A ROAD TO MECCA The Journey Of Muhammad Asad reveals the timeless nature and continuing relevance of the life and work of this outstanding Austrian.

"A distinguished professor of anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Talal Asad has in recent years been one of the most vocal and original of scholars attempting to lay the groundwork for just such a rethinking of religion and the modern. Asad's role in this effort is all the more noteworthy inasmuch as the discipline of anthropology has been largely uninvolved in this discussion. The neglect reflects the fact that most anthropologists were never particularly impressed by secularization theories one way or another. In addition, until, roughly, the 1980s, most anthropologists were not interested in the equally expansive question of what it means for a society to be modern. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, the question of the modern moved to a position of central importance in anthropological theory. In part this was an effect of postmodernist debates. But it was also the result of far-reaching changes in the local communities anthropologists study. Despite the growing interest in questions of modernity, however, most anthropologists continued to show little interest in questions of secularity and secularization. As Asad notes, even today the main textbooks in the anthropology of religion make no reference to these issues (p. 22). Meanwhile, in other social sciences and humanities, debates rage as to whether secularity is a phenomenon intrinsic to the entire modern world, a condition unique to the West, or an ideological mythology that, even in the West, obscures the wellsprings of religiosity running through all societies.
Asad's Formation of the Secular does not attempt to take on these last issues directly, but instead places the question of religion and secularity at the center of a richly eclectic but deliberately unfinished anthropology of modernity. A mix of new chapters and essays originally written in the late 1990s, the book takes aim at these questions "indirectly" (p. 67), by way of epistemic reflections on the genealogy of "the secular" and "secularism." As this latter phrasing hints, Asad's approach owes as much to Foucauldian methodologies as it does anything specifically anthropological. In the volume's introduction, Asad takes exception to colleagues who equate the anthropological method with "the pseudoscientific notion of 'fieldwork'" (p. 17). It is not fieldwork that underlies the anthropological method, Asad counters, but, following Marcel Mauss and Mary Douglas, "the comparison of embedded concepts (representations) between societies differently located in time or space" (p. 17). He adds, "the important thing in this comparative analysis is not their origin. . . , but the forms of life that articulate them, the powers they release or disable" (p. 17). Even this authorial aside fails to capture the peculiarities of Asad's methodology. Whereas social anthropologists like Mary Douglas develop their comparisons of embedded concepts from the aggregate particularities of concrete interactions, Asad's analytic begins with the macrosociology and epistemology he believes undergirds modern society and modern systems of knowledge. In his discussion of the secular, then, Asad is less concerned with concrete social particulars than he is with the general concatenations of capitalism, the nation state, and the "new concepts of 'religion,' 'ethics,' and 'politics'" they have engendered (p. 2). The approach bears a stronger resemblance to the macro-civilizational analyses of Nietzsche, Weber, and, especially, Foucault, than it does Oxford social anthropology. It is this broader concern with, so to speak, epistemic hegemonies that unites the volume's eight chapters."

Who Wrote the Koran?

American Radical

How Different Media Have Covered the General Election

"Kingdom Without Borders is the first book to explore the driving forces behind Saudi Arabia's new era of expansionism. Having established a far-reaching political and religious influence, as well as an impressive media empire, Saudi Arabia has become a kingdom without borders, holding both local and international actors in a tight embrace. This phenomenon has yet to be seriously-instead of sensationally-studied. In this volume, contributors soberly reassess the changing nature of state and society, considering not only the multiple leaders who have risen within Saudi Arabia in recent years but also, thanks to a second oil boom, the consolidation of outside forces that now threaten to subvert the state.
Bringing together leading scholars from Europe, the United States, the Middle East, and Asia, Kingdom Without Borders combines both a top-down and grassroots approach to examining the country's growing regional and international influence. Contributors also trace the impact of Saudi Arabia on the religion, economics, and politics of Yemen, Lebanon, and the United States, linking the transformation of local contexts to the external actors of globalization. With a thorough investigation of the history and contemporary manifestations of Saudi expansionism, Kingdom Without Borders presents a unique opportunity to view Saudi Arabia's power project within the interrelated realms of local politics, religion, and media genres. "

