Posts Tagged City Of Brass
There's a lengthy essay by Talal Asad of his father, Muhammad Asad (b. Leopold Weiss 1900 d. 1992), a convert to Islam from Judaism and one of the 20th century's great Islamic thinkers. I found this part particularly resonant about how at its core, Islam is an appeal to reason as well as faith:
The first and most...
Today, Facebook goes public, and begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange at 11:00am Eastern time (the truly addicted stockwatchers may want to bookmark this). Amidst all the noise about IPOs and investments and whatnot today, I think it's important to celebrate facebook for the social innovation it represents,...
Jumah Mubarak, and May the 4th be with you! Today is Star Wars day, the day we remember with fondness the three greatest movies of our childhood and tolerate three others that were loosely related.
The Jedi order has always had a special resonance for geeky muslim youth in the West. Every muslim kid knows that green is the color of Islam as well as the color of the coolest Jedi (Obi-wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker). But for more substantive parallels, look no further than my friend...
It's the one-year anniversary of the successful killing of Osama bin Laden. Having gone through the requisite 5 stages of emotion over the act long ago, I find that looking back at it now, it feels as though little has changed. Al Qaeda remains a distributed...
The narrative among Islamophobes and other partisans is that Islamic intolerance and Palestinian terrorism has forced Christians out of the Holy Land, but the reality is quite different, as reported by CBS' 60 Minutes:
The report is only 15 minutes long and is absolutely worth watching (or reading the show script). In a nutshell, Read the full post here »
Yesterday I posted about the anniversary of the OKC bombing, and had some comment about the relevance to today's investigations and surveillance of muslims. There's a lengthy article in Foreign Policy that talks about the PATCON investigations by the FBI in the 80's, which failed to detect McVeigh, which also touches...
Earlier I'd linked to an amusing graphic making the case that Captain Jack Sparrow of Pirates of the Caribbean fame was possibly a crypto-muslim. As it turns out, though, Suhaib Webb has a much more indepth analysis of the real historical inspiration for Jack Sparrow:
On April 19th 1995, Timothy McVeigh carried out the first major successful domestic terrorist attack on United States soil: the total destruction of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in downtown Oklahoma City.
Looking at Twitter today I see some references to Holocaust Remembrance, a lot of political blather about dogs and cookies, and other assorted nonsense. Amidst the noise, however, are two tweets from Umar Lee in...
pink slime is not Halal
Mar 30
The controversy over so-called "pink slime" ground beef is repulsive on one level but also serves as a teaching moment about the value of eating halal.
Here is how the beef industry defines pink slime:
The...
Out of India
Mar 25
I've returned from my two-week trip to India and I'd like to thank Aamer for doing such an amazing job as guest blogger in my absence! This isn't Aamer's first time at City of Brass; he has also written two posts on Hajj: one about...
Obama and the Muslim “Smear”
Mar 21
Note: Aziz will be returning soon. It has been a pleasure and an honor to fill in for him. If you enjoyed my writing (or didn't and are looking for further avenues to lambast me), my own blog can be found at Notes from the Heart.
During the recent primaries in Mississippi and Alabama, Read the full post here »
Good Grief
Mar 17
Note: I continue to fill in for Aziz Poonawalla on this site for the next couple of weeks. For those who are interested, these posts will also be available on my own blog Notes from The Heartas well.
Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a bar mitzvah ceremony at a conservative temple here in Los Angeles. I am well known to many in the congregation due to my profession and I was greeted with warmth and...
Calling a Spade a Spade
Mar 12
Note: I will be filling in for Aziz Poonawalla on this site for the next couple of weeks, while he is off gallivanting around the world. These are undoubtedly big shoes to fill (even though technically I'm a size 13 and he's a 9), but I'll do my best. Aziz, in addition to being a good friend, is my mentor in all things blogging and I have long read his blog and aspired to be in the same league. For those who are interested, these posts will also be available on my...
Should Batman kill the Joker? There is actually an ethical debate about this, which is quite relevant to our own national security debate over the question of extrajudicial killing.
I was
The English translation is not as eloquent as the original Arabic, but let me quote from the Koran, itself: "In the long run, evil in the extreme will be the end of those who do evil. For that they rejected the signs of Allah and held them up to ridicule." The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace. They represent evil and war. -- George W. Bush, Read the full post here »