The Simpsons challenges Islamophobia

Dec 2nd, 2008, 02:51 am

So, dude, in the latest episode of The Simpsons, Bart befriends a Muslim boy who recently moved from Jordan to Springfield with his family. And Homer suspects them of being terrorists. It’s a pretty funny satire of the atmosphere of Islamophobia that has become so prevalent since 9/11. Watch “Mypods and Boomsticks” here.

Forgot what I said before about waiting until the semester ends to start posting again.

Posted in Islam/Muslims, Racism, Discrimination, Hilarious, TV | 4 Comments | Trackback

Sunni-Shia tensions rising in the US?

Sep 28th, 2007, 10:41 am

USA Today discusses this issue in a recent article:

For years, Sunnis and Shiites in this country have worked together to build mosques, support charities, register voters and hold massive feasts for Eid al-Fitr (on Oct. 13 this year in the USA), the celebration at the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Now there are small signs of tension emerging in America’s Muslim community that are raising concerns among many of its leaders. They worry that the bitter divisions that have caused so much bloodshed abroad are beginning to have an impact here. Such concerns are rising at a time when the USA’s Muslim community has grown from less than 1 million in 1990 to nearly 2.5 million today, with two of three Muslims born overseas, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center.

“You have people who recently arrived from other places where things may have gotten out of hand,” says Sheik Hamza Yusuf, the U.S.-born co-founder of the nation’s first Muslim seminary, the Zaytuna Institute, in Berkeley, Calif. “It takes just one deranged person with a cousin back home who died in a suicide bombing to create trouble here.” (more)

I would make extensive commentary and some witty remarks like I usually do, but I’m really pressed for time, so I’m just gonna say this: why can’t we all just be Muslims? The fact that there are even sects among us is disturbing. I mean, didn’t Allah reveal Islam to humankind because people had distorted the messages of their previous prophets? There were no “sects” during the Prophet Muhammad’s time. These emerged after his death, in response to the question of who would lead the Muslim community. From that point on, we began to distort Allah’s message at an early stage in Islamic history. I really doubt Allah introduced Islam so that we may become more divided. Or maybe that’s part of the test.

On a lighter note, the article also talks about HijabMan, friend and fellow blogger that sells shirts that say things like “My name causes national security alerts. What does yours do?” and “Frisk me, I’m Muslim.” His products were recently mentioned on a segment of The Colbert Report on Comedy Central. Good job!

Posted in Islam/Muslims, Politics | 6 Comments

On reading the Qur’an

Sep 24th, 2007, 06:11 pm

Since the beginning of Ramadan, I’ve dedicated about ten to thirty minutes nearly every day to reading the Qur’an in English (specifically, The Meaning of The Holy Qur’an by Abdullah Yusuf Ali). Because I read every footnote (255 down, 6055 more to go), I’ve progressed very, very slowly. I’ve been on Al-Baqarah, where I started, for like a million years now.

“Che, boludo. ¡Estás loco! ¿Por qué vos hacés eso?” (”Hey, idiot. You’re crazy! Why do you do that?”)

To put the surahs into perspective and to learn the historical contexts in which they were revealed. I would be totally clueless about what I’m reading without them. Footnotes are my friends, my friends. Maybe that’s just the sociology major side of me speaking. Although the footnotes are subject to the author’s biases, they reveal many of the thoughts that ran through his head during the translation process.

As someone that speaks English (native: 158% fluent), Bengali (native: uh, I suck at it), and Spanish (non-native: 85% fluent), I am well-aware that translations can significantly alter the original meaning of texts, especially literary, highly complex works that make extensive use of figurative language. Given the highly poetic nature of the Qur’an, all translations of it are best seen as interpretations. However, unless one speaks and understands seventh-century classical Arabic, translations are the next best thing.

Plenty of non-Arabic speaking Muslims grow up reading the Qur’an in its original language, but few take the time to understand and analyze what they read. Am I right, or am I right? Simply reading and reciting something without understanding a word of it will not teach you anything about Islam.

As a child, I always wondered why my mosque Sunday school teachers hardly emphasized the meaning of the lessons taught in the Qur’an and how to implement them into our daily lives. Probably because they were just taught to memorize and not analyze. Memorization, analysis, and interpretation are all integral parts of Qur’anic study.