Music and Islam: From Prohibition to the Science of Ecstasy

Islam's complex relationship with arts and culture across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia presents special paradoxes and intrigue in the realm of music. Islam has been used both to nurture and curtail musical expression. This program delves into the historic roots of this debate, all the way back to Baghdad in the early centuries of Islam. Case studies highlight sublime and ecstatic music from Iraq, Iran, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Pakistan and more. Author and Middle East specialist Joseph Braude discusses the history and issues with two Islamic scholars.

Lebanon: UNODC launches report on trafficking
A major quandary in the identification of victims is the absence of any law in the Lebanese penal code concerning human trafficking. Of the 30 cases processed through the courts under existing crime legislation, such as kidnapping, offenders received a US$350 fine and a jail sentence of less than six months. Victims are also afraid to speak out, dreading retribution or stigmatization. Many simply do not know their rights. Silence perpetuates the cycle of exploitation.

«هل يعقل ألّا تساندنا نقابة المحامين في مطلبنا أن تمنح العاملة الأجنبية قرار اختيار قضائها إجازة الـ 24 ساعة الأسبوعية داخل المنزل الذي تعمل فيه أو خارجه؟»صاحبة الجملة تينا نقاش ، ممثلة اللجنة الرعوية للعمال الأفارقة والآسيويين في لجنة التسيير.

"I don’t like it here because I don’t fit in with the Lebanese and I would like to go to Sri Lanka and live the life of the people there."

"CONFIDENTIAL talks involving a senior member of the Saudi royal family are due to be held in Oxford this week in an effort to kick-start the Middle East peace process."

The Future Has Always Been Crazier Than We Thought.

"If you live in an American swing state you may have received a copy of ‘Obsession’ in your Sunday paper. ‘Obsession’ isn’t a perfume: it’s a documentary about ‘radical Islam’s war against the West’. In the last two weeks of September, 28 million copies of the film were enclosed as an advertising supplement in 74 newspapers, including the New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education. ‘The threat of Radical Islam is the most important issue facing us today,’ the sleeve announces. ‘It’s our responsibility to ensure we can make an informed vote in November.’ The Clarion Fund, the supplement’s sponsor, doesn’t explicitly endorse McCain, so as not to jeopardise its tax-exempt status, but the message is clear enough, and its circulation just happened to coincide with Obama’s leap in the polls."

"In an attempt to reassert their power, Saudi Arabia’s religious police have ordered shopkeepers in downtown Riyadh to get rid of all adorned abayas, the black robes worn by women in the kingdom, as shopping picks up ahead of the Eid religious holidays next week."

Media lies between PLO and Hamas.

Today is the 5th anniversary of Edwards Said’s death. In 25 September 2003, he died from leukemia after 12 years struggle. I believe it is very appropriate and even necessary to remember Said, who was an academician that lived a life of struggle, an outspoken advocate of Palestinian rights.

"Foreign governments should be pushing the Saudi government to move quickly on a written penal code that, among other things, protects the exercise of human rights. They should also take advantage of the October 2007 amendments to the Judiciary Law to offer technical assistance in developing a judiciary trained in modern principles of criminal law. This assistance should include measures to strengthen the office of the inspector of the judiciary and the appeals court judges to ensure that lower court proceedings are conducted in compliance with the law and disciplinary action is taken where necessary. That means stopping trials or overturning verdicts where fundamental due process has been violated.
Foreign governments should also push for strong mechanisms of transparency for the criminal justice system. In particular, support for the creation of professional associations for criminal defense lawyers and the creation of free legal aid programs for all juvenile, poor and capital defendants would go a long way toward increasing transparency in trials and removing the stigma of criminal defense. "

Alquds Alarabi supplement about Mahmoud Darwish.

