of material that can kill, it releases different colored powders, the type used in the Hindu festival of colors known as “Holi.” Spiegel explained that the powder represents the woman spreading love, not death.

Can a Song Change the Meaning Sam Spiegel of ‘Jihad’? – The Daily Beast.

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How to correctly engage with Catholicism and Islam in public commentary

2015/08/20 Leave a comment

Useful piece providing some guidance on how to discuss religion in public (leave it to my more religiously-literate readers to comment and correct):

Whether it’s same-sex marriage, Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment, deradicalisation programs or Islamic State (IS), academics and commentators have found a need to engage with religion. Some do so with an ease built from familiarity, others less smoothly.

The problems begin with a common view that those who study religion do so based upon faith requiring belief rather than scholarship. This misguided view encourages commentators who would otherwise hesitate to reach beyond their areas of expertise to weigh in on religion.

Yet the approaches used for the study of texts such as the Quran or Bible are no less rigorous than those employed in other legal and literary fields. Similar methodologies from anthropology, sociology and the political sciences are adapted to undertake research on religion.

But the allure to ignore this complexity appears too strong for some who borrow a few verses from the Quran to argue that Islam is a religion of peace or, vice versa, point to other verses suggesting it to be a religion of war. Others, upon hearing Pope Francis’ teachings on the environment, demand Catholic politicians’ adherence yet ignore the more authoritative teachings on abortion or same-sex marriage.

Left to the private sphere, as a spiritual belief, such mistakes would be the burden of the individual and the business of an imam or priest. But when public policy is being shaped it is incumbent upon public figures to be better versed. The below list responds to common mistakes that emerge when discussing Catholicism and Islam.

Roman Catholicism

  1. Quoting scripture in an effort to reinforce your argument.
  2. Referencing a pope’s encyclical as dogma for all Catholics.
  3. Quoting the Old Testament as a reference for Catholic dogma.

Islam

  1. Generalisations.
  2. Reading the text outside of the context.
  3. Confusing ideology with religion.
  4. Talking in a vacuum.

How to correctly engage with Catholicism and Islam in public commentary.

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ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape – The New York Times

2015/08/14 Leave a comment

Sick:

The systematic rape of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority has become deeply enmeshed in the organization and the radical theology of the Islamic State in the year since the group announced it was reviving slavery as an institution. Interviews with 21 women and girls who recently escaped the Islamic State, as well as an examination of the group’s official communications, illuminate how the practice has been enshrined in the group’s core tenets.

The trade in Yazidi women and girls has created a persistent infrastructure, with a network of warehouses where the victims are held, viewing rooms where they are inspected and marketed, and a dedicated fleet of buses used to transport them.

A total of 5,270 Yazidis were abducted last year, and at least 3,144 are still being held, according to community leaders. To handle them, the Islamic State has developed a detailed bureaucracy of sex slavery, including sales contracts notarized by the ISIS-run Islamic courts. And the practice has become an established recruiting tool to lure men from deeply conservative Muslim societies, where casual sex is taboo and dating is forbidden.

A growing body of internal policy memos and theological discussions has established guidelines for slavery, including a lengthy how-to manual issued by the Islamic State Research and Fatwa Department just last month. Repeatedly, the ISIS leadership has emphasized a narrow and selective reading of the Quran and other religious rulings to not only justify violence, but also to elevate and celebrate each sexual assault as spiritually beneficial, even virtuous.

“Every time that he came to rape me, he would pray,” said F, a 15-year-old girl who was captured on the shoulder of Mount Sinjar one year ago and was sold to an Iraqi fighter in his 20s. Like some others interviewed by The New York Times, she wanted to be identified only by her first initial because of the shame associated with rape.

“He kept telling me this is ibadah,” she said, using a term from Islamic scripture meaning worship.

“He said that raping me is his prayer to God. I said to him, ‘What you’re doing to me is wrong, and it will not bring you closer to God.’ And he said, ‘No, it’s allowed. It’s halal,’” said the teenager, who escaped in April with the help of smugglers after being enslaved for nearly nine months.

ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape – The New York Times.

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The Religious Roots of Domestic Terror: Stuart Wexler

2015/08/10 Leave a comment

A reminder that violent extremism is not unique to any one religion:

From Charleston to Chattanooga to Lafayette, a series of mass murders has reignited debates over the nature of terrorism and how it is covered by the media—over whether these are terrorist acts to begin with, and—the latest wrinkle—whether or not they might be acts of religious terrorism.

In many ways the controversy has become part of a culture war. Those on the Left argue that an implicitly racist media too often dismisses mass violence by white men as the byproduct of mental derangement; Islam is seen an acceptable predicate for terrorism, but not white supremacy. Those on the Right argue that liberals, especially those in the Obama administration, are too quick to sugarcoat acts of Islamic terrorism as mere extremism devoid of religious impulse—jeopardizing security in the name of political correctness.

But if Americans want to understand and possibly even prevent domestic terrorism in the future, then they may have to abandon neat labels and presuppositions and start to deal in nuance.

The very act of defining terrorism is nuanced, something academics and national security experts have acknowledged for decades. The U.S. State Department (which once designated Nelson Mandela as a terrorist), the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the United Nations all offer different criteria for who or what qualifies as a terrorist.

But almost every definition of terrorism includes at least two elements:  (1) an intention to strike at civilians or noncombatants; and  (2) the hope that the violence will serve as a symbolic act and/or advance some political or ideological outcome preferred by the perpetrator. The compulsion to label any act of mass violence as terrorism is counterproductive as it may create an overreaction to what is a one-off, if shocking and tragic, event.

