Islam-Muslims

, , , , , ,

Does an Islamic state run on 'ideology,' 'theology' or both?

, , , , , ,

Long, long ago -- 1982, to be precise -- I had a chance to talk with CBS commentator Bill Moyers soon after he returned from a lengthy stay in the Middle East. Americans were, of course, still reeling from the hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy in Iran.

Moyers was fascinated with the role of the mosque in a typical Muslim community in the region. The local mosque was the center for religious life, but it was also where people went for help in every other aspect of their daily lives -- including many contacts with government aid and programs. The key thing journalists and other outsiders needed to grasp, he told me, was that "there was no such thing as the separation of mosque and state." 

With that in mind, hear the words spoken by the man that the British are calling "Jihadi John" as he prepared to end the life of one of his Western captives:

This is James Wright Foley, an American citizen of your country. As a government, you have been at the forefront of aggression towards the Islamic State. You have plotted against us and gone out of you way to find reasons to interfere in our affairs. Today, your military air force is attacking us daily in Iraq. Your strikes have caused casualties against Muslims. 


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , ,

God and journalism: American reportedly beheaded by ISIS wrote about his faith

, , , ,

What absolutely crushing news.

Amid all the brutal headlines involving the Islamic State militant group in Iraq and Syria (important background here) came a YouTube video Tuesday purportedly showing the beheading of American journalist James Foley.

Most of the initial news stories I've read — including those by the Washington Post and the New York Times — ignore Foley's own faith background.

But in the city where Foley graduated from Marquette University — a Catholic and Jesuit institution — the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel nails the faith angle. 

The Journal Sentinel notes that Foley previously was among "four journalists kidnapped by Moammar Gadhafi loyalists in Libya in April 2011." The Milwaukee story describes a letter Foley wrote to his alma mater after 44 days in captivity.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , ,

Your weekend think piece: It's time for our politicians (and journalists) to get religion

, , , , , , ,

Yes, this post is about an op-ed piece from an advocacy publication.

However, every now and then your GetReligionistas share material of this kind when it has obvious relevance to debates about the quality of religion-news coverage in the mainstream press, here in America and abroad. This Damian Thompson piece from The Spectator (hat tip to Rod "friend of this blog" Dreher) is precisely that kind of think piece.

The context, of course, is the wave of persecution and violence in Syria and Iraq, with the Islamic State leading the charge. The U.S. government experts watched and watched and watched (thank you, Kristen Powers) as this tsunami of blood rolled over the land, affecting all kinds of religious minorities, including Christian communities with roots all the way back to the early church fathers.

Why the delay? Partially, it was a matter of politics. The right wants to blame President Barack Obama for literally everything that is going on. The left still wants (with just cause, in my opinion) to keep bashing the culture-building dreams of President George W. Bush, who was absolutely convinced that Western democracy works for everywhere, for everyone, even without that whole Bill of Rights thing going on.

Thompson's thesis is quite simple: Our elites just don't get religion.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , ,

New York Times Metro desk probes some of the church-state ties that bind

, , , , , , , , ,

I continue to field questions about the meaning of the term "Kellerism," which is well on its way to entering the GetReligionista dictionary. To catch up on that debate, surf this collection of links or, in particular, read this earlier post.

The bottom line: "Kellerism," a direct reference to you know who saying you know what, is deliberate advocacy journalism in coverage of hot-button stories linked to religious, moral and cultural issues. The key is that The Times, as an institution, has never formally stated that its commitment to accurate, balanced coverage has been edited in this manner. This is a selective bias.

However, some recent trends at The Times may require a slight tweaking of my definition. It appears that "Kellerism" primarily kicks into play in stories addressing issues linked to the world's most powerful newspapers's defense of sacred doctrines linked to the Sexual Revolution. Long-suffering religious believers who continue to follow the newspaper day after day may have noticed that its Metro desk is producing some very interesting and fair-minded coverage of religion.

Consider the recent news feature that ran under the headline, "De Blasio’s Prekindergarten Expansion Collides With Church-State Divide."


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , ,

Role of religion in clashes between the Islamic State and Turkey?

, , , , , ,

Day after day, the news keeps flooding into major media about the victories of the Islamic State and the long-range implications of this movement for the Middle East and surrounding regions. Like I said the other day, it's frustrating to try to keep track of it all.

But the coverage does seem to be improving, especially if your goal is to find clues as to the role religion is playing in this historic drama. Here at GetReligion, we continue to be interested in mainstream-news coverage of several fronts, especially the impact of ISIS rule on religious minorities, including Christians, and the violence that is rising between warring Islamic camps.

On that second issue, The Washington Post foreign desk just turned its attention to strife on the Turkish border in a solid news feature that ran under the headline, "In Turkey, a late crackdown on Islamist fighters."

