Tag Archives: Islam

BBC Report: One Cleric's Legacy of Peace

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Dr Safrez Naeemi, Imam of Jamia Naeemia in Lahore, is a Pakistani cleric and advocate of non-violence who was killed on June 12 by a suicide bomber, very likely because of his outspoken criticism of the Taliban.

Muhammed Raghib Hussein Naeemi, Dr Naeemi’s son, heard about the attack in a phone call while he was driving.
He says he was angry, very angry but he knew immediately what he had to do.
“I realised that I would have to be very calm. So I ordered all of my father’s students not to harm anyone, not to start fires, not to kill anyone.”

The story is the subject of a piece from BBC Radio 4 called “One Cleric’s Legacy of Peace.” In a time when so much mainstream Western media only shows us troublesome images from the Islamic world, it is good to see such stories.
But though right-wing talking heads on in print and in the media may insist that Muslim clerics do not condemn terrorism, Dr. Naeemi and his son are not as unusual as the title of this article would suggest. I have grown so tired of hearing that claim because it is so absurdly and demonstrably false, and yet the people who make it, usually neo-conservative pundits, right wing Christians, and others in that vein, are never challenged. And yet in the days following the attacks of September 11th, 2001 Muslim clerics in places such as Iran, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Morocco and other Muslim countries denounced the attacks, and ordinary people paused to remember the victims (click here for a moving photo essay). According to the Council on American Islamic Relations,
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…those who commit acts of terror, murder and cruelty in the name of Islam are not only destroying innocent lives, but are also betraying the values of the faith they claim to represent. No injustice done to Muslims can ever justify the massacre of innocent people, and no act of terror will ever serve the cause of Islam.

A group called Muslims Against Terrorism has existed since 1998. The Fiqh Council of North America has written that people who commit terrorism in the name of Islam are criminals not martyrs. On this page you can read a sampling of condemnations issued by clerics from around the world. Even senior clerics from the Darul Uloom Deoband in India, a radically conservative institution established in 1857 and often linked in the media to the Taliban, issued a statement calling terrorism illicit and immoral.
The other point I’d repeat, as it is one I and others have made before, is that the media’s use of Madrassa is reckless and irresponsible. The term has become synonymous with conservative Muslim religious schools. In fact madrassa is an Arabic word that has found its way into other languages of the Muslim world as well and it simply means “school.” So if you were reading an Arabic text that spoke of the Harvard Business School or the London School of Economics, the names of those institutions would be translated with the world “Madrassa.” When I taught at the King Fahd School of Translation in Tangier, an institution that provides what is essentially a graduate level degree, I taught at the Madrassa Malik Fahd L’Turjama (apologies for the transcription) or the Ecole Supérieure Roi Fahd de Traduction.
In Rabat, Morocco there is a Spanish elementary school an American elementary school, a French elementary school, and I don’t know what else. All of the signs translate the name using the word Madrassa, just as the Moroccan schools do.
So it is not safe to assume that madrassas train students in radical Islamic theory. In fact, they may not teach them about Islam at all.

Video Game Sales in the Middle East

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Here is an interesting post analyzing factors that may be impacting the sale of products such as XBox, Wii and PlayStation in the Middle East.

Video games are on the list of the most popular mainstream media, which makes up an important percentage of social activity for a considerable portion of youngsters worldwide. The Middle East region is no exception; video games are as popular in the region as it is anywhere else in the world despite the minimal support/focus of the major hardware players Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. Their lack of interest in the region – so far – keeps the doors open for piracy to nourish and dominate the regional video games industry. For instance, almost every Nintendo Wii in Saudi Arabia is modified with a special chip to allow the machine to play pirated games that cost 3$ to 8$ in comparison to the original games costing around $80 – $100 in the region – even higher than their prices in many western countries.

Among the factors considered, religious sensitivities, stereotyping, marketing strategies and the impact of piracy. He makes some good points. I would particularly like to see some of the locally produced games.

The offensive portrayal of Arabs in some Western video games has triggered local Arab production companies to come up with their own version of video games to protect their identity and perspective of the state of affairs of the regional conflicts. Afkar Media, a Syrian company, has already produced different games with nationalism streak: Under Ash, a political game that tells the story of the first intifada from the Palestinian perspective. Under Siege, is another political game that tells the story of a Palestinian family and their struggle during the second intifada (1999-2002). Quraish, the first Arabic 3D real strategy game (RTS), tracks the origins of Islam in the desert of Arabic 590 A.C.

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Muslim and Christian Coalition to Expand Broadband Access

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The Islamic Society of North America, the National Council of Churches, the US Catholic Conference of Bishops, the United Methodists, the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), the Lutheran (ELCA) have all joined an effort spearheaded by the United Church of Christ

to bring broadband to everyone in the US so that “our poorest communities, our rural areas, our public libraries, our public schools, and community centers” benefit from the communications revolution that the Internet hath wrought.

Known as Bringing Betty Broadband, the initiative is part of a media reform initiative called “So We Might See,”

an ecumenical, interfaith coalition that educates and advocates for media justice, both within and beyond communities of faith.

For the participants in the initiative, bringing broadband to all is a moral imperative, since the lack of access disenfranchises many and thus perpetrates and injustice.
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It’s about the “right to disseminate and receive information,” it’s a “right that helps to define ourselves as human beings and political actors,” and it’s absolutely essential for everyone in a modern society.

The So We Might See campaign has other initiatives as well. One that the Ars Technical article signals out is the Spare Kids the Ads campaign. It’s web page is the source of the image here as well as the nativity scene image in the Ars Technica article.
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