Eid Mubarak, everyone. Today is Eid-ul-Azha, which the celebration of Abraham’s offer to sacrifice Ishmael (Isaac according to the Bible, but Ishmael in the Quran). To commemorate that event, those Muslims who can afford it sacrifice cows, goats or lambs. Haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, is also going on at this time. For some links… Continue reading Eid Greetings
Month: February 2003
Zionist Church of Swaziland
Browsing through the religious data in the CIA World Factbook, I found out that Swaziland, a small landlocked country in Southern Africa (area 17,363 sq km slightly smaller than New Jersey and population 1.1 million) has a Zionist religion. No, this has nothing to do with Zionism. According to the CIA entry, Swaziland has the… Continue reading Zionist Church of Swaziland
Cricket World Cup Predictions
As the world cup has finally started, I should make my predictions. The teams are divided into two pools. The top three teams from each pool advance to the super-six round where they play each other. Two teams are then eliminated and the rest advance to the semifinals and then the final. So here are… Continue reading Cricket World Cup Predictions
Muslim Population
Tom Friedman in an anti-France op-ed in the New York Times argued to replace France with India in the UN Security Council: Because India is the world’s biggest democracy, the world’s largest Hindu nation and the world’s second-largest Muslim nation, and, quite frankly, India is just so much more serious than France these days. Now… Continue reading Muslim Population
Maudoodi: According to Kepel
I have started reading Gilles Kepel’s book Jihad : The Trail of Political Islam”. It is an interesting book with a somewhat different viewpoint about political and militant Islam. Here are some excerpts about Maudoodi (for some background, read my earlier posts [1, 2]): By contrast with Egypt, where Nasser crushed the Muslim Brothers in… Continue reading Maudoodi: According to Kepel
World Cup Cricket
It starts tomorrow in South Africa. Some of the games are in Zimbabwe which has created a few problems. England appealed to the International Cricket Conference (ICC) to move their match against Zimbabawe but failed. Also, New Zealand have refused to play Kenya in Nairobi, because of concerns over a bombing in Mombasa in November… Continue reading World Cup Cricket
Honor Killings: Continued
Al-Muhajabah has linked to a number of articles about the teachings of Islam against honor killing.
Additions to the Blog
I have added an RSS feed for my blog, thanks to David Janes of Janes’ blogosphere. You can also search the archives with the Google search box on the sidebar. Another addition is the list of books I am currently reading.
Taking Quran Out of Context
A Muslim under Progress had an interesting post of which I liked this snippet: The truth of the matter is that the Qur’an has been misused and abused by Muslims themselves. The dictionary approach to the Qur’an is our own doing. We can complain all we want when Daniel Pipes, or Malise Ruthven, or a… Continue reading Taking Quran Out of Context
Honor Killings: Miscellaneous Notes
I should probably add some thoughts to my previous post about honor killings. I should warn you however that this post will not have the moral clarity of the previous one; instead it will be a somewhat wishy-washy post. I wanted to post something about this topic immediately after Joe Katzman brought it to my… Continue reading Honor Killings: Miscellaneous Notes