My Name is Khan

My Name is Khan is an incredible move that tells the inspiring story of Rizvan Khan (from the epiglotis).  Rizvan is a Muslim that immigrated into the United States to live with his brother after suffering the death of their mother.  After his immigration he is diagnosed with Aspberger's syndrome which is part of the Autism spectrum.  Rizvan meets the woman who will become his wife, Madrina, in a hair salon while selling beauty products for his brother.  Madrina has a son, Sam, from a previous marriage who is 9 years old.  After their marriage the September 11th terrorist attacks take place leading to an uprising of hate and predjudice aimed at Muslim's which ultimately lead to the lynching and death of Rizvan and Madrina's now 13 year old son Sam.  Madrina's anger because of Sam's death over takes her and she aims all of the hate at Rizvan blaming him for his death.  She sends him away saying that she is leaving him.  Rizvan does not completely understand what this means so he asks when can I come back, to which Madrina replies, "When you tell the President of the United States: My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist!"  So, Rizvan sets out to do just that.  The rest of the movie tells Khan's tale of enduring hardships, hitchhiking, repairing things for money, and touching peoples lives.  In the end, after being jailed, tortured, interrogated, and helping to save a small town from a hurricane; Madrina finally comes to find him and he finally gets to meet the President (who is now Barrack Obama).
This movie was the most inspiring and touching movie I think I have ever seen.  The hardships that had to be endured were insurmountable.  What I take away from the movie is this, "There are only two types of people in the world those that do good things and those that do bad things."  This message is one that more people should definitely take to heart.  Seeing the hatred that was expressed in many parts of the film made me very sad that there are people who are still that ignorant.

Social Networking and Islam

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHo4kBeuQDQ

Violence and Marriage

Very very interesting and saddening:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRNpUox_9eE

Online Muslim Dating

http://arablounge.com/

Gay and Muslim?

This article looks at the very controversial issue:
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/12/11/can-you-be-gay-and-muslim.html

More on Native Deen

Found the group to be really interesting so I decided to continue to look further:
http://www.nativedeen.com/ns/index.php
http://nativedeen.com/2011/bio/

Music makes the world go 'round

Music doing great things:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14501200

Lowe's pulls ads from 'All-American"

Negative comments stop something that could be a big positive influence:
http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/12/09/ads-all-american-muslim/?hpt=hp_t2

Civil Liberties Infringement

How can we say home of the free when we are still constantly violating so many people's civil liberties in the name of security?
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gTUmHwWoenoEtzQfbrFlHyJjHtPw?docId=066e784ac6924492b98b21a360189015

More Islamic Science

Found this to be very interesting, especially the mechanical engineering section as it is my intended major: http://www.history-science-technology.com/Articles/articles%2071.htm

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) Museum of Science and Technology in Islam

Thought this video tour of the museum looked really incredible and would be amazing to visit one day:http://museum.kaust.edu.sa/media-gallery-videos.html

Final Exam

                Originally when I enrolled in anthropology 310 while I expected to absorb information, I did not expect it to have an impact on me on a personal level.  However, it did not take very long for me to discover that this would not be the case.  For me this was due mainly to the many mediums in which we learned and the way in which the class was structured.  The personal experiences and wisdom that both guest speakers and our peers shared had the most impact on me.  The current way in which our society views Muslims and the Islamic faith has been greatly skewed by popular media and the actions of minority population of those very radical Muslims; however taking this class helped me to see through the lines much of the global population has drawn.

                A large part of my personal “ignorance” beforehand stemmed from a lack of very basic knowledge of the Islamic faith.  As with any structure a strong foundation must be built, this foundation can be found in the Five Pillars of Islam.  These are: Shahadah (accepting there is no god except God accepting Muhammed as the last Prophet), Sawm (fasting/self-sacrifice), Salat (five daily payers), Zakat (charitable giving), and Hajj (pilgrimage). Before going into this class I had a very basic knowledge of these 5 pillars but I did not quite have a grasp on exactly what they stood for.  As time progressed I realized not only that I did I lack basic knowledge but that there was so much I did not know about the both about the Muslim culture and the Islamic religion.  I understood that Ramadan was a an Islamic ‘holiday’ but I didn’t know that it was made up of 3 parts or that it doesn’t occur at the same time every year and that it was dependent on when the 9^th month of the Islamic calendar which begins when the thinnest crescent moon is barely visible.  These are very basic things that alone do not change the way in which I viewed Muslims but I believe that the more knowledge one has about a culture/religion the more they are able to both be more tolerant and accepting. 

                As the class progressed I found myself noticing very small things when going about my daily routine that I would not have noticed 6 months ago.  When watching the news and hearing things about Sunni and Shi’a Muslims and understanding what that difference meant and what it did not mean.  When out and about I noticed more Muslim people and it was in a more ‘positive’ manner than before.  When I passed a female wearing a hijab, my first thought changed from “she’s wearing a headdress” to “she’s wearing a hijab because she takes her faith seriously” and I understood the meaning behind it as well.  As well I understood why they wore more modest clothing than as American’s we have become accustomed to. 

