Tag Archives: Islam

Minimizing Terrorism by Integrating Muslims

Recently on The Daily Show, journalist Sebastian Junger and producer Nick Quested discussed their documentary Hell on Earth about the ongoing civil war in Syria. They made an intriguing comment about why ISIS terror attacks haven’t happened in the U.S. as much as they have in Europe:

“Thank God this country has been spared most of the kinds of attacks Europe has been suffering the last few years. The theory for why that is, is that the Muslim population in America has been really successfully integrated into our economy, our culture, our society. In Europe it has not. And I think the lesson for America is let’s make sure that we are as inclusive a society as possible, because that is actually what protects us from the kinds of violence, the tragedies we’ve been seeing almost every week in Europe on the news.” -Sebastian Junger, The Daily Show, June 7, 2017

Continue reading Minimizing Terrorism by Integrating Muslims

Muslims & Christians Coming Together for #LoveSomalia

The first weekend in June, more than 15,000 people came together in downtown St. Paul to pack meals for the famine in Somalia. The nonprofit Feed My Starving Children organized the mobile packing event, setting up their warehouse in the RiverCentre.

At the end of the #LoveSomalia event, nearly 5 million meals had been packed. My family attended for a shift on Sunday, doing our small part to pack a few boxes.

What’s amazing about this story is that Somali Muslims approached an unapologetically Christian organization to ask what they could do. Feed My Starving Children responded by setting up this emergency event in eight weeks.  Continue reading Muslims & Christians Coming Together for #LoveSomalia

Subverting Expectations in The Butterfly Mosque

The Butterfly Mosque by G. Willow WilsonAn American woman moves to Cairo in 2003, converts to Islam and marries an Egyptian.

She’s not a terrorist (though the State Department was very interested in her activities).

She’s not an abused and mistreated Muslim wife.

She actually writes for The Atlantic Monthly and Marvel—yes, she writes comic books.

G. Willow Wilson has an incredibly interesting story (one of the many I discovered at the Festival of Faith and Writing) and The Butterfly Mosque is a glimpse into that story. She navigates a new religion and a new culture—effectively entirely new worlds—with poise and grace. She confronts stereotypes and subverts expectations.

But it’s not just a defense of Islam and an attack on America. There are certainly critiques, but Willow works to keep a foot in both worlds. She’s uncomfortable being a bridge between the two, but she takes on the role in the ways she can (such as Ms. Marvel).

It’s a great read. Perhaps my biggest takeaway is that things aren’t always what we expect and no single voice can speak for everyone, whether it’s religion or culture. The Islam we hear about from TV commentators is not the Islam that’s practiced by everyone. There are gradations. There are extremists everywhere.

It’s perhaps most telling when Willow describes tenets of Christianity that I didn’t recognize as my own faith. Ironically, she was pulling from different threads to articulate her rejection of Christianity. It’s the same thing Muslims struggle with when Westerners have a monolithic perspective of Islam that just doesn’t exist in reality.

Overall The Butterfly Mosque is a chance to embrace a diverse viewpoint and find some beauty and commonality despite our differences.

The World Is Not What We Think

China is poised to become the “most Christian nation” in the world:

Prof Fenggang Yang, a leading expert on religion in China, believes that number will swell to around 160 million by 2025. That would likely put China ahead even of the United States, which had around 159 million Protestants in 2010 but whose congregations are in decline.

By 2030, China’s total Christian population, including Catholics, would exceed 247 million, placing it above Mexico, Brazil and the United States as the largest Christian congregation in the world, he predicted.

Muslim women get more dignity in Middle Eastern mosques than U.S. mosques:

As someone who has had the privilege of exploring mosques in many different places, I have to say that North American mosques are—with a few notable exceptions—among the worst I have seen in terms of the access and dignity afforded to women. The best? Iranian mosques. By a long mile. The world is never as black and white as it seems.

(That comment by G. Willow Wilson was also repeated at the Festival of Faith and Writing, where she gave an interesting rationale:  the difference in how a religion acts when it’s in the minority vs. in the majority.)

“I’m Not Anti-Muslim. I Just Don’t Like Muslims.”

So this whole “ground zero mosque” story is kind of incredible. It just keeps going. Makes me very weary of election years. No wonder nobody votes. I especially love how both sites throw out the ol’ “Anyone with common sense can see that,” argument. As weary as I am of talking politics, the way we talk about this issue keeps getting more interesting.

The other day I came across this blog post about a Washington Post article about Islamic critics, including blogger Pamela Geller. The short version is that folks like Geller are really mad that the Washington Post called them anti-Muslim. Incredulous, the blog post exclaimed, quoting some examples. It starts with Geller defending herself:

“I am not anti-Muslim. This is a slanderous lie. I love people. All people.”

