Tuesday, December 28, 2010
The website of Dar Al-Ifta Al-Masriya (the Egyptian House of Issuing Fatwas) is a popular online database, which logs millions of Fatwas in the form of Q&A. Muslims from all over the world submit an inquiry about a certain personal, familial or social issue; and religious scholars respond with a ruling. According to this article, the...
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Comments (3)Friday, December 24, 2010
(Read “A Reflection on Drama-Loving Islam [part 1]”) A reader of Free Thinking Lebanon sent me the link of the video below after reading my post “Lebanon: it can’t be 2010?!”. He wrote: “[…] This link is for a funny video of a guy faking a cry during Ashura celebration. I hope you’ll enjoy it” I watched the video and it is hilarious....
Friday, December 24, 2010
Comments (0)Sunday, December 19, 2010
I’ve always wondered why so many non-Lebanese people hold an extremely pessimistic view of Lebanon. I guess I’ve known the reason all along: religious extremists. But since Lebanon is my home country, sometimes I tend to ignore this sad reality, and convince myself that Lebanon is the most developed country in the middle east as well as the one with the most open-minded people—which is true to some extent. However, every time...
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Comments (0)Saturday, December 18, 2010
A couple of days a go, Google launched an interesting search application, Google NGram Viewer, used for graphing how one word, or a combination of five words, have been trending (by word frequency) in books since the 1500’s. I played around with a few word combinations. Here’s one of my evil results; It shows the trend for the word “god”...
Saturday, December 18, 2010
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I’m glad to announce that this blog is back online as of today..Although if you read the last post, I had already said that I would be back to blogging but I wasn’t able to! The reason was that back then I had been very busy and I had to decide between taking a long break from Free Thinking Lebanon or losing my mind. Also those who follow(ed)...
Friday, August 20, 2010
More than a month ago I wrote my last post on Free Thinking Lebanon, on July 16th; and if you had been reading my blog, prior to that, you would know that I was posting on a more frequent basis (every other day). However, it has been an extremely busy month (work, traveling), and I haven’t been able to contribute to this blog. Actually, I have been almost completely out of touch with the “outside” world; I haven’t been online...
Friday, August 20, 2010
Comments (3)Friday, July 16, 2010
Non-believers, and freethinkers alike, know what it feels like to discuss matters of religion with a narrow-minded, fundamentalist person. After every single conversation, with such faith-blinded fellows, I tell myself that this is the last time in which I will debate someone whose head is buried too deep into the pages of the bible—or the...
Friday, July 16, 2010
Comments (6)Saturday, July 10, 2010
A month ago I launched a new segment on Free Thinking Lebanon, writing about Fatwas issued by Muslim scholars in the Arab world. Seven posts later, I’m still amazed by some of the material I read on new Fatwas, while I decide on which of these bizarre edicts to write my next article. After reading so much about these Islamic rulings, I formed...
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Comments (5)Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Being a Lebanese citizen, living amongst Muslim people—many of whom are great people by the way, I have come to learn that Islam is a drama-loving religion. In order to explain what I mean by that, I will give an example of one concept which is common to many Muslims, and which I have been encountering ever since I was in middle-school....
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Comments (10)Friday, July 2, 2010
If you happen to have a Lebanese friend, you might have spotted the enthusiasm in his or her speech when they tell you about Lebanon and its wonderful culture. They must have told you—at least once—about how smart right and competent Lebanese people are, and about the fact that many of the successful people in the world—in different...
Friday, July 2, 2010
Comments (6)Thursday, July 1, 2010
Dear God, I have been wanting to send you this letter a very long time ago, but I did not want to trouble you in your busy days trying to make life a lot better for all of us mortals out here. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you have given us since you created us! I have read the story about Adam and Eve and how they could not but sin by eating from the forbidden tree which you must have had a...
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Comments (8)Wednesday, June 23, 2010
This time it’s the athletes’ turn to be “Kuffar” (Arabic for sinners), according to Islam. Dr. Abdullah Al-faqih issued a Fatwa, claiming that wearing any clothing or accessories baring the Nike sign is a sin. According to this Muslim scholar, the Nike commercial sign is “a sign of a goddess of victory, daughter of the giant Pulas, as the...
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Comments (5)Sunday, June 20, 2010
“The ship is now ready," Samar al-Hajj, the organizer of the flotilla ship, destined to sail from Lebanon to Gaza, told AFP on Thursday. Women activists—from Lebanon and other countries—plan to sail on this humanitarian vessel, which will carry food and medical supplies to people in Gaza. Israeli officials were clear about their opposition...
