I was born and raised Catholic (Western Belarusian and Irish parents) and I went through a once-a-week religious class, but never felt especially attached to Christianity. I became an atheist over time and have been going through difficulties currently and I find that I still have a faith deep down. I’m interested in Islam because I read a tiny bit of the Quran as a kid out of curiosity (during the height of Islamophobia in the US, George Bush, early Obama era) and found that it wasn’t “terrifying and inhumane” as Fox News would say on the TV set at my grandparents’ condo. What resources would you point to for a beginner/ on the fence person to learn about Islam? Thank you in advance.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1009861

By Vijay Prashad.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1009698

From an AP journalist guest-writer.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1009299

Not the best article as it's mainly meant to appeal to liberals, as I was told recently, and convince those sitting on the fence. People's World does this from time to time as it has 2 million subscribers, at least, so the audience is much broader. Hopefully, you'll understand, though I know many will criticize this article, rightfully for certain things.

Victor Grossman was someone that defected to the GDR (or DDR) and defended the GDR/DDR as well as the wider Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries.

For the record, I do not believe that what happened on October 7th was reported accurately at all.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/2486849

Western media & government's pivot from constantly convincing you there are Muslims somewhere that need your help & military intervention, to suddenly providing excuses for the massacre of thousands of innocent Muslims is one of the more spectacular pieces of hypocrisy we've seen in a while. Particularly when you consider they are still today pushing flimsy stories of persecuted Muslims elsewhere, desperate for you to diver your attention away from Isr*el.

According to official data, in February, Tunisian authorities arrested a large number of Ennahdha party leaders, including its president Rached Ghannouchi, his deputy Ali Al-Arayedh, and former Minister of Justice Noureddine Bhiri, on charges including conspiracy against state security.
Ennahdha, with the Shura Council being its highest-ranking body, was the largest party in the previous parliament that was dissolved by Tunisian President Kais Saied in July 2021.

I didn't know that b.t.w. :
In Tunisia, Habib Bourguiba ruled from the independence in 1957 until a coup by Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 1987, who stayed in power until the tunisian "Jasmine" revolution of 2011 which eventually put Beji Caid Essebsi in power in 2014(, after banning the islamist party Ansar al-Sharia in 2013).
And since 2019 it's Kais Saied.

There's a lot of anti-islamic propaganda about islam supposedly teaching that women are subhumans, so it may be worth mentioning that :

In the 2014 Tunisian parliamentary election, Ennahda candidate Jamilia Ksiksi became Tunisia's first black female MP.

And, also :

Ennahda became the largest party in parliament in the 2019 election(, so until 2021 according to Telesur)
The Tunisian government has detained at least 17 current or former members of the party, including its head, and closed its offices around the nation since December 2022. Tunisian authorities apprehended Ghannouchi and searched his headquarters in April 2023.

In American Muslim Poll: Amid Pandemic and Protest, the Islamophobia Index was recorded mere months before an election where the incumbent was widely seen as fomenting anti-Muslim sentiment as an electoral strategy, both with rhetoric and administration policies like the Muslim Ban. Most notable among our results is the consistent decline in Islamophobia among Jewish Americans from 22 in 2018 to 18 in 2019 to 16 in 2020.

2022

In the American Muslim Poll 2022: A Politics and Pandemic Status Report, for the fourth year, we measured the Islamophobia Index, a measure of the level of public endorsement of five negative stereotypes associated with Muslims in America. The general public scored 25 (on a scale of 0 to 100), on par with 27 in 2020. American Muslims scored 26 on the Islamophobia Index, higher than Jewish Americans who scored the lowest at 17.

The situation stems from a 2009 arrest and a 2011 conviction that claimed four individuals—​all of whom are of the Islamic faith—​were plotting to use stinger missiles to shoot down military airplanes flying out of an Air National Guard base in Newburgh, New York, and blow up two synagogues in Riverdale. (New York Times, July 27)

Evidence now suggests that the FBI, along with an informant named Shahed Hussain, was responsible for the whole fiasco. Hussain is a Pakistani businessperson who had been working with the FBI prior to the sting operation. Records show that he was paid a generous salary of $100,000 by the FBI to “seek out Muslim radicals” at local mosques. (The Guardian, Dec. 12, 2011)

Hussain’s provocative rhetoric and flashy appearance raised suspicion among the Islamic clergy at Masjid al-Ikhlas, the Islamic Learning Center in Newburgh infiltrated by Hussain, where he met the four individuals who became FBI scapegoats.

Masjid Imam Salahuddin Muhammad was leery of Hussain’s reactionary and forceful demeanor from the time he first stepped foot into the Newburgh community mosque. “This guy said ‘women should not be heard, not be seen.’ I thought that was strange,” Muhammad told The Guardian. Hussain presented himself in a cartoonish manner, reinforcing negative stereotypes, and that raised suspicion among several members of the Mosque.

I was debating whether to insert this within LGBT+ or Islamic Leftism but I do think ultimately it might fit here better because it covers the specific experience of French indigènes, which makes it more relevant here.

I feel like in these sort of online Islamic “progressive” spaces, there’s no genuine discussions happening. These spaces are often almost defensive in nature - like the existence of this community is just to prove to disapproving whites that Islam isn’t this, or isn’t that. This is a result of being in a Western dominated space in general.

Gender and sexual minorities is a very important phenomenon that must require a response, yet it is almost ignored or never spoken about because this muslim-homophobia dichotomy is so engrained that people are (rightfully) scared to even talk about it, especially across the White left.

