altmuslim this week - october 6, 2008 - This week, Sarah's pallin' around with anti-Muslim imagery, Jewel of Medina hits the shelves, and the Brass Crescent Awards kick off for the fifth year running. 
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Call for submissions for new gender blog - We're looking for submissions of articles and commentary for a new gender-focused online magazine that we're looking to launch soon, in partnership with some of the nation's leading Muslim American women activists. (September 14, 2008)
Looking at the RNC through Muslim eyes - It is upsetting that speakers at the RNC feel they need to resort to declarations of war to get Republicans elected, and saddening that they are oblivious to the very real damage the cause to decent Muslim American citizens. (September 6, 2008)
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altmuslim review 030 - Free speech - is it something Muslims can live with? In this episode, we talk about how Muslims cope with (and benefit from) free speech in Western societies. Also, an extended interview with Jewel of Medina author Sherry Jones discussing her controversial book. (October 10, 2008)
altmuslim review 029 - A vibrant Muslim media could have an opportunity to restore balance to the Muslim public image - if it can get on its feet. In this episode, we explore the state of the Muslim media. Also, an interview with the creator of "Muslim Cafe", Navid Akhtar. (July 5, 2008)
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Recent and upcoming talks and offsite articles by altmuslim contributors
The Republican red scare, Wajahat Ali, The Guardian (UK), Comment is Free (October 11, 2008)
Heritage was mixed a long time ago - Irfan Yusuf, Sydney Morning Herald (September 30, 2008)
Shahed will be a guest on BBC Radio 4's " Sunday" programme speaking about the Jewel of Medina controversy (September 28, 2008)
Dangerous liaisons, Wajahat Ali, The Guardian (UK), Comment is Free (September 27, 2008)
Another attack - in the name of whose Islam? - Irfan Yusuf, The Age (Australia) (September 22, 2008)
Violence against women won't stop until men speak out - Irfan Yusuf, New Zealand Herald (September 12, 2008)
Shahed will be participating in a panel discussion, Sourcing Islam, at the Religion Newswriters Association conference in Washington, DC (September 20, 2008)
Muslims have nothing to fear from this book - Shahed Amanullah, The Guardian (UK), Comment is Free (September 9, 2008)
Rushdie is no believer in free speech - Irfan Yusuf, The Age (Australia) (August 8, 2008)
Shahed will be participating in the Progressive Revival group blog at BeliefNet (July 29, 2008)
Western civilization? What a good idea that would be - Irfan Yusuf, New Zealand Herald (July 22, 2008)
Shahed will be speaking about the role of the Web in promoting Muslim civic engagement at the ISNA South Central Zone Conference in Houston, Texas (July 5, 2008)
Shahed will give a presentation, Shaping the Public Debate About Muslims, at the Center for American Studies in Rome, Italy (May 12, 2008)
Zahed will be a guest on BBC Radio 4's " Sunday" programme speaking about religious podcasting (May 4, 2008)
Rafia and Shahed will be guests on South Africa's Channel Islam, speaking about interpreting Islam in the modern world (March 28 & April 4, 2008)
Shahed will be speaking at the CAMP International Leadership Summit in Princeton, NJ (March 29, 2008)
Shahed will be a guest on Radio Tahrir, airing on WBAI 99.5 FM in New York, speaking about the Muslim block vote (April 1, 2008)
Shahed will be appearing on The Agenda with Steve Paikin for a recap of altmuslim's SXSW panel "Online Extremism" (March 26, 2008)
altmuslim is hosting a panel discussion at 2008 SXSW Interactive, "Online Extremism (And The Muslims Who Fight It)" (March 9, 2008)
Count blessings, then tally taxes - Hesham Hassaballa, Chicago Tribune (February 24, 2008)
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Media appearances and analysis featuring altmuslim editors
Domestic crusader - An associate editor of the publication AltMuslim.com—“it’s neither too apologetic nor too antagonistic”—Wajahat exhorts wealthier American Muslims to invest in their own future by creating think tanks and scholarships in art and media instead of collecting luxury cars. “We have to break out of our culturally isolated bubble,” he says.
