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.

Filed under Radicalization, Religion Tagged with , ,

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.

Filed under Religion Tagged with , ,

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.

Filed under Religion Tagged with , ,

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.

Filed under Radicalization, Religion Tagged with ,

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

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with ,

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.

Filed under Religion Tagged with , ,

Denmark Bans Kosher and Halal Animal Slaughter

2015/07/30 5 Comments

Balance between animal “rights” and human religious rights. But one would need to know how Denmark treats all farm animals to know whether this is consistent or targeted:

Denmark enacted a sweeping ban on the religious slaughter of animals Monday, prompting a furious backlash from Jewish and Muslim community representatives.

The ban, which requires slaughterhouse workers to stun animals before killing them, will now extend to religious communities that were previously afforded an exemption. “Animal rights come before religion,” Danish minister for agriculture and food Dan Jørgensen told Denmark’s TV2.

Activists with Danish Halal called the restriction a “clear interference in religious freedom,” the Independent reports, while Israeli chief rabbi David Lau slammed the law as “a serious and severe blow to the Jewish faith and to the Jews of Denmark,” according to Times of Israel.

Both observant Jews, under kashrut laws and Muslims, under halal laws, will not eat meat unless the animal has been killed with a single slice to the neck, with the intention to minimize its pain.

Denmark Bans Kosher and Halal Animal Slaughter

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

Getting past victimhood starts with an honest look in the mirror: Sheema Khan

2015/07/28 Leave a comment

Another good piece by Sheema Khan:

While Canadian Muslim leadership is evolving, there are still too many who ascribe to victimhood and conspiracy theories. Such self-defeating attitudes do not serve the community well; blaming others prevents much-needed self-introspection, thereby allowing flaws to fester.

Islamophobia is real and must be addressed. This week alone, a London mosque was vandalized and a video surfaced of an anti-Muslim verbal attack on a Calgary cab driver. But Islamophobia should not be used as a cover to mask wrong behaviour.

A parallel theme weaves through Saul Bellow’s novel The Victim, in which a Jewish protagonist blames his misfortunes on anti-Semitism without much introspection. Gradually, he takes stock of his own shortcomings, and with a renewed moral compass takes on life’s challenges (including anti-Semitism) with a confident, balanced attitude.

This type of fresh outlook is evident in the next generation of Muslim leaders, such as physician Alaa Murabit, who was raised in Saskatoon and moved to Libya at the age of 15. Shocked by widespread gender discrimination in her new environment, she eventually founded the Voice of Libyan Women (VLW) to challenge the prevailing norms.

In her recent TED talk, “What my religion really says about women,” Ms. Murabit is unapologetic about her love for Islam, her source of strength. She readily acknowledges the discrimination faced by women in Muslim cultures (rather than blaming news media for reporting on real-life horrors). She seeks to address the “crooked foundation” by advocating that women reclaim their religion by looking to examples of Muslim women in early Islamic history, to the authentic example of the Prophet Mohammed and to the Koran itself.

The Noor Campaign, a VLW program, has used this approach to combat violence against women in Libya and abroad. It is gruelling work. Criticized by the right, the left, the fundamentalists and the secularists, Ms. Murabit marches on with honesty, humility and compassion – because she believes in forging positive societal change.

Canadian Muslims do not need to wait for leadership from traditional institutions to evolve to this level of dynamism. They can independently forge initiatives that address areas of neglect, such as family dysfunction, substance abuse and mental health. Or they can participate in wider campaigns on issues such as poverty and the environment. They should also demand a seat at the table at Islamic centres, since women and youth are stakeholders.

Getting past victimhood starts with an honest look in the mirror – The Globe and Mail.

Filed under Religion Tagged with ,

Canadians converting to Islam: A rocky, complex road, new study finds

2015/07/28 Leave a comment

More details on the study on converts (see earlier post Canadian converts to Islam focus of study by Australian sociologist):

“Converts are disconnected from mosque communities usually because they are from a different ethnic background,” said Australian researcher Dr. Scott Flower during a weekend Ottawa workshop on conversion.

Mosques are initially warm and welcoming to converts because conversion is one of their duties, he said.

But the welcome can quickly wear out.

“Most mosques are Pakistani, Turkish, Saudi or whatever, and converts are not being accepted into those communities,” he said. “So they are outsiders. If they are not connecting to the mosque and they lose their families, they are doubly isolated.”

Flower, a professor in political economy at the University of Melbourne, is leading the first known Canadian study into conversion to Islam.

