islam on Vice

I Spent the Weekend Watching Topless Feminists Piss Off Neo-Nazis

Last Friday, I took the Eurostar from London to Paris to meet the topless feminist protest group Femen. Originally based in the Ukraine, the organization has since spread out across the world. The idea was to film the buildup to Femen's next protest, but I didn't find out quite what I was getting myself into until I arrived at their headquarters that afternoon. Full story

Chatting About 'Game of Thrones' with Syria's Most Feared Islamic Militants

“Watch out, we’re terrorists!” his colleague, a lanky Emirati with facial hair reminiscent of Orlando Bloom chimed in, before he started laughing, too. The Emirati then excitedly asked me what part of New York City I was from. “Oh, Brooklyn? Yeah, I know it. I went to school in S… Full story

A Long Way from Home

It Was Probably the Internet, Not Chechnya, That Radicalized the Boston Bombers

What has America done to Chechnya? While we’ll still be searching for more information about the Tsarnaev brothers and what motivated them for months—if not years—to come, their roots in Chechnya and the history of that country are a good place to start. Full story

Dogmageddon

Please Stop Believing

I like to think of myself as an equal-opportunity offender, that all religions are just different sides of the same million-or-so-headed coin to me. The specifics of what ancient person has what magic power according to whatever secret text is simply a distraction. Dogma, in gene… Full story

It's Still All Right to Kill Your Wife and Sister in Jordan

Getting away with murder in Jordan is easy, as long as the victim is your wife, sister, or daughter and you claim it was an honor killing. Just last Saturday, a female was found dead near Amman with her throat slit, her belly slashed open, and her four-month-old fetus removed. Lo… Full story

Dancing Idiots, Rubber Bullets, and Candy Floss at This Year's Passover in Hebron

The city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank is a pretty bizarre place at the best of times. But the recent Passover festival held by Jewish settlers living on the Palestinian land was easily among the most surreal things I've seen in a region that seems to thrive on weird shit. Full story

Editing Homophobia out of the “Islamic Tradition”

Slave rape, marital rape, and plural marriage might be unpleasant to consider as part of Islamic sexuality, but they are deeply embedded in our established sources. But I do not believe that Islamic tradition is frozen in stone. Every translation is an interpretation, and every i… Full story

New Atheism's Nasty Streak of Islamophobia

If your project is to convince people that religion is evil and should be wiped from the face of the earth, and that rational, enlightened atheism is the beacon of truth towards which we must steer the storm-battered ship of the human race, is directly assaulting religion, or one… Full story

Who Cares About Putin When You Have Islam?

The Russian republic of Chechnya has been undergoing an Islamic revival. Having existed under Soviet rule for 70 years before getting caught up in a war with the Russian Federation that lasted almost two decades, the tiny state has turned to Islam in what looks to be an attempt t… Full story

Popping the Marks

Michael Muhammad Knight vs. Hamza Yusuf

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had to spend a lot of time thinking about Hamza Yusuf. In a recent academic article, Mahdi Tourage places Hamza Yusuf and myself at opposite ends on the spectrum of white male converts: Yusuf represented the shining white superstar of American Islam,… Full story