Georgia Tax Credit Program for Private Schools Deserves Attention from Muslims and Other Religious Minorities

The Augusta Chronicle's article of August 4, 2008 entitled "Tax credit program helps open private school doors" alerted me to an important development in Georgia to which Muslims should pay attention. From what I understand, taxpayers in Georgia can decide to allocate a portion of his or her state taxes to go to a Student Scholarship Organization (SSO) rather than to the state. The amount of taxes, however, is still the same.

Aslam Abdullah-Living with the Crimes of Individual Muslims

The editor of The Muslim Observer wrote an important piece that highlights the necessity of improving the standards of operations of Muslim institutions. While individual Muslims cannot be prevented from these actions, wherever possible Muslim institutions must not support the perpetrators and must support the victims.

Washington Post Article about Blood-Money in Saudi Arabia

Faiza Saleh Ambah, whose articles I generally recommend, wrote an informative article entitled "Saudis Face Soaring Blood-Money Sums."

I posted this comment on the Washington Post web site:

Several of the comments display a misunderstanding of the qisas ("retaliation") system prescribed by shariah. While richer criminals certainly have the means to pay larger amounts of blood money, it is the discretion of the victim's family to exact punishment, accept the money or forgive. In addition, as the article clearly states, the Saudi state can impose additional punishments, and certain types of crimes (usually attacks on public order and safety, such as the 9/11 attacks and armed robbery) are not subject to the qisas system and are instead crimes which the government is responsible for handling.

There are always flaws in any system of criminal justice because human beings who implement them are flawed. As the article discusses, some people in Saudi Arabia are comparing the blood money amounts among tribes and lineages in a type of “competing with the Jones” way.

I think one positive feature of the qisas system is that the victim's family has more say in the disposal of the case. I know a friend in Knoxville who was tormented by the return of his brother’s murderer from prison to live on his same street. Perhaps if his family had gone through the process of deciding the murderer’s fate, then he would not have this continued pain. I don’t know.

It would be interesting if there were any studies comparing the psychological and social "outcomes" of criminal justice for victims of crimes in different countries.

Washington Post Article About Muslim Women in France, Indicators of Piety

Good article in the Washington Post about Muslim women in France.

I hope the author would reconsider the following passage:

Most French Muslims are hardly pious practitioners of their faith. A 2006 survey by the CSA polling agency found that although nearly nine in 10 Muslims observe the holy month of Ramadan, only 17 percent go to mosque regularly. Separately, the CSA poll found that 91 percent approved of equality between the sexes.

Although I'd agree that observance of the fast of Ramadan is an indicator of Muslim piety, neither mosque attendance nor belief in inequality between the sexes is an indicator of Muslim piety.

Of course, I have never lived in France, and the religious environment in the United States is no doubt different.

Bravery and Honesty are the Unitarian Universalist Way

I'm reproducing here a speech I heard read at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Augusta on Monday, July 28. I attended to express my condolences and show my support to the congregation after the shooting of church members in a Unitarian Universalist church in Knoxville, TN. I found the text reproduced in a comment at the Knoxnews.com web site.

Comments on Georgia Social Studies Curricula for 6th and 7th Grade

The failure of 70-80% of Georgia 6th and 7th graders to pass their social studies exams in the spring of 2008 has caused the state of Georgia to rewrite its standards. Without commenting on the overuse of standardized tests in today's public schools, I was curious to see what these standards were, and I felt strongly enough about a couple issues to pass on some comments which I'm including in this blog post. Access the draft curricula at http://www.georgiastandards.org/socialstudies.aspx.

Testimony of Jonathan Rowe: "Our Phony Economy"

The text of Jonathan Rowe's testimony of March 12, 2008 before the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Subcomittee on Interstate Commerce is reproduced in Harper's Magazine, June 2008. The author explains why Gross Domestic Product is an inadequate measure of the nation's economic strength. Katharine G. Abraham, Professor of Survey Methodology, University of Maryland, also testified at this hearing.

Thanks to my cousin Wael Fadel for pointing me towards this topic!

Indianapolis Interfaith Trip to Israel, Jordan and Syria

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/LOCAL18/805120387/1195/LOCAL18

Kudos to the Indianapolis doers of good!

Note added June 13, 2008. The delegation is blogging at http://indymideast.blogspot.com.

Goal of the Muslim Media Review with General Disclaimer

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. All praise is due to God. May God bless and raise His Messenger Muhammad, his family, his companions and those who followed them in righteousness.

May God increase your peace and blessings.

The goals of the Muslim Media Review is to highlight the books, audio and video programs from which Muslims in North American can benefit and information on how people can acquire them.

My general disclaimer is a lot longer.

It's always easier to criticize than actually create. So when I say something negative about a work, understand that you or I probably could not do nearly as well.

I don't represent Islam or Muslims. I got the name "Muslim Media Review" before anyone else. If someone is doing a better job, I have no problem changing my blog's name to something less official sounding. I just think the name will attract people to read it more than "Ayman Fadel's Ramblings", which brings us to the next disclaimer.

Although I honestly, in sha Allah, plan on researching every sentence I put in here, I lack a lot of basic qualifications to do this properly. So please help me by pointing out where I'm going wrong, or if you don't have time, say a short supplication for my guidance.

Currently I don't make any money from the operation of this blog. If I ever do, and I certainly would not mind, I will God willing inform the readers. My first "material benefit" goal is to have authors and publishers who want me to review their materials send me a free copy so I don't spend my own money acquiring them. If you would like to support this blog financially, contact me so that I can send you information on how to do that.

I hope you will benefit from this blog. If you want to add materials or links, please contact me. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Wassalaamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakaatuh (May God's peace, mercy and blessings be upon you.)

Ayman Fadel

Criteria for Evaluating Muslim Children's Media

My intention with the next several blog entries is to present some children’s books. In general, North American “Muslim” children’s books should do the following:

Muslim Media Review Moves to Blogger.com

My first entry for the Muslim Media Review was in March 2005. I had started the blog using MSN Spaces. This morning, I did a simple test using poplular search engines. The only search engine that referred to material in my blog on MSN spaces was MSN's search engine. I participate in another blogger.com blog, namely Ihsan, and my posts there were showing up on search engines. So I've moved the Muslim Media Review to blogger.com in the hopes of getting more visibility and traffic.