Islam
“Thank you, Brooklyn”
That’s what Youssou N’Dour said near the start of his BAM show on June 6, following a screening of Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s moving N’Dour documentary, I Bring What I Love. Billed as a one-hour set, it went on longer thanks to the unstoppable energy in the house. There was a brief window of time where one could hear N’Dour but not
Get down with your Sufi self
Anastasia mentioned the Aïssawa Sufi brotherhood, so I wanted to post my video from last year’s Fes festival. (Dig the E-flat harmonic minor mode.)
Muslim Voices
In collaboration with Anastasia Tsioulcas and Hussein Rashid, I’ll be blogging as much as I’m able about the currently unfolding Muslim Voices Festival, co-organized by BAM and the Asia Society. Thank you, Anastasia, for your kind invitation and your kind words. Youssou N’Dour is at BAM tonight and tomorrow. I’ll be attending his film screening and show on Saturday and
Turkey and NATO
From the NYT’s report on the potential appointment of Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as NATO Secretary General: NATO works by consensus, and the European-favored candidacy of Mr. Rasmussen was publicly opposed by Turkey, NATO’s only Muslim country. Turkish officials said that Mr. Rasmussen was too insensitive to Muslim concerns during the scandal over the Danish newspapers publication in 2005
Morocco reflections
Almost two years ago, a close friend enthusiastically recommended Paul Bowles’s 1955 novel The Spider’s House — set in Morocco during the struggle for independence from France — as a prescient commentary on Muslim attitudes toward the west (and vice versa), the quagmire in Iraq and so forth. Eager to read it on my recent return from Fes, I was
“Hussein”
Things are falling to pieces in Albany, the capital of my home state, as we witness one of the most spectacular political downfalls in recent history. But I’m posting a quick comment on a different scandal — far less important, but worth noting. I’m speaking of Congressman Steve King’s convoluted remarks on the middle name of Barack Obama. King plays
More on Rushdie
My take on Salman Rushdie’s Philly lecture, online at Philadelphia Weekly.
The veil
A piece in the NY Times today concerns the wearing of the niqab, the full face veil, by Muslim women in Britain. The issue has drawn plenty of controversy, in other countries as well. Here in Philadelphia, go run an errand and you’re likely to come across at least one woman covered head to toe in black — very much