How to bring Jews and Muslims together. Warning. This a a funny, sarcastic and a bit adultish criticism of religious bigotry. This is also a window to a group of people who self identify as "progressive Muslims". Click here to read.
Friday, September 08, 2006
About Me
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- Name:Muqtedar Khan
Dr. Muqtedar Khan is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware. He is a Non-resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of American Muslims: Bridging Faith and Freedom (Amana, 2002), Jihad for Jerusalem: Identity and Strategy in International Relations (Praeger, 2004).
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10 Comments:
I find the incident extremely amusing.
There's some truth I believe that males are more excited in proportion to skin flesh shown. An ankle a century ago would probably of been considered improper. Times change though.
I wonder personally if adhering to certain rules like wearing a veil actually is a real method towards spiritual progress. Or is it simply a method for members to feel a sense of "belonging" and a method of social control of present norms and power.
A passionate male is capable of doing anything. Traditional people do not like instability, suprises, and new changes. So, is it simply a way they found to temper men. And do passionate men not care about religion? Perhaps, the fault is that many religious people consider passions, desires, and sex as sinful wrong activities. As a religious scholar, it's something of great interest for me.
I applaud the author for being able to step back from the situation and not also do a personal attack. It's obvious that she is more of a grown human being than the other two. The author, "SS", is wrong in one regard though. The Pakistani & Hasidic girls would no doubt argue whether a veil or a wig is better.
It's also interesting that UD has nowhere close to the diversity of probably ever having two such girls, for our benefit and downfall.
This piece is hilarious. I'm glad we can get some light-hearted posts on this blog because you need to laugh about it sometimes.
The author's attention to the fact that both ultra religious girls cover their hair struck a meaningful chord. With all the similarities between Jewish and Muslim practices, how have the two still not come to terms with one another? From the custom of covering both males' and females' heads, to Kashrut and Hallal dietary laws, to the frequent praying throughout the day, Islam and Judaism share so many similar customs.
For centuries, Christians persecuted Jews due to their religious differences, and finally today there is relative peace between the two in recognition of their shared roots.
Maybe that day will come when Muslims and Jews can live in peace together as well and recognize how trivial their differences are. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like that day will come to pass in our lifetime.
Great story.
It's beautifully ironic that a veiled Muslim and Hasidic Jew, a pair at odds on just about everything, can be united in their disapproval of the author’s dress. It goes to show that Judaism and Islam are not nearly as dissimilar as some of their more fundamentalist adherents would like to believe. In fact, as Yardena alluded to, I'm sure the Pakistani girl would find that she has more in common with the Hasidic girl than with the author in terms of day to day religious practices.
If Jews and Muslims can stop being intolerant of each others customs for long enough, they'd realize how petty their differences are and how personal a matter religion ought to be. If one is secure in their faith, there is no rational reason to feel threatened by that of another. I don’t know how religion became so complicated. Unfortunately, said intolerance has less to do with religion per se than ingrained cultural and ethnic hatred, with religious belief acting as a polarizing lens. This is a fissure that will probably take hundreds of years to close, if it ever does.
It's amazing to see how an Hasidic Jew and a Pakistani Muslim, despite years and years of religious tensions, can come so easily and quickly together over a matter of clothing. These two religions and people have quarreled for years and still seem to find no peace to their questions. Here, as they find themselves on the same team in objection to a Muslim's "revealing" clothing taste, is a chance for them to realize that their religions may cause them to have more similarities than to those who do not believe in religion at all. If they could only look past these beliefs and their pasts they may find that they can come to terms with eachother. Their similiarities in religion make them more alike than it really makes them different.
Groups of different religion need to be able to interact with eachother in order for them to learn from eachother. These two women were able to take a class together at a NY state college, despite their religious differences. If only this type of interaction could exist in the Middle East, things might be a lot different. We can only hope that this will be accomplished relatively soon and in contradiction to what yardena said above i hope we do see this happen in our lifetime.
