Culture

Lord Krishna Dances In

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The Hindu Lord Krishna began to dance his way back into Salma Arastu’s paintings, years after her conversion to Islam. How and why did it happen? I wanted to tell this story in “Painting Past Borders,” my article in the July/August issue of Tikkun, but didn’t have the space. Looking through Arastu’s beautiful art book, I became curious about her “Blue God” series. Like the rest of her work, the lyrical lines in this series echo the flow of Arabic calligraphy, which the artist studied after leaving behind her Hindu past and embracing Islam.

Inter-Culturalism

Imam Zaid Shakir on the Tikkun Phone Forum

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What do American Muslims think about the conflict over the election in Iran? Or about Obama’s approach to the Muslim world? Many different things, no doubt, but for a thoughtful analysis from an African American Imam with wide knowledge of American Islam, you could not do better than to consult Imam Zaid Shakir. Imam Zaid Shakir is one of the most thoughtful and dynamic teachers about the true nature of Islam in America today. He teaches at Zaytuna Institute, and lectures and writes about both the ideals and the history of Islam.

Islam

Repressive Islamic rule loses its lustre

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Irfan Yusuf writes today at altmuslim:
Iranian Muslim youth aren’t the only ones disillusioned with theocratic politics. Many young Muslims in the West like myself, once attracted to political Islam, have now become disillusioned by it. At the same time, we feel disenchanted with Western attempts to manipulate it, then demonise it when it suits. Aziz Poonawalla is monitoring the Iranian twitterers and can give you access to them:
The regime is afraid. That’s why they disabled text messaging on election day; why twitter and facebook are blocked; why the internet is being censored; why journalists are being expelled.

Islam

Muslims Against Fascism

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Literally. Over 5,000 Muslims in the British Army died liberating Italy in WWII. I learned of a research article on this from a post by Musab Bora on altmuslim today. There has been so much about “Islamofascism” since 9/11, and much has been made of isolated incidents of Muslim support for Hitler, but how much have you read about Muslims who died fighting the Nazis and Italian Fascists? Imam ZaidShakir has an excellent article rebutting the “Islamofascist” meme in Tikkun this issue.