avari | haroon moghul

New Khutbah

This time around, I devote my entire sermon to the final verse of Surat al-Kafirun; "to you, your religion, and to me, mine."  The sermon is titled, "Everyone Has a Religion," and can be found on the Islamic Center's main page (or here, at the podcast link; see 7/17.)

I had an absolutely wonderful time speaking at a conference sponsored by a number of centers at the University of California-Berkeley.  This conference will be made available via webcast and Berkeley's iTunes channel.  When this is released, I will be sure to let you know; for anyone interested in Islam and new media, this represents a really amazing discussion with participants from the Bay Area, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and of course New York City.

The Bay Area itself is unbelievably gorgeous.  Turns out all the hype is true.  One smart thing this region did is not overrun all its waterfronts with freeways, like New York has unfortunately.  Of course New York is a lot more crowded, dirtier, and also more caffeinated; but beyond that, the natural landscape of the bay area is far and away more moving and compelling than anything in New York City.  I recall at one point we were driving south on the Golden gate Bridge, and so to my right I could see the bay opening up into the Pacific, the sun almost setting over the horizon, and a fully loaded tanker ship slowly moving into the distance, and I remember thinking that the Pacific looked so absolutely enormous, so gently and overwhelmingly sublime, that I felt as if that actually gigantic ship were about to disappear into nothingness.

I have a strange attraction to water; I can actually sit down by an empty beach, or along any kind of waterfront (of course, it has to be a nice one), and there, in silence, I could probably spend hours simply staring into the distance.  I find it has a calming influence, as if it simply sucks out all the stress and anxiety and negative energy inside ourselves and takes it into itself.  It is a kind of paradise, or at least the kind of serenity that every side of Paradise should be surrounded by.  So the only downside, I imagine, to living in the Bay Area -- other than fun at events like earthquakes -- is that I simply may never get anything done.  As a New Yorker, I would either collapse into internal anarchy, or melt away into someone else entirely.  Because the frenetic and nervous energy of the East Coast makes it seem as if everyone on the West Coast is sleeping.  But it seems like a very happy sleep.

Muslims Invented Pasta. Take That, Silvio Berlusconi!

It's true.  An Italian lady said it in Italian, in a book now available in English, detailing the delicious history of Italian pastas, which has been for centuries a staple of the region's diet (anyone want to buy me the book?):

she notes in her encyclopedia, dried pasta made with durum wheat was found in Italy starting around A.D. 800. It was spread by the Muslim conquerors of Sicily, and by the 12th century the maritime republics of Genoa and Pisa marketed dried pasta. “Documents exist to prove this, should there be anyone left — and it appears that there is — who still believes that Marco Polo introduced noodles into Italy in 1296 on his return to Venice from China,” she writes.

Of course, thanks to a lecture years back by Richard Bulliett, I already knew this.  But it's nice to see it appear in the paper of record, thereby making it the truth for certain coastal stretches of the U.S.

Now all we need to find out is pizza is Islamic in its roots.  Then, Hizb at-Tahrir will find its universal Islamic state nutrition.  Where are Robert Ney and Walter B. Jones when you need them? 

Grey Dey Relief

So crummy and cloudy crumbly outside.  Just listen to Javed Bashir and pretend you're at Coke Studio.  Mmm, Coke.

Tonight is Night No. 27, overwhelmingly practiced as the most likely night of Qadr (of the last 10, odd nights.)  God is Odd. 

Muslims Drive Differently

As this map shows, overwhelmingly the world's countries and peoples drive on the right-hand side of the road.  However, the Muslim population of the world differs: Probably half of the Muslim world drives on the left-hand side of the world (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, and then smaller populations in places like Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique.)  This map also indicates that far too many Muslims are Republican.

Okay, give me a break.  It's not even 7:30 a.m., and this is what has to pass for today's post.

