Today I went to the DITIB mosque around the corner from my apartment to attend Friday prayers and listen to the sermon. This was the first time I’ve ever gone in with everyone else on a Friday and sat down to listen to one. I’ve heard sermons broadcast on loudspeakers outside of mosques in Istanbul [...]
Entries from June 2006 ↓
Sermon of the Day: Suicide and Gossip
June 23rd, 2006 — DITIB, Islamic sermons
‘How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other’ - New Survey Results
June 22nd, 2006 — Muslims and Islam
The Pew Global Attitudes Project just released a fascinating report on what Muslims and non-Muslims think about each other. If you’re curious about anti-Americanism, support for terrorism, and views on September 11 in the Muslim world, this is definitely worth checking out. The study is also really interesting because the samples in Great Britain, Spain, [...]
How to Empty Your Inbox and Simplify Your Email
June 22nd, 2006 — Productivity
How many emails are sitting in your inbox right now? How much time have you spent reading the same messages over and over, coming back to see what it was you were supposed to do about such and such? I’ve managed to keep my inbox empty for two years running thanks to David Allen’s GTD [...]
Immigrant Education and Integration: An Insider’s View
June 21st, 2006 — Turkish immigrants
Today I had a great chat with Banu Karaca, a PhD student in Cultural Anthropology at CUNY who’s doing research on the intersection of modernity, nationalism and art in both Istanbul and Berlin. Her parents are from Turkey and she was born and raised in Frankfurt. We talked about all kinds of issues related to [...]
I loved ‘37 Uses for a Dead Sheep’
June 21st, 2006 — Turkey
I met up with Jennifer yesterday to see a new documentary called 37 Uses for a Dead Sheep. I don’t think it’s playing widely in the US yet, but keep your eyes out for it because it’s really an incredible film. I found a good review that gives a detailed description of it and you [...]
Excellent meeting with Turkish Muslim, visit to DITIB mosque
June 20th, 2006 — DITIB, Research in Germany
Last night I hit the jackpot. I met up with a young Turkish man (I’ll call him Fatih) born and raised in Berlin, who not only worked for DITIB for 2.5 years, but actually wrote some sermons and delivered them at DITIB mosques (back when he was only 18 years old). He knows DITIB from [...]
Tribute to Brooke Workman, PhD
June 19th, 2006 — Academia
A few days ago I received the sad news that one of my favorite high school teachers, Brooke Workman, had passed away. Dr. Workman taught American lit. and humanities courses as well as trimester seminars that focused on the writings of a single author (my year it was Hemingway). From the title of his classes [...]