E-baad-e News

How oil undermines democracy, and our ability to address the environmental crisis.
Oil is a curse, it is often said, that condemns the countries producing it to an existence defined by war, corruption and enormous inequality. Carbon Democracy tells a more complex story, arguing that no nation escapes the political consequences of our collective dependence on oil. It shapes the body politic both in regions such as the Middle East, which rely upon revenues from oil production, and in the places that have the greatest demand for energy.

Timothy Mitchell begins with the history of coal power to tell a radical new story about the rise of democracy. Coal was a source of energy so open to disruption that oligarchies in the West became vulnerable for the first time to mass demands for democracy. In the mid-twentieth century, however, the development of cheap and abundant energy from oil, most notably from the Middle East, offered a means to reduce this vulnerability to democratic pressures. The abundance of oil made it possible for the first time in history to reorganize political life around the management of something now called "the economy" and the promise of its infinite growth. The politics of the West became dependent on an undemocratic Middle East.

In the twenty-first century, the oil-based forms of modern democratic politics have become unsustainable. Foreign intervention and military rule are faltering in the Middle East, while governments everywhere appear incapable of addressing the crises that threaten to end the age of carbon democracy—the disappearance of cheap energy and the carbon-fuelled collapse of the ecological order.

In making the production of energy the central force shaping the democratic age, Carbon Democracy rethinks the history of energy, the politics of nature, the theory of democracy, and the place of the Middle East in our common world.

Recommended as OUTSTANDING by my friend Khalid Kadir :)

A New Academic Address for Islam in America: Building the Future of Zaytuna College, Brick by Brick

noreply@blogger.com (Ebad) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 06:20:00 +0000

http://www.zaytunacollege.org/event/campus

Habib Umar bin Hafiz in Canada الحبيب عمر بن حفيظ في كندا

noreply@blogger.com (Ebad) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 12:22:00 +0000

See Habib Umar giving a brother his shahadah at the end of this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW_TjseW4oA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

The Mercy of Diversity

noreply@blogger.com (Ebad) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 07:56:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdPIUJIc1DI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Mercy of Diversity - Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad

noreply@blogger.com (Ebad) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 07:40:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nyi9IUspWo&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Our Better Angels: Resources for the Commemoration of the 10th Anniversary of 9/11

noreply@blogger.com (Ebad) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 07:12:00 +0000

Texts, Talks, Music from the three-part series exploring Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Traditions on Tragedy, Mourning, and Healing.

http://jtsa.edu/x15344.xml

Re-Broadcast of Occupy the Mind: Progressive Moral Agenda for the 21st Century at The Riverside Church

noreply@blogger.com (Ebad) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:43:00 +0000

http://www.ezstream.com/play/index.cfm?id=28144DADDD

http://www.theriversidechurchny.org/news/article.php?id=451

On Sunday, January 22nd, The Riverside Church hosted "Occupy the Mind: Progressive Moral Agenda for the 21st Century" featuring the "Shared Reflections and Conversations With": Dr. Cornel West, Union Theological Seminary President Rev. Dr. Serene Jones, Editor of Tikkun Rabbi Michael Lerner, Prof. Richard D. Wolff (U Mass), Prof. James Vrettos (John Jay College) and Riverside's Interim Senior Minister, Rev. Stephen H. Phelps.

Tikkun Blog: With Michael Lerner in New York

noreply@blogger.com (Ebad) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:42:00 +0000

http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2012/01/27/catching-michael-lerner-in-new-york/

Utah Muslims and Jews to feast on food, friendship

noreply@blogger.com (Ebad) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:35:00 +0000

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/faith/53375923-142/jewish-muslim-says-ami.html.csp

Kristof: How Pimps Use the Web to Sell Girls

noreply@blogger.com (Ebad) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:34:00 +0000

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/opinion/how-pimps-use-the-web-to-sell-girls.html

Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law

noreply@blogger.com (Ebad) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:15:00 +0000

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law is a non-partisan public policy and law institute that focuses on the fundamental issues of democracy and justice. Our work ranges from voting rights to campaign finance reform, from racial justice in criminal law to Constitutional protection in the fight against terrorism. A singular institution – part think tank, part public interest law firm, part advocacy group – the Brennan Center combines scholarship, legislative and legal advocacy, and communications to win meaningful, measurable change in the public sector.

http://www.brennancenter.org/

https://www.facebook.com/BrennanCenter?sk=info

According to documents uncovered by the Brennan Center, the NYPD showed a virulently anti-Muslim film to nearly 1,500 officers during its training curriculum, reportsThe New York Times. When the story first broke in January 2011 the NYPD said the film, "The Third Jihad," was shown only a "couple of times." "The NYPD plays a vital role in protecting all New Yorkers from terrorism. These documents raise important questions. They show the need for oversight of these activities," said the Brennan Center. Read all the documents here. Read the New York Times' follow-up story and editorial.

