Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson:Shaykh Hamza was born in Washington State to a Catholic father, a university professor of Humanities, and a Greek Orthodox mother, a graduate from the University of California at Berkeley and was raised in Northern California. In 1977, he became Muslim and subsequently traveled to the Muslim world and studied for ten years in the U. A. E., Saudi Arabia, as well as North and West Africa. He received teaching licenses in various Islamic subjects from several well-known scholars in various countries. After ten years of studies abroad, he returned to the USA and earned degrees in Religious Studies and Health Care. He has traveled all over the world giving talks on Islam.
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YouTube - Women, Shari'ah and Islam - Hamza Yusuf - 0 views
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A Compass That Can Clash With Modern Life - New York Times - 0 views
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For many Muslims, fatwas, or religious edicts, are the bridge between the principles of their faith and modern life. They are supposed to be issued by religious scholars who look to the Koran and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad for guidance. While the more sensational pronouncements grab attention, the bulk of the fatwas involve the routine of daily life. In Egypt alone, thousands are issued every month.
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government-appointed arbiters of Islamic standards say the fatwa free-for-all has led to the promotion of extremism and intolerance.
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Technically, the fatwa is nonbinding and recipients are free to look elsewhere for a better ruling. In a faith with no central doctrinal authority, there has been an explosion of places offering fatwas, from Web sites that respond to written queries, to satellite television shows that take phone calls, to radical and terrorist organizations that set up their own fatwa committees. ''There is chaos now,'' Mr. Megawer said. ''The problem created is confusion in thought, confusion about what is right and what is wrong, religiously.''
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''These people in fact are defined as agencies of the government,'' said Muhammad Serag, a professor of Islamic Studies at the American University in Cairo. ''They are not trusted anymore.''
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combines the role of social worker, therapist, lawyer and religious adviser.
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Should ancient statues be destroyed or preserved? Should women be allowed to drive, to work, to travel without the permission of men? Can boys and girls attend school together? Is it permissible to buy insurance, to wear a sports jersey with a cross design, to shake hands with a non-Muslim, to take pictures, to view family photographs? All of this has been addressed in fatwas.
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''When each and every person's unqualified opinion is considered a fatwa, we have lost a tool that is of the utmost importance to rein in extremism and preserve the flexibility and balance of Islamic law.''
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Music fails to chime with Islamic values, says Iran's supreme leader | World news | The... - 1 views
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Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said today that music is "not compatible" with the values of the Islamic republic, and should not be practised or taught in the country.
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"It's better that our dear youth spend their valuable time in learning science and essential and useful skills and fill their time with sport and healthy recreations instead of music," he said.
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After his election in 2005, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cracked down on music. His ministry of culture and Islamic guidance has refused permission for the distribution of thousands of albums. Since last year's disputed elections the authorities have given even fewer permits for public concerts, fearing they could be used by the opposition.Iran has rarely given permission to concerts, as it fears that the opposition might use it as an opportunity to express itself, said Mohammad Reza Shajarian, Iran's most prolific and popular classical vocalist."They are afraid of my concerts because of those moments before the concert is begun, when the whole hall is in silence and darkness when someone suddenly shouts 'death to dictator' and everybody accompanies and they are unable to identify that person," Shajarian said.
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Dune: An accomplished escape into the realm of cinematic Arab appropriation - 0 views
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the most overriding issue, for this critic at least, is the total lack of significant Middle Eastern and North African representation in the cast despite the very clear influence of MENA, Islamic and Arab culture on the desert planet and this universe in the original book and this film. I’ve written before about the importance of Fremen characters being played by MENA actors not least because their language is mostly made up of Arabic words, like “Mahdi'' (‘the rightly guided one”) and “Lisan al Gaib” (“the voice from the outer world”), respectively. Though it's notable that jihad, the phrase frequently used in the book, has now been replaced with "crusade" and "holy war".
