Epigraph:
“Blessed is He (Allah) Who has sent down the Discrimination (the Quran) to His servant (Muhammad), that he may be a Warner to all the worlds.” (Al Quran 25:1)
Source: The Guardian
Readers find themes that align with their values as they seek to ‘grow empathy’ for a religion long vilified in the west
By Alaina Demopoulos, Mon 20 Nov 2023
Megan B Rice loves reading. She started a romance novel club on the instant messaging platform Discord and posts book reviews on TikTok. Last month Rice, who is 34 and lives in Chicago, used her social media accounts to speak out about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“I wanted to talk about the faith of Palestinian people, how it’s so strong, and they still find room to make it a priority to thank God, even when they have everything taken away from them,” she said in an interview.
Some Muslim followers suggested she might be interested in reading the Qur’an, Islam’s central religious text, for more context on the faith. So Rice, who did not grow up religious, organized a “World Religion Book Club” on Discord, where people of all backgrounds could study the Qur’an alongside her.
The more Rice read, the more the text’s contents aligned with her own core belief system. She found the Qur’an to be anti-consumerist, anti-oppressive and feminist. Within a month, Rice took the shahada, Islam’s official profession of faith, bought hijabs to wear, and became a Muslim.
Rice is not alone in wanting to experience the Qur’an. On TikTok, young people are reading the text to better understand a religion that’s long been vilified by western media, and to show solidarity with the many Muslims in Gaza. Videos under the hashtag “quranbookclub” – which has a modest 1.9 million views on the app – show users holding up their newly purchased texts and reading verses for the first time. Others are finding free versions online, or listening to someone sing the verses while they drive to work. Not all the people reading the Qur’an on TikTok are women, but interest overlaps with the #BookTok space, a subcommunity where mostly female users gather to discuss books.
Zareena Grewal is an associate professor at Yale who is working on a book about Islamic scripture and religious tolerance in American culture. She said that this TikTok interest wasn’t entirely unprecedented.
After 9/11, the Qur’an became an instant bestseller, though at the time many Americans purchased it to confirm biases they held about Islam being an inherently violent religion. “The difference is that in this moment, people are not turning to the Qur’an to understand the October 7 attack by Hamas,” Grewal said. “They are turning to the Qur’an to understand the incredible resilience, faith, moral strength and character they see in Muslim Palestinians.”
That’s what made Nefertari Moonn, a 35-year-old from Tampa, Florida, pick up her husband’s Qur’an. Moonn considered herself spiritual, not religious, and described her husband as a non-practicing Muslim. “I wanted to see what it was that made people call out to Allah when they stared death in the face,” she said. “Seeing passage after passage resonated with me. I began to have such an emotional attachment to it.”
A New Commentary of the Holy Quran Emphasizing Compassion, Justice and Human Rights Launched https://t.co/AHTev2hfQo via @wordpressdotcom
— TheMuslimTimes (@TheMuslimTimes2) July 17, 2017
Young Americans are picking up the Qur’an ‘to understand the resilience of Muslim Palestinians’ https://t.co/nMXdtFKthF
— The Muslim Times (@The_MuslimTimes) November 21, 2023
The Quran Applauded as a Landmark Contribution to ‘Words of Justice’ by Harvard Universityhttp://t.co/UCvyGzJmHk pic.twitter.com/gafTxBAaHL
— Zia H Shah (@ZiahShah1) September 10, 2015
Categories: Arab World, Asia, Gaza, Gaza, Palestine, Qur'an, Quran, War, War crimes
News outlets continue to cover President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s criticism of Israel and the West as his questioning of “hypocrisy” and “double standards” unsettles Israel’s most ardent supporters in politics and the media. That is because the Turkish leader’s remarks encapsulate the international community’s conscientious voice – which causes pro-Palestine protests to erupt across the West and the East.
Nowadays, the Western media fixated on President Erdoğan’s following comments at the 62nd General Assembly of the National Turkish Students Association (MTTB) on his visit to Germany: “The idea of Crusaders and the Crescent hasn’t ceased to exist.” Whereas some outlets portrayed that sentence as a sign of hostility, others argued that the Turkish leader drew parallels between the Western nations and the Crusaders. Meanwhile, in Türkiye, some observers accused him of “reducing the Palestinian cause to religious war.”
https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/columns/erdogans-warning-against-wests-crusader-crescent-rhetoric
Patrick Wintour is the Guardian’s diplomatic editor:
The western powers on the UN security council face a choice of either demanding Israel lift its stranglehold on humanitarian aid into Gaza or standing complicit in Israel war crimes and collective punishment, Arab and Islamic foreign ministers said on a visit to London.
The ministers are lobbying the five permanent members of the security council to back a new humanitarian resolution instructing Israel to accept that UN agencies, and not the Israel Defense forces, clear aid coming through the Rafah crossing from Egypt to Gaza. At the moment everything has to be inspected by Israel.
The delegation, led by representatives from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Nigeria and the Palestinian territories were in London for talks with the foreign secretary, David Cameron, before seeing the French president, Emmanuel Macron, later today. They have already been to Beijing and Moscow.
At a briefing in London they also called for the imminent humanitarian four-day pause to be extended to a total cessation of hostilities.
The Saudi foreign minister, Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud, said: “It is absolutely necessary. It is in our opinion that we transition from temporary to an extended ceasefire, and go from there.”
He said if the west rejected the appeals of 2 billion people in the Middle East that would be a significant message, adding the UN had a choice in either containing Israel or being complicit in war crimes.
The Jordanian foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said there was a huge gap between the 200 trucks a day to be allowed over the Rafah crossing under the agreement and the 800 a day needed.
The ministers are also conveying a broader political message to western capitals that, unless they do more to restrain Israel, a new generation of radicals will be born. One foreign minister said Israel was trying to create the conditions for a slow enforced migration from Gaza, saying :“We are near to a point of no return and the west has to wake up to what Israel is planning.”
The Egyptian foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, said the proposed UN humanitarian resolution would require Israel to follow procedures allowed at Syrian border crossings, where UN agencies check the aid inside convoys, rather than give Israel total control.
He said “the unspoken objective” of Israel was complete displacement from Gaza. He added Israel’s plan was to funnel Palestinians into a small safe area in southern Gaza is a prelude to a mass transfer out of Gaza.
The Indonesian foreign minister, Retno Marsudi, said Israel was systematically breaking the laws of war, and many were tired of the lectures from the west about international law.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/nov/22/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-hostage-deal-release-ceasefire-pause-latest-news