Good points in recent LA Times editorial regarding "foot baths", but...

On August 18th, the LA Times had a very interesting editorial regarding the on-going controversy of "foot baths" at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

Again, this issue is about hygiene and safety concerns as it directly effects the student population at U of M-Dearborn.

Below are some excerpts of the editorial with my comments.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-footbaths18aug18,1,1088017.column?ctrack=1&cset=true

University toes the line
The University of Michigan may have stepped over the line in constructing footbaths for Muslim students.
August 18, 2007


It doesn't involve a creche or a menorah. It has nothing to do with the phrase "under God." It's a simple plan to install foot baths in a couple of bathrooms on a college campus -- but it has sparked a blogosphere frenzy over church and state.

At the University of Michigan at Dearborn, one in 10 students is Muslim. Those who pray five times a day wash their feet as part of wudu, or ablution before prayer. After reports of puddles on bathroom floors and sinks separating from walls -- and after a student fell while washing her feet in a sink at another school -- the university sensibly decided to install some foot baths. Precedent was on its side: Eastern Michigan University at Ypsilanti had installed foot baths without a hitch.

The university at Dearborn was right to approach the puddles as a health and safety issue, not a religious one. Foot baths don't promote Islam over other faiths...

But the university's decision seemed more culturally paranoid than culturally aware. It's not inappropriate to ask students to take responsibility for the hazards they may generate. Campus officials could have posted notices asking those using the sinks in unconventional ways to clean up afterward...

Excellent point! Muslims should clean up after themselves when splashing water on the sink areas and/or floor. The overiding concern, however, is of the possibility that people will get injured because of the practice of full ablution using sinks.

Islam is very flexible, and it wouldn't have hurt for university officials to discuss these problems with Muslim students beforehand. In many Islamic traditions, it's permissible in wudu to wipe a damp hand over besocked feet. In fact, all Muslims are encouraged not to splash or waste water. Just holding to that basic recommendation could have helped solve Dearborn's puddle problems for -- let's do the math here -- zero dollars...

The key phrase is "in many Islamic traditions." The author is stating that according to varying schools of jurisprudence in Islam, wiping over socks is not sufficient. I wipe over my socks; others do not. Thus, the author negates his/her own implied statement that Muslims should just wipe over their socks, which would negate the splashing of water. The author is correct, however, in stating that Islam does not promote the usage of excess amounts of water. Image Muslims 1,400 years ago in the Arabian desert using excess water to wash their feet. It didn't take place.

European Christian missionaries in Iraq?

As I was listenting to two young Chaldean women yesterday discuss the difficulties, which Christians are facing in Iraq, it made me reflect on the difficulties, which all Iraqis are facing. Unfortunately for Turkomen Muslims, Chaldeans and Assyrians, they have no militias to protect them in the current state of anarchy in Iraq. So they are more vulnerable to attacks by religious zealots and more often criminals that kidnap for monetary ransoms.

While they mentioned priests being killed in Iraq, I also thought of the numerous Imams that have also been killed as well as the large number of mosques that have been destroyed.

Another disgusting segment in the tragic Iraqi saga is how, with the protection of US troops, European Christian missionaries are prosteletizing in Iraq. Don't they realize that this is ammunition to those who believe and recruit insurgents on the basis that the US and British armies are waging a war against Islam? Don't they understand that Africans and Arabs still have in their collective memory the history of colonialism and that missionaries always accompanied armies when they occupied lands and robbed them of their natural resources?

Missionaries equal explotation to the masses.

Another ignorant policy to add on to the countless mistakes made in Iraq.

SEE video below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owCXbDVTLRE

Walid discusses racial profiling in Hamtramck

http://hamtramckstar.com/index.php/2007/08/18/p1010#more1010

CAIR-MI: RACIAL PROFILING ORDINANCE DISCUSSED AT CITY COUNCIL MEETING
Hamtramck Star, 8/18/07
http://hamtramckstar.com/index.php/2007/08/18/city_council_8_14_07

[D]awud Walid of CAIR said his organization feels that police should not ask questions about immigration status based on ethnic and religious attire. Immigrants are less likely to call the police. Visitors to Hamtramck are effected as well as residents. It is the responsibility of the federal government to enforce immigration law. Local police agencies should protect legal immigrants and encourage reporting.

Juan Escareno of MOSES is just learning about Hamtramck and has come to respect councilmembers he has met with and the mayor. Hamtramck is diverse and welcoming to immigrants, and the bias-based policing ordinance would reinforce what the city is already doing by ensuring repercussions for the violation of the constitutional rights of minorities. Hamtramck is on the verge of being the second to pass an ordinance of this type. Other ordinances are more narrow. Profiling effects all of us.

Bill Meyer, chairman of the Human Relations Commission, hoped the council researched the ordinance ahead. He urged the council to pursue the bias-based policing ordinance.

Nadia El-Zein of ACCESS said immigrants have the right to feel safe and many do not report crimes...

SEE video: http://hamtramckstar.com/index.php/2007/08/15/city_council_8_14_07_video

Resources for studying the current crisis and civil conflict in Darfur, Sudan & Chad

Website about understanding Sudan by the University of California, Berkely:
http://www.understandingsudan.org/

Prof. Michael Kevane of Santa Clara University (15 min. video summary):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8710663943449172339&q=darfur&pl=true

"The Crisis in Darfur: Community Building ande Identity Politics" by Prof. John Voll, Georgetown University:
http://www.ispu.us/policy_briefs/articledetailpb-45.html

United Nations' report - "Environmental Degradation Triggering Tensions and Conflict in Sudan:
http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=512&ArticleID=5621&l=en

5 Truths About Darfur by Emily Wax of the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/21/AR2006042101752_pf.html

The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency review by Mahmood Mamdani of Columbia University
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n05/mamd01_.html

Walid gives sermon - "Spiritual qualifications of da'wah"

Today's sermon was given at Masjid Mu'adh bin Jabal in Detroit, Michigan near Hamtramck. Approximately 2,000 people were in attendance.

Cut & Paste to listen:
http://www.twango.com/media/DawudWalid.public/DawudWalid.10010