(October 11, 2008)
National publisher kills Spokane journalist’s book - [Amanullah] sent e-mails to about 200 graduate students in Islamic studies, telling them of Spellberg's "frantic" call and asking if they had heard about the novel. "What I got back was a collective shrug of the shoulders," says Amanullah. "The thing that is surreal for me is that here you had a non-Muslim write a book, and you had a non-Muslim complain about it, and a non-Muslim publisher pull the book." (August 20, 2008)
Self censoring Muslims - "But Amanullah says he never wanted the book pulled. 'I'm upset the book wasn't published,' he said, 'not because I agree or disagree with the book.' For him, 'I don't want to be in the position where we are stifling speech. Preemptive censorship is not in our interest. That's worse than even censorship. We're not going to silence our way out of problems.'" (August 12, 2008)
You still can’t write about Muhammad - "But Ms. Spellberg wasn't a fan of Ms. Jones's book. On April 30, Shahed Amanullah, a guest lecturer in Ms. Spellberg's classes and the editor of a popular Muslim Web site, got a frantic call from her. "She was upset," Mr. Amanullah recalls. He says Ms. Spellberg told him the novel "made fun of Muslims and their history," and asked him to warn Muslims." (August 5, 2008)
Why the silence? - "Both reactionary religion and militant secularism are on the rise, with both displaying a rigid certainty and a desire for power that will do nothing to benefit society. In this context, it is vital that people with open-minded faith speak up and demonstrate alternatives. [altmuslim.com has] set many good examples in this regard." (January 8, 2008)
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PODCASTS
altmuslim review 023
What exactly is the Muslim "fourth estate", and why is it so important? Also, we suggest policies that can help align Western governments and their Muslim communities against homegrown extremism.
Posted on May 14, 2007
Download the .mp3 version of this show here.
We try to remove any comments that do not conform to our netiquette guidelines. If any comments remain that are in violation, please let us know. The presence of offending comments does not necessarily reflect the views of the editors of altmuslim.
Links to things we discussed:
All about modernist preacher Amr Khaled.
DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff butts heads with Europe.
Opinions collide on the Guardian (UK's) Islamophonic podcast with Riazat Butt.
- Posted by zahed (london, england) on May 15, 2007 at 12:47 AM
Hey, good to hear you again! For the first time, listening to altmuslim review on my Treo - have to say that there is an echo with the headphones on.
Did you have any comments on the fact that DHS wants to profile Pakistani British? (I'm asking as I got distracted while listening ;-)
- Posted by abuljude on May 17, 2007 at 04:45 PM
have to say that there is an echo with the headphones on.
that is because we didn't pull the string tight enough between our tin cans across the atlantic!
- Posted by zahed (london, england) on May 23, 2007 at 04:30 AM
Did you have any comments on the fact that DHS wants to profile Pakistani British?
None of us got a chance to bring that up. But we have a follow-up meeting in June.
- Posted by shahed (Austin, TX) on May 23, 2007 at 08:43 AM
My take on Amr Khaled's visit over at Eteraz: http://eteraz.org/story/2007/5/19/19387/6818 Maybe more of us will listen to Amr Khaled's next if he decides to address *all* American Muslims who are at ISNA instead of a select ethnic group! - Posted by OmarG on May 23, 2007 at 07:23 PM
My take on Amr Khaled's visit over at Eteraz: http://eteraz.org/story/2007/5/19/19387/6818 Maybe more of us will listen to Amr Khaled's next if he decides to address *all* American Muslims who are at ISNA instead of a select ethnic group!
I did notice that he was a bit Arab-centric when he spoke in London, though I'm not sure there's anything malicious in it. Ultimately, these cross-cultural issues will be better dealt with by second generation Muslims who grow up American or British or Australian, etc.
Er, people like us (maybe?)
- Posted by zahed (london, england) on May 24, 2007 at 01:35 PM
Honestly, I also do not think he was being malicious. Its just what he is used to, although I often get my hopes up on Muslm public figures that they can encompass and even embrace the ethnic and social diversity we have. Maybe its alot to expect of public figure, dunno.
>>Er, people like us (maybe?)
You bet!
- Posted by OmarG on May 24, 2007 at 08:00 PM
Congratulations to altmulsim.com for an excellent podcast. I've already sent the links to this podcast to the editors at my hometown newspaper. For a grim view of what we endure here, you can read this editorial (make sure you've taken your Prozac first!):
http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/052407/edi_129616.shtml
I watched my first "Law and Order" episode ever a couple of nights ago. It happened to be "American Jihad."
PERVERSION OF RELIGION AND POLITICS RESULTS IN DOUBLE HOMICIDE--When Professors Hugh and Louise Murdoch are found shot dead in their apartment, Detectives Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Green (Jesse L. Martin) must determine if Hugh Murdoch's controversial work in stem-cell research could have motivated a religious zealot to commit the murders. But it soon becomes apparent that it was Louise Murdoch's volunteer work raising money and awareness for women's issues in the Middle East that attracted the attention of a troubled young man, Greg Landen aka Mousah Salim (guest star Wil Horneff). A.D.A.'s McCoy (Sam Waterston) and Southerlyn (Elisabeth Rohm) are left to grapple with Landen's interpretation of the Muslim religion, which may have led him to take extreme measures to exorcise his own personal demons. S. Epatha Merkerson and Fred Thompson also star. TV-14
http://www.nbc.com/Law_&_Order/episode_guide/276.shtml
I wasn't paying very close attention, but it seemed to posit an interesting theory. Psychopaths create sects. Sects do not create psychopaths.
