impleri

Just an update…i am alive.  We had snow.  i’m reading way too much for school (new book…must be read for tomorrow).  My Islam class is really great.  That professor (who is a practicing Muslim…i think he’s Sunni, like most are) will also be team-teaching a course in the spring with the “Christian Origins” professor (i get him in the winter for “Early Christian Old Testament Interpretation”) about fundamentalism (the generic cross-religion one, not the Christian one arising in the 18th/19th century).  He’s been hinting at it a lot in class, including some bashes of Jerry Falwell and Osama bin Laden as they both happen to be fundamentalist in their respective religions (he’s even posted this one comic of Falwell saying how evil Islam is and bin Laden responding with “Amen, Brother!”).  We’ve had to see a Sufi (Islamic Mysticism…think something similar to the Gregorians or Thomas Merton of the Catholic tradition) performace which was interesting, as well as observe a nightly prayer at the Mosque.  Because Rhamadan began last week and our class is 6-10 pm, we pause for the Muslims to break their daily fast (of everything…including water).  It has been interesting to see Islam in this light as he, along with the Muslims we have encountered, has repeated that Islam is only violent in the fundamentalist interpretations of the Qur’an.  We watched a video last night of Andalucia, a colony in Spain that began around 711 (the year of convenience, as the professor calls it) and consisted of Muslims, Christians, and Jews living peacefully together and fighting on the same side while being under Muslim rule.  It was so tolerant that Christians and Jews were allowed to practice their own religion and break Islamic laws (such as prohibition) in private.
In other news, Yom Kippur is tomorrow.  Kol Nidre is tonight.  i’m going tonight to a Messianic Jew group to observe (for Psych of Religion) their Kol Nidre practices of preparing for tomorrow’s Day of Atonement.  It will be interesting.