Malaysia's opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who is on trial in Kuala Lumpur on sodomy charges for a second time, speaks to journalist Wajahat Ali about the controversy and discusses the country's ethnic and religious conflicts as well as issues facing the Muslim world.

To see political leaders in the West have such a low view of the American judicial system and such an elevated view of the world-historical significance of these pathetic, twisted, religious nutjobs…well, they look like a bunch of scaredy cats to me.

But surely the proper conclusion to be drawn, then, is that being an ethically upright and generally virtuous person is, however surprising this result may be, consistent with being tolerant, peace-loving, even with upholding due process. And there is no particular difficulty to the trick of being in favor of progress while being skeptical about human perfectibility. I say this is a semi-serious point because I think, for some conservatives, the main objection to a somewhat vaguely conceived set of liberal values really is a strong sense that they are inconsistent with a certain sort of hardassery in the virtue ethics department. End of story. But then Star Trek TNG ought, by rights, to be the ultimate anti-conservative series. At least for the likes of Potemra.

[From Star Trek and Moral Judgment]

A rise in the number of hate crimes against Muslims in London is being encouraged by mainstream politicians and sections of the media, a study written by a former Scotland Yard counter-terrorism officer, published yesterday, says.

Attacks ranging from death threats and murder to persistent low-level assaults, such as spitting and name-calling, are in part whipped up by extremists and sections of mainstream society, the study says.

‘My daughter’s on the no-fly list’ writes Chris Kelly. She’s 12 years old.

So I should hate the No Fly List. Besides the personal inconvenience, it runs counter to a solid third of the Bill of Rights. But I’m conflicted. Because I have a pretty good idea why my daughter’s on the list. It’s because she has the same name as this guy:

In 1993 this IRA thug walked into a fish shop in Belfast with a bomb that went off prematurely (of course) injuring 57 people, including a 79-year-old woman and two two-year-old boys. It also killed ten people, including a thirteen-year-old girl named Leanne Baird, and her little sister, Michelle, seven. Just like Jesus would have wanted.

But I have some disappointing news for Mike Gallagher [radio host who recently said all people with the following names should get profiled]: The killer’s name isn’t Abdul or Ahmed or Mohammed. It’s Sean Kelly.

Which is why America has to wake up, get serious about terrorism, and racially profile all Irish Catholics. Because you never know where they’ll strike next with their religion of hate. Wait, that can’t be right.

Kelly also coins a new term: “Varadarajan Stoicism” – as in Tunku Varadarajan, who recently attempted to popularize the phrase “going Muslim.”

a

No doubt for many — probably most — Americans, Islam is associated these days at the very least with ultraconservative social mores — the lesser status of women, for example — not to mention the practices of the radical extreme — the cult of death, suicide bombings, acid thrown in the faces of girls going to school.

So how about Muslims who embrace feminism, play in punk rock bands, and castigate orthodox, official Saudi Arabian-supported Islam as “Islamofascism?”

A suicide bomber some years back attacked a hotel in Amman, Jordan, killing among others Moustapha Akkad, producer of The Message -- one of the noblest attempts to convey Islam as a faith of good and to elevate and publicize the reputation and character of Muhammad, peace be upon him. Yeah, that's right: al-Qaeda killed Akkad. His daughter was also martyred during that attack. What has Umar Farouk my-last-name-is-haram Abdul-Muttallab accomplished or advanced?

Eric Holder, meanwhile, seems to act as if his job is to ignore evidence of hideous criminality in the government, rather than to prosecute it. The best explanation is that he is biding his time until the administration has more achievements under its belt. But delay itself is a violation of Geneva. As if those Conventions counted for anything any more.

Just think about this for a minute. Barack Obama, like George Bush before him, has claimed the authority to order American citizens murdered based solely on the unverified, uncharged, unchecked claim that they are associated with Terrorism and pose "a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests." They're entitled to no charges, no trial, no ability to contest the accusations. Amazingly, the Bush administration's policy of merely imprisoning foreign nationals (along with a couple of American citizens) without charges -- based solely on the President's claim that they were Terrorists -- produced intense controversy for years. That, one will recall, was a grave assault on the Constitution. Shouldn't Obama's policy of ordering American citizens assassinated without any due process or checks of any kind -- not imprisoned, but killed -- produce at least as much controversy?

The entire point of the Geneva Conventions and the Reagan-signed UN Convention and domestic law and centuries of precedent was never to get anywhere close to torture. The broadness of the ban was designed to stop anyone in government from doing anything like what Yoo proposed and Cheney implemented.