Note the word "late" in that headline. 


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , ,

Irish Times gets creative to report on persecuted Iraqi Christians

, , , ,

At a time when, as tmatt observes,  "journalists from mainstream media are struggling to do first-hand coverage" of religious persecution under Islamic State rule, an Irish Times reporter uses creative sourcing to get a first-hand account from the ground: "Fleeing Child Abduction, Slavery, Rape and Theft in Iraq."

Lara Marlowe, the Irish Times' Paris correspondent, found an Iraqi Christian expatriate whose sister Mariam fled Mosul with her husband Youssef in June as ISIS was closing in. Now taking refuge in Ainkawa, a suburb of the Iraqi city of Erbil, Mariam spoke to Marlowe via Skype, giving a detailed account of the atrocities she witnessed or learned of from neighbors. 

The story is a must-read. Seeing the events on the ground through the eyes of a single person helps bring home the enormity of the persecution. Marlowe's opening paragraphs use Mariam's experiences to highlight experiences common to many fleeing Mosul -- the loss of ancestral homes, the sight of anti-Christian graffiti, the betrayal by neighbors:

Mariam, a 50-year-old Christian obstetrician from Mosul in Iraq, considers herself and her family lucky, though she fears they will never again see the two-storey villa and garden they inherited from her husband Youssef’s parents.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , ,

What's a progressive Muslim? Don't ask, just read and nod

, , , ,

Reading the Associated Press's recent article on so-called progressive American Muslims is like a game of fill-in-the-blanks. Except that the blanks are never filled.

With its usual broad strokes, AP paints a broad mural of younger American Muslims who are getting more comfortable as Americans and less so as Muslims.  It starts with the tried-and-true anecdotal lede: Omar Akersim of Los Angeles, who prayed and fasted for Ramadan and is (shock alert!) openly gay.

The story then opens the nut graphs:

Akersim, 26, is part of a small but growing number of American Muslims challenging the long-standing interpretations of Islam that defined their parents' world. They believe that one can be gay and Muslim; that the sexes can pray shoulder-to-shoulder; that females can preach and that Muslim women can marry outside the faith — and they point to Quran passages to back them up.

The shift comes as young American Muslims work to reshape the faith they grew up with so it fits better with their complex, dual identity, with one foot in the world of their parents' immigrant beliefs and one foot in the ever-shifting cultural landscape of America. The result has been a growing internal dialogue about what it means to be Muslim, as well as a scholarly effort to re-examine the Quran for new interpretations that challenge rules that had seemed set in stone.

"Islam in America is being forced to kind of change and to reevaluate its positions on things like homosexuality because of how we're moving forward culturally as a nation. It's striving to make itself seen and known in the cultural fabric and to do that, it does have to evolve," said Akersim, who leads a Los Angeles-based support group for gay Muslims. "Ten or 15 years ago, this would have been impossible."

All of that is so eloquent, it's easy to forget some difficult questions. But we'll ask anyway.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , ,

10 years at GetReligion: Why we are still here, part II (refreshed)

, , , , ,

Overture: Anyone who has ever worked anywhere as a reporter has had this experience.

With deadline on the near horizon, you turn your story into your editor and then wait at your desk for the verdict. After a few moments, the boss or the assistant boss shoots you a tired glance and says, "Get over here."

The editor then adds a few words that reporters dread hearing: "There's a hole in your story."

These journalism "holes" come in all shapes and sizes, of course. Some of them take minutes to patch. Some, however, may delay the story for a day or two while you chase new information. But what the editor is saying is that you left something essential out of the story, some voice or piece of information that readers really need to have if they are going to understand what is going on in your story.

In a way, this is what GetReligion is all about -- those religion-shaped holes in way too many mainstream news reports about what is going on in the world around us.  


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , ,

Painfully familiar 'ghost' in the shooting of the U.S. general

, , , , ,

What we have here is -- alas -- an example of a religion-new "ghost" that your GetReligionistas could write about day after day after day, world without end, amen.

For newcomers, a "ghost" (in the lingo of this weblog) is a religious issue or subject that journalists really should have included in a news report, that is if the goal was for readers to understand what is happening. For more information on this term read the very first post published at GetReligion.org, back on the original Day 1.

A classic example of a "ghost"? How long did it take for the mainstream press to explain the doctrinal elements at the heart of the bloody conflicts between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Iraq? Way too long, quite frankly, and some newsrooms are still in the dark on that.

This brings me to the fatal shooting of that U.S. general in Afghanistan. Anyone who reads the main report in The New York Times learns, over and over, that he died because of "political" tensions. Period.


Please respect our Commenting Policy