Lebanon's last Jews

Saudi Arabia: Shia Minority Treated as Second-Class Citizens, HRW reports.

The Saudi government should end its systematic discrimination against its Ismaili religious minority, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Human Rights Watch called upon the government to set up a national institution empowered to recommend remedies for discriminatory policies and responding to individual claims.
The 90-page report, “The Ismailis of Najran: Second-Class Saudi Citizens,” based on more than 150 interviews and reviews of official documents, documents a pattern of discrimination against the Ismailis in the areas of government employment, education, religious freedom, and the justice system.
“The Saudi government preaches religious tolerance abroad, but it has consistently penalized its Ismaili citizens for their religious beliefs,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should stop treating Ismailis as second-class in employment, the justice system, and education.”
At least several hundred thousand, and perhaps as many as 1 million, Ismailis live in Saudi Arabia, part of the Shia minority in the Sunni-dominated country of 28 million. Most Ismailis live in Najran province, on Saudi Arabia’s southwestern border with Yemen, where tensions have been growing in recent years.
Saudi Arabia conquered Najran following a brief war with Yemen in 1934, incorporating into the kingdom the local Sulaimani Ismailis, one strand of Ismaili belief. Najran has been home to the highest Sulaimani Ismaili cleric, the Absolute Guide, since the 17th century.
Despite more than 70 years of shared history, Saudi authorities at the highest levels continue to propagate hate speech against this religious minority. In April 2007, the Council of Senior Religious Scholars, the body tasked with officially interpreting Islamic faith, ritual, and law, termed Ismailis “corrupt infidels, debauched atheists.” In August 2006, Saudi Arabia’s highest judge, Shaikh Salih al-Luhaidan, declared to an audience of hundreds that Ismailis “outwardly appear Islamic, but inwardly, they are infidels.” Other Saudi officials did not rebut or disown those statements.
Growing tension since the mid-1990s between Ismailis and Najran’s governor, Prince Mish’al bin Sa’ud bin Abd al-‘Aziz, led to clashes in April 2000, after the authorities arrested an Ismaili cleric they accused of “sorcery.” Security forces arrested hundreds of Ismailis, and tortured and secretly tried dozens of others. The authorities then purged some 400 Ismailis from the local bureaucracy.
Since then, local officials who have been sent to Najran from other parts of the country and reflecting the country’s dominant conservative Wahhabi Muslim ideology, have continued to discriminate against Ismailis in employment, education and the justice system, and interfered with their ability to practice their religion.
Only one of the 35 department heads of the Najran provincial government is an Ismaili. Almost no Ismailis work as senior security personnel or as religion teachers. Saudi textbooks teach that the Ismaili faith is a sin of “major polytheism,” tantamount to excommunication. Wahhabi teachers in Najran insult Ismaili pupils’ faith and try to convert them to Sunni Islam, even using threats of class failure and flogging.
Ismailis are not free to pass their religious teachings on to new generations. The authorities have at times exiled the Absolute Guide from Najran or placed him under house arrest. Saudi authorities also ban the import or production of Ismaili religious literature. Ismailis face obstacles in obtaining permits to build new mosques or expand existing ones, whereas the state funds and builds Sunni mosques in Najran, even in areas without a Sunni population.
The country’s Sharia judges, following Wahhabi beliefs, routinely discriminate against Ismailis on the basis of their faith. In March 2006, a judge annulled the marriage of an Ismaili man to a Sunni woman, saying that the man lacked religious qualification. In May 2006, another judge barred an Ismaili lawyer from representing his Sunni client.
“State-sponsored and officially tolerated discrimination against the Ismailis of Najran seriously threatens their identity and denies them basic rights,” Stork said. “The authorities are shutting them out from education, government employment, and professions.”
In July 2008, King Abdullah opened a well-publicized interfaith conference in Spain initiated by Saudi Arabia and attended by Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist religious leaders. “The measure of Saudi religious tolerance will be its practice at home, not only what it preaches abroad,” Stork said.