Gender and Sexuality

Film Review: The Mosque in Morgantown

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Brittany Huckabee’s The Mosque in Morgantown is, on its face, the story of a battle in the local mosque, but more deeply, the story of a complex and infinitely diverse religious community grappling with its identity in modern-day America. On one side is Asra Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal correspondent who came face-to-face with extremism when her colleague and close friend, Daniel Pearl, was murdered in Pakistan. On the other side are, initially, the members of her local mosque, and eventually, moderate Muslims throughout the country. Upon Asra’s return from Pakistan to her hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia, she believes she sees in her local mosque hints of the extremism she witnessed in Pakistan. Women are excluded from the main prayer hall and the mosque leader frequently makes statements of intolerance and distrust toward women, non-Muslims, and the West.

Islam

The Revolution Will Be Digitized

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Since I am “friends” with Mir Hossain Mousavi on Facebook, I receive updates–mostly in Persian–about goings-on in Iran. These photographs, from today’s protests, were just uploaded to the site. I haven’t seen them on any other news outlets. It’s tremendously difficult not to be inspired by the Iranian people. Some pictures, below the fold.

Islam

The times they are a changin'

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Part of what makes this blog such an exciting place to be is my sense of progress in North America for a support of Israel that does not march lockstep with everything Israel’s leaders do. Last week, Obama held a meeting with sixteen top Jewish leaders. Included for the first time were J-Street, and Americans for Peace Now. Not invited: Bnai Brith, and the American Jewish Congress! The Times has a fine piece exploring the meeting, and Alternet looks at recent Zogby polls of Americans on Israel, and concludes that Obama’s supporters back him if he wants to get tougher with Israel.

Culture

altmuslimah.com's Photographic Campaign

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Altmuslimah has officially launched its photographic campaign – aimed at providing an alternative to the dominant media image of oppressed Muslim women and angry Muslim men. The purpose of Altmuslimah’s visual campaign is to present Muslim men and women multi-dimensionally, figuratively speaking. The collection highlights the literary contributions of empowered Muslim American women; telling portraits of tenacious Muslim females, young and old; warm, loving Muslim men; the purity of spiritual devotion; and the dynamics of positive gender interaction in Islam. We’re now featuring slideshows/videos on our main page – check out the upper right hand corner of the Altmuslimah site. Every other week, we’ll feature a different video or slideshow that will include photos and artwork from artists across the world.

Gender and Sexuality

Introductions

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All,
I joined the Tikkun blog yesterday and introduced my way of thinking through my initial posts – I hope you enjoyed them! They reflect my balance between traditionalism and measured, meaningful change. I am both a lawyer and a writer, with most of my writings focused on either gender issues or religious freedom in the American, Muslim, or American-Muslim contexts. As it turns out, some of my legal work also has to do with these issues. My latest initiative in the gender rights arena is Altmuslimah (www.altmuslimah.com), an online magazine I launched in March 2009.

Islam

Mark LeVine on the Phone Forum

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Many commentators, including Michael Lerner in a current editorial, welcomed President Obama’s speech in Cairo on June 4. There has been positive comment by, for example, Muslim writers at altmuslim here and here, and by Hussein Rashid at Religion Dispatches. The substantive differences from Bush Cheney policy were summed up by Gilbert Achcar at ZNet as:
a criticism of the U.S. invasion of Iraq; a commitment to withdraw all troops from that country; an acknowledgement of the Palestinian people’s more than sixty-year old tragedy (implicitly recognizing the Nakba); a clear and firm rejection of Israel’s expansion of its settlements in the occupied West Bank; a relatively open attitude toward Hamas; an acknowledgment of Iran’s right to develop nuclear energy within the boundaries of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; and a willingness to talk to the Iranian government, without preconditions. But in a powerful presentation that that you can listen to here Mark LeVine makes the case that this was a great speech… for President Clinton to have given in his time.

Inter-Culturalism

Pluralism: Why “tolerance” is not enough

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The compatibility of Islam and pluralism is sometimes defended by referencing examples of Islamic “tolerance” of minorities in centuries past. Some Muslims’ interpretation of pluralism is colored by Islam’s political power in the past,[1] and they define religious tolerance in terms of how religious minorities were treated in the Islamic Empire – that is, as groups that were free to practice their religion as long as they obeyed the Islamic political order and paid taxes in return for protection by the Islamic state. As some modern Islamic thinkers argue, however, this form of religious tolerance is inadequate in light of changing human rights standards.[2] Whereas the Islamic Empire’s notion of religious tolerance may have been appropriate for that time, Muslims in the modern age must re-evaluate and realize that the historical approach to religious tolerance must be modified. Conditional and condescending “tolerance” must be redefined to include mutual respect, equal treatment, and robust pluralism. Contemporary Muslims’ effort to grapple with pluralism and their political position in relation to the religious “other” is in some ways analogous to the challenge the American religious right has faced realizing that America is not a “Christian country” – at least not in the sense that allows conservative Christianity to hold a privileged position.

Inter-Culturalism

Germany's Marwa el-Sherbini: The “hijab martyrs” among us

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Last August, Marwa el-Sherbini, an Egyptian pharmacist living in Germany since 2003, was with her toddler son at a playground in the Dresden suburb of Johannstadt. A dispute transpired between her and a man now referred to by public records as “Axel W.” about whether it was her son’s or his niece’s turn to go on the swings. In the course of the argument, W. called el-Sherbini, who wore a headscarf, an “Islamist”, a “terrorist” and “slut”. Angered by the incident, el-Sherbini filed a formal complaint against W.
A local court fined Axel W. €780 (USD$1,100) for calling el-Sherbini a “terrorist”.

Islam

A Meditation on Peace in the Middle East

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(Context: Last week Tikkun Toronto held an evening “Writing Towards Peace”. This piece emerged ….)
=====================================
Way back in 1983, Little Steven sang,
Don’t call yourself religious
Not with that knife in your hand. And there’s only one way out of here I understand
That is: Undefeated, everybody goes home. I think of that song when I think of Israel and Palestine, because it cuts to the heart of the problem: the call to home, and the strange malleable rigidity that “home” means in each of us. The place where we grew up is home.

Culture

Is Tikkun's Mark LeVine the same guy who…?

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…writes about Heavy Metal in Islam? He wrote that Tikkun editorial criticizing Obama’s Cairo speech? Yup, that’s him. And you can talk with him Monday night on our Phone Forum. We’ll discuss Obama’s approach to the Muslim world and Israel.