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly Urged to Resign After Police Conceal Role in Anti-Muslim Film

noreply@blogger.com (Ebad) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:12:00 +0000

democracynow.org - Representatives from the New York City Muslim community, together with local ethnic and interfaith groups, gathered at City Hall Thursday calling for the resignation of New York City Police Department Commissioner Raymond Kelly and police spokesperson Paul Browne after it was revealed an anti-Muslim film, "The Third Jihad," was screened to nearly 1,500 officers during training. After initial denials, the NYPD admitted the officers were shown the film in training and that Kelly gave the filmmakers a 90-minute interview. Kelly has now apologized. The controversy comes at a time when relations between the police and the Muslim community are already strained due to recent revelations that the police department has operated a secret surveillance program targeting Muslim neighborhoods. We speak with Arab-American activist Linda Sarsour, who was honored last month at the White House as a "Champion of Change."

http://youtu.be/P7bofb02LcU

Dar Al Islam in Abiquiu, New Mexico

noreply@blogger.com (Ebad) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:05:00 +0000

http://www.moon.com/destinations/santa-fe-taos-albuquerque/santa-fe/outside-santa-fe/abiquiu/dar-al-islam

http://www.daralislam.org/

Imam Khalid Latif: HuffPost Jummah: The Islamic Roots of Parental Affection

noreply@blogger.com (Ebad) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 01:24:00 +0000

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/imam-khalid-latif/huffpost-jummah-the-islamic-roots-of-parental-affection_b_1236453.html

Dr. Nasr on Muslim Contributions to Mathematics

noreply@blogger.com (Ebad) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 01:19:00 +0000

The Muslims were drawn to the study of mathematics from the very beginning to a large extent because of the "abstract" nature of the Islamic revelation and the love that Islam created in the minds of its followers for the doctrine of unity and for a vision of the universe understood mathematically as mathematics is comprehended in the traditional sense of the term. That is why the Muslims made remarkable contributions to many domains of mathematics.

In the field of arithmetic, the most important achievements of Muslims were perhaps the adoption of the Sanskrit numerals and the later transformation which they brought about upon it, creating as a final product what has come to be known as Arabic numerals in Europe and the use of the decimal system. The famous Arabic numerals appear in the Kitab al-hisab ("Treatise on Arithmetic") by Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarazmi, from Khwarazm, one of the Persian cities east of the Caspian Sea. This work was rendered into Latin thereby bringing the Arabic numerals to the West and causing one of the most important transformations within medieval Western civilization. In addition to the research in the field of number theory, decimal fractions and the computation of numerical series, the whole tradition in a sense culminating with Ghiyath al-Din Jamshid al-Kashani, the author of Miftah al-hisab ("The Key to Arithmetic") who lived in the eighth Islamic century. He is the real discover of decimal fractions and the maker of devices to carry out mathematical calculation.

As far as geometry is concerned, Muslim mathematicians began where the Greek mathematicians and geometers had left off. They further developed plane and solid geometry and systematized mathematical equations for the solution of many geometric problems, creating a relationship between algebra and geometry which was to be pursued later by Descartes and which became one of the most important elements in the development of modern mathematics. One of the problems which the Islamic geometers and mathematicians studied very carefully was the fifth postulate of Euclid concerning the fact that one and only one parallel line can be drawn to an existing line from a point outside of that line, a problem the proof of which was debated over the centuries. Both Khayyam and Tusi wrote treatises on the subject, indicating that this fact must be taken as a postulate and cannot be proven by Euclidean geometry itself. The criticism of the subject opened the door to a path which led finally to the development of non-Euclidean geometry in the West in the nineteenth century.

One of the fields of mathematics which was especially developed by Muslims is trigonometry. It was the Muslim mathematicians who for the first time systematized the six trigonometric functions which to this day bear the mark of their Arabic origin in Western languages, the word sine being a translation of jayb from Arabic (sinus in Latin meaning literary pocket or cavity which is what jayb means in Arabic). The first treatise on trigonometry which deals with the subject as an independent branch of mathematics is usually attributed to Nasir al-Din al-Tusi although in reality the first independent work on trigonometry as an independent field goes back to al-Biruni.

The science of algebra is also one in which the Muslims not only made contributions but in a sense they created a new field by drawing from certain elements of Greek mathematics as developed by Diophantus and also from certain ideas of Indian mathematics. The very word algebra is of course of Arabic origin, going back to another famous treatise of al-Khwarazmi entitled Jabr wa'l-muqabalah which was rendered into Latin and whsoe title became the origin of the word algebra. The name of the author al-Khwarazmi itself left its indelible mark upon Western languages by being used in certain languages such as Spanish for arithmetic or for number while it subsists to this day in the English language in the form of algorism. The Muslims developed algebra from its humble origins in the third Islamic century to the masterpiece of 'Umar Khayyam written in the sixth Islamic century, his work Algebra being perhaps the most perfect treatise on algebra written before modern times. In this book Khayyam dealt with equations up to the third degree and systematized the solution of quadratic equations.

Another branch of mathematics which one no longer associates directly with mathematics as such was music. Theoretical music was considered, following the teachings of Plato and Pythagoras, as a branch of mathematics by Muslims and appears often as such in the Islamic classifications of the sciences. Many of the great Islamic philosophers such as al-Farabi and Ibn Sina were interested in theoretical music and very elaborate treatises were written by them as well as by others like al-Urmawi and al-Mawsili dealing both with the theory of Arabic and Persian music and relating the study of music to other sciences and the study of mathematics to proportion and harmony which are the foundations of music. In the classical treatises dealing with mathematics, often a section is devoted to music as we see in the works of Ibn Sina and Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi.

-Seyyed Hossein Nasr, A Young Muslims's Guide to the Modern World, pgs. 88-90.

Hamza Yusuf - The Prophet's Character (3 min clip)

noreply@blogger.com (Ebad) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:59:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsMWlCUQaqw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

New English Site for Shaykh Abdullah bin Bayyah Designed by Peter Gould

noreply@blogger.com (Ebad) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:24:00 +0000

http://binbayyah.net/english/

via Mikael Pittam and team ma sha Allah

REFLECTIONS with Usama Canon | "All" American Muslims

noreply@blogger.com (Ebad) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:22:00 +0000

http://vimeo.com/35684331

NYT Editorial: Hateful Film

noreply@blogger.com (Ebad) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:16:00 +0000

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/opinion/hateful-film.html?_r=1