9/11

Post 9/11 Active Duty Vets: Country, Yes. God, Not So Much

October 10, 2011 By Barbara Leave a Comment

Eighty-two percent of veterans who served on active duty since 9/11 say they would advise a young person close to them to sign up for the military, according to survey figures released last week by the Pew Research Center.

That in spite of the fact that 37 percent of post 9/11 active duty veterans say that they believe they have suffered from post-traumatic stress.

The Pew Research Center study also found that post-9/11 active duty veterans were more likely than their predecessors to say they have no religion in particular — 30 percent versus 15 percent for pre-9/11 vets.

Filed Under: A Case of the Human Condition Tagged With: 9/11, active duty, pew research center, post-traumatic stress, US military, veterans

Book Openers: Georgetown Professor John Esposito on the Future of Islam

February 23, 2010 By Barbara Leave a Comment

Detail of a painting by Salma Arastu, "Expansion of the Universe."

Detail of "Expansion of the Universe" by Muslim artist Salma Arastu of Berkeley, California -- a contemporary interpretation of a passage from the Quran.

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

In the late 1990′s, Georgetown professor John L. Esposito was working on a book about the future of Islam. After 9/11 he put that book aside in favor of more pressing topics – Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam (2002) and Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think (2009) are just two.

Now, nearly a decade later, Esposito finally returns to his subject [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Openers Tagged With: 9/11, Christian-Muslim relations, don't miss, islam, John L. Esposito, religion, the future of Islam

Book Openers: An American Attorney Looks at Islamic Law

March 6, 2009 By Barbara 3 Comments

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

The Muslim Next Door: The Qur’an, the Media, and that Veil Thing, Sumbul Ali-Karamali, White Cloud Press, 287 pages, $16.95

Two days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, a friend emailed Sumbul Ali-Karamali to ask if she would be displaying an American flag the next day. People all over the country would be putting out their flags, the friend said, and she was worried for Ali-Karamali. “Because if you don’t display a flag, someone might think it’s because you’re Muslim that you’re not doing it.”

In her new book, The Muslim Next Door: The Qur’an, the Media, and that Veil Thing, Ali-Karamali reports that on September 11, she was as frightened as every other American. She grieved for the victims and feared further attacks on her country. But she had another fear – that there would be a backlash of hatred and even violence against Muslim Americans, including herself, her husband and her small children. [Read more...]