Category — Books and Reviews

Indigo Jo reviews Geert Wilders’ controversial, new film “Fitna”:

The flaws are not hard to spot. This is basically Jihad Watch or Little Green Footballs as a film, and is not intended to try and convince anyone not of that mindset. For a start, only a small minority interpret the verses Wilders cites to justify the acts depicted; the majority of Muslims in the world simply do not behave like this and mainstream scholars reject such interpretations.

Austrolabe also presents some interesting legal ramifications of “Fitna” within its own review:

As far as such things go, Wilder’s film is quite a weak effort. It’s unlikely to provoke anyone to anything except, perhaps, fall asleep or yawn. [...] The thing that strikes me more than its offensiveness is its lack of originality. Wilders, apparently unable to come up with a suitably offensive shtick of his own, attempts to ride on the coattails of the Danish cartoons; appropriating one of their cartoons — without permission — and using that to start and close his video. He’s now being sued for that. He used footage from an interview with Theo van Gogh without permission. And the owner of that footage is considering legal action too. Where he was original — perhaps too original — was in using the photo of a Dutch-Moroccan rapper instead of a terrorist. He’s now being threatened with legal action for that. Fitna is proving to be more of a fitna for Mr Wilders than for anyone else.

Hassan Abbas of Watandost (‘friend of the country’) reviewsthe recent Gallup offering “Who Speaks for Islam? What a billion Muslims really think” at his blog:

“Do Muslims misunderstand the West?
Asked what they most admired and most resented about the West, they answered first technology and second, democracy. People would mention their support for freedom of speech, the rule of law, and the transparency of government. What they most disliked was the perceived moral laxity and libertinism of the West, which, interestingly, is exactly what Americans said when we polled them on those two questions. There is common ground on that issue.”

The whole thing here.

Asma at the Peanut Gallery has been reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s autobiography, and has been wondering where things went wrong for Ayaan Hirsi Ali, such that she turned away from Islam. What can we do to protect ourselves from such a fate?

But somehow, some or, I hope, most of us, don’t end up where she did – frustrated with Islam, unable to reconcile it with her deep seated notions of equality, sexuality, and individuality. That raises a question, though: why her? Why not us? What was different?

Umar Lee is unhappy with the book “War on Error: Real Stories of American Muslims” by Melody Moezzi.

The book was written in order to combat stereotypes about Muslims.

Umar says-

What I am offended by is her implying that these groups represent either a majority of young Muslims in America or that these are the good Muslims who are acceptable

The telling of grand historical events that shaped modern day Turkey and Greece are not the sole reason for my consideration of this epic novel as a great masterpiece, but also the fascinating lives of its fictional protagonists: more than ten principal characters and almost twenty secondary figures. By telling their interrelated and interwoven stories the reader is not only dazzled by the emotional intensity and human capability for conflicting and even contradicting sentiments and behavior, but is also humbled by the realization of how little understanding of the true nature of things we do actually have, and the false presumptions and prejudices that drive our lives. According to Iskander the potter, Man is a bird without wings and a bird is a man without sorrows. This sentence of wisdom captures the essence of the novel. All characters hope of fulfilling their dreams, but just like birds without wings, they fail to attain what they are wishing for, and unlike birds, Bernieres’s characers are full of sorrows.

Light Within Carries a review of the book “Rethinking Education in Pakistan.”

IT’s fairly well-known that the system of education that has evolved in Pakistan over all these years is unmatched in several respects. Firstly, it is composed of contradictory elements

The Darvish has announced:

My daughter is engaged to be married In honor of this happy event, I am giving the Master of the Jinn Ebook as a free gift to all who want one.

also

if you are kind enough to want to help this poor darvish pay for the wedding, you can buy Master of the Jinn as a paperback or Ebook by going HERE.

We extend our congratulation and du’a for the soon-to-be couple and their parents!

A Muslim in Victorian America: The Life of Alexander Russell Webb
BY Umar Faruq Abd Allah (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 400 pp. Price HB $35.00. EAN 978–0–195–18728–1.

The word ‘Victorian’ almost always conjures up thoughts of England and the sixty-plus year reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901). She ruled during the peak of the Industrial Revolution and the expansion of the British Empire—a time of great change and great fears. American readers have studied this period as ‘the nineteenth century’; but not as ‘Victorian America’ implying a Victorian sensibility in America, especially not with a Muslim in the centre. Just as Victorian England was a time of radical change as she morphed from an isolated, colonial and military power into an England beset by fears, so too is it the case for America at the time this text is published.
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