Raising Cain...

Islam Has Been Part of American History Since Its Founding | Alternet

This is really interesting stuff...

Muslims are feeling unwelcome in America today, but followers of Muhammed were living here before the arrival of English in Spanish-controlled Florida and French Louisiana, where slaves were imported from the Senegambia region of Africa, home to a large Muslim population. 

Influenced by the tolerance of the Enlightenment, America's founders considered Islam’s place in the new republic despite widespread fear of Barbary pirates and a sense of European rivalry with the Ottoman Empire. As befitting a student of law in a religiously diverse land, Thomas Jefferson purchased a Quran to learn about the Islamic legal code – the same Quran that was used in the swearing in of Muslim Keith Ellison to the U.S. Congress. In 1776, John Adams published "Thoughts on Government," which praised the prophet Muhammad as a "sober inquirer after truth.” Ben Franklin set up a non-sectarian meeting house in Philadelphia, declaring in his autobiography that "even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service."

Read the full article at www.alternet.org

CNN: Asking the Wrong Questions About Islam | Religion Dispatches

I really enjoyed this exchange between CNN's Don Lemon and Haroon Moghul, an Associate Editor at Religion Dispatches, and a Fellow at the New America Foundation and the Center on National Security at Fordham Law. It speaks to how our world views "have us" rather than us having world views. I also was inspired by Moghul's skill at challenging the thinking about Islam and Muslims that is prevalent in the US, trying to deepen the discussion rather than allowing it to spin around at the surface.

 

via www.religiondispatches.org

Lawrence Davidson: America's Ku Klux Klan Mentality

Lawrence Davidson's article addresses the dimension of increased hate group activity toward American Muslims as an element of ongoing racism in the United States...

While today the Ku Klux Klan as an organization is nearly (but not quite) gone, it would be a mistake to think that the Klan mentality is dead in the U.S. Quite the contrary. The nation’s deep-seated history of racism has helped preserve an apparent permanent subset of Americans who grow up with prejudicial feelings against anyone they perceive as a threat to their version of the “American way of life.”

This background can help us understand the  ongoing attacks against American Muslims.  Since 2010 there has been an increase in the number of attacks on American Muslims, their mosques and other property, as well as American minorities (such as Sikhs) who are regularly mistaken for Muslims.

These attacks are not the work of a refurbished Ku Klux Klan but, nonetheless, have about them the same nature: fear of American Muslims as cultural subversives (for instance, the delusion that they seek to impose Sharia law in the United States); anonymous threats of violence (via telephone, Internet, and also in the form of abusive graffiti); bomb, arson, and gun-fire attacks on property; and finally assaults and murders.

Read more of the story at www.alternet.org

Project Empire: How Anti-Muslim Sentiment is Used to Justify Imperial Adventures | | AlterNet

Interesting article...Deepa Kumar addresses conservative and liberal manifestations of "Islamophobia"...much to consider here if you think we can and must create a just society for all:

The term “Islamophobia” became known to Americans after the September 11 attacks. Whether it was efforts on the left to combat anti-Muslim sentiment or efforts on the right to attack Muslim-Americans and deny that there was something called Islamophobia, the term was here to stay.

But if we only look at anti-Muslim sentiment post-9/11, we would miss a lot. In fact, as Deepa Kumar shows in her new book Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, set to be released next month, the production of Islamophobia has a long history.

via www.alternet.org

Rutherford sheriff hires mosque foe to train deputies | The Tennessean

If I wanted to get to know more a about a group of people different from me, common sense tells me to ask somebody from that group to teach me...and certainly not to find somebody outside of that group who already fears or hates the group I want to know more about. The group and trainer mentioned below have already been exposed for their warped view on Muslims.

A former FBI agent who claims Nashville’s mosques have no legal right to exist is training the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office about Islam and the threats of terrorism.

John Guandolo, vice president of the Arlington, Va.-based Strategic Engagement Group, is leading training being held at World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro. He spoke at an anti-Shariah law event at Cornerstone Church in Madison on Nov. 11, calling local mosques front organizations for the Muslim Brotherhood with no right to exist.

“They do not have a First Amendment right to do anything,” Guandolo said then.

Rutherford Sheriff Robert Arnold said his department simply wants to learn about Muslim culture.

via www.tennessean.com

ACLU: Federal Court Rules That Discrimination Against Muslims Violates the First Amendment

Awesome decision yesterday by a federal appeals court on some of the Islamophobic nonsense making its way into "no sharia" legislation around the country. This case was in Oklahoma. The opinion is worth reading (pdf, 111kb) says me.

Here's an excerpt from ACLU's article. The full article has links to previous articles and other info as well:

Condemning an entire faith and singling out its followers for disfavored and unequal treatment by the government violates the Constitution, it turns out. That principle might seem obvious to anyone who has read the Constitution, but the State of Oklahoma and its voters did not get the message, prompting a federal appeals court today to affirm a decision blocking the implementation of an anti-Islam constitutional amendment.

Read more at www.aclu.org

 

Tonight on PBS: ‘Wham! Bam! Islam!’ on ‘Independent Lens’ - NYTimes.com

I am really looking forward to watching this documentary. I've checked out the trailer and several other video clips, and I've read an introductory issue of The 99. This project has great heart resonance for me. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I have no doubt that The 99 came from the heart of Naif Al-Mutawa, the Kuwaiti psychologist who created it.

The story is grounded in principles that may be identified with specific religious teachings, but these principles also are universal ones, and ones that are especially useful today. The heroes are 99 young people from around the world, each of whom has a access to a specific superpower, but they must work together to bring the full potential of those powers to bear on problems they face. If they are to succeed, they must cooperate rather than compete.

