islam

A recent article in the Washington Post recycles well-worn myths about religiosity and Islam. Is this the best we can do?

A new report details the egregious civil rights violations and damage to communities from the NYPD’s surveillance of Muslim communities post-9/11.

This month at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a select group of students will show their humanitarian spirit by participating in the Bleedin’ Heathens Blood Drive. Later in the month, they will eat cake to celebrate Darwin Day, and earlier this year, they performed “de-baptism” ceremonies to celebrate Blasphemy Day, attended a War on Christmas Party, and set up Hug An Atheist and Ask An Atheist booths in the campus quad.

We cannot trust the police, we cannot trust people on the subway, and Mayor Bloomberg fiddles.

“The First Muslim isn’t a “message” book. If anything, since I’m agnostic, you might call it an agnostic biography. But I think many readers may be surprised at Muhammad’s deep commitment to social justice, his radical protest against greed and corruption, and his impassioned engagement with the idea of unity, both human and divine—major factors that help explain the appeal of Islam.”

I’m not arguing that Islamophobia is racist, or that Islamophobes are racists, because that’s not quite what’s happening. For one thing, Islamophobes embrace ex-Muslims like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and racists wouldn’t (indeed couldn’t) do the same. But consider the similarities: the Islamophobe must assume Muslims suffer some sort of pre-Islamic inferiority, sufficient to explain how some (largely non-white) people—actually, a lot of people—not only fell for Islam in the first place, but then stayed down. How long do enforced ideologies last? Nazism: twelve years. Communism: some decades. Islam: Fourteen centuries and counting.

This list, in links and headlines, just skims the surface. But it gives a sense of what to watch for in 2013.

When you don’t know anything about the object of your hatred, it has a tendency to show.

As Jewish institutional support of pro-Israel positions is showing signs of breaking down, it’s an opportunity to take a critical look at a widely-made claim that Jews have a “historical right” to the land of Israel.

Jesus… not just for Christians.