Life of a gaander... - Filed under 'Religion'

SS: A pretty cool concept and a great idea for an event-based blog…..

Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq are taking a journey through New York City’s Muslim communities by visiting a different mosque in the city each night of the Ramadan month. They are documenting the experience in writing and with photos at 30 Mosques in 30 Days.

NYC has about one million Muslims and 30 Mosques offers an interesting peek at the diverse mosques the two friends visit, their histories and the communities that gather at each place of worship. The project has caught the attention of TV, news and blogs, but Tariq’s mother wasn’t really into it at first.

“She was like, be careful, the FBI is going to follow you,” he recalls. “I said, ‘don’t worry, mom. Things have changed. We have a black president now. Things are going to get better.’” (NY1) (As it happens, the most recent update on their site notes that someone at a Bosnian mosque asked Tariq for his ID because of an “incident with the FBI.”)

Tariq also told TV network NY1, “sometimes we’re the only ones that are South Asian, and the place will be all Indonesian or all African American, and we’ll walk in and everyone will be very happy.”

The photos they took of the places, people and food help to convey the spirit of these places of worship, small and large. Ali described what made a particular mosque undergoing construction a beautiful place. Even with rolled-up insulation in the open and wooden planks underfoot, the people managed to strategically use carpets and lighting to create a cozy environment.

There was something incredibly humbling about this place, that’s hard for me to put in words. You don’t need things like extravagant domes and fancy calligraphy on the walls to make yourself feel at home in a mosque. Because there’s more than one way to make a place look beautiful, as the people here have done. (link)

While the images and writings on their site often give a sense of the warm welcomes they received and the delicious-looking assortment of foods offered for breaking the fast, they don’t limit themselves to sharing the purely positive aspects of the experience.

For example, during a solo visit to a mosque in his neighborhood attended by West Africans, two blocks away from a Bangladeshi one, Tariq felt uncomfortable.

In fact, it was only when I started to wonder how the rest of the congregation percieved me that I began to feel uneasy. I felt like a freeloader coming in — barely eating the food offered to me — and then leaving abruptly aftewards. A bad exhibitionist, if you will. Though no one in the masjid might have felt that way, I wonder if anyone asked themselves, “Why didn’t he just go to the Bangladeshi mosque?” Maybe it’s my own insecurities that raise the question.

Overcoming personal insecurities and stepping out of one’s comfort zone to meet and pray with new people from different cultures every night does not sound like the easiest thing to do. I give Ali and Tariq credit for doing that on a regular basis during their Ramadan journey across the city, after a full day of fasting and holding down their respective dayjobs as a stand-up comic and copywriter.

I haven’t had a chance to read all the write-ups and photo essays yet but did notice visits to Brooklyn’s Masjid Khalifah, a mosque started by Malcolm X followers, Staten Island’s Albanian Islamic Cultural Center, mosques in Harlem and in the Bronx, and one in Queens with a predominantly Indonesian congregation. Some mosques had previous lives as dance halls, truck companies and banquet halls.

Besides crossing geographical boundaries, the project also involves crossing community boundaries between Shi’a and Sunni Muslims. A visit to a Shi’a mosque prompted Fatima Ashraf, one of the women contributing to the project, to reflect on what it’s like for Shi’a Muslims.

I felt like such an outsider. Other than the piece of clay and praying with my arms at my side, I had no idea what I was doing. I reflected on my discomfort - Shi’as are such a minority in the Muslim community all over the world. But in the states, when we are all minorities, and mosques are numbered, how must Shi’as feel in Sunni masjids? And since there are far more Sunni masjids than Shi’a ones, it must be a pretty common that Shi’as find themselves in Sunni land. (link)

I’m not Muslim or familiar with how things work at mosques, so I appreciated the chance to get a glimpse from the inside of various NYC Muslim communities as provided by Ali, Tariq and other contributors to their project. I am also curious to see how they might continue their exploration and interaction with NYC’s mosques and their communities after the 30 days is over.

What do you think of the 30 Mosques in 30 Days project?

Related: New York Masjid: The Mosques of New York seems to focus on the architecture of Muslim places of worship in NYC: slideshow of photos from the book, additional photos and interview with the co-authors.

A quick Q&A wiith Aman Ali about 30 Mosques.

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Filed under // Religion South Asian

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July 11, 2009

Offensive bk ad...snack is sacred but the idiocy divine

This goes in the what were the thinking dept....

The snack is sacred but the idiocy divine

It seems that Burger King decided that Carl's Jr had a good thing going using (Padma) Lakshmi to advertise hamburgers, so they ran an ad in Spain using Padma Lakshmi to advertise ... Ham Burgers with the tag line "The Snack is Sacred."