Come by the Islamic Center at NYU tonight.  We're having an alumni-sponsored iftar, with kabab king food, milk and cookies for dessert, and special presentations, including one by our own American Muslim superstar, Wajahat Ali.  He'll be talking about "Domestic Crusaders"; speaking of which: which day are you going?  I'm thinking of late September/early October, but I really need to buy tickets.  The Islamic Center at NYU is organizing trips on Thursday, September 24th and Thursday, October 1st.  Come through.

The Most Moving Obituary I've Found of Michael Jackson ... was in The Economist

I kid you not.  For major media, this was one very powerful essay.

"Stone In My Hand" - The Song by Everlast

Ride with the devil, hide with the lord
I got no pistol, ain't got no sword
I got no army, ain't got no land,
Ain't got nothing but the stone that's in my hand
Stone in my hand, stone in my hand
Ain't got nothing but the stone that's in my hand

You say you want a revolution, well get on board
We'll start a new crusade; we'll start a holy war
Don't need no orders, don't need no plan
I don't need nothing but the stone that's in my hand

Stone in my hand, stone in my hand
I don't need nothing but the stone that's in my hand
Stone in my hand, stone in my hand
I don't need nothing but the stone that's in my hand

You build your fighter jets, you drop your bombs
You kill our fathers, you kill our moms
You kill our brother and our sisters, and our uncles and our aunts
Still I'm fighting with the stone that's in my hand

Stone in my hand, stone in my hand
Still I'm fighting with the stone that's in my hand
Stone in my hand, stone in my hand
All the love that's in my heart and the stone that's in my hand

Blood runs in the gutters, smoke fills the sky
Every son that suffers, every mother cries
So if you've had enough and you're ready for your stand
I'll be waiting with the stone that's in my hand

Stone in my hand, stone in my hand
I'll be waiting with the stone that's in my hand
Stone in my hand, stone in my hand
All the love that's in my heart and the stone that's in my hand

- From the album "Love, War and the Ghost of Whitey Ford"
By Everlast

A Beautiful German Mosque, Part of a Der Spiegel Series

From a photo gallery; the shot below was particularly stunning (thanks to Talk Islam for the link):

Space Station Putin

What Pakistan Means to Christopher Hitchens

I promised, in an older post, that I would continue on disemboweling the logic that is Hitchensian (and as contrived as that, I swear to you, friend and reader.)  The "I know the origins of the name of the country (no, you don't) therefore I can make a conclusion (you must have a sound premise to have a sound conclusion.)  This is the kind of racist logic that is either so common we ignore it, or so ridiculous it inflames us.  I wrote the below as an appendix to a work aged years and years back; it came in response to the allegation that Saudi Arabia was fictive because its name was fictive (whatever that means.)  All legitimate criticism aside, the Saudi regime cannot be understood to be wanting only because one sees its name as somehow "wanting" -- this is a cheap trick, appealing to a flagging mind, too tired to try.

      ...      ...      ...     ...     ...

                                                            On Bad Journalism

 

During one of those periods when the Inner Party instructs its minions at Fox News to insult some Muslim country, a common criticism of the Kingdom arose. Namely, "Saudi Arabia is the only country named after a family."

While I agree with the substance of this criticism, insofar as that substance is an essence critical in and of itself of unchallenged monarchy, I do question the colonial spirit hovering around the criticism, since Saudi Arabia is not as dreadfully strange as it is generally made out to be, nor should its name be the object of fun (and sensitive as I am to how Obama means foreignness and ergo untrustworthiness, bear with me.) Many countries are named after persons, if not families, yet these lands are spared such disparagement.

Let'€™s look deeper into things, shall we?

The Americas, and thus the United States, are named after an Italian, Amerigo Vespucci. Is it better to be named after a royal family, or a mostly unknown man whose country is associated with pizza? Surely the stuff American major media debates are made of.  There's a country/continent/another continent not named after a family, but a person.

