Oppenheim Arts & Letters

Islam - Changing Nothing

"Louay Safi, an executive director with the Islamic Society of North America, dismissed this as an effort to "invent" moderate Muslims by "hardliners" trying to discredit mainstream American Muslim organizations. Safi charged that "those who are busy producing moderate Muslims have long time ago moved from the center to the ideological fringes of the American society."

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Schwartz_(journalist)

See what happens when I work too quickly?

Stephan Suleyman Schwartz, a convert to Islam from Judaism, works as executive director for the Center for Islamic Pluralism.

Some in Islam might call such a conversion and expression of moderation by the (born to a Christain mother and a Jewish father) head of an Islamic organization a textbook instance of "making mischief".

Gracing the top of Schwart's web:
 
"Surely, those who believe, and the Jews and the Christians and the Sabians, whoever have faith with true hearts in Allah and in the Last-day and do good deeds, their reward is with their Lord, and there shall be no fear for them nor any grief."  Qur'an 2:62

In the theory of abrogation pursued in Islamic "science"--you know me: I shill for a common, human, rational monotheism, the best, most considerate, and kindest of worlds--Qur'an 2:62 (personally, my favorite Muhammadism is "God knows who believes in him", and I'm quick to add, "and such knowing lies beyond any of us.") seems too early in the then-work-in-progress to stave of what's coming in the way of monkeys and pigs.

Of course, the first tenet for the Jews would be something like, "If God made it for Moses to deliver, He, being God, must have made it perfect on the first pass--it is we who may only imperfectly understand that perfection and its conveyance."

About seven years ago, a Daniel Pipes reader named Yaweeka provided a pretty good summary of the concept of abrogation applied in the interpretation of Qur'anic injunctions: http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/1554

The underlying thesis in the Wikipedia note about Stephan Suleyman Schwartz would seem to be that he's been a journalist and scholar quick to move toward conclusions on inconclusive evidence.

Be that as it may, and such may be worth looking into more deeply, a "moderate" Islamic organization headed up by a converted Jew certainly expresses the character of American freedom as regards choice and election in the most intimate of lifestyle and spiritual matters, but it may bode ill for meeting the demands of the Islamic Small Wars as the fractures within Islam become more clear in the American part of their story.

The perception of Al Qaeda-type organizations acting as spear point for Wahabbi expansionism should be clear across the small wars theaters (and the idea of Iran's efforts in Gaza and elsewhere as a competitive counterpoint complements that thesis).

Wherever the dust settles by militants on the Wahabbi track, whether in Waziristan or Somalia, the House of Saud stands to pick up the pieces by radiating through the minds of the first stabilized administrators of the new subjugated cultures, and that whether or not directly providing clerical support for shari'a courts.

Other Reference

Schwartz, Stephen Suleyman.  "Why I Chose Islam Instead of Judaism: Nothing was missing from Judaism, except that I was not halakhically Jewish."  Jewcy, February 19, 2007: http://www.jewcy.com/dialogue/02-19/why_i_chose_islam_instead_of_judaism 

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Islam - Changing Islam

This is a pass-along from the Center for Islamic Pluralism:

http://www.islamicpluralism.org/pressrelease/2009pr/American%20Muslims%20Commend%20FBI.pdf

This group praises the FBI's recent dispraisal of CAIR, and it provides its many reasons why.

Much appreciated.

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Pakistan - Jamrud Suicide Bombing Update - Pass-Along

"The bomber was standing in the mosque. It's a two-storey building and it has collapsed," he said. The bomber detonated the mosque situated close to Bigyari Check Post of the Khasadars. An eye witness said as the Khateeb stood up for the prayer, the bomber blew himself up, splattering the human flesh all around the mosque. The walls of the mosque were stained with blood and littered with organs of the human bodies. The worshippers within no time were buried under rubble of the two-storey building as its gigantic structure was razed to the ground."

Source: http://www.thefrontierpost.com/News.aspx?ncat=ts&nid=4352&ad=28-03-2009

Muslims will stand up to such Muslims, or Muslims will continue to perish in the above described manner.

To the living, should any in the region stumble upon this site, I wish for you improved security--true security--and good health and respite from evil.

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Pakistan - Suicide Bombing Prayer

One thing all know: mosques are off-limits as bombing targets to American and allied forces, one of many exceptions, sensible too, in the rules of engagement; would the same respect for sanctuary apply for Islamist (or other) suicide bombers.

Location: Jamrud, Pakistan, along the Durand Line.

Targeted: hundreds of worshippers at prayer.

Dead: 48 and climbing

As much as the Qur'an and other of the literary quartet (Hadith, Sunnah, Tafsir) may endorse or license warfare, injunctions against overdoing it appear as well.  All interested know the drill:

"Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress limits;"

"but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there."

