This Blog is intended for use by students in the Islamic Middle East course at Northfield Mount Hermon School and guest students and teachers from other participating schools.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali has written a critical review of a recent book by Lee Harris, The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam’s Threat to the Enlightenment (Basic Books, 2007) in which she argues that religious extremism has its roots in the Romanticist rejection of Enlightenment values - especially reason. The review appeared in the Jan. 6 issue [...]
Steve Coll (”Letter From Pakistan: Time Bomb,” The New Yorker, Jan. 28, 2008, p.47) has suggested that recently assassinated Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto (the first woman to become Prime Minister of a Muslim country - 1988) “may not have grasped the extent to which old patterns of radicalism in Pakistan are changing. Jihadi groups that [...]
Follow the story from the BBC.
Female circumcision is known to have no health benefit but practiced widely to “oppress a woman’s sexual desire, to make her look more beautiful in the eyes of her husband, and balance her psychology.” (duh!)
According to WHO, 96% of girls in Indonesia are circumcised. Worldwide, 140 million women and girls have experienced some sorts of genital [...]
A clearer picture is developing of foreign fighters who have been coming to Iraq to join the insurgency. See Karen deYoung, “Papers Paint New Portrait of Iraq’s Foreign Insurgents,” The Washington Post, Jan. 21, 2008. The report deYoung refers to can be read at West Point’s “Combating Terrorism Center.”
Excerpts from Malcolm X’s “Letter from Mecca” are linked from the “Miscellaneous Resources” section of the course syllabus. Please read these excerpts in advance of the film we will watch: “Hajj” (from the Islam Rising series).
President Bush’s Middle East visit finished. While Fox News recognized it as an attempt to improve the conditions in the region, Dar al hayat condemed it as a meaningless undertaking and compared it to an emperor’s promotional tour in ancient days.
Fox News article: Bush Predicts Mideast Peace Treaty Before He Leaves White House
Dar al hayat article: [...]
Watch for news about the following developing stories:
1. Criticism inside Iran of the policies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continues to grow.
2. Difficulties boosting Saudi oil production.
3. The annual Shiite rites of “Ashura” are being held worldwide. (Read an account from the BBC) (More on the Shiites)
Follow this link to the Arab Media and Society Newsletter.
A glimpse into the inner workings of subsidized Egyptian bread: Michael Slackman, “Egypt’s Problem and its Challenge: Bread Corrupts,” New York Times, Jan. 17, 2008.
BBC Middle East