Colombia, the District of Columbia and British Columbia are all named after Christopher Columbus, who, working off of knowledge borrowed from early 15^th century Chinese, Arab and Indian explorers, literally and inspirationally, opened Europe'€™s way to new empire. I, for one, would not name anything important in my country after a man who could not distinguish the Caribbean from India, unless of course the Carribean's proximity to India gave Christopher "Country First!" Columbus exceptional foreign policy cred.  There's a country/district/province not named after a family, but a person.

Israel was chosen as the name for the Zionist state, having surpassed other candidates, including the fascinating Ever€“ which, in my opinion, would be much, much cooler. But what is Israel? It is another name for the Prophet Jacob, peace be upon him, which arises from an Old Testament incident in which Jacob wrestles with God. There's a country not named after a family, but a person.

Algeria, Kuwait, Djibouti and Tunisia are so devoid of any deeper historical correspondence that they are named after their capitals. In that case, Saudi Arabia would be Riyadh, America would be Washington, and Israel would be Tel Aviv.

Uzbekistan, recently released from Soviet control, is named after the Uzbeks, who might have been so named after Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad Uzbek Khan, leader of a Turkic tribe who was the first of his people to convert to Islam. In his honor, they named themselves Uzbek, and then went galloping about, conquering other Muslims and establishing empires, as nomads are so prone to doing. Of course, it was all in good fun.  There's a country not named after a family, but a person.

Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan suffer much confusion, as before the 1920's, the Kazakh were the Kyrgyz, and the Kyrgyz were the Kara-Kyrgyz. Naturally, Stalin made up a new identity for the two "€œpeoples" (divide in order to disintegrate), and everybody eventually went along. Minus the millions of deaths Communism was responsible for, the purges of thousands upon thousands of Muslims, Russians, Jews, dissidents, etc.  But substantively: There's a country named after the wrong people.  And the other one, too, sort of.  Don't be surprised if the two countries go to war over all this one day.

You heard it here first. 

Maududism-Leninism: Peter Hitchens and Communism is a Theme Park

Sometimes some articles are just funny, not in a silly way, but amusing, diverting, fantastic in a good way, travel journalism or travel essays that make you -- in a way -- want to go somewhere or at least feel happy to know that that somewhere exists, that there is palpable difference in our flat world.  (Unfortunately, not if you actually lived in that far-off there, and only if you could leave, to jog the senses and jolt the philosophies and no more.)  Such is the American Conservative essay on Belarus by Peter Hitchens, out of the most recent issue.  I used to subscribe -- paper always beats photons -- but dollars decline before free(dom).  Here are bits... but read the whole...

I have often half-seriously thought that the Western powers should have clubbed together to maintain the old East Germany as a theme park so that future generations could see what real socialism was truly like, right down to the soup, the beer, and the plumbing. Many East Germans, as is now clear, would have been surprisingly happy to live in such a place—another undoubted problem that we in the rich world have never bothered to try to understand. We are afraid of examining it because we know too well that our new united planet isn’t as good as it could have been.

Clever movies such as “Good Bye Lenin” and “The Lives of Others” make the former East Germany out to have been better than it really was. But then, that is the way it seems to many former East Germans disappointed and disturbed by the triumphant West. [...]

Travel a few hundred miles further east, though, passing through the latest version of Poland, and you come to the curious, accidental country of Belarus, which might have been invented for educational purposes. Such a place never existed before and probably will not for much longer. It is independent of Russia only as an unintended side effect of the break-up of the USSR at the end of the Gorbachev era. They broke it off and forgot to stick it back on again. Its independence from Moscow lacks conviction. There is in reality no proper border with Russia, whose citizens can slip in and out at will.

But there is certainly still a border with “The West,” a phrase that still means something here. And what a border it is. After nearly a thousand miles of passport-free travel, from the English Channel to Warsaw, the voyager is abruptly required to produce his documents, visa and all, properly stamped, just as in the old days. Trains cannot even cross without having their wheels removed, for long ago the Russian empire adopted a wider gauge to prevent a rail-borne invasion.

