You gotta watch and read this crazy lady’s “experience” with the horrific niqab (for a week!). Her hysterical comments alone are worth the read. It’s a four-part series, amazingly. I hope she at least talks to some “Western women” who have chosen to wear a full covering…

The Abaya Monologues articles
Abaya Monologues video

A commenter at HuffPo says: “Note to readers. Crittenden is married to David Frum, former Bush speech writer. She is just another right winger conveniently using oppressed people to drive an agenda. In this case it is the Muslims are coming, the Muslims are coming.”

This group has now become a huge blog sensation (Muslims Against Sharia has compiled a long list proving it). Most of the reaction is predictable:

• Ultra-conservative scumbags idiots who hate Islam say Islam cannot be reformed and even “anti-Shariah Muslims” cannot be trusted.
• Mainstream Muslims say Islam cannot be reformed and the site authors are not Muslim.
• Investigative minds notice some anti-Islam bloggers are on the authors list and therefore determine that the members are not Muslims, but actually a front for conservative groups to take down Islam.

My own reaction is around the third one. I’m an anti-Shariah muslim who is suspicious. (Unlike some critics, I don’t believe shariah = Islam.) I’ve discussed the group elsewhere and even gotten in touch with the group’s president but I’m not really much closer to understanding their position.

My take so far is that I don’t agree with their definition of “Muslim”; I think that by legitimizing inaccurate translations and concepts in the Quran, they will “embolden” anti-Islam activists; I wonder why they consider it preferable to try to edit the Quran rather than simply encourage people to stop believing in it altogether (may be à la “The True Furqan”); I believe it might be more accurate to call their group “Muslims Against the Quran” (because their quarrel is with the source itself) … and so on.

The president has done a not-so-good job at (defensively) defending himself and his org. all over the web. His defense (at Ali Eteraz) of a co-author who has called for Islam to be banned is almost totally nonsensical. I’ve complained before about liberal Muslims teaming up with conservative non-Muslims to advance their causes and it seems that trend will never cease.

I’m still having a hard time following their logic:

• They state: We are Muslims, we believe in the Quran, we are peaceful
• But: The Quran commands Muslims to kill all other people
• Therefore: Many parts of the Quran are false or corrupted
• Yet, inexplicably: “Islam is peace; Islam is love; Islam is light.”

Meh.

(Nearly Belated) Ramadan blessings to all. Strange enough, I used to have so much to say that I kept a Ramadan blog. Except for Umm Zaid’s references to me in her two blogs, nothing exists of it. Now I can barely type a paragraph. :-(

Thankfully, she and her friends have kept up the Ramadan blogging for all to enjoy at Ramadanish :-)

Somehow, even when they do, they’re still terrorists! Link: Muslims parade in New York, condemn Sept. 11 terror attacks. Kaufman is a clown.

The September edition of National Geographic Magazine has a great article about the sad and interesting situation in Pakistan.

You can read it online here: Struggle for the Soul of Pakistan.

It highlights all of the terrible things happening there, the usual “so-called Muslim” idiocy: gang rapes, corruption, injustice, murder… Interestingly, these “so-called Muslims” are the ones the Quran speaks of in 2:11-12. They are troublemakers and criminals of the highest degree, yet they are oblivious to that fact. Instead, they see themselves as doing God’s work. I’d like one of those idiots to explain how making death threats against a man like Edhi is anywhere near “Islamic”.

“I’m a Muslim,” says Edhi, “but my true religion is human rights.”

Yet it shows an optimistic angle, too. Pakistanis are not mindless terrorists or hopelessly backward morons. (Surprise!)

“Yes, there are extremists here,” says Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid. “But they are a small minority in a nation of 165 million people. Most of us want nothing to do with violence.”

I love Pakistan and miss it a lot This article brought back good (and bad) memories and reminds me of how much we have yet to accomplish as a species.

Suggested Reading: Social Justice: The first pillar of Islam

Niqabi apparently kills her polygynous husband. She ‘accepted’ the second marriage “as required by her religion” — really?

Like everywhere else in the online Muslim world, hijab is a big topic. MuslimSpace (like Myspace but for Muslims) has, since its creation, had a rule forbidding women from posting pictures of themselves without “hijab” (in this case meaning headcovering). Although I disagreed with this rule, I joined anyway, hoping that one day they would realize the error of excluding a large number of their Muslim sisters from having pictures that reflect their true selves.

It seems that day has come, thank God. The founder/admin Mohamed has stated that: “till further notice, modest pics even if non-hijabbed are allowed on the site.” A wonderful event, indeed, but somehow he manages to turn the allowance into an insult. Keep Reading …

BlueGrassRoots took a trip to the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum. And took pictures. Thank God!

Further proof of the way in which some idiots feel about Muslims: this article. Keep Reading …

I found this on a silly anti-Islam site, which is supposedly a good tool to use to see who is an “extremist”. It’s kind of interesting, given how one-sided it is. I thought I’d publicly “answer” it, and give the other side a nice list of statements to make as well. Keep Reading …