I’d of course invite everyone to treat this article critically, and contribute if you have any qualms against their conclusions, although I will admit my opinions have slowly drifted closer to the article as the years went by.

There has been an annoying belief, both in religious circles, and in communist ones, that being a communist makes you an atheist, or that believing in the ideologies of communism is mutually exclusive to being religious. This is simply untrue and a fault of past socialist and communist nations. However, they do not represent the full ideology of communism itself, and self-criticality is a major part of many left-wing movements, where the nuance to accept the good things about communist nations (lifting people out of poverty, free subsidized healthcare, etc.) is accepted along with the denouncement of their flaws (in this case attack on public religion).

Edit: This was taken from my reddit account, u/Planet_Explorer. We're looking for new members of r/IslamicSocialism101, so you're welcome to join!

I was reading Socialism's Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism by Ramin Mazaheri, and they mentioned something that has become a common sight here too: Islamic finance.

Iran is leading in Islamic financing, with Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the UAE and Qatar filling the rest of the Top 5 according to this report.

For those who don't know, it's basically finance but with Islamic principles as accorded to the Quran and various Madhhabs (schools of jurisprudence).

Some of it's principles are (quoting Wikipedia), among others:

1. Paying or charging interest. "All forms of interest are riba and hence prohibited". Islamic rules on transactions (known as Fiqh al-Muamalat) have been created to prevent use of interest.
2. Investing in businesses involved in activities that are forbidden (haraam). These include things such as selling alcohol or pork, or producing media such as gossip columns or pornography.
3. Charging extra for late payment. This applies to murâbaḥah or other fixed payment financing transactions, although some authors believe late fees may be charged if they are donated to charity,or if the buyer has "deliberately refused" to make a payment.

Has any comrades read much on this?

How viable do you think is such a financial system, especially now, with renewed interest in de-dollarisation? (see what I did there?)

Can it fully live up to it's socialistic principles in a world capitalist system?

Specifically, they were Libyans who had already been resisting Italian colonialism for a decade.

Sadly, this also means that the first foreign victims of a Fascist government were probably Muslims too, many of whom perished in concentration camps. (As a preinstitutional movement, on the other hand, Fascism’s first foreign victims were most likely Croats or Slovenes.)

You can block the comments but you cannot silence our voices.

It's troubling "mean arab terrorist" had such experiences here. I would ask if this was on Lemmy or Lemmygrad?

"I have seen people refer to Chador and Hijab as “wearing trashbags”"

This is insanely racist. This should not be tolerated.

"the Islamic Republic of Iran is “enslaving women”"

We all have liberal tendencies here that we are in the process of purging however this western feminism should have been called out.

"I have seen people refer to Islam as “a painkiller” and that communists should “free [Muslims] from irrational immaterial thought” and make accusations that all Muslims engage in FGC"

I am unfamiliar with the term 'FGC', however the opiate of the masses critique is based. This is a long standing Marxist stance on religion. This should be allowed here.

"I was banned from the Palestine community for “being mean” to an israeli colonizer after I told them to expeditiously get out of Palestine."

Blaming the individual is radlib however in the Israeli case I would tell them to join Palestine instead of trying to paint them as the entire country of Israel.

"I have had my comments censored and removed when discussing the liberation of Palestine From the River to the Sea and citing the revolutionary leaders from the resistance. The reasoning for censorship repeated the zionist entity language: “advocating terrorism""

Not ok. We are against imperialist powers and projects.

"Throughout all of this I see invaders who live in the settler-colonies are defended as “comrades like everyone else”. Even though they are repeating toxic discourse about how such and such liberation movement “shouldn’t alienate the [colonizer] ‘workers’.”"

It seems that this latest topic in it's turbulent controversy was the last straw for you and I find it regretful that it has gotten this far considering 90% of what you experienced you shouldn't have.

Take care and I wish you the best.

The heroic uprising began with what was intended as a nonviolent protest against forcing Sunni Muslim prisoners to take a tuberculosis test involving the ingestion of an alcoholic substance — a violation of their religion. Other aggravating conditions that led to a full-scale rebellion included poor food and medical care; frequent guard violence and guard-instigated violence between incarcerated men, which had led to a number of deaths; overcrowding; and allowing only one phone call to loved ones each year.

After the uprising five men — Imam Siddique Abdullah Hasan, Keith Lamar (aka Bomani Shakur), Nameer Mateen (aka James Were), Jason Robb and George Skatzes — were falsely convicted of murder and sentenced to death for the killing of a guard, Robert Vallandingham, and, in Skatzes’ case, taking a prisoner hostage during the siege. Lamar now has an execution date: Nov. 16, 2023.

Dozens more were scapegoated for participating in the uprising, framed-up on false charges and given long sentences. Most are still in prison.

The rebellion, which lasted 11 days, united Black, Brown and white prisoners. Of the five Lucasville defendants on death row, three are Black and two are white.

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s 20 year Vision Plan, as a multi-disciplinary document, has set out provisions on the ways and means on enhancing social justice, legitimate freedoms, protection of humans’ dignity and rights, social and judicial security, health, welfare, food security, social security, equal opportunities, appropriate distribution of income, acceptable sound environment and strengthening the institution of family, with no poverty, corruption and discrimination.

Any thoughts? I found it informative and totally contrary to the western-imposed ideas I had in my head of Iran's narrative surrounding women. Tasnim News, it should be mentioned, is fiercely loyal to the Iranian government according to their about page.