Islam

Crazy conservatives getting their panties in a twist about the State Department’s “Mosques of America” calendar. Also, this writer Jeff Johnson seems to be jealous over the fact that he didn’t come with Stuff White People Like. Get over it, dude. There’s a patron saint for the Internet? Meet Saint Isidore of Seville. The Star Pheonix: ‘Couch surfing’ site reveals cultural side of the Internet

Music: The New Pornographers – Sing Me Spanish Techno (Soho Sessions) 1:03 pm Pacific Time March 22 2008 Khanoom and her husband — who passed years before — are buried sideways, so that they can face the Shrine of Massoumeh in Qom for all of eternity. This is the holiest of Iranian cities, the base of Iranian Shi’ite clergy and theology. Men walk the streets in dark robes and white turbans and glare out from behind their bearded and sunglassed…

The Baltic Times: TALLINN – Islam is taking off in Estonia. The Koran, the holy book which was recently published for the first time in Estonian, has been on the best sellers list for months. The liberalization of immigration policy, meanwhile, is likely to lead to an increase in the number Muslims settling in the country. Three thousand copies of the Koran have been sold since it was first published in December 2007. To put this in the context of…

From Sarmad Ali’s new blog, Baghdad Life: I celebrated my first Christmas in 2004, after I had moved to the U.S. to attend Columbia University. One of my classmates, who became one of my best friends here, invited me first for Thanksgiving and then for Christmas. We went to Berkeley, Calif., where his grandparents lived. It was a welcome break from the hectic pace of New York, and it was nice to be with a family again, several months after…

Dear Ms. Ali, I’m really not sure what your credentials as an Islamic scholar are, beyond the fact that you are a Muslim-turned-atheist and have aligned yourself with the ideals of American conservatism. As such, I’m not sure why when you speak that the whole world sits up and listens. I too, do not claim to be an expert on Islam, but having a secular Muslim father, and an observant Muslim grandmother, I feel that it is my obligation to…

This past weekend, got a rare opportunity to sit down with Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former Iranian vice president and probably the highest-ranking (former) government blogger.

AFP: Before the voyage, Malaysia’s Department of Islamic Development issued a 20-page book of guidelines on observing Ramadan in space. Otherwise, because the space station circles the Earth 16 times a day, a Muslim would theoretically have to pray 80 times a day. The guidelines stipulate that the astronaut need only pray five times a day, just as on Earth, and that the times should follow the location from which the spacecraft blasted off — in this case, the Baikonur…

This LA Times article provides some suggestion as to what I’d wondered about for some time: Beneath the feel-good simplicity of buying your way to carbon neutrality is a growing concern that the idea is more hype than solution. According to Native Energy, money from “An Inconvenient Truth,” along with payments from others trying to neutralize their emissions, went to the developers of a methane collector on a Pennsylvanian farm and three wind turbines in an Alaskan village. As it…

Universities Install Footbaths to Benefit Muslims, and Not Everyone Is Pleased The New York Times August 7, 2007 But as a legal and political matter, that solution has not been quite so simple. When word of the plan got out this spring, it created instant controversy, with bloggers going on about the Islamification of the university, students divided on the use of their building-maintenance fees, and tricky legal questions about whether the plan is a legitimate accommodation of students’ right…

My editor at Foreign Policy, Mike Boyer, had this scathing comment on FP Passport today with regard to CNN Headline News‘ reaction to Congressman-elect Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim to be elected to our legislative body: When it comes to Rep.-elect Keith Ellison of Minnesota, CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck just isn’t sure. That’s because Ellison is Muslim, which Beck said made him “nervous.” Interviewing Ellison on Tuesday, Beck said he felt like questioning Ellison’s loyalty to America.…