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.
In yesterday’s (Sunday) New York Times Magazine, one will find excerpts from an interview Deborah Solomon conducted with Lebanese born Christian writer Brigitte Gabriel. Gabriel emigrated to the United States. She is a vociferous critic of radical Islam.
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Last March in Saudi Arabia, a country where conversion from Islam to another religion could land you the death penalty, where non-Muslim worship is outlawed, and where even some Muslim sects (Sufis and Shiites, for example) are discriminated against, King Abdullah called for dialogue between members of the world’s monotheistic religions. The “World Conference on Dialogue” was held [...]
In June, a French court denied citizenship to a Moroccan woman on the grounds that the niqab (”veil”) she chose to wear (a full veil with a narrow slit for the eyes) was inconsistent with French values such as equality of the sexes. The ruling was supported by France’s Urban Affairs Minister, Fadela Amara, herself a [...]
A recent issue of The Economist features an article on important discussions occurring between representatives of the world’s religions.
The Economist, “Islam and the West: When Religions Talk,” June 12, 2008
More on the polemical battles between Muslims and Christians throughout history
On June 22, 2008, legal scholar Noah Feldman wrote about Europe’s insufficient progress on the multicultural front: its problems assimilating and accepting the Muslims in its midst (”The New Pariahs?,” New York Times Magazine, June 22, 2008, 9f.) In one telling passage, Feldman says that, “…even after 60 years of introspection about the anti-Semitism that [...]
The latest installment in the New York Times’ “Generation Faithful” series features a story about education in Algeria, a country where in recent decades the struggle between fundamentalist (and at times extremist) Islam and more modern and secular emphases has been acute. Michael Slackman writes, “Now the government is urgently trying to re-engineer Algerian identity, [...]
An article in today’s New York Times, spurred by a libel case in Canada, explores the growing trend toward regulation of opinion in Western democracies.
Adam Liptak, “American Exception: Unlike Others, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend in Speech,” New York Times, June 12, 2008
See: Thomas Friedman, “Obama on the Nile” (Op-Ed piece), The New York Times, June 11, 2008.
A Paris doctor reports he performs two to four hymenoplasties per week (operations to repair women’s hymens). Muslim women living in the West are requesting the surgery in order to “restore” their virginity and thus avoid bringing dishonor on themselves or their families when they marry.
See: Elaine Sciolino and Souad Mekhennet, “Muslim Women and Virginity: [...]
It got a bit easier to move around Cyprus this spring, an island that suffered division into Turkish and Greek sectors following the 1974 invasion by Turkey to prevent Greece from taking over the whole island. Increased freedom of movement has led to a mini economic boom on the island. A recent study by the [...]
BBC Middle East