What limits are left to transgress when the targets of a human "smart bomb" turn out believers engaged in ritual prayer? 

It's doubtful any of the victims, save the bomber, were fighting there too.

For the injured and dead, may God bless the former and ease their suffering and may the latter rest in peace, such attacks, especially if left unclaimed, have only the insensible force of nature, no different than having been in the church when the tornado hit it.

Reference

AP.  "Bomb Kills Nearly 50 at Pakistan Mosque."  Fox News, March 27, 2009: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,510918,00.html

Huda.  "Aren't there some verses of the Qur'an that condone "killing the infidel"?"  About.com: http://islam.about.com/od/terrorism/f/terrorism_verse.htm

Hussain, Zahid.  "Suicide attack on Pakistan mosque kills 50."  Times Online, March 27, 2009: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5986036.ece

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EADD - Turn Off, Tune Out, Drop Back In

My accustomed rounds: e-mail correspondence followed by visits to several photography communities, their forums, virtual office projects, and art galleries; then news online and much reading, blogging, posting, notating, reflecting; and back to correspondence.

I used to read all day.

Once upon a time, only two or three years ago, a put an hour or two into playing guitar and singing practically every day.

It seems like only yesterday I would want to leave my  . . . space and go somewhere to take pictures.

Old joke about me: music, photography, writing, also backpacking, bicycling, tennis, golf, also cooking, gardening . . . Jim: you don't have time for a job!

:)

Would I were doing all those things today.

Wisdom from a long-ago high school acquaintance: "Time exists so everything doesn't happen all at once; space exists so that everything that happens doesn't happen to you."

Well, time and space turn out finite.

And that is the message I have gotten from my now bad case of Electronic Attention Deficit Disorder (EADD).

My own prescription: sabbath.

--Everything electronic: off!
--Read the Torah, some, and choose one other book, nothing else.

I would think mine other than an orthodox sabbath: I keep my journal; I may putter around with housekeeping (but nothing so labor intensive as, say, vacuuming or laundry; and I'll cook . . . but overall I quit the rounds of day-to-day Internet-enabled communications (and the time suck that is "systems keeping").

This is common madness: we have turned on all the lights, all the channels, all the news, all the relationships, all the electronically-enabled distractions, entertainments, and issues all at once.

We can turn them off too.

And should.

I will.

I do.

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Israel - Bad Press Deconstructed

It's a heady cocktail for passing around innuendo, lies, and rumors: warfare and Jews.

Substandard journalism, specifically reporting that itself cannot be corroborated or investigated to its sources, has in the populations involved in the Islamic Small Wars those who are only too happy to spread "bad press" about Israel to those who have developed little basis, practice, or time with both critical thinking and the development and honest pursuit of information driven by curiosity.

Two days ago, a participant in the soapbox forum at Model Mayhem (http://www.modelmayhem.com) ran the header, "Israel soldiers admit killing innocents."The same unnamed NCO said that his commanding officer ordered soldiers on to a rooftop to shoot an old woman crossing a main street during the fighting, which a Palestinian rights groups said left 1,434 people dead, 960 of them civilians."

Source: http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=427791

That's admittedly a lot of blood shed in return for recieving some 3,000 Qassam rockets in the run-up to "Operation Cast Lead"--and it's quite the accusation too.

The many ombudsmen of Israel's press have not let this one go.

Herb Keinon for The Jerusalem Post:

"It is important to note that none of the testimony was about what the soldiers did themselves, but rather of what they heard or saw other soldiers do. It is also important that what was reported seems to fall within the realm of aberrations by individuals during war against a cruel enemy hiding behind civilians, not a systematic loss by the army of its moral compass."

Source: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1237461630293&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Melani Phillips for The Spectator:

"So far, there is simply nothing to prove or disprove from these reports of the soldiers’ discussion carried in Ha’aretz last week, here and here -- just innuendo, rumour and hearsay, demonstrably (read the second account) wrenched out of context and refracted through the patent prejudice of the soldiers’ instructor Danny Zamir, an ultra-leftist who had previously been jailed for refusing to guard settlers at a religious ceremony and who said of the soldiers who spoke at the meeting in question that they reflected an atmosphere inside the army of ‘contempt for, and forcefulness against, the Palestinians."