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One can easily observe the Bedouin and Amazigh inspiration behind this nomadic community on the page and the screen, through the Fremen’s penchant for Keffiyeh, group feeling unity and strength in their ability to survive in such a dangerous environment. These ideas, as well as the cyclical nature of dynasties and civilisations, were reflected in Tunisian sociologist, philosopher and historian Ibn Khaldun’s 14th Century book of Islamic History, “The Muqaddimah”, which underpinned much of Herbert’s sci-fi series.
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Jordan’s Wadi Rum and Abu Dhabi in the UAE provided the vast beauty and brutality of this fictional desert planet landscape. The pale, flat-roofed buildings of Arrakeen, the planet’s seat of power which, in the book, was transferred from the city of Carthag (sound familiar?) under Harkonnen rule, is reminiscent of North African architecture. If the overarching storyline about Imperialist colonisers stealing a powerful fuel from the native population doesn't remind you of a certain 20th Century Western conflict with the Middle East, the Knights Templar colour scheme of the Sardaukar certainly hints at a 12th Century one. A holy war no less!
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With all this rich, Maghrebi and Middle Eastern culture, aesthetic and historical references on display, once again I must ask: where are the significant MENA actors?
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What an opportunity it would have been to cast the likes of Egyptian actor Amr Waked or French-Algerian actress Lyna Khoudri in these roles. Instead, we get Javier Bardem doing whatever the Arab version of Blackface is.
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The rest of the Fremen - those whose faces aren't masked and have speaking roles - are made up of actors of Guyanese, West or East African heritage. This wouldn’t be a problem at all if there were at least some MENA actors to reflect the diversity of that region which Villeunueve claims to care so much about and admitted to using as inspiration: “I feel true that I’m right in doing it this way. It feels authentic, it feels honest and true to the book.”
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We’re used to being vilified, maligned or erased on screen. We’re used to having most of our representation in Hollywood limited to plane hijacking or suicide bombing or perverted sheikhs or refugees or having non-MENA actors replacing us in our own stories. Like Dwayne Johnson who is playing Black Adam, the first MENA superhero character to get his own solo movie. Can you imagine the outrage if The Rock was cast as Black Panther? Or Shang-Chi? People wouldn’t stand for it.
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But in a post-9/11 world where Arabs and Islam are still considered too dangerous and foreign to pass the racial profiling in studio boardrooms and casting call discrimination, too taboo to be given the same equal opportunities for positive or nuanced representation as other ethnic minorities are now slowly beginning to benefit from, must we continue to wait and bittersweetly watch films like Dune that take but do not give back?
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Iran's elite technical university emerges as hub of protests | AP News - 0 views
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Thousands of Sharif University alumni power Iran’s most sensitive industries, including nuclear energy and aerospace. One of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s closest advisors has taught there for decades. But as demonstrations erupt across Iran — first sparked by the death in September of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police — the scientific powerhouse known as “Iran’s M.I.T.” has emerged as an unexpected hub for protest, fueling Iran’s biggest antigovernment movement in over a decade.
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Across the country and despite a violent crackdown, Iranians have taken to the streets, venting their outrage over social repression, economic despair and global isolation — crises that have clipped the ambitions of Iran’s young and educated generation.
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“They are demanding the end of the Islamic Republic.”
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“Whether it’s true or not, people have this feeling that it’s safer to protest on campus,” said Moeen, a Sharif University alum who has observed the protests and spoke on condition that only his first name be used. “It’s easier than orchestrating something at a random square in Tehran. There are student syndicates. There’s leadership.”
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After the U.S.-backed 1953 coup, University of Tehran students revolted over then-Vice President Richard Nixon’s visit to the capital. The shah’s security forces stormed the campus and shot three students dead.
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Sharif University, among other campuses, was wracked by protests two decades later, when Marxist and Islamist student groups lit the fuse of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which ushered in the clerical establishment that still rules Iran.
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Pro-reformist students protested at the University of Tehran in 1999, prompting a fearsome raid by security forces who fatally shot a student and flung others out of windows.
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Deepening global isolation and frustration over lagging political reforms convinced many students that nothing would come of engaging with the system.
