Crossing the Crescent

America’s favorite friend in the Middle East, funded to the tune of $6 billion a year, has an established history of ethnic cleansing. Outside of some universities, this history is largely ignored here for political reasons. But Israel’s own historians have painstakingly combed through national and military archives and exposed Israel’s expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during → Read More: Israel Denies its Victims American Education

Americans should be forgiven for any confusion over the meaning of the word “Islam.”

On the one hand, Muslims keen on establishing a grand canyon in public perception between the faith and violent extremists eagerly insist that the word means “peace.”

On the other hand, conservatives for whom Islam was basically born on Sept. 11, 2001, claim that Islam really → Read More: What Does the Word ‘Islam’ Mean?

(This is a stream-of-consciousness draft of an article soon to be published)

The development and dissemination of anti-Islamic materials—the short film Fitna and the Danish cartoons spring to mind—raise a number of interesting questions.

I think those behind the propaganda have rather enjoyed themselves. For one, vilifying the enemy flavor of the month always wins vigorous rounds of applause (and → Read More: Free Speech, or Weapons Free?

Today I started reading a new book: Islam: A Short History, by Karen Armstrong.

The last three books I read were written by Western converts to Islam or Muslims educated in Europe: Martin Lings, Charles Le Gai Eaton, and Tariq Ramadan. Each of their efforts was illuminating, but the perspective of someone observing Islam from the outside can → Read More: Revolutionary? Yes, But How?

I wrote this piece in response to the recent unceremonious removal of Barack Obama’s Muslim coordinator, but it is more of a commentary on the shared anti-Islamic mentality of neoconservatives and many liberals, and the consequences of that mentality.

“But two sharply different responses to this episode – and the standing afforded to the authors of these responses – → Read More: Article: The Only Good Muslim is the Anti-Muslim

Some men have very ambivalent relationships with their beards.

Grow it out a bit, and you can pull at it in a philosophical sort of way, but at the risk of having a prickly, less-than-kissable face.

Rein it in, and you may win the favor of your wife, but you may also be left baby faced and feeling → Read More: A Bit of Beard Rubbing on Beards

Islamic extremists and terrorists are frequently called “fundamentalists” in popular parlance. This term is borrowed from Christianity, in which some evangelicals are called Christian fundamentalists. However, I think it is wrong to artificially graft this term from the Christian onto the Muslim experience.

Christian fundamentalism implies a certain literalism – a literal reading of the Old Testament. Therefore it’s fair to assume → Read More: Fundamentalism?

Americans have always been curiously incurious about the rest of the world. Pick up a newspaper, for instance, and you’ll likely find precious little news about what’s going on in our neighboring countries, Mexico and Canada.

I have not always considered this lack of interest in foreign affairs, and foreign people, to be a bad thing.

A Pakistani-born Muslim, → Read More: The Opening