Further attempts to rehabilitate “Allahu akbar”

November 4, 2017 • 10:00 am

The phrase above, as we all know, means “God is the greatest” or “God is greater”, and is used by Muslims to express gratitude when something good has happened. For a few terrorists, that “good” involves mowing down people by trucks, beheadings, tossing gays off buildings, or other massacres of infidels. Thus, when a mass murderer shouts it, it’s a clue that the murder was inspired by Islam. I think we all know that most of the time the phrase is used just as Americans say, “Thank god”: not in a pernicious way. But the phrase is also the touchstone for a killer’s motivations.

Nevertheless, the fact that the truck terrorist in Manhattan shouted that phrase as he exited his car, having killed eight people, has got Muslims upset, for they want to reassure us that the phrase is really a perversion of Islam. These people want their “Allahu akbar back”, which means they want its use by terrorists disconnected from Islam (see here and here). As Maajid Nawaz responded to Linda Sarsour, who also wants her “Allahu akbar” back, “To make your priority right now ‘the image of Islam’ and not the 8 dead victims is—frankly—disgusting. You. Are. Not. The. Victim. Here.”

But Karim Shamsi-Basha, writing in the HuffPo (of course), gives it the old college try. (He’s identified as “Arab-American, American-Arab, Writer, Photographer, Lover of mankind.”) Click on the screenshot to go to the piece


I won’t belabor the piece as it’s the usual apologetics, to wit (my emphases):

For the majority of Muslims, to shout God’s name as you killed the innocent is an abomination. Muslims no more want innocent people killed than anyone else. So why is the phrase used by terrorists?

For the same reason ISIS and Al-Qaida exist: The misinterpretation of Islam. When you use religion as the motive for you actions, you have the power to appeal to the masses. It’s a brain washing if you will. The terrorists who flew the planes into the World Trade Center on September 11th are no different than any suicide bomber in Israel/Palestine, are no different that the one who mowed down bicyclists in New York. They are people who misunderstood and misused the religion. They are sick and twisted and evil.

The phrase is to remind Muslims that God is supreme. That’s it. It was never to be used as a battle cry during horrendous actions furthering political agendas with evil motives.

My heart sank when I heard the terrorist shouted the saying after the attack. I will never understand the link between Islam and Terrorism. The Islam I grew up amidst condemns such actions. It preaches love and peace and tranquility and feeding the hungry and clothing the poor and sheltering the homeless. One of the five main requirements of Islam in addition to prayer and fasting is to give a percentage of your money to the poor.

Let’s take his statement that “Muslims no more want innocent people killed than anyone else.” Here are the data from Pew’s 2014 survey on Islamic extremism, which questioned Muslims in various Asian and African countries. The last column (shaded) tells you the proportion of Muslims in each country who think that “suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets are often or sometimes justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies.”

Although we don’t have a comparison of Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and Christians here, Shamshi-Basha is clearly wrong to imply that only very few Muslims often or sometimes approve of killing innocents to defend their faith. After all, 24% of Egyptian Muslims comes out to roughly 21 million people, and 47% of Bangladeshi Muslims is about 72 million people. The total is 93 million who can see some justification for killing innocents to bolster Islam, and that’s in only two countries!  Clearly, several hundred million Muslims are okay with suicide bombing. You can find data from Muslims in other countries at this site, and believe me, the proportion of believers who approve of terrorist acts or suicide bombings is not miniscule, even in the West.

As for terrorists misinterpreting Islam, and Shamshi-Basha seeing no link between terrorism and Islam, or “Allahu akbar” and killing, the man must be blind. The Qur’an repeatedly calls for the killing of infidels, and I strongly suspect that as Muhammad and his minions went on their killing sprees, one might hear an occasional “Allahu akbar.” Perhaps Shamshi-Basha wasn’t brought up that way, and I’m sure many Muslims aren’t, but to claim that killing infidels is a perversion of “true” Islam bespeaks either deliberate ignorance or blindness. Who, after all, gets to decide what “real” Islam is?

I believe that Shamshi-Basha is a good man and really does deplore the killing of innocent people as well as the appropriation of Islam in the cause of jihad. But to say he doesn’t understand it, that such killing doesn’t exist, or that terrorists aren’t practicing the dictates of “real Islam”—well, that’s bald-face whitewashing.

He ends his piece as follows:

I have one wish, well maybe two.

The first is for my children to thrive and go through life without any judgment based on their last name.

The second is for this world to know that Muslims mean no one any harm. The people who mean harm are as far from Islam as the KKK is far from Christianity.

“Muslims mean no one any harm?” Since when did this man become The Arbiter of What Islam Really Says? The data above contradicts his statement. As for the KKK, I suspect that many of those sheet-wearers who lynched blacks were motivated by simple racist bigotry, not by the defense of Christianity. After all, Amerian blacks are not infidels, as most are Christians. I also suspect that, contra Shamshi-Basha, the proportion of Christians who think suicide bombing is okay is far, far smaller than the proportion of Muslims who feel that way.