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Sharif University — a competitive, high-tech hub considered less liberal and activist than others in the capital
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in the fall of 2019, a fuel price hike set off the deadliest nationwide unrest since the Islamic Revolution. The Sharif Islamic Association, a misnomer for the students’ largely secular representative body, jumped into action, organizing demonstrations on campus
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In 2020, the student group boycotted classes and held a protest vigil after the Iranian military’s downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane killed 176 people, including over a dozen Sharif University graduates
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the biggest reason is freedom. We just want basic things that you have all over the world
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Sharif University authorities denied the student association a protest permit, members said. Crowds demonstrated anyway, pumping their fists and chanting “Death to the dictator!” — a slogan that protesters have used around the country.
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As hundreds of students chanted against Khamenei, plainclothes security forces raided campus. Professors formed a human shield so students could flee. But security forces beat the professors, ripped through their interlocked hands and chased protesters into the parking garage.
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“For the sake of its own future, the government should care about these students. They’re the nerds. But it was clear it only cared about oppressing them.”
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On Sunday, the university announced it would temporarily ban over two dozen students who contributed to the “unstable environment.”
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Most recently this week, female students streamed into the male-only section of the dining hall in protest over campus gender segregation as male students cheered them on. The university closed the cafeteria on Tuesday, hoping to end the demonstrations.
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Archaeology Turns Political to Benefit a Trio of Middle East Strongmen - New Lines Maga... - 0 views
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shared by Ed Webb on 12 Dec 21
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Going back 10 years to the Arab Spring and eight years before that to the invasion of Iraq, much of the region has experienced terrible loss not only on a human scale, but also of its archaeological heritage. The culmination of both came in 2015 with the brutal murder of the 82-year-old archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad — who had been in charge of the Syrian UNESCO World Heritage site of Palmyra for 40 years — and the destruction of part of the 2,000-year-old site by the Islamic State group
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Three countries — Iraq, Syria and Libya — have an extraordinary heritage of ancient archaeological sites, many of them now endangered, and had in common long-standing dictators, (although in the case of Syria, of course, the Assad regime continues), all of whom used their cultural heritage in various ways to define how they saw their nation
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That dictators draw inspiration from ancient history to shape their nations is nothing new — Mussolini looked back to the Roman empire, while Hitler and the Nazi party developed their mythical, ancient “Aryan” race. The last shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, threw one of the most lavish parties in history at Persepolis in 1971 during national celebrations to illustrate the grandeur of the 2,500-year-old Persian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in the sixth century B.C.
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In the years after the Baath party came to power, writes Abdi, the budget for the Department of Antiquities increased by 80% and the number of excavations mushroomed, as did the renovation and reconstruction of historical sites
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In Syria, too, Assad’s promotion of archaeology was, as the late journalist Patrick Seale described it, part of his exercise in nation building. Stéphane Valter, a French political scientist who specializes in Arab culture and civilization, studied Assad’s relationship to Syria’s archaeology in his 2002 book, “La construction nationale syrienne” (“The Syrian national construction”). He writes that because of the fragility of a social cohesion in Syria due to its varied ethnic and religious communities, it was important for Assad to establish a territorial and historical identity in which all minorities could find a legitimate place. The archaeological richness of Syria doubtless helped build a national identity based on a culture that was promoted as authentically Syrian.
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Gadhafi’s view of Libya’s heritage was selective, but like the other dictators, it aligned with the message he wanted to transmit.“Libya links east to west, and north to south, and there are examples of all the cultures that were around us,” said Fakroun.But Gadhafi largely favored Islamic archaeology, in keeping with his Pan-Arab ideological preference at the time (vis-a-vis Pan-Africanism, which he embraced in later years), and after that, prehistory because it was far enough into the past to be relatively uncontested. In contrast, British archaeologist Graeme Barker, who spent many years in Libya, explained that “the country’s fabulous Greek and Roman archaeology represented to him simply the precursor of the hated Italian colonization of the 20th century.”
