Open Thread Sunday 8/2/2009

8 Comments

1. 

   Hassan

   August 2, 2009 at 3:29 PM

   IE 8 seems fine, Firefox does not show right at all, all messed up, apparently javascript error on JQuery. Turn firebug on to debug.

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2. 

   Amy

   August 2, 2009 at 11:37 PM

   7 Muslims arrested near Raleigh, NC, accused of conspiracy and plotting to kill people overseas.

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3. 

   BintKhalil

   August 3, 2009 at 10:05 AM

   Assalamu alaikum

   Al Jazeera English has started broadcasting in the US. Check it out. A group of AJE presenters and the managing director of AJE field questions about how AJE plans to reach American viewers when there is a bias against the brand, about its sustainablility when it’s funded by the Qatari government, about what it was like for Sir David Frost when he joined AJE, about AJE’s access to Iran where the media has been pretty much shut down, about its number of news bureaus as compared to that of BBC and CNN, if it sees itself as the voice of the Arab world, AJE’s coverage of Israel’s perspective during its attack on Gaza and so on.

   Sister Dalia Mogahed is in the audience and asks a question to the presenters on part 2 of the video.

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   • 

     MM Associates

     August 3, 2009 at 2:44 PM

     We should ask sister Dalia to join MM. I’m a huge fan of hers!

     -J.Hashmi

     Reply
4. 

   MM Associates

   August 3, 2009 at 2:52 PM

   An ideal husband
   by G. Willow Wilson.

   Asra Nomani’s recent essay in Marie Claire, My Big Fat Muslim Wedding, lays out a scenario that has become familiar to everyone in the post-9/11 world: despairing Muslim woman is forced to choose between her (literally) white knight and a traditional marriage to a boorish, vaguely ominous Muslim man. Losing love to Islam has become as universal a theme as finding love in Paris. It’s the subject of high art, low art and everything in between: Samina Ali’sMadras on Rainy Days springs to mind, as does the much-hyped failed marriage of Princess Meriam Al-Khalifa and Lance Corporal Jason Johnson. The implication of Nomani’s story, like those I’ve just listed, is that there are no decent Muslim men on planet Earth–or, if by some miracle they do exist, they are so difficult to find that it’s not worth the bother. This is the crux of the argument that Shari’a law should be changed to allow Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men, and perhaps the reason even liberal Muslim groups can be defensive and traditionalist when it comes to this point. It is an implicit condemnation of Muslim men everywhere: in the eyes of women, they do not measure up in any way that counts.

   Nomani’s complaints about her Muslim ex-husband are indeed cringeworthy: he is cold, withdrawn, childish, and sexually worse than useless. But this litany of failings is not limited to Muslim men–not by a long shot. The story of a passionate woman in a stale marriage is as old as Helen of Troy. The theme is so perennial that without the specter of Islam to dress it up, it’s almost boring. This is a case of cultural amnesia: as soon as a Muslim man enters the picture, women everywhere forget about Thelma and Louise, The Good Girl and The Divorcee, and pretend that sullen oafish husbands are an Islamic phenomenon. If this was really true, poor Shakespeare–along with hundreds of thousands of modern divorce lawyers–would have been out of a career.

   Out-marriage is an issue religious groups have been wrestling with for some time. Of course men and women fall in love. Of course it’s not always convenient to their respective cultural and spiritual norms. Out-marriage is of such concern in the Jewish community that its leaders have gone to extraordinary lengths to encourage romantic relationships between young Jews. If they are successful, it is because they are not up against the same barrier: Jewish men are not perceived (by Jewish women or anyone else) as inherently threatening and perverse. In western culture, Muslim men start the marriage process with a handicap–because of the way they are portrayed and the example that is made of them, even Muslim women have begun, consciously or unconsciously, to view them with suspicion.

   This puts those of us in healthy Muslim marriages to good Muslim men in a difficult position. On one hand, there is an onus on us to provide a counterexample, and inject a little hope into the grim picture of Islamic marriage. On the other hand, people in happymarriages are usually (and for good reason) unwilling to write about the intimate details of their sexual and domestic lives in magazines. So I will close with the conclusion I’ve come to after years of listening to girlfriends Muslim and non complain about men: the reason Asra Nomani discovered a dirth of eligible Muslim men is the same reason Carrie Bradshaw discovered a dirth of eligible Manhattanite men. The good ones go first, and they go fast. The battle of the sexes–love gained and lost, marriages failed and personalities mistaken–was raging long before the demonization of Muslim men became fashionable. Choosing a spouse with religion in mind is not always a mistake, especially if your heritage and your faith are important parts of who you are. The trick is, as always, to recognize a good thing when you see it–and never mistake the bad for something more.
   
   G. Willow Wilson is author of the Eisner Award-nominated comic book series AIR. Her memoir The Butterfly Mosque is forthcoming from Grove Press.

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5. 

   MM Associates

   August 3, 2009 at 5:33 PM

   While all the facts have not yet been established, and according to the government minister, some “miscreants” exploited the situation, we still know one fact: seven people were burnt alive. If the situation were reversed, and Muslims were killed (like in Gujarat where 2000 were burnt alive), we, the Muslims would be outraged and would not be patiently waiting for facts. We should equally condemn, and also be outraged here when a minority among the Muslims is not sufficiently protected. The Punjab government needs to do more to prevent such hate-crimes and we hope and pray that the “miscreants” responsible are brought to full justice.

   You are absolutely right, brother Amad. We should not be selective in our outrage.

   May Allah [swt] reward your honesty.

   -J.Hashmi

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6. 

   Mezba

   August 5, 2009 at 8:42 AM

   http://getoutlines.wordpress.com/marrying-a-brother-from-abroad-part-one-before-you-get-married/

   Advice to muslim women (converts) on marriage

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7. 

   MM Associates

   August 6, 2009 at 7:39 AM

   Watch this:

   “[Blackwater CEO] views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe.”

   Here is the article from The Nation:

   Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder
   By Jeremy Scahill

   A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company’s owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Prince’s companies “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.”

   In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting “illegal” or “unlawful” weapons into the country on Prince’s private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety.

   These allegations, and a series of other charges, are contained in sworn affidavits, given under penalty of perjury, filed late at night on August 3 in the Eastern District of Virginia as part of a seventy-page motion by lawyers for Iraqi civilians suing Blackwater for alleged war crimes and other misconduct. Susan Burke, a private attorney working in conjunction with the Center for Constitutional Rights, is suing Blackwater in five separate civil cases filed in the Washington, DC, area. They were recently consolidated before Judge T.S. Ellis III of the Eastern District of Virginia for pretrial motions. Burke filed the August 3 motion in response to Blackwater’s motion to dismiss the case. Blackwater asserts that Prince and the company are innocent of any wrongdoing and that they were professionally performing their duties on behalf of their employer, the US State Department.

   Read the rest here.

   -J.Hashmi

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