Caturday felid trifecta: Cats on a racing car, cats in slow motion, and top 10 cat paintings

November 4, 2017 • 9:00 am

Black Flag shows a Formula One Racing Car, a Renault, which is not only painted pink for breast cancer, but has a cat motif:

Renault painted their car’s turning vanes pink and deemed them the Aerocats. Pink, of course, is no doubt part of the wider em-pink-ening of the track in support of the Susan G. Komen breast cancer charity. They are by far the loveliest, happiest addition to a Formula One car I’ve ever seen: cute, but functional.

Ok, savvy readers, what is a “turning vane”?  Here’s another view:

Click on the screenshot below to see how important the drivers feel that cats are to their success. They touch them for luck!

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Here’s a lovely slow-motion video showing ordinary house cats going about their business, but being extraordinarily graceful. Notice how they land on their front paws, and how, when drinking, the tongue actually curls backwards. Be sure to watch on the big screen (click “vimeo” at the lower right):

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The Culture Trip site has posted a compilation of “The top 10 cats pictured in famous art.” I’ll show my favorite five along with the great descriptions:

Barber Shop with Monkeys and Cats, Abraham Teniers (1629-70)

This is possibly the cat painting that can best be equated to the enduringly famous Dogs Playing Poker. However, the anthropomorphization in Abraham Teniers’ work predates its canine companion by nearly 400 years, and the surreal nature of its subject matter is quite captivating. Teniers was part of a Flemish artist family who specialized in genre paintings of villages, inns and, as logical follows, monkey scenes. The monkeys stay in this painting, but the cats are undeniably the stars, getting coiffed and ready for the weekend, served by their attentive monkey servants. There is curiously a cat in a sling to the right and a Puss in Boots-type at the door. It is a scene rich in action and the bizarre.

By Day She Made Herself Into A Cat, Arthur Rackham (1920)

Arthur Rackham was one of the great book illustrators of the early 20th century. This painting took inspiration from a Brothers Grimm fairytale, in which the eponymous ‘she’ is a shape-shifting witch who turns virgins into birds and cages them. There is a malevolence in the cat’s expression and posture, which very much demonstrates why the cat is the witch’s animal of choice, and it is no real leap here to see that the cat is the animal form of a dastardly witch. With his work on other tales such as Hansel and Gretel and The Wind in the Willows, Rackham proved that he was quite adept at portraying states of mind through animals. Meow.

The Cook and the Cat, Théodule-Augustin Ribot (1860s)

There is something very natural about a fish and a cat. That the fish is a cook’s fish means that the cat in this painting has a much easier job than his brothers in the wild, but there is still a playfulness in this painting, as the cat paws the object of its desire. The cook looks oblivious to the feline thief, as he attends to the rest of his meal, although he could be purposely ignoring the fact so that his furry friend can get a treat. Ribot was a prominent Realist painter — this everyday scene was very much in his typical style, offering the viewer a peek into the kitchens of the mid-1800s.

Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, David Hockney (1970-71)

One of David Hockney‘s most impressive and renowned pictures is a portrait of his friends, the fashion designer Ossie Clark and the textile designer Celia Birtwell — and their cat Percy. Hockney created the portrait shortly after the couple’s wedding. It is rife with symbolism, and Percy is an important part of this. As he looks aloofly out of the window, more than just representing cat-hood, it alludes to infidelity, envy, and Clark’s bisexual affairs which plagued the marriage and eventually led to its demise in 1974. Hockney commented that the aim of the painting was to “achieve […] the presence of two people in this room [with the main aim being] to paint the relationship of these people.” Sometimes all you need is to add a cat to speak volumes on relationships.

Triptych of the Temptation of St Anthony, Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1501)

This list shall end with one of the most harrowing pieces of art — cat or no — to ever have been created. Bosch is far from being the only person to take the story of the temptation of St Anthony as the subject of a visual art piece, but this is certainly among the most well-known interpretations of it. The triptych tells the story of the mental and spiritual torments experienced by St Anthony, and as was Bosch’s signature, it contains a variety of fantastical, mythical and disturbing imagery. On the right panel, in the wilderness, you will see a cat hissing at a woman who is trying to tempt hermit Anthony with her naked body. The fish is a symbol of Christianity, but cats — particularly this one, with its horn-like ears — were often emblems of the demonic.

Remember, there are five other paintings (or famous photos) at the site, so go look.

h/t; Mark, Rick

Saturday: Hili dialogue

November 4, 2017 • 6:35 am

Good morning on Saturday, November 4, 2017. Formally, it’s National Candy Day, but for me it’s the day of the  South Side Pie Challenge, when all of Hyde Park’s bakers will be competing to win ribbons for their homemade pies. When the judging is over at 2 pm, eager eaters like me are allowed to enter, buying tickets for slices of the pies of your choice. I’m planning on buying five slices (eating them over several days), and of course will document the event on this site, as I have before (see here, here, and here). If you’re in Chicago and love pie, you can’t do better than this; and it’s for a good cause, too (proceeds go to fight hunger on Chicago’s South Side). I hope to see you there!