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when Gadhafi saw that the museum staff had named some of the rooms “Greek” or “Roman,” his face fell, said Fakroun, “and he made us change the names to ‘Greek colonization’ or ‘Byzantine colonization.’ ”
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“We couldn’t talk about our Amazigh heritage. Or objects that were Tuareg, we had to say they were Arab. We wanted to be scientific, but we couldn’t, because the only ethnicity that existed for him was Arab,”
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the Umayyad period of history was useful to the party because of its multiethnic nature. The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus was one of the best symbols for the party, writes Valter, because of its specifically Syrian cultural traits — first an Aramean and then a Roman temple, then a church and finally a mosque. The mosque figured on Syria’s most valuable banknote at the time, behind an image of Assad. Banknotes included images of Aleppo’s Citadel, the Roman amphitheater of Bosra and Queen Zenobia of Palmyra, and clearly showed the regime’s wish to conflate ethnocultural Arab references with nationalist pride and a pinch of Islam
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Iraq was flooded with propaganda posters, murals and sculpted reliefs in the style of ancient artworks, all depicting Saddam superposed with Mesopotamian rulers or symbols
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Saddam rebuilt the site shoddily, most professionals agree, and built a palace for himself on top of it. He used new materials and inscribed his name on the bricks, as Nebuchadnezzar had done over 2,000 years before him. Moreover, said Almamori, “he dug three or four lakes, which damaged and removed part of the Persian cemetery near the northern lake. Many layers of different civilizations were removed. He constructed artificial mounds and built his palace on one of them. Archaeologists with high positions were afraid to say anything.”
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“When Nebuchadnezzar II took over from his father, Nabopolassar, he ruled from the same palace which he rebuilt. The Baath party related to this — we have a long history, a strong civilization, that needs a strong army. Nationalists in other countries think the same way.”
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the Baath regime in Iraq sought to “connect modern-day Iraq with its glorious Mesopotamian past, leaving aside any possible Sunni-Shia division or ethnic divide. Instead, it stressed that Iraq was one nation unified in a shared Mesopotamian-inspired culture.”
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one of the most important ancient sites for Assad was Ugarit, near the Mediterranean city of Latakia. With five layers of cultures going back to the Neolithic period, not only is it famous for its clay tablets with an alphabet in cuneiform script, but Ugarit is also just north of Qardaha, where Assad was born and is buried.
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Unlike in Saddam’s Iraq or Assad’s Syria, in Gadhafi’s Libya, the Department of Antiquities suffered from constant underfunding. “Our budget was next to nothing,” recalled Fakroun. “Once they forgot about the Department of Antiquities when they were drawing up the country’s budget. We had no salary for six months. We’re talking about a country with tons of money from petrol, and they gave us pennies. And we have five World Heritage sites.
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outstanding archaeological sites in all three countries suffered looting, vandalism, neglect, or at the hands of the Islamic State or, in the case of Ancient Babylon, from U.S. and Polish troops building their military base on top of the ruins in 2003
The New York Times Presents Islam More Negatively than Cancer and Cocaine | Informed Co... - 0 views
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Iranian activist lauds rise of 'citizen journalism' in Iran - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of ... - 1 views
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If he can improve the foreign relations, then the possible outcomes could be the removal or the reduction of sanctions. This leads to more investment opportunities that will result in more employment opportunities and improve those industries currently operating at a very limited level. Foreign policy is the first priority for this administration. Cultural and political progress is the next step. It is natural that Rouhani is putting all his effort and energy into solving this issue. However, the ministers, especially the minister of culture and Islamic guidance, have also tried to improve things. For example, through the Press Supervisory Board, they have issued licenses for several publications, although they were unsuccessful in obtaining a license for the two newspapers Neshat and Ham-Mihan and other political publications with ties to the Reformist movement. They have also tried to obtain the license that would allow both the Islamic Iran Participation Front [one of the main Reformist political groups] and the Mujahedeen of the Islamic Revolution Organization, to once again operate as legal parties in the country. Basically, the administration is slowly trying to achieve its political and cultural objectives. However, what was promised to people before the elections was much greater than what is actually happening. The promises made were greater and people’s demands are also more substantial than what the administration has managed to achieve in the past six months.