But then Geller has also said:

“It’s the Muslims who are dragging the rest of the world with them, in their genocidal dreams of annihilating goodness, creativity, production, inventiveness, benevolence, charity, medicine, technology, and all of the gifts of the Jews.”

From a quick and dirty look at her site, it seems Geller likes to find examples of Muslim extremists and then blame all Muslims for their actions. The second quote above was about Arab youths attacking Jews in Germany, a shameful and despicable crime for sure, but not one my moderate Muslim neighbors are guilty of, no more than I’m guilty of picketing the funerals of U.S. soldiers because Christian extremists have done that.

Robert Spencer, another writer who resists the “anti-Muslim” label has also written:

“I have written on numerous occasions that there is no distinction in the American Muslim community between peaceful Muslims and jihadists.”

So he’s saying all Muslims are terrorists. Including, I’d guess, these Muslims in Minnesota who are teaming up with the Methodists to pack food for earthquake victims in Haiti. And somehow that whitewashing of an entire religion of 1.6 billion people isn’t anti-Muslim?

As bizarre as all of that is, I’m interested in something else.

What Message Are We Sending?
What Geller, Spencer and the like are effectively saying is “I love all people, but I don’t like what these particular people are doing.” It’s fine to say that, but when you make that statement about an entire group of people, you’re going to be labeled as anti-“those people”.

I can’t help but wonder if that sounds anything like the evangelical Christian response to homosexuality? It’s the old “hate the sin, love the sinner” axiom. It’s Christians saying “We love gay people, but they can’t have the same civil rights everyone else has.”

I’d guess Geller’s insistence that she loves all people sounds just as absurd as Christians who insist they love homosexuals while campaigning to undermine their rights.

A recent article from Relevant Magazine explores the next generation’s approach to gay marriage. It’s characterized by a lack of political fervor, a yearning for real conversation and plain old tolerance. I imagine that lack of rhetoric is what we need in the debate surrounding Muslims.

It’d be nice if in this debate we could find that tolerance and appropriately separate the extremists from the moderate Muslims. Let’s condemn extremist actions but celebrate religious freedom for the moderates.

And if you really want to revel in the Islamiphobia, you can check out Loonwatch.

American Mosques

I don’t like blogging about politics. I did a bit too much of it in the last presidential election and it left a bad taste in my mouth. People tend not to disagree well and it gets ugly. When you mix religion and politics it gets even uglier. But sometimes I feel compelled to talk about. Being quiet and looking the other way doesn’t help anyone, so we need to speak up.

How sad is it that I hesitate to post this because of our complete inability to have ideological differences? This is what extremism accomplishes.

I’m talking about the current controversy over the proposed Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero in New York City. You can already see the ideological sides lining up based on the language I used. I didn’t call it a mosque and intentionally noted that it’s “near” Ground Zero (two blocks away, in fact), and not “at” Ground Zero. (Now would that language be considered journalistically unbiased because it’s factual, or completely biased because it’s the language one side of the debate prefers?)

Personally, I don’t think an Islamic presence near Ground Zero is big deal. And a whole lot of folks have argued it better than I could, from Christians and Jews, to these couple defenses, to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to one of the women behind the project, to the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart.

In a nutshell, I think freedom of religion reigns. That’s what makes America great. If people want to argue that it’s too close and too painful and all the rest, I get that, but I respectfully disagree. There’s a difference between religious extremists who turn to terrorism and a worldwide religion of 1.6 billion people. Let’s not forget that non-terrorist Muslims died on 9/11.

And I think that’s where the problem begins. Some people don’t see a difference, and they see all Muslims as terrorists, or at least purveyors of a great evil. That’s why mosques across the country have been protested, including Temecula, Calif., Sheboygan, Wis.Murfreesboro, Tenn., and New Haven, Ct.

And if that’s the rationale—that freedom of religion doesn’t apply because Islam is evil—I don’t understand why these arguments are just coming up now. And perhaps those making these claims would say they’ve argued for this all along, but it just now seems to be catching on. If mosques truly are “jihadist recruitment centers,” isn’t that something for the FBI to sort out? (and it sounds like they’ve done that).

In the end, if someone truly believes that Islam is evil then there’s not much of a discussion to be had. And that’s perhaps why I hesitate to write this post—if any potential commenters believe that, then we’re not going to get very far. At the very least, let’s be up front about that (because too often we spend lots of time arguing before realizing our views are fundamentally divergent and we should just disagree and move on).

I find it depressing when Christians paint all Muslims with the same brush. Christian complain (loudly) when that happens to us, whether it’s the Crusades, the Inquisition or Westboro Baptist Church. And just as critics point to the Koran as proof of Islam’s ills, anyone can point to the Bible for all kinds of out-of-context horrors, be it perpetuating slavery or silencing women. Nevermind the flagrant accusations that Muslims are trying to spread their beliefs, claim political power or receive over-seas funding for new mosques. When Christians start using these arguments against Muslims, we don’t quite realize that atheists (or whoever) could employ the very same arguments against us (we forget how wacky our lingo sounds to those don’t agree with us).