On November 4, 1847, the Scottish doctor Sir James Young Simpson discovered that chloroform could be used as an anesthetic. On this day in 1922, archaeologist Howard Carter and his team found the entrance to the tomb of Tutankhamun (“King Tut”). Lots of U.S. Presidents were elected on this day: Calvin Coolidge in 1924, Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, Ronald Reagan in 1980, and Barack Obama in 2008.  On this day in 1956, after the Hungarians had rebelled against Soviet occupation, Soviet troops invaded the country, killing thousands of Hungarians while thousands more left the country. On November 4, 1960, according to Wikipedia, “At the Kasakela Chimpanzee Community in Tanzania, Dr Jane Goodall observes chimpanzees creating tools, the first-ever observation in non-human animals.” Many of you may remember this day in 1979, when Iranians—most of them students—invaded the American embassy in Tehran, taking 90 hostages, 53 of them American.  The crisis lasted 444 days, and was on the news every night. Finally, on November 4, 1995, Yigal Amir, an Israeli extremist who opposed the Oslo Accords, assassinated Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. Amir remains in prison serving a life sentence.

Here’s Howard Carter and one of his men examining the mummy case:

Notables born on this day include the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (1618), Will Rogers (1879), Walter Cronkite (1916), Laura Bush (1946), and Sean “Puffy” Combs (1969). Those who “went to sleep” on this day include Felix Mendelssohn (1847), Wilfred Owen (1918; killed in action on November 4, exactly one week before the Armistice), Cy Young (1955), Michael Crichton (2008), and Andy Rooney (2011). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili finds that apple pie is not to her liking:

Hili: It’s not interesting.
A: Praise the Lord!
In Polish:
Hili: To jest mało interesujące.
Ja: Dzięki Bogu.

 

Reader John sent me this notice that is apparently displayed on Qatar Airlines planes:

I wonder, though, how they know the direction of Mecca? Do they twist in their seats?

I forgot who sent me this tweet, but it shows a lovely jungle cat and her kittens.

Nobody thinks much about Asian jungle cats, but they are pretty; here’s one (they’re small but larger than a house cat):

This is from Dr. Cobb:

This was sent by Heather, who knows I love Pallas’s Cats (Otocolobus manul) most of all. Look at that fluffball!

https://twitter.com/wildnature8040/status/921889867755409408

A must-have kitchen tool

November 3, 2017 • 3:30 pm

On my post about the proper eating of Weetabix, reader Vaal brought to our attention a remarkable product, only $5.33 on Amazon! (Click on screenshot to go to the product.)

Actually, it doesn’t work that well, and you can imagine why. Here’s a fake video about the product, but the guy has also made a fake informercial about it:

What I like about this is that it is one of those Amazon products where the reviewers go full-on funny in their reviews.

Seth Andrews: Is the atheist movement dead?

November 3, 2017 • 2:15 pm

Here we have a longish video by Seth Andrews (of “The Thinking Atheist”) addressing the oft-asked question, “Is New Atheism dead?” His answer is basically, “Hell, no!”

If you want to go straight to the question, start about 17 minutes in.  His claim rests on “New Atheism” not differing from “Old Atheism”, and on the observation the “New Atheists”, even if they don’t differ from the “old” atheists (he cites Russell, for instance, which is a pretty good call; go to 31:00), continue to draw capacity crowds. Further, secularism, as well all know, is growing in the U.S.  Nonbelief is clearly growing, and even if people malign the “Four Horsepeople,” that means that atheism of any sort is very much alive.

I like Seth and he pulls no punches: he notes at 27:16 that atheism has a diversity problem, with not so many women or minorities being part of the “movement” (if we have one), though that may be due to different degrees of religiosity and preference rather than to bigotry and exclusion, which is what the critics always proclaim about us.

The only issue I wish Seth had covered is whether if you’re an atheist, you must perforce embrace principles of social justice as laid out by certain bloggers whom I won’t name. I happen to believe, like Seth (see 1:03:00), that atheism entails humanism—that is, a morality that embraces the well being of your fellow humans rather than the dictates of a god—but that there’s no necessary contradiction between not believing in God and being, say, a Republican. I wish that Seth had addressed the “Atheism Plus” dictum that if you don’t believe in God, you’re a hypocrite unless you accept certain social justice issues.

But this is still worth a listen. I wonder if Seth speaks off the cuff, in which case he’s remarkably eloquent (and I think he is), or whether he writes this out in advance, in which case he’s not only eloquent but diligent!