Tomorrow will be one year since President Obama signed an executive order outlawing torture, yet our debate about interrogation methods continues. Though the president deserves praise for improving matters, the changes were not as drastic as most Americans think, and elements of our interrogation policy continue to be both inhumane and counterproductive.

Americans can now boast that they no longer “torture” detainees, but they cannot say that detainees are not abused, or even that their treatment meets the minimum standards of humane treatment mandated by the Geneva Conventions, the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (the so-called McCain amendment), United States and international law, or even Mr. Obama’s executive order.

Special Edition of Community Cafe

Saturday, January 23, 2010 7:30pm

The Apollo Theatre

253 West 125th Street, Harlem, NY

Tickets $20 : Purchase Here

Join IMAN as we host one of the first Muslim-led arts & culture events of its kind at the legendary Apollo Theater in New York City. IMAN's Community Café, established in 2003, provides a space to celebrate and engage in diverse and creative artistic expression. The event continues to excite, inspire and unite a cross-section of American Muslims with the larger community to appreciate the arts as a tool for cross-cultural communication, civic engagement and social change.

For more information contact: arts@imancentral.org or 773.434.4626

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Mos Def, Aasif Mandvi, Outlandish, Azhar Usman, Liza Garza, and more. What's not to love?!

The Fellowship aims to develop a network of entrepreneurs with a demonstrated interest in social change and cross cultural dialogue. It is an endeavor to create a new brand of both dialogue and social entrepreneurship that allows for sustainable business models to have far reaching impact. The AdR class of 2010 will comprise mainly Muslim and Jewish fellows who show a proven ability in acquiring business skills and knowledge derived from the humanities. In addition, they are required to demonstrate a shared purpose in using social entrepreneurship as a new bridge across the cultural divide.

Dear Friends,

Good news on Thanksgiving and Eid! Majid Zamani has been released on bail. Please visit http://freemajidzamani.com/ for a message from his family. Thank you for your support and for signing the petition.

Warmly,

Rushda

Whitney Bodman, “Reading the Qurān as a Resident Alien,” Muslim World 99, no. 4 (2009): 689 - 706.

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Many will read the Qur’ān casually, out of curiosity. Some will read it with more academic intent and some with polemical intent (a purpose that the Qur’ān condemns, Q 2:176). All of these readers are, in the words of Paul Griffiths, consumers of the Qur’ān. These readers are less likely to understand the Qur’ān as it intends to be understood, or read it as it intends itself to be read.

pg. 691

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Here, at the beginning of Sūrat al-Rahmān, we must take the first āya as more than a name of God. It is the essence of God, the Self of God that subsumes all the pairings, all the creativity that follows. From the same root as Rahmān comes the word rahma , womb. The mercy of God is generative. It is not merely a particular attitude of mercy with which God regards the world. It is that ontological nature of God through which the world, in all its goodness and provision, is created. “My Rahmā encompasses everything” Q 7:156

pg. 698

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This verse [55:17] is sometimes interpreted differently by Shī’ī commentators. Al-Qummī adds that the two easts are the Messenger of God and the Amīr al-Mu’minīn, and the two wests are Hasan and Husayn. Here and elsewhere we see that there are alternative canons of interpretation in the Shī’ī community and elsewhere, canons often overlooked in scholarly work.

pg. 700

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The repeated question then put to us is, “Then which of the Lord’s favors will you deny?” This question is oddly phrased. It asks not whether we will be grateful. It accepts that all of us will be grateful for some things. It asks: considering all the bounties that God has provided, which one or few of these will we not accept? The issue is not simply gratitude; it is comprehensive gratitude. Thus we need to be schooled. Gratitude that is selective is not enough. It is natural to be grateful for some things. Gratitude needs to be our pervasive response.

pg. 703

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

This is it. After nearly 5000 entries and four rounds of competition, I am competing as one of two finalists in the final round of the Washington Post's "America's Next Great Pundit" Competition. Each round has been decided by online votes so it is because of your help that I have made it this far and I am asking for your help one last time.

Voting for this FINAL round is happening TODAY until 8 pm EST and takes 10 seconds. You can vote here:

http://postfun.washingtonpost.com/post/entry/americas-next-great-pundit-final-vote

I encourage you to read some of my work. My aim has always been to inform and to bring a different perspective to the table and I think my writing has only become stronger with every round.

http://views.washingtonpost.com/pundits/contestants/zeba.khan/2009/11/zeba_khan_final_column.html

http://views.washingtonpost.com/pundits/contestants/zeba.khan/2009/11/an_idea_for_detroit.html

I am asking for you vote but also for your help by letting your friends and contacts know that they should vote as well. My competitor is quite good at turning out his base and there's only room for one person to be the overall winner. I hope you'll help.