An avid reader, I learned far more about Islam on my own than in Sunday school, but then again, I dropped out at the age of nine or ten, mostly due to the humiliation I bore being stuck in the class with the kids that were just barely out of their diapers. Ugh, didn’t the adults realize that sticking a ten-year-old with kindergarteners could have a detrimental effect on his self-esteem? I was reading great classics like James and the Giant Peach while they were watching Barney and Sesame Street. Just because I was slow at learning Arabic doesn’t mean they had to put me in the class with the kids that couldn’t even read English. Because of their negligence, I often cried and begged my parents to stop making me go.

I bet many Muslim kids out there in the US have to bear the brunt of “teaching techniques” imported from the Pakistan, Bangladesh, and wherever else. Hopefully, Sunday school education has changed for the better since my elementary school days back in the early and mid-1990s. If they haven’t, I need to go out there and fix it.

Posted in Islam/Muslims, Religion, Education | 15 Comments

¡Ramadán Mubarak desde Buenos Aires!

Sep 14th, 2007, 11:47 am

The ninth month of the Islamic calendar, a.k.a. Ramadan, started Wednesday night in Buenos Aires. My first Ramadan outside of the US, and my first Ramadan without any family to enjoy it with. Nonetheless, I’m excited to see how Argentines celebrate this holy month.

But I’m even more excited to see how they celebrate Eid down here. Word on the street is that girls show up at mixed Eid parties wearing tank tops and miniskirts. How interesting. You don’t see that in the US!

Muslim life around the world fascinates me.

Plans for Ramadan:

• Read the Qur’an for at least ten minutes a day.
• Log into facebook for no more than once a day. Believe me, this is gonna take a lot of self-control. I would love to just deactivate my account, but it’s a good way to keep in touch with family and friends.
• Not listen to music during the daylight hours.
• Study hard.
• Not use any chat programs (e.g. AIM, MSN, Gmail Chat, etc.).
• Check my e-mail no more than twice a day.
• Spend quality time with friends.
• Take advantage of the fact that many more Muslims go the mosque to collect data for my research project about Argentine Muslims.
• Not idle around.

Perhaps I should limit my blogging to twice a week or something… But I just have to let everybody know how life is in this part of the world for someone from such a unique background. I mean, how many other Bangladeshi American Muslims that were born in Salt Lake City and raised in Oklahoma, Florida, and Illinois and majoring in sociology and political science do you know that live in Argentina? Zero.

Posted in Argentina, Islam/Muslims | No Comments

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week

Sep 11th, 2007, 11:48 pm

David Horowitz and Friends have cooked up a new way spread their hate-filled, politically-driven ideology to a college campus new you:

During the week of October 22-26, 2007, the nation will be rocked by the biggest conservative campus protest ever – Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a wake-up call for Americans on 200 university and college campuses.

The purpose of this protest is as simple as it is crucial: to confront the two Big Lies of the political left: that George Bush created the war on terror and that Global Warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat. Nothing could be more politically incorrect than to point this out. But nothing could be more important for American students to hear. In the face of the greatest danger Americans have ever confronted, the academic left has mobilized to create sympathy for the enemy and to fight anyone who rallies Americans to defend themselves. According to the academic left, anyone who links Islamic radicalism to the war on terror is an “Islamophobe.” According to the academic left, the Islamo-fascists hate us not because we are tolerant and free, but because we are “oppressors.” (more)

That’s right, folks. The Islamo-fascists are out there to eat you and your children (especially the gay female Jewish ones that love freedom), so you better listen and learn. What? You don’t know what an Islamo-fascist is? You’re an idiot. It’s so obvious. Just imagine a Muslim version of Benito Mussolini.

In all seriousness, what the heck is an Islamo-fascist? Most people don’t even have a clue what fascism is; they just know it sounds evil. And as we all know, Islam is the most evil religion in the galaxy (isn’t that obvious from my posts?), so Islam + Fascism = omg omg omg mommy the moslemz r out to kill us. Islam, Muslims, and an Anthropologist has an excellent post about this very topic.