It’s enough to work you up to a frenzy.

Which is why I love stories like this:

A small group of protesters took over a patch of grass across from the Islamic Center of Temecula Valley on Friday for a vocal but relatively tame protest against a proposed mosque, though they were greatly outnumbered by supporters from area churches who were there to support the Islamic Center. (LA Times)

Boobquake: Confounding Religious Insanity

Today is Boobquake. Funny story:

So an Islamic cleric and Iranian prayer leader was quoted in Iranian media as blaming earthquakes on immodest women:

“Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes.”

As if that claim wasn’t clear enough, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi went on: “What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble? There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam’s moral codes.”

As if to prove Sedighi isn’t an extremist, the minister of welfare and social security, Sadeq Mahsooli, backed him up: “We cannot invent a system that prevents earthquakes, but God has created this system and that is to avoid sins, to pray, to seek forgiveness, pay alms and self-sacrifice.”

So sin, and specifically women showing a little skin, causes earthquakes. Curious that Iran is among the world’s most earthquake-prone areas, and not, say, Las Vegas. Or Cancun during Spring Break. Also curious that these earthquakes are the fault of woman showing skin and not the men who lust after them.

A Modest Proposal
As if that little Pat Robertson moment for Muslims wasn’t entertaining enough, student Jennifer McCreight decided to put this ‘cleveage causes earthquakes’ theory to the test with Boobquake. Her modest proposal: Encourage women to dress as immodestly as they choose on one day and see if they can trigger an earthquake (McCreight is a vocal atheist and proponent of science over religion). She even set up a Facebook event. But when the event had 14,000 attendees she realized that what started as a joke was now something more (today the event has gone out to more than 1 million people).

What’s the Point?
So why am I talking about this? Because religious people too often insert foot in mouth and say something ridiculous. Sometimes it’s just a poorly phrased statement, sometimes it’s bad timing and bad taste, and in some cases (like this one) it’s just bad theology.

Boobquake is silly and juvenile (as the founder admits) and I’m not exactly on board with the pro-slut approach (we’ll save the appropriateness question for another time). But I do love the idea of confronting stupid religious statements. Drawing attention to the oppression women often face in the Islamic world is also worthwhile. It won’t change anything in Iran, but that’s not the point. McCreight’s point is that religion is stupid (I’m paraphrasing). My point is that our own comments and actions too often give people like McCreight permission and justification to think that way.

Religion doesn’t have to be the butt of jokes (the boob of jokes?). But that’s up to us.

Plus: Boob. [insert juvenile laughter]

The Crusades Were a Bad Idea: Let’s Not Do It Again

Update: I’ve been Snoped. Ouch. It appears the stats in this video are of questionable accuracy. They’re not denied outright, but there are significant questions. Despite all the rhetoric (my own included), perhaps the real question this post should raise is how should we respond to news of the growing population of a different faith? I’d contend that the negative overtones of this video aren’t helpful. End update.

I saw what I consider to be a bat-crazy video today. Take a look and tell me what you think:

Continue reading The Crusades Were a Bad Idea: Let’s Not Do It Again

More Islamic Witch Hunts from Katherine Kersten

Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten is at it again. In the spring she claimed the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA) charter school was violating separations of church and state by teaching Islam (the state disagreed, with two minor exceptions). Now she’s claiming that a new group launching three new charter schools, the Minnesota Education Trust (MET), has their own Islamic agenda. I can’t believe I’m having to write about this again.

Kersten may be raising valid points, but they’re lost in her rhetoric and lack of balance. She points out that one of MET’s first priorities is “to promote the message of Islam to Muslims and non-Muslims and promote understanding between them,” and then asks the question, “How can an organization dedicated to promoting religion be qualified to sponsor public schools?”

Great question. How can organizations with similar religious goals like Bethel University, North Central University, Concordia University and Friends of Ascension—all sponsors of charter schools in Minnesota—be qualified to sponsor public schools?

Continue reading More Islamic Witch Hunts from Katherine Kersten

Muslim Americans

Arlington National Cemetery tombstone of Muslim American soldier Kareem Rashad Sultan KhanA couple weeks ago I wrote about how Barack Obama isn’t a Muslim—but what if he was? Who cares? Sometimes it’s nice to be backed up. In this case former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell has my back:

“I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, ‘Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.’ Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America.” (Meet the Press)

Powell went on to talk about a 20-year-old soldier who died in Iraq and earned a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. His name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan and he was a Muslim. He was 14 on a 9/11 and wanted to show people that not all Muslims are fanatics. He served and died for his country, proving that point.

Continue reading Muslim Americans