Tuesday, September 18, 2001

Understanding Islam, Day Two. Islam has a concept called da'wah, which translates from the Arabic, roughly, as obligation. Muslims have da'wah to follow the rules of Islam. Muslim itself is a word which means one who submits; Islam means submission (to God), or simply peace (the Christian term might be grace). The very meaning of the word is the equivalent of peace.

Muslims also have da'wah to talk to non-Muslims about Islam (this is called da'wah to non-Muslims); it's roughly equivalent to the Christian obligation to witness one's faith. This bridgebuilding is especially important with Christians and Jews, who are considered People of the Book -- i.e., worshipers of the same God whom Muslims call in Arabic Allah. They are the same word; Christians who worship in Arabic use the word Allah, and Muslims who speak in English often use the word God. (Thus, today, when President Bush spoke at an Islamic center and used both words, there was no special risk of offense.)

One-minute Dawah is basically tract literature, mostly aimed at Christians, so it talks about the role that Jesus has within the Qur'an. Muslims see Jesus as a prophet called 'Isa, and recognizes in his life several miracles of God, including the virgin birth, and that he was acting as an instrument of God.

One quickly finds in Islamic literature the custom that on at least the first mention of a prophet such as Muhammad, or Jesus, or even his mother Mary, the phrase "peace be unto him/her", which is pemissibly abbreviated in English "pbuh". (On Usenet there is a convention followed by some to say "[name of despised person] (spit)", e.g. "Bill Gates (spit)". Don't confuse "Jesus (pbuh)" with a raspberry!)

The same da'wah site links to Islam Answers Back, which isn't as belligerent as it sounds, but more of a site to debunk myths and misconceptions about Islam.

An entire page of Da'wah resources, including da'wah to all sorts of other religious traditions, from Atheism to Zoroastrianism. | 12:42 AM

Monday, September 17, 2001

In a remarkable display of generosity, President Bush expressed to the entire nation today, his shoes removed, Muslim politicians and clerics at his side, that Islam is Peace. I can only hope that it prevents any further racial bloodshed on our shores. | 11:56 PM

A note. I'm a member of Lake Street Church in Evanston; our pastor is Bob Thompson, the current chairman of the Parliament for the World's Religions, a body which organized the centennial Parliament in Chicago in 1993 and has continued its interfaith ecumenical work. Our reaction to the current crisis, both its external and internal faces, is to participate in a 72-hour multifaith vigil for tolerance and peace this weekend at an Islamic mosque.

As such, we may call this Understanding Islam Week at Lake Effect.

First up: free Koran reader software, in Arabic and English.

Next: an interesting discussion of the place of the crescent and star symbols in Islam, by an American Muslim at a Catholic university(!). He says some things that traditional sources might gloss over, discusses the role of the symbology in the Muslim world and compares it to that of the American flag, and comes to a decidedly personal conclusion.

Any other week I'd think this a lark, a bookworm's delight, an ecumenical adventure. Today, I know we must do this for survival because if we do not understand each other we will not survive. To steal Rev. Thompson's words, we do not build connections as we grow, we are born connected -- by DNA, by shared prophets, by shared planet. Everywhere I go, all I ever meet is people. | 2:08 AM

Argh. I've been having some minor problems with Mozilla and Blogger, which I think I've now solved. (I should write up a Mozilla/Blogger page, probably.) But some of my posts for here were going to another, unpublished blog.

First, two things from what I'm beginning to think of as the past before the blast:

Snopes.com folklorist Barbara Mikkelson and hubby David profiled by her hometown (Ottawa) newspaper.

Raoul Wallenberg memorial defaced, just 24 hours after being dedicated in Stockholm. (A reminder here that I'd forgotten: Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations, married Wallenberg's niece.) Wallenberg, for those who don't know, was a Swede who helped rescue many Jews from Budapest as the Nazis closed in by giving them diplomatic papers from Sweden. He's one of my personal heroes. Later in the war, he disappeared into Russian custody and was never seen again.

Lists of the 25 largest cities in all states. (Don't ask. Well, if you insist: it's for roadgeeks to argue over highway-sign control cities, aka the city that gets put on take this half of the highway signs and which ones are used in the City A: 2, City B, 25, City C, 100 distance signs.) | 1:55 AM

Sunday, September 16, 2001

Phil Agre's must read essay: Imagining the Next War. Why the boundaries of war have changed, and the threat that war poses to democracy when it does not have well-defined purpose, range, or duration. These are precisely the conditions we face today. | 12:30 AM

Saturday, September 15, 2001

Pakistani Muslim man rescued by a Hasidic Jew in aftermath of bombing (first-person account, with names -- I hope it's real; the student's name checks out, anyway). | 4:50 PM

A Memorial to the Victims of Mass Murder at the Secular Web (aka, in times of noisier rhetoric, the Internet Infidels).

I found this because of a troubling flamewar. An unnecessarily, and uncharacteristically, intolerant atheist had objected to the role and even the name of the National Cathedral; he apparently thought it was government-sponsored and even learning that it's an Episcopal Church (one that holds regular Sunday services) found reason to continue his ranting, which reached the point of insensitivity given the circumstances. Finding this reassured me that his reaction -- which could not be justified using the traditional philosophical bases of atheism -- would be extremely rare.

Incidentally, I was extremely moved by two gestures. First, the playing of the Star Spangled Banner by the Queen's guard at Buckingham Palace. We've had a strong fifty years of steadfast and resolute friendship, but even so we all know that song's lyrics were written when Washington, D.C. was under attack by the British almost two centuries ago. I'd like to thank Britain personally for the gesture. Second was the attendance by so many Canadians at a memorial ceremony in Ottawa where our anthem was played and flags were present. I know many Canadian citizens must have been lost, as well, given the number that I met during my time in New York. | 3:42 PM

Morbid things to ponder.

A friend was insisting the tower fell in "five seconds". I didn't want to argue the point, but I knew it was physically impossible. So I looked it up.

(Note: previously I got it horrendously and obviously wrong, through looking at numbers and not thinking. Or just doing math at 1am. Ack.)

From a kind reader (see disaster collage at his site):
Starting at rest,
   displacement = 1/2 (a)(t)^2
so, I will use metric for this, (1000 ft ~= 305 m) (g = -9.8m/s^2)
   305 = .5(-9.8)(t)^2
   305 = 4.9t^2
   62.24 = t^2
   t = 7.88 seconds

Not quite 5 seconds, but close. | 1:33 PM

Thursday, September 13, 2001

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of i{Spiritus Mundi}
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?


The Second Coming
by William Butler Yeats
First Published in 1922 | 3:42 AM