The Nomad and the Olive Branch

Sometimes, turning stereotypes into comedy serves to undermine the stereotype. Let's see how Jeff Dunham and his pal, Achmed the Terrorist, do that: Achmed The Terrorist - Watch more free videos It sure got a good laugh out of me. Hope you enjoy it! Salaam, from Saracen

One of the most controversial issues in all religions is the case of gender equality in religious beliefs. Unsurprisingly, Islam has faced countless criticism against its so-called “misogynist traditions” in that it is inherently a religion that is biased against women in matters of marriage, divorce and inheritance, among other things. On the other hand, apologetics and scholars alike argue that Islam is a religion in which both sexes are considered equals both under the eyes of God and in social matters. This paper will compare both approaches and attempt at resolving this question from the following perspective: that the religion of Islam is not inherently misanthropic towards women, and that this application does not require a specific social and cultural framework. This standpoint defies many obstacles, among them the rising reports of domestic violence in Islamic countries and the lack of contemporary scholarly discourse on women’s rights in these nations; at the same time, I am ...

I mean, come on: who's better at spreading democracy like it should be done than the U.S. government? And who's even better at colonial suppression than the U.K.'s? Ever since the end of World War II, the U.S. government established itself as a superpower by nuking two separate cities in Japan, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese, all under the pretext of "saving the lives of millions"? This is not to relieve blame from the Axis Powers, but to highlight the fact that two wrongs don't make a right. However, the U.S. government kept using that pretext to elect governments that serve its interests all around the world. After all, it is the U.S. government, the no. 1 hombre of freedom and democracy, that is choosing those governments, so why should we be pissed? My horrible sarcasm aside, the U.S. government has hid behind the auspices of freedom and democracy to mask its subduing post-colonialist neo-imperialist interests the world over. But I must...

The big news in Iraq these days has brought into the spotlight a religious minority that has yet to make it to the news, if ever. I'm not talking about Iraqi Jews or the Chaldo-Assyrian Christians, but rather the religious group known as the Yazidis. The casualties of the Iraq war have shown themselves to be rather equally discriminatory against all sects, as Sunnites, Shiites, Christians, Jews and now Yazidis alike have fell to the juggernaut of the Coalition, Al Qaeda and who knows who else is messing Iraq up. But this isn't just one event, but rather a series of events that happened over a matter of days. They have climaxed to truck explosions that left hundreds dead. To keep the events in perspective ( Al Jazeera, 08-15-07 ), In April, a Yazidi teenager who had recently converted to Islam was stoned to death after she reportedly fell in love with a Muslim and ran off with him. The incident appears to have sparked an increase in attacks on members of the sect. The bodies of ...

Since September 11, 2001, the growing interest in Islamic studies has led to serious inquiry about Islam’s integration with the modern global community over myriads of issues. One of the most prominent challenges to Islam is its compatibility, or lack thereof, with the most promoted form of political and social decision-making today, democracy. Another challenge involves the necessity of implementing democracy in Islamic institutional and social reform. There is a wide spectrum of views concerning this subject. Some scholars insist that Islam’s coexistence with democracy is possible, and even more insist that the implementation of democracy is a prerequisite for such reform in the modern world. Others, however, oppose the notion of democracy altogether, instead calling for more “Islamic” methods. While I do agree that Islam and democracy can go hand-in-hand, although not entirely, I do not consider democracy a necessity for social reconstruction in the Islamic world today. At the same ...

The focus of media these days is absolutely disgusting. And to be honest, I'm not just talking about news in Western media, which has a worldwide reputation for being one of the most biased network of outlets, and an even nastier reputation of following news about Paris Hilton over the war in Afghanistan and Iraq that is decimating the local populace, thanks to the American government. I'm talking about media outlets all across the seven seas (four oceans, two gulfs and a sea) and the six continents that have human life on them (don't tell me about the lost tribesmen of Antarctica, because they don't exist anymore; 1 ). While I have addressed this issue on my blog several times, I haven't been able to get around elucidating, from my perspective, the reasons behind media bias, which are quite numerous indeed. Some of the factors that I will list and explain might surprise you, and some might not, considering that much of these reasons are derived from my ideals and o...

Africa is probably the poorest continent on the face of the Earth if not one of the poorest. It has always had a bad reputation thanks to your local indoctrination cent... I mean, news station. Over the past few centuries, Africa was host to tens of Empires occupying its lands, enslaving its people and plundering its wealth. Because of its substantial dependence on Western economies to keep it surviving, much of Africa has grown into a haven for third-world countries to exist, let alone develop thanks to the political, tribal and fanatical pressures that have squeezed Africa almost devoid of any progress. Nowadays, almost anything that has to do with Africa is exploited, even, believe it or not, charity; on that note, this post promises to be not a Bono speech about "saving Africa". Let's take a look first at what made Africa what it is today, starting with one of the most famous and yet most understudied accounts by modern men, that of the 2 explorers Henry Morton Stanle...

I really don't like to talk about war in general: it's an ugly, murky "fact of life" that we all have to deal with, all driven by the selfish desires of madmen and people who seek to sow discord between human beings for all the wrong reasons you can think of, whether it be "racial differences" or simply because "these" people are somewhat "trying" to "kill" you, because "they" pose some "clear, present and imminent danger" to you and others. Of course, it can get more complicated than that as people compete for resources, power, and anything that can be of advantage to them. But in many cases, there is what we call "ethnic strife". Why the heck should there be ethnic strife? Could it be based on some family feud that evolved into a conflict between tribes that are supposedly of different ethnicities? I mean, why do we human beings have to invent such labels and use them to justify our own selfish po...

The World is full of interesting people, of many shapes, sizes, cultures, religions, races, and personalities. The many possibilities within each and more categories that define us as human beings multiplied together only allude to the many combinations that spring out of this, thus giving us an impression of how different people tend to be, and how we as people try to be ourselves in society. However, this is not the case today. While variation tends to be more pronounced within societies than among societies when it comes to genetics and appearance, among many other genotypic traits ( 1 ), there also seems to be a control beyond the grasp of genetic factors that limits the variation of such personas. In English, this means that your genes really don't have any control over who you are more than other things. The majority of such factors tend to be social, or, for lack of a more sensical term, sociological, meaning that they are controlled not by one's genetic disposition or i...