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For Muslims, the Qur'an represents the word of God as it was revealed to Prophet Muhammad 1400 years ago. Any act of translating it out of Arabic is, by definition, an interpretation and ceases to hold the Divine qualities of the Arabic original. Therefore, Muslims recited and listen to the Qur'an in Arabic, especially now during Ramadan, the month of fasting. The text is divided into 30 sections (juz', or para), and one is read each night of the month. When a religious scholar from Al-Azhar, a current seat of learning for Sunni Islam, says not to listen to the Qur'an during this month, it is bound to be newsworthy.

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Marwa el-Sherbini, an Egyptian woman living in Germany, is being described as the “headscarf martyr.” Even in her death, she is nothing more than a piece of cloth. Shabana Mir writes the most humanizing piece on this woman I have read. The fact of the matter is that Marwa el-Sherbini was killed because she had become an object.

The hijab, burqa, niqab, chador, etc., have all become metonym for the Muslim female. The Wall Street Journal reports that Predator drone attacks are tactical because it can see a “burqa from 20,000 feet,” (h/t Manan Ahmed of Chapati Mystery); women cannot be seen from 20,000 feet, but burqas can. We can protect the innocent by protecting the cloth.

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Recently, the New York City Council voted to recognize two Muslim holidays, Id al-Fitr and Id al-Adha, as school holidays. Mayor Michael Bloomberg is threatening to veto the motion. He argues that the school year is too short already, and the one Council Member who voted against it sees it as a slippery slope to excessive holidays for every religious group. Although there are those who see this as a divide-and-conquer tactic, with Mayor Bloomberg attempting to get Jewish votes by disenfranchising Muslims, such an opinion shows no knowledge of the dynamics of the NY Jewish community, who overwhelming support the motion, or the Mayor’s outreach to the Muslim community in NY.

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The Muslim Voices Festival ended recently, and one of the last events was the Qawwali-Gospel Creation, featuring Faiz Ali Faiz and Craig Adams. As an art form, qawwali emerges from the incorporation of multiple cultural systems, and it continues to evolve by interacting with new cultures.

Bally Sagoo, a British Asian musician, succesfully marries qawwali and hip-hop, as well as qawwali and electronica. The group Fun^Da^Mental, uses qawwali extensively in their music, incorporating a wide variety of music, including gospel, electronica, South African and Tuvan music. The Dub Factory and Gaudi merge qawwali and reggae. In Pakistan, groups like Junoon give qawwali a rock make-over, demonstrating the highly flexible nature of the art form. During his life, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, perhaps the best-known qawwal in the US, worked with a wide variety of artists himself. He worked on a fusion with Gregorian Chant, with Peter Gabriel, Eddie Veder, Michael Brook, and Massive Attack. Faiz Ali Faiz, one of the performers for the concert, previously did a brilliant collaboration with flamenco musicians, appropriately titled Qawwali-Flamenco. As the old documentary Latcho Drom shows, there is at least a common musical heritage both are pulling upon, which arguably makes the connection easier.

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Almost a year ago, the New York Times ran an op-ed claiming that Pres. Obama was an apostate from Islam. Implicit in that declaration is that he was at one time a Muslim. Earlier this month, the Washington Times ran an op-ed, from one of the new “know nothings,” who wants to be taken seriously on matters of US security, claiming once again that “there is mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself,” an idea worthy of ridicule.

Some unsuspecting people may be tempted to ask “Is Barack Obama Muslim?” Of course, as Colin Powell so eloquently put it, “so what?” What people do not seem to understand is that it is not a crime in the United States to have a religion, to be a believer in that religion, or to practice your religion. I am disturbed that so many so-called “security experts” wish to criminalize religion in this country.

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I. The teahouse transposed

The word chaikhana, teahouse, evokes for me the memory of Chaikhane Rahat on Rudaki Street in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. It was more a restaurant, filled with the smell of grilling meats and the soft sound of Central Asian music being piped in through the tiny sound system. It did have a very informal feel to it.