Source: http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3464331/the-haaretz-blood-libel.thtml

Isi Leibler for his blog, Candidly Speaking from Jerusalem:

"A handful of unnamed soldiers in a discussion at a mechina (pre-military college) made unsubstantiated allegations concerning two isolated acts of indiscriminate killing and vandalism perpetrated against Palestinian civilians. Upon further examination it transpired that one of the two raconteurs was relying on rumors and had not even served in Gaza. Nobody verified the allegations or attempted to consider the acts in the context of threats such as suicide bombers. The IDF was denied the names of the individuals making the claim and was not even granted advance notice to investigate and respond to the allegations. Which begs the question as to why the informants failed to report the alleged malpractices in the first instance."

Source: http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=1586

In additon to the damage promoted by disinformation campaigns, the more vicious underlying intent would seem to be that of giving Jews no peace, the timeless and tired old tack of enfeebled spirits who would make themselves appear brave by taking on only those who are most giving and peaceful until goaded into rightful action.

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Somalia - Foreign Invaders Identified

"Residents in the al Shabaab-controlled towns of Kismayu and Baidoa say foreign fighters -- east Africans, Arabs and Asians -- have arrived in recent weeks and now sport the popular green suit and black mask of al Shabaab." [1]

That's from the same article cited in the previous note.

While Al Qaeda-type agitprop alarms "the people" with warnings of foreign invasion by infidels (also Americans, Jews, and Danish cartoonists, as I like to say), it finds itself the conveyor belt for the introduction of forces foreign to the lands to which they bring their violence.

The Qur'an has a term for those who might call their weapons holy while with violence providing a handful of humans with god-like status.

Reference

1. Ahmed, Mohamed and Abdi Guled.  "Somalis protest against Al Shabaab's drug ban."  AlertNet, March 25, 2009: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LP312280.htm

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Somalis Defy Al Shabaab, Stand Up for Khat

No one likes a prig.

"Nearly 1,000 enraged locals took to Baidoa's streets on Wednesday, witnesses said, even throwing stones at the militants in their rage against a ban on khat." [1]

"Time to fire up the drug gangs," I would joke were Somalis not so decimated by its interior conflicts as well as the hardships and ravages posed by nature.

Still, I speak for liberation: Let them chew khat!

The protest story accompanies news today of an influx of Ugandan peacekeepers, which is good news: even Somalia's new Islamist President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed recognizes other hardships in store for Somalis were they to be more deeply submerged in an Al Shabaab-o-centric Somalia.

Reference

1. Ahmed, Mohamed and Abdi Guled.  "Somalis protest against Al Shabaab's drug ban."  AlertNet, March 25, 2009: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LP312280.htm

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Not for Jews Alone

Muslims have been for some time the first victims of terrorist attacks.  Jews, of course, have not been excluded but perhaps may here have taken a little more time and engaged in some technologically-supported meditation on the lives of the dead, and that without regard to creed or religion:

Inside Terrorism: The X-Ray Project: http://www.x-rayproject.org/

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Islamist Front - Sudan - Polio Reappears

Kenya had three years until this one without a reported case of polio; Sudan has had four: this morning, AlertNet noted the recording of 40 cases of polio in Sudan. [1]

Sudan now shares with the remote region of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) this dishonor of hosting an horrendous disease, crippling and deadly to children, that has been eradicated throughout most of the world.

In Pakistan, efforts to immunize children in the mountains have been stalled by Taleban disinformation.

While Sudan may suffer from similar misdirection, the humanitarian community's ability to produce and sustain health programs across the population have been compromised by years of warfare in the most difficult of natural as well as political environments.

To be fair, an IRIN article published in South Asia One World [2] points out that in Pakistan, "Overall less than 1 percent of the targeted children are missed because of refusals, so it cannot be the [main] cause of the resurgence [in the number] of polio cases."

Still, security effects health planning and implementation across troubled regions.  The same article (IRIN) notes, "Health workers attribute the recent rise in the number of cases to the fighting between the Pakistani army and Islamist militants."

In Sudan, the parties involved and the manner of fighting may be different, but outcomes associated with disease may turn out as miserably predictable as they have elsewhere.

Cited Reference

1. Wheeler, Skye.  "South Sudan faces polio emergency."  AlertNet, March 24, 2009: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/HEA443264.htm

2. IRIN.  "Insecurity hampering polio eradication in Pakistan."  One World South Asia, October 10, 2008: http://southasia.oneworld.net/todaysheadlines/insecurity-hampering-polio-eradication-in-pakistan/

Oppenheim Arts & Letters Cross-Reference

"Islam's Conflict-Driven Disease Vectors for Polio."  February 25, 2009: http://commart.typepad.com/oppenheim_arts_letters/2009/02/islams-conflict-driven-disease-vectors-for-polio.html

"Pakistan - Misery Across Borders - Polio on the Rise."  September 30, 2008: http://commart.typepad.com/oppenheim_arts_letters/2008/09/pakistan---misery-across-borders---polio-on-the-rise.html

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