Islam
A Playlist for Seekers and Doubters
Music has consistently been a vehicle for my ponderings and prayers about and to the Divine, or lack thereof. These are a few songs that have stuck with me, organized by theme. Questioning “Doubting Thomas” – Nickel Creek The title is a dead giveaway. This plaintive tune ponders what plagues many when at the crossroads…
The Perpetuation of Prejudice: The Chapel Hill Shootings
The wind is bitterly cold and blows sharply in the night. Somewhere above us, a bird caws a long and solitary cry that echoes across campus. Thousands of students, faculty, and town residents huddle together trembling, with heads bowed and hands shielding the tiny flame of their candles. Despite the vast number of people at…
Different God: Franklin Graham Shuts Down Duke’s Muslim Call to Prayer
At Duke University, a new weekly Muslim call to prayer was to begin Friday at 1 p.m. Muslim students were going broadcast the prayer from the bell tower of Duke’s chapel for about three minutes with “moderate” amplification. Franklin Graham (son of Billy), freaked out and asked Duke alums and donors to turn off the…
Confessions of a Former Purist
I’m not such a huge fan of the TV show Homeland these days, but the second episode of Season 3, which aired Sunday, might be winning me over. Brody’s daughter Dana has long been my favorite character and she’s getting more so. With that complicated way she wrinkles up her brow, her round innocent face…
On Not Leaving Kashmir
The boatman barely flicked his wrist, yet we moved forward in a terrifically straight line. How was he doing it?
NYC Event: The World 9/11 Created
Voice of Witness, the non-profit arm of McSweeney’s Books, has put together their latest collection of oral histories in time to be included in our reflections on 9/11 and the world that day created. On Tuesday, September 13, Buddha-killer Scott Korb welcomes Alia Malek, editor of VoW’s Patriot Acts: Narratives of Post-9/11 Injustice, to the Jerry…
Egypt For Everybody
Immediately following the Egyptian revolution, my friend Greg Berger, a filmmaker, and journalist Al Giordano, of Narco News, went to Cairo to make a series of short videos with the activists who made it happen, “A Video Manual on How a Civil Resistance Was Built to Win.” Some of you are probably ready to click…
I Am a Muslim, Too
Most of us KtBniks are out of the city at the moment, but last Sunday, New Yorkers were braving bad weather to protest planned congressional hearing on the role of Muslims in homegrown terrorism in New York. Photographer Shameel Arafin was there and his photo essay “‘Today, I Am A Muslim,Too’ Rally” was published today on Illume.…