That informality is what the Chaikhana of the Muslim Voices Festival was trying to recreate, and they did so successfully. A teahouse should bring to mind a relaxed atmosphere, a place where people sit on the floor, on chairs, on overstuffed cushions. They get up to get tea — in this case Earl Grey, mint tea (meaning to tea with mint, not the herbal stuff), or green tea — and some snacks. If you are near the performance space, you sit quietly and listen, giving your approval of the performers.

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One of the more popular genres of stories in the Islamicate world is the dastan, or tale. The tales of Amir Hamza are a favorite set of stories. Purportedly about the exploits of an uncle of the Prophet Muhammad, they are a collection of fantastic stories chronicling his deeds and exploits. In Urdu, the tradition appears to be tied to the poetic tradition of the masnavi, which involves the creation of fantasy worlds where the heroes battle their foes. Although we now conceive of the dastan as a printed tale, like much Islamicate literature, it has a strong oral component.

The dastangoi, or story-telling tradition, is a dying art form according to Mahmood Farooqi, who organizes dastango , story-tellers, to revive the art. He recently staged a production for the Muslim Voices Festival in NY, featuring Danish Husain and renowned actor Naseeruddin Shah. Shah seems to have been brought for his star appeal for the festival, but he was very good, as were both Farooqi and Husain.

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The Muslim Voices Festival began last Friday, and while I did not have the privilege of hear Mayor Michael Bloomberg greet the audience with an "as-salam alaykum" in a surprise visit to Youssou N'Dour's opening night performance, I did have a chance to go to the second day's festivities. I began with an afternoon visit to the souk , or outdoor marketplace.

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[Disclosure statement: I am commissioned by the Muslim Voices Festival to provide academic background on some of the work on display. However, I retain full autonomy in reporting on each event I attend. My current work for the festival includes pieces on the controversy on music amongst Muslims, qawwali music and politics, and music in Muslim America.]

One of the most important ways we can understand and witness cultural interaction is through artistic exchanges, a point markedly absent from Pres. Obama's recent Cairo speech. After 9/11, either coincidentally or purposefully, there were a series of events that introduced Muslim art forms to the US, or demonstrated the intimate relations Muslim and non-Muslim civilizations have by exploring cultural exchange. The Lincoln Center Festival in 2002 (NYT 1 and 2) and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2002, in collaboration with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the Silk Road Project, are two notable events that happened very soon after 2001. More recently, there has been a resurgence, at least in New York, of festivals consciously showcasing the Muslim-majority world. In 2007, A Mystical Journey came and received some positive press. Starting on June 5, 2009, the Muslim Voices Festival runs for almost ten days, is a combination of musical performances, art exhibits, markets, and conferences. In addition, PBS will be broadcasting a wide variety of videos related to Muslims. I will be attending a series of events and reporting about the programming. Most of the my access is arranged by Anastasia Tsioulcas, who will also be reporting, as will David Adler.

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After watching Pres. Obama's speech in Cairo, I was pleased to see he addressed some of the points I hoped he would. He began with the traditional greeting of the Arab and Muslim worlds, as-salam alaykum (peace be upon you). He then talked about the importance of Al-Azhar University, the problem of settlements, Sunni-Shi'ah conflict, interfaith history, the history of Muslims in America, and rule of tyrany under the guise of democracy. Of course, he touched on much more and in much more depth. It is worth looking at the content of his speech in more detail. Although he speaks as a politician, but by choosing the construction of addressing Muslim communities, rather than Egyptians or Arabs, he must turn to a religious language. There are resonances that exist in the speech for both Islamic history and American history, and understanding both makes his speech that much richer:

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After 9/11 many Muslims began saying "Islam is a religion of peace." An intellectually dishonest and vapid response to the equally intellectually dishonest and vapid statement that "Islam is a religion of violence." Any religion, comprised of a wide variety of believers, is a complex and nuanced system that cannot be defined by categorically statements. In fact, it must be comprised of contradictions and tensions as believers act on what they believe to be the Truth.