…A full appreciation of these recent events thus confounds the conventional understanding of terrorism, especially religious terrorism. Together, the Charleston and Chattanooga shootings show that no religion is exempt from perversion by extremists, but that such perversion is often about finding ways to not apply religious norms and standards to large swaths of humanity. There is not that much distance between Charleston and Chattanooga.

The Religious Roots of Domestic Terror – The Daily Beast.

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Air travel and religion don’t always mix. Examples and Jon Kay commentary on El Al

2015/08/01 Leave a comment

Further to the Porter incident, useful list of other examples:

El Al

A more dramatic incident in 2014, aboard a flight from New York to Israel, drew attention to the challenges of accommodating some ultra-Orthodox Jewish men, who refuse to sit next to women to whom they are not married or otherwise related.

The El Al flight turned into an “11-hour nightmare,” according to one passenger, after a group of men, who had earlier tried to switch their seats with other passengers, reportedly stood up and blocked the aisle shortly after takeoff.

The Tel Aviv-based daily newspaper Haaretz had earlier reported that Orthodox Haredim were causing “a host of logistical problems” for the Israeli airline. But despite outcry at home and abroad, El Al said it has no official policy for dealing with religious seating requirements, and no plans to introduce one.

…Patting down priests

CBC News revealed last year that Canada Border Services Agency managers at Toronto’s Pearson airport allowed a small group of Hindu priests to avoid screening by female border guards to comply with their religious beliefs.

 

…Check your dagger, please

Kirpans, the ceremonial daggers that many Sikhs are required to carry, have been the focus of controversies across Canada — not the least of which was an outright ban by a Quebec school board that the Supreme Court overturned in 2006.

The daggers are allowed in some places that don’t permit weapons — including Parliament buildings and some courthouses — but don’t try to take one on a plane.

Kirpans are specifically mentioned by the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority among the “religious and cultural items” that “should be packed in your checked baggage.” They are also banned by the Transportation Security Administration in the U.S.

Air travel and religion don’t always mix – World – CBC News.

Jon Kay on El Al:

There is a simple way to address such complaints from a Haredi passenger: Have the flight attendants (preferably women) throw him off the plane, give him back his money, and instruct him that he should instead travel to Israel on a mode of transportation more suited, in technological sophistication, to his primitive mindset — such as a canoe made from a hollowed out tree.

Of course, stories of Haredi sexual segregation of have been coming out of Israel for years now. In a move that would make Saudi Arabia proud, some Israeli communities even have sex-segregated busses. And some ultraorthodox communities practice a disgusting mouth-to-penis circumcision practice called Metzitza B’peh, which would be the subject of child-sex abuse charges here in North America if Muslims were doing it. Israeli society shouldn’t stand for such deplorable practices, but ultimately that is Israel’s business.

El Al, on the other hand, is a company that uses Canadian airports and flies hundreds of Canadian passengers to and from Israel every day. Putting aside the question of whether the episodes described above violate Canadian human-rights law, how does it look for Israel’s national flagship carrier to put on display, in front of rows of horrified passengers, the poisonous prejudices of the most narrow-minded constituency in Israeli society?

We are always told (by Stephen Harper and Benjamin Netanyahu alike) that Israel is a beacon of progressive thought, democracy and pluralism in a Middle East brimming with repressive, retrograde attitudes. And in general, that is true. But it seems to me like Elana Sztokman can be forgiven for feeling otherwise.

Jonathan Kay: On El Al’s planes, a case study in appalling sexism

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What Does Islam Say About Being Gay? – The New York Times

2015/07/31 Leave a comment

Mustafa Akyol on interpretations of what Islam says on being gay:

The real Islamic basis for punishing homosexuality is the hadiths, or sayings, attributed to the Prophet Muhammad. (The same is true for punishments on apostasy, heresy, impiety, or “insults” of Islam: None come from the Quran; all are from certain hadiths.) But the hadiths were written down almost two centuries after the prophet lived, and their authenticity has been repeatedly questioned — as early as the ninth century by the scholar Imam Nesai — and they can be questioned anew today. Moreover, there is no record of the prophet actually having anyone punished for homosexuality.

Such jurisprudential facts might help Muslims today to develop a more tolerant attitude toward gays, as some progressive Islamic thinkers in Turkey, such as Ihsan Eliacik, are encouraging. What is condemned in the story of Lot is not sexual orientation, according to Mr. Eliacik, but sexual aggression. People’s private lives are their own business, he argues, whereas the public Muslim stance should be to defend gays when they are persecuted or discriminated against — because Islam stands with the downtrodden.

It is also worth recalling that the Ottoman Caliphate, which ruled the Sunni Muslim world for centuries and which the current Turkish government claims to emulate, was much more open-minded on this issue. Indeed, the Ottoman Empire had an extensive literature of homosexual romance, and an accepted social category of transvestites. The Ottoman sultans, arguably, were social liberals compared with the contemporary Islamists of Turkey, let alone the Arab World.

Despite such arguments, the majority of Muslims are likely to keep seeing homosexuality as something sinful, if public opinion polls are any indication. Yet those Muslims who insist on condemning gays should recall that according to Islam, there are many sins, including arrogance, which the Quran treats as among the gravest moral transgressions. For Turks and other Muslims, it could be our own escape from the sin of arrogance to stop stigmatizing others for their behavior and focus instead on refining ourselves.

What Does Islam Say About Being Gay? – The New York Times.

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