From the Halls to the Shores

The well-known Syrian author and poet Ali Ahmad Sa'id, also known as Adonis, had harsh criticism of the veil as a symbol of social separatism. In an article titled "Concealing The Head or the Mind?" he maintained that all of the opinions requiring Muslim women to wear veils are no more than interpretations, and therefore obligate only those who believe in them. He explains that Muslims who want to impose the veil constitute a political minority, and thus that "Muslims and Westerners should deal with them not as representative of a religion but as a mere political party." According to Adonis, accentuating a different personal identity within the general unifying identity is a sign of separatism rather than of integration in society:

"One of the simple rules that Muslims [in the West] should know, especially those who have acquired citizenship in their countries of residence, is how to draw the line between the public and the private, between personal beliefs and common social values, because there is no alternative to adherence to the common values, especially those of educational and civil institutions. Muslims who are committed to the veil should understand that their commitment means that they do not respect the feelings of other people who live in the same motherland, that they do not hold the same values, that they denigrate the foundation of [other people's] lives and belittle the laws … and repudiate the republican democratic principles of their adopted country which gave them work and freedom…

"Those who call for the imposition of the veil are a minority among Muslims in the West as well as in the Arab world… This Muslim minority, which lives in the West, is trying – instead of respecting democracy and its principles – to disavow it and to forcefully impose its ideas not only on Muslims, but on democracy itself… All facts indicate that this group is nothing but a political minority. Muslims and Westerners should deal with them not as representative of a religion but as a mere political party."

The dialogue went like this:

Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?

“Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”

“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.

SEATAC, Wash. — For people flying in and out of the Seattle area, there will be no holiday spirit to accompany the holiday travel season.

In response to a rabbi's request to add an 8-foot menorah to holiday decorations, officials at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport instead decided to remove all nine Christmas trees.

Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky made the request weeks ago, when he demanded officials add a menorah next to the trees and threatened to file a lawsuit if his request wasn't honored.

Instead, officials decided to remove holiday decorations as a whole.

SEATAC, Wash. — The official Christmas trees may still be missing from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, but a few individual airline employees have decided to try to put some spirit back into the holiday.

Employees at both Delta and Frontier airlines took up a collection on Monday and bought a few foot-tall decorated trees for the check-in counter.

"All humanity, including the Pope, owes everything to Islam and to our Prophet. It was Islam that taught humanity about cleanliness, about knowledge, about God's work, and about all the core elements of happiness. Whatever this man called the Pope knows about being clean, whatever he knows about numbers - including his ability to add and subtract - he acquired from the Muslims, who created science and gave it to the world."

A group that calls itself the Islamic State of Iraq posted a sign on a nearby mosque in Haditha announcing that the helicopter had 30 passengers on board and had been downed, according to a resident who read the sign.