Moments of blatant public Islamophobia are becoming less frequent, in part because the reality of Muslim life in the US serves as a good antidote to negative narrative stereotypes, and in part because journalists are discovering Muslims that do not fit the narrative that they are trying to construct. However, as discourse around Muslim life is becoming more nuanced, so too is Islamophobia; it is not as blatant as it once was, and that is the threat. We are now seeing the emergence of an "intellectualized Islamophobia," much in the same we have an "intellectualized racism."

"Intellectualized Islamophobia" (II) appears in respectable publications and appears as objective writing, combining first-hand observation, history, and occasionally, theory. While disagreements about what observation and facts mean should be encouraged, what II does is reinforce a narrative that all Muslims are violent by definition. People who write in the II style may even concede that not all Muslims are violent, but it is in spite of their religion, not because of it.

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The bombs may have been fake, but the hatred is real.

Robert Frost once said, “good fences make good neighbors.” Of course, good neighbors do not necessarily make a good community. The rise of the individual over the community means that whatever peace we achieve is always uneasy, as we await someone to break the peace in their own self-interest.

The Riverdale Synagogue tries to tear down the fences by offering its worship space to a young Muslimah. Unfortunately, too many others are still behind their fences. Four Muslim men stand accused of attempting to destroy this religious sanctuary. They do so because they are ignorant. They are ignorant of the hospitality the Center has shown to Muslims. They are ignorant of the Muslim tradition that houses of worship are sacrosanct and never to be molested. They are ignorant of the idea of community. They are ignorant of the pain and sorrow the events of 9/11 caused to this city, to this nation, to the world. They speak of looking to strike out and of hitting things. It is a nihilistic vision that does not seek to build community. Unfortunately, because it is so easy to destroy, we may already be paying a price for this plot.

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I started a piece as to why I thought President Obama choosing Cairo as a place for his speech is a good idea. During the process, the rationale became part of what I would like to see him say. Below is the speech I would like to hear, as though it were sketched on the back of an envelope. I imagine him speaking from Al-Azhar Park, evoking the famed university, but outside the religious setting.

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Peace be upon you

As-salam alaykum

As stand here at the Al-Azhar Park, I see the wonders and complexities of the Arab Islamic world. Although I have a familial affinity with Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation in the world, and I have recently spoken in Turkey, a European nation with the largest number of Muslims, it seems fitting to speak here in Cairo, to Muslim communities across the world.

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Normally I have a great deal of sympathy for what Aziz Poonawalla writes, often using his pieces to support my points. He gets them out faster than I do and they're pretty well researched. However, his recent piece on the torture photos is wrong.

The fact that the US tortured is a mistake and a blot on our national character. The only way to deal with the horror we wrought is to be honest with ourselves about it. The release of the "torture memos" was the first step in this direction. When President Obama said that no one was going to prosecuted for their role in torture, there was an outcry; Americans were genuinely upset and Pres. Obama said the decision to prosecute is up to the Attorney General. He also announced they would release the photos. I argued with a friend of mine that Pres. Obama was seeding the ground for a real national discussion on this topic. He could not lead the charge, no matter how just, because it would be spun as being partisan. He was setting up a situation where we the people would lead; this was not going to be party against party but Americans demanding accountability and defining "American" for this generation.

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Editor's Note: The following is a direct response to this realization.

We, the Muslim-American community, condemn torture. It is irreligious, immoral, and unethical.

Our religious history is replete with stories demanding that we condemn abuse and torture. The Prophet Moses (AS) sacrificed his royal position to stop an act of torture. The Prophet Jesus (AS) was tortured in an exercise of the brutality of power. The Prophet Muhammad (SAS) forbade the mistreatment of prisoners. Husayn (AS), the Prophet’s grandson, was denied food and water, an act of torture, the abhorrence of which is now part of Muslim cultural memory.

We are are compelled to speak out against torture—just as we condemn acts of terrorism because of their immoral nature. We challenge our co-religionists to live to a higher standard and we challenge our fellow Americans to live to a higher standard.