I don't know about you, but even as a non-Hindu I found this pretty offensive. Lakshmi is the Goddess of wealth and learning, and they're using her image in an ignorant way to promote a pretty cheap foodstuff. I mean, if you're going to be offensive and use a Hindu Goddess to sell a meat product, why not go all the way and get your forbidden foodstuffs right? Hindus are most offended by beef and Muslims are most offended by pork. It's like they couldn't even be bothered to tell their non-Christian religions apart, even though Spain was ruled by Muslims for hundreds of years.

Of course, when news got out, a holy ruckus was raised, and BK issued a rare apology:

"We are apologising because it wasn't our intent to offend anyone," said spokeswoman Denise T Wilson. "Burger King Corporation values and respects all of its guests as well as the communities we serve. This in-store advertisement was running to support only local promotion for three restaurants in Spain and was not intended to offend anyone. "Out of respect for the Hindu community, the limited-time advertisement has been removed from the restaurants," she added. [link]

At BK, we offend you our way.

ennis at 11:24 AM in Food, Humor, Religion

T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k link

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Filed under // Race Religion South Asian

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May 27, 2009

Check out some Buddhist-themed mobile phones

Set adrift on mobile bliss

A compendium of Buddhist-themed mobile phones, all very understated and subtle:

The Odin 99 has landed on the streets of ~~Japan~~ [China], and a single tap of the phone’s dedicated lotus-leaf button will load a private, customisable, animated altar. The idea is to allow Buddhists to perform their dedications and rituals conveniently when away from home. You can simulate incense burning, purification rites and play music to help you meditate… [CNet]

Would the Buddha approve of bling? And does C|Net know the difference between Chinese script and Japanese?

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December 17, 2008

Rick Warren, Obama Invocation Choice, Causing First Real Rift With Progressives

via The Huffington Post | Full News Feed by The Huffington Post News Editors on 12/17/08

Ever since Barack Obama took office, the media has been pining to write a story about liberal dissatisfaction with his transition efforts. By and large, the meme has been blown out of proportion, as the press overestimated how divisive Obama's Cabinet choices were for progressives.

The press may now have its conflict moment. And it comes in the form of the spiritual leader chosen to launch Obama's inauguration.

On Wednesday, the transition team announced that Rick Warren, pastor of the powerful Saddleback Church, would give the invocation on January 20th. The selection may not have been incredibly surprising. Obama and Warren are reportedly close -- Obama praised the Megachurch leader in his second book "The Audacity of Hope." Warren, meanwhile, hosted a values forum between Obama and McCain during the general election. Nevertheless, the announcement is being greeted with deep skepticism in progressive religious and political circles.

"My blood pressure is really high right now," said Rev. Chuck Currie, minister at Parkrose Community United Church of Christ in Portland, Oregon. "Rick Warren does some really good stuff and there are some areas that I have admired his ability to build bridges between evangelicals and mainline religious and political figures... but he is also very established in the religious right and his position on social issues like gay rights, stem cell research and women's rights are all out of the mainstream and are very much opposed to the progressive agenda that Obama ran on. I think that he is very much the wrong person to put on the stage with the president that day."

Warren does have a rather peculiar relationship with the incoming president. The two share a general ethos that political differences should not serve as impediments to progress. On topics like AIDS and poverty relief, they see eye-to-eye. But Warren's domestic and social agendas are at odds with Obama's. And for the gay and lesbian community in particular, the choice is a bitter pill to swallow.

"Pastor Warren, while enjoying a reputation as a moderate based on his affable personality and his church's engagement on issues like AIDS in Africa, has said that the real difference between James Dobson and himself is one of tone rather than substance," read a statement from People For the American Way President Kathryn Kolbert. "He has repeated the Religious Right's big lie that supporters of equality for gay Americans are out to silence pastors. He has called Christians who advance a social gospel Marxists. He is adamantly opposed to women having a legal right to choose an abortion."

Added Rev. Candace Chellew-Hodge, author of the book: "Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians": "It is almost like he wants to poke the progressives with a sharp stick."

Indeed, Chellew-Hodge and others see the move as motivated by politics, not religion or policy. They offer several explanations in this vein. Obama has his eye on the evangelical vote (young white evangelicals voted for Obama at twice the rate for John Kerry); he is charting a path that isn't at its heart socially or religiously progressive (Chellew-Hodge noted that Warren recently said same-sex couples deserve equal rights, though not the right to marriage, a position at least superficially similar to Obama's). Mainly, however, the argument is that the Warren choice falls under the president-elect's stated objective of building a big tent government.

"I can't read the transition team's mind," said one progressive religious figure, "but my guess here is that they're crafting an inauguration meant to appeal to voters who voted against Obama as well as his supporters."

