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