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When Pres. Obama released the “torture memos” people were outraged; some for being outed for their complicity and some for being unable to deny their complicity. The President said America had lost its moral compass when torture was authorized by the previous administration. Christian and Jewish groups came out decrying torture as being irreligious, ethically challenged and morally bankrupt. National Muslim-American organizations did no such thing. By their silence, they are complicit.

As Muslims, we are not responsible for the actions of other Muslims. We do not have to apologize for every terrorist who acts in the name of Islam. However, we do condemn these things because they are immoral. All the national Muslim-American organizations have condemned terrorism, but none have spoken out against torture. It begs the question of whether they are truly opposed to terrorism, or if their condemnations were simply political with no conviction to them. These so-called religious organizations have no “moral compass” themselves.

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Normally I have fun poking holes in the idiocies of Islamophobes. However, I must now, with heavy heart, go after the misuse of the term by a friend. Fatemeh Fakhraie of Muslimah Media Watch (and AltMuslimah, and Devil's Advocate, etc.) uses the term "Islamophobia" inappropriately in her analysis of a recent article in the Washington Post by Jim Hoagland.

Interestingly, Dan Varisco of Hofstra University recently published a piece questioning the broad nature of the term "Islamophobia" and whether it was the best term to describe those who actively hate Islam, as opposed to those who simply fear it out of ignorance. He says:

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Mark Silk provides a good write-up of some of the in-fighting that is emerging amongst politically progressive religious groups. This fissure was visible to a lesser degree at the 2006 Progressive Faith Bloggers Conference, where there was extensive debates about what “progressive” means both politically and religiously, and how these definitions intersect. If you look at the list of attendees at the PFBC, you see many of the same players that are discussed in Silk’s article. However, the list of the PFBC is far larger in terms of representation of different faiths. It seems as though the debates we had in micro are being writ large, and religious progressives, regardless of how you define the term, are simply falling into the structures created by the Religious Right, rather than creating our own.

What does being a religious progressive mean? Is it a question of being politically progressive? Is religion put at the service of politics and do we read into the tradition to get to that end? Are we simply talking about the fact that religious people are a constituency who deserve to be at the table like anyone else? That is, progressivism and religiosity are not inherently opposed. The obverse of the question is that religion can be progressive, rather than an impediment to progress, and is not inherently regressive.

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Dan Varisco asks what academics can do to counter Islamophobia. He offers several suggestion, and I’d like to add my own thoughts to his.

There are basically four arenas where academics can contribute to the conversation:

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Over the last month the Saudi religious authorities have been flexing their muscles. They have attacked Shi’ah on pilgrimage, smeared the name of the Prophet’s grandson Husayn, arrested a woman for driving, and lashed an elderly woman for spending time with a man she wet-nursed. I am indebted to Mona Eltahawy for pointing out to me that it may partially be in response to the realization that they are truly impotent if the royal family decides so. During the same time span, a woman was put in charge of women’s education, the head of the religious police was replaced, and a supreme court justice as removed from office.

The story of how the conservative Saudi leadership attacked the history of Imam Husayn is perhaps the most telling in terms of how they view the religion as a tool of control. Saudi Arabian Grand Mufti (legal opiner) Abdul Aziz said:

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Last week, Muzzammil Hassan apparently beheaded his wife, Aasiya Zubair. Although the reasons for this heinous act currently remain unclear, there was a history of domestic violence.

God rest her soul.

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It seems appropriate to offer a short reflection on Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution from a Muslim perspective on Darwin’s bicentennial.

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As I sit to write this, it is several hours since President Obama delivered his inaugural address. I chose not to blog it, but to Tweet it instead, to capture the emotions of the moment. The speech made me joyous, both because it signaled the end of the old/the beginning of the new and because of its content.

As I think of the content of the day, something stuck out to me. I was happiest when things about Islam were mentioned. Perhaps it was my academic interest. Perhaps it was a parochialism, elevating my “tribe.” Perhaps it was something more.

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Several months ago Mattel released a talking doll that apparently said, if you listened closely: "Islam is the light." To be honest I'm not sure that's what I would have heard if it was not suggested to me. But enough people seem to have heard it. Seems to me that Mattel must answer some basic questions.

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