Indeed, lost in the hubbub about Warren, is the fact that the man tasked with overseeing the benediction is a icon within progressive politics. Rev. Joe Lowry, a hero of the civil rights movement and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King famously called out President George W. Bush during Coretta Scott King's funeral. He also is a supporter of same-sex marriage. But he is not garnering the same attention as Warren for his inauguration role.

It's vintage Obama, several observers say -- bringing the spectrum of the religious/political experience together for one event. And yet, it is also a big source of frustration for progressive leaders, many of whom aren't interested in legitimizing viewpoints antithetical to their message.

"I think there is probably an actual friendship between the two, and I admire that because Barack Obama has an ability to be friends with people he disagrees with, and that is a good quality for a president," said Rev. Currie. "But I think that he is very much the wrong person to put on the stage with the president that day. It sends a very wrong message about who America is and what our aspirations are."

Requests for a comment from the Obama transition team went un-returned.

Religious Intolerance at McCain rally

Muslim For McCain Not Allowed To Talk To CNN

via The Huffington Post | Full News Feed by The Huffington Post News Editors on 10/20/08

Daniel Zubairi, a Muslim McCain grassroots organizer who told racist rally attendees in Woodbridge, Virginia that the campaign didn't "endorse that behavior," was for some reason not allowed to talk to CNN about the incident.

Anchor Rick Sanchez said Zubairi was "ready and willing" to talk, but "the McCain camp won't let him do so."

Watch Zubairi confronting intolerant McCain fans at the rally:

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Filed under // Politics Race Religion

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September 4, 2008

Forgiveness...

Yesterday, Jains celebrated the last day of their religious period, also known as Paryushana...it is practice that they use this opportunity to ask forgiveness to all living beings that they may have caused harm to in any manner intentionally or un-intentionally. In that tradition, here are a few words on forgiveness from the DailyGood...

The Healthy Art of Forgiving:

Many people are afraid to forgive because they feel they must remember the wrong or they will not learn from it. The opposite is true. Through forgiveness, the wrong is released from its emotional stranglehold on us so that we can learn from it. Through the power and intelligence of the heart, the release of forgiveness brings expanded intelligence to work with the situation more effectively. --David & Bruce McArthur

Holding grudges may be part of human nature, but recent studies show that it works to the detriment not just of spiritual well-being but of our physical health as well. Bitterness, anger, hostility, and fear are emotions that have specific physiologic consequences�such as increased blood pressure and hormonal changes�linked to cardiovascular disease, immune suppression and impaired neurological function. On the flip side, research reveals how forgiveness can work to reduce the stress of the unforgiving state. Researcher Charlotte vanOyen Witvliet, advocates that forgiveness should be incorporated into one's personality, a way of life, not merely a response to specific insults. In other words, it has to be cultivated. "It's a process, not a moment," says Dr. Edward M. Hallowell, a Harvard psychiatrist and the author of "Dare to Forgive". [more]

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Filed under // Improvement Religion

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August 25, 2008

JCNC

Some pics from my trip to the Jain Center of Northern California in Milpitas CA - It's a serene and peaceful place to visit - there's something about visiting places of worship that brings out positive energy in a person.

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Filed under // Pics Religion SF

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August 25, 2008

Spirituality vs. Religion....

An interesting piece that discusses my religion (Jainism) and one person's perception on the difference between religion and spirituality...I tend to agree with the notion of spirituality, but rituals do have their place in helping define and strengthen one's personal belief system...

http://media.www.dailytarheel.com/media/storage/paper885/news/2008/08/19/TuesdayFocus/Spiritualism.Crosses.Lines.Of.Faith-3399849.shtml

"My neighbor is an ordained minister. The other day we were chatting about things. He asked me whether my last name, "Jain," had anything to do with Jainism. I told him that the followers of Jainism were called Jain. But not all Jains write Jain as their last name.

He said that he had read a little about Jainism and asked me to recount the two most important features of Jainism. I told him that these were: nonviolence - not hurting or killing any being, humans as well as all other beings - and nonattachment to people, things, ideas, everything.

He asked me a lot of questions about these, and then asked me whether I practiced my religion. I told him that the practice of a religion tends to become the practice of rituals. In that sense, I did not practice my religion. I did not go to the temple, did not participate in any formal worship and did not keep any fasts (the Jains keep a lot of fasts). But I do try to practice nonviolence and nonattachments.

He beamed broadly and shook my hand vigorously and said, "Sagar, you are like me. We are not religious; we are spiritual." When asked to define spiritual, he said those who are spiritual believe in and practice a set of core values. The rituals are not important to them.

This was a new definition of "spiritualism" for me, but it is a good and practical definition. Having a set of core values provides direction, removes ambiguity and uncertainty, makes decision making easier and molds your character."

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Filed under // Improvement Religion

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