Here at Brest on the river Bug—travelers who wish to rest overnight may stay in the Hotel Bug—stands the final frontier of the European Union, an abrupt and total stop to that strange, postmodern empire of deliberately forgotten history, bureaucracy, and subsidy. The EU may dream of one day incorporating Ukraine and even Turkey. But Belarus? I don’t think so. The place is too troublesome and unpredictable. An inhabitant of Brest—provided he was on nobody’s death list and was generally lucky—might have lived in five different countries in one century without so much as moving house.

Creepy, like I always imagined Communism to be.  Politically, yes, but moreover, aesthetically; it was a depressing thing, a dark idea, a bland, stale and, most of all, inhuman coldness that brought a Siberian rigidity and lifelessness to anywhere it unfortunately went, and while I can understand what attracted the third world to its rhetoric (democracy and free markets don't preach liberation, or social justice, or global justice, or acknowledge colonization, empire and racism), I pity how traumatized and hollowed Islam has become by the uncritical absorption of an anti-spirituality, producing an Islam that is incoherent and so triply dangerous: it is immoral; it is impractical and it is spiritually imperialist without any meaningful spirituality, kind of like running the world on free markets in order to make it Communist.  Communism!  How it feels in my head to be dirty, a bit old, tired, like it had jumped from hot-headed, red-flagged revolutionary fervor straight into a pathetic old age of a cynical, bitter, failed old man.  Thank God at least the system is practically done.  Minus the tens of millions it had to kill before it extinguished itself, an economic victim of its own literal inhumanity.

But, with all that, there is something that seeded Communism which is itself worthy of consideration, remembrance, reflection and purposeful utilization - and that is Marxism.  How can something helpful produce something so hurtful?  That is, on balance, a product of application by revolutionaries who imagined God, goodness and sinfulness were illusions, and that a basic human mode of living was purely and only oppressive.  Here in fact we have the roots of a Sayyid Qutbian, or Maududian, or Khomeinian bifurcation of the world into radically pagan and suffocatingly Islamist; the roots are economic, but masked, and when reproduced in an Islamic framework, spiritually and socially and even economically devastating.  Muslims have lost a lot, and lost themselves a lot, too: The faith was rushed into modernity in fear it was incapable of a measured reaction, as if the finality of the faith was not so final, and the haste was expectedly disastrous.  We are still paying for it in Pakistan, in Iraq, in Afghanistan...

But the economic analysis is tremendously worthwhile for continued consideration, and all for the worse that we have in America generally lost its point (if ever we had seen it.)  That is to say that capitalism itself is often rapacious and often violent: Wars are started for resources, and that because of the tremendous imbalance in their consumption, and the concurrent elevation of consumption as the end-all, be-all of humanity.  To be is to buy; to be bought is to have value; we are made into products, and it is not our citizenship, our humanity, our souls or our constitution that make us valuable, but our ability to be priced that brings us value.  Marxian analyses show us how this happens, why it happens, and often, quite helpfully, where it might happen next; how can we forget those kinds of insightful tools?  Capitalism become consumerism is not mere free markets, rather it flattens and harshens and stiffens the world, and makes it often into an ugly and cold place, which we must take increasing amounts of drugs (medically or not) to be comfortable with.  We have made ourselves a world we are not happy with and we have made ourselves a world we cannot sustain.  That too is a great tragedy.

Do not sneer too much at those who do this. Not everyone can be protected by oceans and friendly neighbors from the ancient, abiding horrors of human strife. Those who are not so safe are keener on security than on liberty. Nor can we in the free world, who have lazily and thoughtlessly been cajoled into giving away so much of our own liberty since Sept. 11, 2001, look down on others who never had much liberty to give—especially in light of the near-suicidal bravery of those who dare to oppose Alexander Lukashenko.