It’s pretty scary that such anti-Muslim rhetoric hardly causes anyone to flinch these days. Just imagine the uproar with a Judeo-Fascism Awareness Week. Or a Hindu-Fascism Awareness Week. Muslim trashing is the norm these days rather than the exception. You have bigots like Glenn Beck that make a career out of demonizing Muslim minorities in the West on mainstream networks like CNN, yet hardly anyone raises a finger. What a world we live in.

The top hatemongers out there aren’t stupid. It may comes as a surprise, but they study Islam and know it very well. They just choose to hide the facts for their own political gain. Yep. That’s who you’re dealing with.

To all my Muslims out there: don’t sit back and let this stuff slide. Fight back and attack the ideology and flaws of such close-minded thinking. Speak to your congressman or senator. Protest. Write to the editor of a newspaper when you read something false and misleading about Islam and Muslims. Post a link to your blog about an act of bigotry. There’s no excuse for you not to do anything. Even the simplest acts can serve to improve the image of Islam and Muslims.

Just don’t do anything stupid like burning down an embassy. Please?

Posted in Islam/Muslims, Politics, Bigotry | 2 Comments | Trackback

Since when did I start eating achar?

Sep 10th, 2007, 09:47 pm

Last Friday had to have been one of the coolest and most random days I’ve had in my time abroad.

After jummah, I met a young Bangladeshi American couple from New Jersey that was vacationing in Buenos Aires. It’s random enough to meet Bangladeshis, much less Bangladeshi Americans, in this city, as I only know one other bangladeshí yanqui besides me.

My two Muslim American friends that are studying here and I took them out. I felt like I was in some weird Islamoamerican version of Argentina because I’m not exactly accustomed to being around four other Americans that practice my religion down here.

That night, all but one of us ate dinner at a cheap, shabby hotel filled with Bangladeshi men. The hotel, which is located just about ten blocks away from where I live, is probably not the type of hotel you’re thinking of. Basically, it’s a combination of an apartment building and a hotel, where each unit just has one room, and everyone shares a bathroom. A lot of people that can’t afford to live in real apartments live in places like that for extended amounts of time.

While I was there, I saw about five of the who-knows-how-many Bangladeshis that live there, but just two of them did most of the cooking. The food was delicious. They prepared fried rice, chicken, beef, and eggs, all mixed together. There was even achar, or pickled mango. You Bengalis know what I’m talking about! It was great to eat a full Bengali meal made by authentic Bengalis actually from Bangladesh after such a long time away from home. I can’t even begin to describe their hospitality.

The sheikh that gave the khutbah at the masjid that day was at the hotel as well. Because I had seen him dressed in a dishdasha and a kuffiyeh, I was taken aback to see him in “normal” clothes. Plus, he spoke calmly in Spanish and Urdu and didn’t speak Arabic in a loud voice like he had at jummah. He was actually a pretty down to earth guy. Originally from the city of Lucknow in northcentral India, he studied Islam in Saudi Arabia for fifteen years. At some point, the Saudi government, I think, sent him to Ciudad del Este, Paraguay ten years ago to serve the large Muslim community there. He speaks Urdu, Arabic, Spanish, and Portuguese fluently and some English. We talked to each other en castellano because that was the only language we had in common. Yeah, I never thought I would be talking to an Indian sheikh in Spanish.

Posted in Argentina, Islam/Muslims, Latin America, South Asians, Bangladesh, Life | 2 Comments | Trackback

That’s what you get for speaking A-ray-bic

Sep 1st, 2007, 01:48 pm

We got ‘em! An honorable American woman protects our great nation from scary A-rabs:

Flight 590, scheduled to depart at 11 p.m. Tuesday, left its gate about 11:15 but returned to the boarding area after the woman, who was traveling with at least one child, indicated she wanted to get off the airplane. The flight then was unable to make Lindbergh Field’s 11:30 p.m. curfew for departures, said Irene McCormack, a spokeswoman for the San Diego Harbor Police.

The flight, carrying 126 passengers, was rescheduled for midmorning Wednesday and arrived in Chicago in the afternoon, an American Airlines spokesman said.

McCormack said it is unusual for planes to return to the gate. She said it’s usually for medical and mechanical problems or a disturbance.

