The Roots of Certified Islam

Whenever an Islamic movement got out of hands, the sultans found an Uncle Tom and put him in it, at the head of it, and then endorsed it, welcomed it, helped it, and joined it.

A Leftist had to ask: what kind of strategy is this? What is the bar of religiosity that needs to be reached so people can be considered “ready” for change?

Certified Islam On Trial

Masked Palestinian men with Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders paid a visit late Friday night to an imam with no political affiliations.

When asked, they refused to identify themselves, but made their visit brief and their message crystal-clear:

“If you speak ill of our president in your sermons again, you will be shot dead before you make it back home.”

Fast Food Islam (part 2/2)

Any book which might value over twenty dollars and which might purport a high level of accountability to the sources will be passed over.

Any title which exhibits the high standards usually employed by contemporary Western scholars will be disregarded as “too expensive” and one of the colorful and simple fast-food books will be purchased.

Fast Food Islam (part 1/2)

In the mid part of the twentieth century fast food franchises popped up all over the country. It was a time of assembly lines, burgers, fries and the ideologies of “progress” and “create the demand and fuel the supply,” ideologies which helped shape the contemporary age.

In Islam a similar occurrence has emerged. A sort of fast-food-Islam, mimicking the Western phenomenon, began to emerge in the seventies shortly after the Saudis started raking in billions in petro-dollars.

Cheating God: Islamic Banking

Samir wants to buy the new Audi A8, selling at $75,000. He can take out a loan from a commercial bank.

Samir then owns the car “now,” and pays the loan back in small monthly installments over a period of six years, with an annual interest (may include collateral).

Muslim Brotherhood at the Banquet

When the tribal elders of Mecca offered Muhammad political position, money, and titles, in return for abandoning his movement,

he replied: “[even] if they put the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left to abandon this matter, I shall never do, till the day I die.”

Know Your Islamist Party

This list only contains the Islamist parties in the Arab World. Note that the majority of Muslims (as well as Islamist parties) are not Arab.

There will be a separate case study on the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Courts Union (coming soon) …

Certified Islam

Ever wonder how the Muslim World ended up with a mainstream interpretation of Islam that has no concern or objection to:

environmental pollution, healthcare, smoking, direct and indirect domination and exploitation of resources, the spread of junk-food and associated diseases, consumerism, unemployment, unions, poverty, famine, natural disasters, mass corruption and bribary, and Israeli-owned sweatshops in sovereign Arab states?

Hamas, Politics, and the Gaza Mosques

During my visit to Gaza, I had learned about how politics have been injected into the places of worship in Gaza. Mosques in Gaza are everywhere and thanks to a high unemployment rate and the fact that desperation leads to people to God. Attendance is at all time high. That’s all fine and great, praying people are no more dangerous than no praying ones. However in the past the majority of Gaza mosques have been preaching life lessons, religious sermons about the life of the early Muslims and the proper way to worship. Few mosques where getting into politics and advocating one side’s political agendas. But that all changed after the Hamas take over. In addition to taking control of all government properties, Hamas militants wanted to take over mosques in Gaza in order to give them more platforms to defend their actions and point fingers to those who disagree with them.

Shaykh Issues Fatwa, People Get Stoked

In the thriving and exciting world of usul ul-fiqh – Islamic jurisprudence – comes another unbinding legal opinion (fatwa) that is gaining publicity. Pakistani Islamic scholar Dr. Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri recently published