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Comments (2)Tuesday, June 15, 2010
There was a black churchIn the land of mist and clouds!Dressed in darkness insideAnd so all the surrounds…A holy cross rose atop,Dark itself, too, so dull.Built on an ancient graveyardOf a hundred million skulls!Days pass by… years just die…But still it is this gloomy night!Silence spread… that of the dead…A witness to the death of light!...
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
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A friend played me a documentary, yesterday, titled “It’s About Time Lebanon” by Lebanese filmmaker Pierre Dawalibi, released in 2006. I was really taken by the emotional footage intercut into this summary, reviewing the 30 years of war in Lebanon. Even though, it has been 4 years since it was released, I believe it is worth posting on my...
Monday, June 14, 2010
So far I’ve been focusing on Fatwas that have received a fair share of publicity. For this post, however, I’ve chosen one from a website that issues Fatwa’s by the dozen, every day. Those Fatwas are in the form of Q & A; any Muslim, who has a concern or a question about a certain matter, can log in to this website/forum and submit a...
Monday, June 14, 2010
Comments (0)Saturday, June 12, 2010
(Despite the on-going political and economic instability in Lebanon, fueled by the harboring of religious fundamentalism, the New York Times named Beirut as the best place to visit in 2009.) Lebanon is one of the few countries that weren’t affected by the subprime crisis. Economists explain that the three main reasons behind this...
Saturday, June 12, 2010
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According to Muslim doctrine, around 157 Million Muslims living today are sinners for reasons they probably ignore. Why is that? Well, according to this Fatwa, eating or writing with your left hand is a sin. And since the percentage of Muslims in the world is 23% (2009) and the total population is 6.8 billion (2009), and the estimated...
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Today, Jonah (display name: Jonah Di Bap), has joined the author list of Free Thinking Lebanon. He is one of my closest real-life friends. A free-thinker from Lebanon, endowed with a smooth writing-style and a twisted sense of humor, he’s a well versed fellow in both essay writing and poetry. I’m really glad to have him on board, contributing...
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Comments (5)Monday, June 7, 2010
(I will be moving this segment “Fatwa of the Day” to a separate blog soon. Meanwhile I will keep posting them here.) A Fatwa have surfaced on the Islamic religious forum ahlalhdeeth.com, which claims that, according to several narrations in the Islamic Hadith, the replication of God’s creations (humans, animals etc..)...
Monday, June 7, 2010
Comments (5)Sunday, June 6, 2010
When you hear about a religious scholar, especially a Muslim Sheikh, fighting for women’s rights you might be thinking what a great step this is for the Muslim world. You might also praise him for finally breaking free from the nonsensical stereotype, which is deeply rooted in his religion, and which sets Men as the superior gender. But...
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Comments (7)Saturday, June 5, 2010
The Islamic Sharia law, states that all mice are evil and calls for their total extermination. This idea by itself is silly but then a cleric comes up with a Fatwa that takes this statement to a higher level of absurdity. Sheikh Mohamed al-Munajid, a renowned religious scholar in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, issued a Fatwa against Mickey...
Saturday, June 5, 2010
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I was talking today to a friend of mine who came from Saudi Arabia after living there for 3 years, during which she did her Junior and Senior years in high-school and her first year of college. She was telling me about her experience in that country and about the social life there (actually the lack of it). Even though I am well aware of how closed-minded the system is in the Kingdom and I’ve heard many stories about how religion,...
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
In my opinion, the terrible attack on the freedom flotilla was bound to happen. Anyone, who has been following news related to this high profile fleet, would have expected such confrontation between the international activists and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, regarded the flotilla as a...
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Comments (0)Friday, May 28, 2010
When Martin Luther said “Reason is the enemy of faith” he should’ve added: “…and for the Arab world it’s freedom of expression”. Religions have always been demoting free-speech and in some regions, under a theocratic regime, freedom of speech is barely existent. Islamic governments are the best example of suppressive ruling. When your civil...
Friday, May 28, 2010
Comments (3)Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Today I posted my first article (originally posted here) on the MideastYouth website. It is an active community of young men and women from the Middle-east, writing about a wide variety of interesting subject. With their open-minded attitude, they are trying to show the world that nothing can hold them back from expressing their views about...
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Comments (0)Monday, May 24, 2010
The Lebanese municipal elections kicked-off on May 2nd of this month, and are still under way, covering a different region every week. Because of the high political tensions, which have been rising ever since the assassination of the late Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, opposing parties have launched extremely competitive campaigns against...
Monday, May 24, 2010
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