The woman first complained to the flight crew that four to seven men were possibly speaking Arabic in the boarding area. The woman added that they “had odd behavior.” The crew decided to return to the boarding area because the woman indicated she wanted off the plane. (Chicago Sun-Times)

And watch this ABC-7 clip.

Some may say this woman is an ignorant racist that ruined everybody’s flight plans, but I call her a true American hero. She was only defending our country from the savage Muslims who wanna take away our Playboy magazines and stone our women and make us pray to their moon god like twenty times a day. God bless America!

Posted in Islam/Muslims, Racism, Discrimination | 9 Comments | Trackback

El musulmán yanqui va a tu barrio

Aug 29th, 2007, 09:49 pm

I hope to travel throughout Latin America one day to meet and document the numerous Muslim communities in the region. Until I figure out how and when I’ll undertake my journey, Argentina will have to do. Hey, I don’t exactly have thousands of dollars laying around.

Maybe I’ll be the Muslim Che Guevara and ride a motorcycle from country to country.

Posted in Argentina, Islam/Muslims, Latin America | 5 Comments | Trackback

Muslims: a Muslim’s worst enemy?

Jul 11th, 2007, 11:49 pm

Given the tremendous growth of violence between Muslims over the past few decades and in recent years, I can’t help but wonder whether the real threat to the ummah comes from within. Take the latest string of suicide bombings in Iraq, for example:

Saturday’s blast, at around 8:30 a.m., destroyed several mud homes in the village of Armili, and victims had to be transported in farmers’ pickup trucks to the nearest health facility, in Tuz Khormato, 27 miles to the north, said Capt. Soran Ali of the Tuz Khormato police. Police said one man fled the truck before it detonated with another man still inside.

Saleh Ali, a medic at Tuz Khormato hospital, said 25 dead and 100 wounded were brought to the facility. Residents of the village said more victims remained trapped under destroyed houses and shops, and doctors said many of the wounded were in critical condition, meaning the toll could rise…

The village, 100 miles north of Baghdad is mainly made up of Shiite Turkomen, an ethnic minority that is spread across north-central Iraq, though most of its members are Sunni Muslim.

The night before, a suicide bomber detonated a boobytrapped car at around 9:30 pm outside a cafe near a market stocking Iranian goods in the Shiite Kurdish village of Ahmad Marif, killing 26 and wounding 33, said an official at the joint security coordination committee of Diyala province, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The village - 85 miles northeast of Baghdad in a remote corner of Diyala province - is home to about 30 Kurdish families who had been expelled under Saddam Hussein’s rule and returned after his fall. Many Kurds in the area are Shiite Muslims.

A half hour after that blast, a suicide bomber detonated an explosives belt in a funeral tent in another Shiite Kurdish village, Zargosh, west of Ahmad Marif. The blast killed 22 people and wounded 17 others, said the head of Diyala provincial council, Ibrahim Bajilan, and a police official in the provincial capital of Baqouba, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

So much for Muslim unity.

Posted in Islam/Muslims, Politics, Religion | 1 Comment | Trackback

Chrislam: the latest fad?

Jun 20th, 2007, 08:35 pm

A Seattle priest is causing a stir with her claim to both the Christian and Islamic faiths:

Redding’s situation is highly unusual. Officials at the national Episcopal Church headquarters said they are not aware of any other instance in which a priest has also been a believer in another faith. They said it’s up to the local bishop to decide whether such a priest could continue in that role.

Redding’s bishop, the Rt. Rev. Vincent Warner, says he accepts Redding as an Episcopal priest and a Muslim, and that he finds the interfaith possibilities exciting. Her announcement, first made through a story in her diocese’s newspaper, hasn’t caused much controversy yet, he said.

Some local Muslim leaders are perplexed.

Being both Muslim and Christian — “I don’t know how that works,” said Hisham Farajallah, president of the Islamic Center of Washington.

But Redding has been embraced by leaders at the Al-Islam Center of Seattle, the Muslim group she prays with.

“Islam doesn’t say if you’re a Christian, you’re not a Muslim,” said programming director Ayesha Anderson. “Islam doesn’t lay it out like that.”

Considering I’m not God, I’m in no position to say whether one can truly claim multiple faiths. Still, I cannot help but to be utterly fascinated.

What do y’all think?

Posted in Islam/Muslims, Religion | 4 Comments | Trackback