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Rouhani needs to lean on people and civil organizations more than anything else, especially given the fact that during the previous elections, he was not associated with any party or organization himself. He became the only possible choice for the Reformists so they supported him and right now, he continues to have their support. However, if he disappoints them, they might become neutral or even start opposing him. The totalitarian movement that wants to take over the government starts by creating problems for Rouhani and his administration, and then when the time is ripe, they will strike the fatal blow.
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After the events of the year 2009, the group that suffered the most, officially and unofficially, were the journalists working inside Iran. For a while, we had the highest number of imprisoned journalists and bloggers. Even now, some of our notable journalists are imprisoned or have lost their jobs and many more have left the country or have decided to suspend their activities. Some of those who left the country started working for the foreign media. This is why the Ministry of Intelligence and the security organizations are putting a lot of pressure on the families of these journalists, hoping to prevent them from working outside Iran. Inside Iran, with much effort, the journalists have tried to keep journalism alive and recently we have had some progress. Of course, we are yet to return to what was called “Tehran Spring” in the first two years of Khatami’s presidency; in fact, we might never return to it. These pressures have forced our journalists to work on an international level, to establish themselves in the social networks, and also to learn and practice citizen journalism. It is true that citizen journalism is different from professional journalism, but at the end, they are both trying to reflect what is happening in society and expose what needs to be exposed so that the totalitarian movement cannot do as it wills without any opposition
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shared by Ed Webb on 11 Sep 12
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Channel 4 cancels Islam documentary screening after presenter threatened - Telegraph - 1 views
www.telegraph.co.uk/...fter-presenter-threatened.html
UK media Islam blasphemy censorship television history TV
shared by Ed Webb on 11 Sep 12
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His book was panned by knowledgeable critics, so it may be that his film was garbage. On the other hand, death threats are never justified over expression.
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shared by Ed Webb on 08 Oct 15
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Turkish police 'seize Islamic State coin-makers' | Middle East Eye - 0 views
www.middleeasteye.net/...c-state-coin-makers-1871252304
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shared by Ed Webb on 08 Oct 15
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Turkish police have arrested six foreign nationals and seized material allegedly used by Islamic State (IS) militants to produce coins for the group
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the coins produced are used as currency in IS-controlled areas
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IS announced last year that it would start producing its own currency in an effort to "emancipate itself from the satanic global economic system".
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based on the original dinar coins used during the Caliphate of Uthman in 634 CE, was set to include seven minted coins: two gold, three silver and two copper. One gold dinar would be worth about $139
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Think Progress » Santorum ignorantly refers to language of Qur'an as 'Islamic.' - 0 views
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“The Quran is perfect just the way it is, that’s why it is only written in Islamic.”
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Identity Crisis Permeates Turkish Society : NPR - 0 views
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Modern Turkey was founded as a secular, Western-oriented state. But these days, Turks say the country is expressing its Muslim identity more than its secular one. And the critical question of Islam versus secularism colors just about every debate in the country.
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Catholics and Jews must stand together in the face of Islamism | Op-Ed Contributors | J... - 0 views
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Catholics and Jews must stand together against the threat of Islamism
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Islamist dictator.
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Before the Islamic revolution in 1979, there were some quarter-million Catholics living in Iran. Now there are fewer than 15,000
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Balance? What is the Muslims role in this article? Are they associated with Islamists?
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On Religion - A Hometown Bank Heeds a Call to Serve Its Islamic Clients - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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The visibility of University Bank in Islamic financing has brought it, among other things, pillorying by Rush Limbaugh.
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How, er, surprising. That's one scared little man. (Yes, I know he's not physically little, but metaphysically...)
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The sense of religious and communal obligation has its fiduciary advantages to Mr. Ranzini. Besides carefully vetting prospective home-buyers, and besides having a well-educated, professional clientele among American Muslims, he has customers for whom default would be almost sinful. Indeed, there have been only a handful of failures among University Bank’s observant Muslim clients.
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Al-Azhar sheikh says protesting forbidden in Islam - Bikya Masr - 0 views
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Al-Azhar is the most influential Islamic institution in the country, however, in recent years it has become more in line with the government and most Egyptians have ignored fatwas that have been released
Islam, Citizenship and New Media in Pre- and Post-Revolutionary Egypt | Digital Islam - 1 views
Virtually Islamic - 0 views
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Film Review // Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam « The Taqwacore Webzine - 0 views
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to take the notion that whistling, stringed instruments, or female stage presence are all somehow interruptions in our connection with God and turn them so completely around that they become the very channel through which we access God, is where things get interesting.