This piece is really funny. It shows different aspects of religion. You can be an observant Muslim or an observant Jew and not dress in the garb that traditional "orthodox" Muslims and Jews usually wear. I think that it is also very encouraging, for a moment. The fact for a second two people from totally different religions could relate to each other. The Muslim and Jewish religions are really not that far off from each other. Maybe if they were both in opposite sides of the world they would be able to get along with one another. There are so many similarities in the rules they have to follow that it seems that a Jewish women and a Muslim women could really bond over what they go through every day if it wasn't for the whole land situation. Both groups of people have been persecuted since the beginning. I cannot count the amount of stereotypes I've heard/seen used for each one of these religions. One day, when/if all the land problems are settled, maybe these two religions can come together and try to think of ways to reduce stereotypes and racism in the world.
The irony as mentioned is huge in this piece. It is executed correctly for comedic effect. However I think it highlights the extreme problems and conflicts between two "pure" religious beliefs. I don't want to use the word "radical" as I feel that is a whole diff perspective. However when you deal with two very motivated religious movements which want plurality and not compromise it is very hard to see a situtation in which to national identities can be formed and a friendly realtionship established.
While I found this story amusing, it left me with more questions than before I read it. For example I want to know who was right about dogs in the Koran, what type of Muslim the author is, and just overall I wanted more information about the situation. Although I did find it interesting how the Hasidic and Pakistani girl were both united for a moment, I feel this proves that Jews and Arabs are probably more alike than they care to admit.
However I would dispute the author's claim that she has found a solution to peace in the Middle East because I think she fails to understand how complicated and deep seated the current situation is. Lastly I fail to see how the picture of the boy with the dog on the ESL exam is offensive to Muslims, because they could just describe the picture as being offensive and move on; I believe this solution to be simple yet effective.
This piece illustrates how veiling has grown from a way to show physical modesty to an immodest display of piety. Like Park said, after the modest students agreed that the head must be covered they would then disagree on whether a wig counts, and eventually both would end up in a burqah with gloves, the modesty competition ending in a draw.
Also illustrated was the need for people to form groups of us vs. them, and why this tendency does not have to follow ethnoreligious lines, as it often does.
Doctor Khan has been my professor twice since he began teaching at the University of Delaware and therefore I have written over twenty-five blogs for his courses in that time period. I can easily say this is definitely one of the more light-hearted and entertaining blog articles that we have been assigned. It is a rare, yet nice injection of humor into the otherwise explosive topic of religiosity. I was very entertained by the author’s very clever and sarcastic observation in that there are many similarities between human beings, even in those with deeply held beliefs of different faiths. It is was a delightful irony in the story that the similarity discussed occurred because of those very same convictions, which normally make people feel distinct and unique from those of dissimilar backgrounds. The section of the story concerning whether dogs are described as filthy in the Quran or if it is just a general belief among some Muslims is a nice supplement to what I feel is one of the main aims of the story which is that people often confuse actual tenets and beliefs of a faith with commonly held beliefs. The author was probably smiling when she was writing this piece because she believes these two unlikely people, the Pakistani girl and the Hasidic girl, were able to share a moment together because of such a misconception.
I enojoyed the article but it is borderline offevsive. It is wrong to say people do not take there religion seriously, and yes people do take it to an extreme, but only only because they feel passionate about it. I could find this article offensive as well as ammusing only because of the nature it was written. It is very human to fall into misconceptions and everyone is a product of that. There a far too many cultures and also religions that people can misconsrue. Yet we do not feel that americans are like this because this what they know and change is very paralyzing. Same in every other nation where there is a strong national pride. You cannot shift these ideals becasue tradition is the most sacred thing on this planet next to family. People act differently when these things are in jeopardy. It is very noble to create change one person at a time but it is useless to change that person if it was for something miniscule.Great change can create great opportunity. Also i would like to say that i found it amusing that the conflict was between two women, why is it that women are always perceived to be a problem in every culture. The women are supposed to cover to to prohibit their beauty onto man but why doesnt the male have to cover. Our men not to be perceived as handsome? This is somehting I myslef like to think about.
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