                To preface my next point, before I took this class, I would not consider myself racist or prejudice in any way.  However, I would say that in there were a couple times after 9/11 where I was on an airplane and there was a Muslim and my mind went to “hmm…should I be suspicious of this person?”  While this never progressed past the point of wondering, it was still something that I find myself somewhat ashamed of to this day.  In further studying Islam, I began to realize just how much of Islam is about peace, not violence.  I began to realize how many misconceptions most people have about Muslim’s and that many  Muslim’s are more than willing to take time to explain things to a person not of the Islamic faith so that these misconceptions can be quelled. One of the most common of these misconceptions is that all Arabs are not Muslim’s and vice versa.  Personally, I have to admit that I did not truly understand just how much of the global population are Muslim.  Most people would be blown away to see a map that shows the distribution of the Muslim population.

                One of the biggest things that I took away from this class is that culture and religion have very different roles in the Muslim population.  The ideas and theories that were discussed throughout the class had a very personal effect on me.  The most important thing that I feel that I took away from this class is the feeling that I can go out in the world with not only a better understanding of Islam and Muslims personally, but also knowing that I can continue to spread this knowledge to my friends and/or total strangers whose misconceptions may be skewing their point of view.

Academic Article Review

                In the past several years personal media and social networking has gone from almost non-existent to seemingly inescapable.  Everywhere we look we are surrounded by Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and other social networks.  People used to ask, “Do you have a Facebook?”  Now it’s become more of a statement: “just Facebook me.”  Not only has this social media outburst shaped our personal lives, but it has now begun to shape global politics as well.  Johanne Kuebler’s article Overcoming the Digital Divide: The Internet and Political Mobilization in Egypt and Tunisia delves into the how and why political activism has been sparked by technology and social networking.

Kuebler’s thesis was that “the use of internet tools for political protest in the summer of 2009 in Iran, the so-called ‘Twitter Revolution,’ appears to have conceded a point to internet enthusiasts, who praise the internet as a space of unlimited freedom and a venue for the organization of political actions” (Kuebler).  The author attempted to study the ways in which the internet has affected political protest in Egypt and Tunisia, both countries that are under authoritarian dictatorship.

It is known by many that Facebook, Twitter, and other blogs recently played a huge role in the protests that took place in Egypt and Tunisia.  However, what is not known are the specifics about exactly how these social networks aided the anti-government protests.  Dr. Kuebler sought to find out exactly how much having access to the internet alone generates “political activism” and what cultural, political, and social aspects aid/hinder this ‘activism.’  Kuebler wrote this article to show just how much ‘technology’ and the internet shape global events.  She not only showed the things that the internet has done but also to bring to attention the censorship that authoritarian governments have exerted.

                I found the Kuebler’s article to be very convincing.  She offered very solid evidence that proves the ways in which the internet and social networking affected the political protests in Egypt and Tunisia. She examines why even though a higher percentage of the population in Tunisia (33% versus 21%) has access to the internet, social networks and blogs played a greater role in the political activism which took place in Egypt.  One of my favorite quotes from her article comes from John Barlow: “the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies [governments] seek to impose to us.”  I felt that there is not a more fitting quote to strengthen her paper that that.

Kuebler used wide variety of sources to further her article.  Kuebler used: books & journal articles, blogs, and online periodicals.  Most of the sources that are included are original sources; however, there are many instances in which secondary sources were used in order to validate conclusions and uses statistics to supplement thoughts and ideas that may need to be strengthened. The author used parenthetical documentation in order to cite sources within the text as well as citation within the endnotes.  The credibility of the sources that Kuebler used varied depending on the source.  Overall the sources were very credible; however, the use of blogs as sources may not as credible as the use of scholarly sources.

A key strength of Kuebler’s article was a reference to the links between theories of the public and social movement theory by Quentin Wiktorowicz who said that while social movement theory says that “the study of social movements has to go beyond the assumption that social movements occur when masses emotionally react to situations… [O]n the contrary, social movements are rarely spontaneous but rely on careful organization...”  Quotations such as this, to me, made the article very convincing because by bringing in outside sources that went well with her points and arguments created a synergy within the article.  One of the only weaknesses in Kuebler’s article to me was when she seemingly breaks off from her main point to say that “the Muslim brothers have recently started to use ‘wikis’ to document their own history on the web.”  While I found this point to be interesting, I felt that it strayed from her main point in a way that seemed to be somewhat ‘scatterbrained.’

In the last decade a drastic change has taken place that has shaped the way that people communicate, it is very seldom that you get a letter from a friend that lives far away, now you get a text message or they post on your Facebook wall.  What were once regional issues and conflicts are known almost instantly around the world.  Social media has become a vessel for political activism and mobilization, not only for the people already involved, but it also allows people who may be five thousand miles away to become involved.  Whether one agrees with it or not, it is a change that has made a lasting impression on us and is here to stay.

Barlow, John Perry 1996. A Cyberspace Independence Declaration. February 8. Davos, Switzerland.

Kuebler, Johanne.  “Overcoming the Digital Divide: The Internet and Political Mobilization in Egypt and Tunisia.” CyberOrient 5 (2001).

Wiktorowicz, Quentin.  2004.  Islamic activism: A social movement theory approach. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.