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What struck me most about ‘Taqwacore’ was not that the bands lived in contradiction, praying and swearing, mediating between mosques, mosh pits, and the media… that’s all old news. Every Muslim/immigrant/kid that turned out different than their parents has already figured out that life is complicated and no one lives one-dimensionally. Nor was it really the music — I’m not a huge punk fan, and when I first heard about Taqwacore years before it was in Rolling Stone, I thought it was a cool idea but could never really get into the music. What surprised me most about the movie, then, was that I liked it that much. That I felt this raw reaction, that made my heart come up into my throat and tugged on some emotional organ somewhere in my core. And it seemed that in some way, here was art that was not preachy, not quiet, not apologetic, not commercialized or sanitized or boring, and yet was still an acknowledgment of a world other than that of our own making. That as Jehangir puts it, praised without asking permission. That dared to say what you’re not really allowed to, and originated out of the sweat of matam. And ask any Shi’a the world over: when it comes to intensely sacred outpours, you really can’t top that.
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it seems appropriate to take punk, music born out of an anti-establishment ethic and a rejection of the mainstream, and make it a matter of God-consciousness. Perhaps even something, as all sorts of bombs rain down, to find shelter in.
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shared by Ed Webb on 14 Feb 15
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Netanyahu campaign video: A victory for the Left means an ISIS invasion | +972 Magazine - 0 views
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Israel media politics propaganda Netanyahu ISIS Palestine israelpalestine Hamas Fatah analysis election
shared by Ed Webb on 14 Feb 15
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The video opens with bearded men traveling in a pickup truck, flying the black IS flag with its distinctive white calligraphy. The driver of the truck pulls up beside another car and honks for the other driver’s attention. The IS guy in the passenger seat leans out the window and asks him, in Hebrew with a comically exaggerated Arabic accent, “Hey bro, how do you get to Jerusalem?” The driver of the car shouts back (in Israeli Hebrew), “Take a left!” Then there’s the slogan, in red Hebrew letters emblazoned on a gray, bullet-marked background: “THE LEFT WILL SURRENDER TO TERROR.” One of the IS guys fires celebratory bullets skyward and the driver peels off, ostensibly in the direction of Jerusalem, as they all shout exultantly in Arabic, “Shukran, ya ward!” (“Thanks, bro!”). The camera pans briefly to the rear of the truck to focus on a popular Israeli bumper sticker that reads, “Anyone but Bibi.” The tagline: “It’s us, or them. Only the Likud. Only Netanyahu.” The snatch of Arabic rap lyrics is excerpted from a song by an Amman-based Palestinian group called Torabyeh: “I want to be buried in the same cemetery that my grandfather was buried in. And since my childhood I’ve been dreaming to be a soldier and as time passed I discovered who I want to belong to: Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah, Hamas or…Jabha …”
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Netanyahu has for years been promoting his message about the threat to Israeli security posed by Islamic extremism, never missing an opportunity to list Hamas along with the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and even Fatah, mixing them all up so that the average Israeli Jew reflexively associates Arabs and Islam with terror. Like all accomplished populists, he understands the power of repeating a mendacious slogan, and he is an expert at exploiting popular fears and racism.
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The popular Israeli narrative is so reactionary and confused these days, that if one were to walk the streets asking average citizens if there was a difference between Fatah and Al Qaeda, most people would be hard-pressed to answer coherently. Go ahead and try to explain to an Israeli audience that Hamas is a small offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, that it is basically a technocratic political party, that it is extremely unpopular in Gaza and that it has nothing to do with expansionist jihadism. Try telling people that if Israel would lift the siege on Gaza, disgruntled Palestinians in Gaza would probably kick Hamas out of power immediately. Just try. The best you can hope for is that you’d be told that you’re a traitor who should go live in Gaza.