This is a truth that is so fundamental to continuation of life that it is even embedded in nature itself: when natural systems come under stress and can no longer sustain themselves, species evolve toward cooperation with one another. There is no aspect of life on Earth right now in which this challenge isn't pretty much in our face.

If we look, listen and feel our way into the chaos of modern life, we may get a glimpse of what is trying to be born from the suffering: a new life for all based on unconditional love and cooperative, co-creative, conscious evolution.

I hope people will use heartful projects like The 99 to stimulate discussions on how we can evolve humanity in a way that allows for a planetary going-on-being.

Daniel Diaz

An image from “Wham! Bam! Islam!” to be shown on PBS's “Independent Lens” series beginning Thursday.

via www.nytimes.com

 

Related links:

Wham! Bam! Islam! on Facebook

Naif Al-Mutawa fights to bring THE 99 and its message to wide U.S. audience (Washington Post)

Wham! Bam! Islam! trailer on YouTube

Wham! Bam! Islam! Where Mississippi meets the Middle East (YouTube video)

The continuing saga of THE 99 (my recent blog post with TED Talk video of Naif Al-Mutawa)

 

Documentary on the work of Naif Al-Mutawa: Wham! Bam! Islam!

WHAM! BAM! ISLAM! tells the story of Naif Al-Mutawa and his venture to create the first team of superheroes from the Muslim world called THE 99. Following the tumultuous journey of THE 99 from concept to reality, from international acclaim to censure by cultural gatekeepers, Al-Mutawa pursues his vision to bring new heroes to Muslim children while re-introducing Islam to the West.

This documentary by Isaac Solotaroff airs on PBS's Independent Lens on October 13th. WHAM! BAM! ISLAM!

 

You can get a free preview issue of The 99! -- see the Wham! Bam! Islam! film page on Facebook for details.

Naif Al-Mutawa has an undergraduate degree from Tufts University (with a triple major in clinical psychology, English literature and history), and a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Long Island University. In addition, he holds a Masters in Organizational Psychology from Teacher’s College, Columbia University and an MBA, also from Columbia University.

Dr. Al-Mutawa has worked with former prisoners of war in Kuwait and the Survivors of Political Torture unit of Bellevue Hospital in New York. Having witnessed the trauma of people who have been tortured because of their religious and political beliefs, he decided to write a children's story that won a UNESCO prize for literature in the service of tolerance.

Here are some other links if you'd like to learn more about Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa and his work:

New Film Captures Struggle to Create First Muslim Superhero Comic (24 September 2011 at Branford Patch blog)

Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa's website

Article by Dr. Al-Musawa at Huffington Post (17 May 2011): The Future Depends on What the Meaning of "Was" Was

The 99: the Islamic superheroes getting into bed with Batman (Carole Cadwalladr, 23 October 2010 in The Observer)

 

“Islam Is Not a Religion” | Religion Dispatches

When I saw the title of this article by Julie Ingersoll in my daily headlines email from Religion Dispatches, I almost felt like my brain spun around. I was compelled to read the rest of it, just to find out who would say such a thing and why. I've been watching Tennessee's 2010 governor's race -- not to mention the outbreak of Islamophobia -- in a state of a dread and even horror at times, so the answer was not all that shocking:

“Islam is not a Religion.” At least that is the argument being made in a court in Murfreesboro, TN, in a suit filed to stop the building of a mosque there.

Tennessee Lt. Governor and current gubernatorial candidate, Ron Ramsey took a similar position last spring.

Without a doubt, these two instances represent disingenuous attempts to gain an edge in a political dispute. But the ambiguity in what counts as a religion creates a space for such rhetoric as well as for some profound miscommunication in contemporary debates about religion.

I'm glad I decided to read the whole article, which includes links to the background stories in Tennessee and elsewhere. This -- along with the creepy story about the Tennessee fire department  that refused to help a fellow citizen, Gene Cranick, save his home -- has left me in a state of shock and awe this morning.

World as Dream, World as Mirror: Moving On

I almost wrapped up this dream series the weekend of 9/11, but it never really came together. Some pretty intense situations were on edge about that time, with threats to burn a Qu’ran or two – one of those was here in Tennessee – and emotional fires burning around the Park 51 community center proposal near Ground Zero, which seemed to bring into being (or maybe just into focus?) a sharp rise of Islamophobia. I was on edge, too, and frequently had to re-center in heartspace. It was hard to focus on writing.

After 9/11, at least to me, the heat seemed to dissipate, but I also wondered if it might just have slipped back underground, or if something transformative might have happened to redirect all that energy into other channels of expression.

For one thing, I began finding many articles, blogs, videos and other conversations in which people who have been on the receiving end of such hatred were talking about it. Meanwhile, I was going through a series of inspirations on where to go with this next, but before I could finish writing a new post, I'd find myself beyond that place, in new territory.

More living dreams unfold. At warp speed.

In these new dreams, I hear or see things that trigger an association back to the Knoxville rally dream or to a piece of it. This tells me that there is much more to be explored and discovered about what really ails us and how to set things right and whole again. All I can say for sure right now is that we as a nation are not done with racism. Or extremism. Or homophobia. Or xenophobia. Or any one of a number of other -isms and -phobias caught daily on tape, in print, online, in mind.

But I'm not discouraged about the road ahead. What I see emerging more clearly at these points of intersection are principles and patterns that appear to surround them all. How do I make use of these on the journey of this lifetime? Are they guideposts? Mile markers? Maps? Rest and refueling areas? I’m not sure yet. I guess all I can do is to take them one by one and keep travelblogging.

Coming soon: Dealing with the Dark Side of the Mind and the Moon