Khaab Khayaal Saraab

Friday, May 14, 2004

Notes on the other two [besides Irshad Manji] "Prominent Female Muslim Voices":

Asra Q. Nomani

In response to a New York Times Opinion piece by her, someone wrote the following on a Pakistani mailing list [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sv-pak/message/7762]:

> ISNA and CAIR seem to be in the cross-wires !!

I have no doubt that Ashcroft and Co. would have shut them down had they found the smallest of excuses.

And Asra Nomani does leave me a little uncomfortable at times--but as the article implies, that CAIR and Co. were a little more egalitarian in their focus, it would make for a stronger case in standing up for human rights...[I can't seem to find the link to the European document Ms. Hasan mentions.]

Asma Gull Hasan

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/05122004
"only true muslim nation"...and yes, ... but am...
if I wasn't an american, I wouldn't have noticed the democratic elements in islamic history and theory?!!
Brian asked "is there a progressive american wing of islam?" her reply: "it's a sign that there's a healthy discussion going on in Islam" [they were both talking in the context of Asma Gull Hasan, Asra Q. Nomani, and Irshad Manji]. Later brian asks "why bother with religion at all...why bother with organized religion?" To have a sense of good and bad, she said [in paraphrase].

[From a post to another list:

As for Asma GH, I agree with more of what she says. All up to the point where she gets all paternalistic as an American and starts saying things like "because I am an American, I can identify more with the democratic aspects of Islam" [i am paraphrasing], which makes the blood boil in the "Third Worlder" in me who grew up being taught about the Rule of Law and Democracy literally at my father's knee, right after he taught me that there was One God and that Mohammad was his messenger--all while living under more than half a dozen military dictatorships, both in Africa and Pakistan.

S.]