So in this episode, Greg Landon (a white guy who converts to Islam) has dysfunctional parents who turn him into a misogynist, and then he becomes a Muslim and gravitates towards those who reinforce his misogyny.
So in theory, if contemporary Islam in practice has more misogyny or is associated with more misogyny than other religions in the United States, misogynist psychopaths will gravitate towards "Islam."
I strongly support your suggestion that the best support the goverment could provide to U.S. Muslims (I'm not holding my breath) is in development of social service type skills.
Keep up the good work!
wassalaam
Ayman
The accolades on this page are all well and good but Mr Zahed Amanullah displayed traits of sour grapes when 'Islamophonic' was launched, see his comment here: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/podcasts/2007/02/islamophonic_for_wednesday_28.html
I'll be happy to listen to both AltMuslim and Islamophonic, but I prefer the latter. If I were to choose, I'd prefer the quick British wit and the delectable tones of Riazat Butt over the ridiculous American earnestness displayed at AltMuslim.
Zahed Amanullah, I've said it once, I'll say it again -- the UK is not the US. You may be resident in London, but transposing your US lens on the British scene will result in flawed analysis.
Go take your baseball bat somewhere else....! - Posted by Disha on June 2, 2007 at 11:02 AM
Take your cricket bat somewhere else...
- Posted by OmarG on June 2, 2007 at 03:03 PM
Disha, good for you. For what it's worth, we're big fans of Islamophonic, the point I made notwithstanding. In fact, they're one of the few outlets that pits different Muslim opinions against each other ( myself included). I've praised them time and time again (go to iTunes and read the only review left for Islamophonic). As we've said many times before, we're not trying to be the only voice out there.
Go take your baseball bat somewhere else....!
A British Muslim telling an immigrant to the UK to go back where he came from? Looks like the BNP is more influential than I thought.
Anyway, get out there and make a difference. Do something constructive. Do more than complain. Jeez. - Posted by zahed (london, england) on June 3, 2007 at 12:39 AM
My dear Mr Zaheed. I'm sure you'll have learnt by now that there is a healthy anti-Americanism here in London and it is in that vain I direct my fire at you.
Do more than complain. Jeez. I would have thought that is your bread and butter. I see you're happy to dish out, but not that keen to take any.
Anyhow, my cynicism aside, I promise to try and be constructive and offer robust reposte to your observations.
Right, I'mm off to the village green for a few innings....
- Posted by Disha on June 3, 2007 at 12:51 PM
>> a healthy anti-Americanism here in London
What the heck does that have to do with Zahed?! So childish, so un-English...
- Posted by OmarG on June 3, 2007 at 09:36 PM
I would have thought that is your bread and butter. I see you're happy to dish out, but not that keen to take any.
And with that, candles flicker at any number of British organisations with Muslim or Islamic in their names.
The greatest tragedy in the past two years has been the inability of Muslim organisations in the US and the UK to translate popular discontent against the occupation in Iraq to an end to Western involvement there. So as long as we're incapable of "doing" the big things, we'll have to settle for the little things.
For us, it's debate and analysis on what has gone wrong. To our twisted minds, that's "constructive." Ultimately our readers (or lack of them) will decide.
Besides that, I'm more than happy to take criticism. In fact, the greatest conceit here is that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. But it doesn't seem to make a difference. I see a reference to a US lens. But I don't see any other criticism...
Right, I'mm off to the village green for a few innings....
Ok, if "innings" is a singular entity, shouldn't the plural be "inningses"? I don't understand <sobs>.
- Posted by zahed (london, england) on June 4, 2007 at 02:23 AM
Great podcast, gentlemen. Keep up the good (and groundbreaking) work.
Disha, we all have our backgrounds and the strengths and weaknesses that arise thereof. That's inevitable and nothing to apologize for. Instead of sniping at clearly well intentioned efforts, try explaining what's wrong with the analysis of UK Muslims being offered. Assuming you came up with something reasonably fair and coherent, I'm sure they'd be happy to respond to it.
Or try your own hand at it and show us how serious podcasting about the British Muslim scene is done. The more voices the merrier.
Riazat Butt's playful analysis is indeed a pleasure, but who said alt.muslim is supposed to be doing the same thing? Different products, with different audiences.
- Posted by Svend White on September 6, 2007 at 01:31 PM
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