Thank you,

Zeba

But what do we have to fear? We're going to lose this argument? Really? Why am I so alone in having confidence in this country and what it stands for?

[From Don't Get It]

Hello Friends and Colleagues,

I am thrilled to inform you that thanks to your support, I am a semifinalist in the Washington Post’s “America’s Next Great Pundit” competition. It’s a long way from being one of the initial ten contestants selected out of nearly 5000 entries to being in the Top Three and I could not have done it without your support.

Now it’s crunch time. The two people with the highest number of online votes between Thursday, Nov 19th 8 am – 5 pm EST (That’s Today!) will advance to the final round this weekend. I need your help!

As much as I would have liked this competition to be about substance, it really has come down to who can better mobilize their networks and so far, both my competitors have been better at it than me. I wish we were being assessed and advanced based on our work but that is simply not the case. Even still, I encourage you to read some of my work and compare it to the other two remaining candidates. I am confident that you’ll find mine to be much more substantive and out-of-the-box, which is exactly the kind of new voice the Washington Post needs in a columnist. The winner of this contest will receive 13 Op-eds in the Post and I am just one round away! I hope you’ll help me by voting and spread the word today.

Voting is happening NOW until 5 pm EST TODAY and takes less than a minute!

http://postfun.washingtonpost.com/post/entry/americas-next-great-pundit-vote-iv

Again, I thank you for your support

Zeba

Patheos invites you to submit a video entry about your faith. Videos must fall into one of these three categories:

"Why I Am A _______ " (Christian, Jew, Muslim, Atheist, etc.)

"How I Live My Faith On Campus"

"Rituals & Practices Of My Faith."

PatheosVideoPoster.pdf

Consider Navy SEAL Mike Monsoor who threw himself on a grenade in Iraq on September 29, 2006. The device had landed among SEALs and Iraqi soldiers, and Monsoor absorbed the blast with his body, saving everyone's life but his own. For his act of self sacrifice, he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor last year.

Then there's Lance Corporal Abraham al-Thaibani of New York who enlisted with the Marines after his city was attacked on 9/11. On the day the World Trade Center towers fell, al-Thaibani ran through the streets of Brooklyn looking for his veiled wife to protect her from any potential backlash. He went to war in Iraq, a battleground chosen by American leaders for reasons that were unclear to him. He focused his efforts on seeing that every Marine he knew came home alive and tried to help Iraqi civilians where he could.

Abe's brother followed in his footsteps, enlisting and serving in Fallujah. He won the Purple Heart for his service.

Last year when she made this walk to the bus stop on the first day of school, she was wearing black skinny jeans and a short-sleeved T-shirt; her hair was in braids. But this year she's a different Smar. In addition to looser, more modest clothing, her hair is completely hidden under a head scarf.

It is a look that not only sets her apart from most girls at her Reston middle school but also proclaims her as a Muslim, a religious minority in a country that sometimes associates her faith with terrorism and acts of violence.

Most of Smar's friends and classmates have never seen her in the scarf before. Smar, 13, has no idea how they will react.

It's drizzling as she reaches the bus stop, where she huddles under an umbrella. The eighth-grader is normally chatty with an impish grin, but today when a couple of girls she knows slightly walk up, she mutters, "Hi," and rolls her eyes self-consciously. Omigosh, I probably look horrible. Omigosh, everyone's staring at me.

She closes the umbrella.

"Hey, Smar, if you're not going to use that, can I?" one of the girls says. "My hair's getting wet."

Dear Friends & Colleagues,

My apologies for the constant stream of emails, but I’m writing to inform you that thanks to your votes, I made it past Round 2 in the Washington Post’s “America’s Next Great Pundit” Competition! But there was little time to celebrate as Round Three was a live Q&A session this morning. Online voting has already begun and will go until tomorrow, Tuesday Nov. 17 at 3 pm EST.

I encourage you to read the transcript here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2009/11/11/DI2009111112554.html

And as always, I hope I’ve given you reason to vote for me to proceed to the next round. You can vote here:

http://postfun.washingtonpost.com/post/entry/americas-next-great-pundit-vote-round-iii

Should I garner enough votes to proceed, there are two more rounds before the Post determines the overall winner of the competition. So worst and best case scenario, you’ll be finding my name in your inbox two more times this week :)

And again, I’d appreciate spreading the word to your contacts – email, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Thank you,

Zeba