The study, featuring a 70-question survey for participating converts across the country, and separate interviewing of imams, is being funded with a $170,000 grant from Public Safety Canada.

Flower has conducted similar studies in Australia and Papua New Guinea.

Public Safety officials haven’t specifically told Flower what they hope to gain from the study when the research is complete and analyzed, likely early next year.

“They don’t know anything about Muslim converts in this country because there is still not one peer-reviewed academic journal article on the topic,” he said. “They are trying to get any general information they can to better understand converts.

“And I’m glad because in their world they see everything through this tiny pipe called classified information,” added Flower. “It’s much broader and much more complex. Ninety-nine-point-nine per cent of converts never radicalize or even get political. They just practise their religion. If you want to understand those who do (radicalize), you also have to understand those who don’t.”

Flower concedes that an atmosphere of suspicion among Canadian Muslims in the “post-911 environment” could be impacting the quality of the study.

“They are living in this environment and it’s not conducive to openness,” he said. “They ask, ‘Do you work for CSIS?’ or, ‘Do you work for the government?’ Even if they don’t ask it, it has to be on their minds. It’s the reality of doing research on this very sensitive topic.”

While it’s generally accepted that conversion to Islam is a growing phenomenon, Flower says a lack of co-operation from imams he and his researchers have approached so far is making it difficult to quantify.

But there is no simple answer to why Canadians convert, he added.

“We can’t say it’s lack of education because we have people who are professors, have master’s degrees or Grade 12 educations. It’s not about income, either. We have people in our sample who are incredibly wealthy and have converted and people on welfare who have converted.”

But typically, he says, converts experience a spiritual search or personal crisis before converting — a common trait, too, in Canadians gravitating to Pentecostal Christianity, another growing branch of religion.

Canadians converting to Islam: A rocky, complex road, new study finds | Ottawa Citizen.

Filed under Religion Tagged with ,

Salman Rushdie on Islam: ‘We have learned the wrong lessons’

2015/07/25 Leave a comment

Unfortunately, I think he is right:

Salman Rushdie believes that if The Satanic Verses had been published today, the members of the literary elite who rounded on Charlie Hebdo in the wake of the French satirical magazine winning a PEN prize for courage would not have defended him.

In an interview with the French magazine L’Express, the novelist said that “it seems we have learned the wrong lessons” from the experience of The Satanic Verses, which saw a fatwa issued against him by Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, sending him into hiding. “Instead of realising that we need to oppose these attacks on freedom of expression, we thought that we need to placate them with compromise and renunciation,” he said.

Speaking about the decision by PEN’s American branch to award Charlie Hebdo with a freedom of expression courage award in May, which led to more than 200 writers putting their names to a letter protesting the decision for valorising “material that intensifies the anti-Islamic, anti-Maghreb, anti-Arab sentiments already prevalent in the western world”, Rushdie said the conflict had left “deep divisions” in the literary world. He would never have imagined that writers such as Michael Ondaatje, Peter Carey and Junot Díaz “would have taken this attitude”, and he had written to one of the key dissenters, Teju Cole, about the situation, he revealed.

“[Cole] replied with a bizarre letter: ‘My dear Salman, dear big brother, everything I know I learned it at your feet,’” Rushdie said. “But his reply was mostly full of false claims: Teju assured me that he would never have taken this part against The Satanic Verses because, in my case, it was to do with an accusation of blasphemy, but in the case of Charlie Hebdo, it was about the alleged racism of the magazine against the Muslim minority.”

Rushdie told L’Express that he disagreed, saying that the 12 people murdered at Charlie Hebdo’s offices were killed because their words were seen as blasphemous. “It’s exactly the same thing,” he said. “I’ve since had the feeling that, if the attacks against The Satanic Verses had taken place today, these people would not have defended me, and would have used the same arguments against me, accusing me of insulting an ethnic and cultural minority.”

The novelist told the French magazine that he believes “we are living in the darkest time I have ever known”, with the rise of Islamic State of “colossal importance for the future of the world”. He argued that the taboo surrounding “supposed ‘Islamophobia’” must be brought to an end.

“Why can’t we debate Islam?” he said. “It is possible to respect individuals, to protect them from intolerance, while being sceptical about their ideas, even criticising them ferociously.”

Salman Rushdie on Islam: ‘We have learned the wrong lessons’ | Books | The Guardian.

Filed under Religion Tagged with

← Older posts

Newer posts →