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wisdomrays · 4 years ago

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TAFAKKUR: Part 433

THE MAIN FACTORS IN THE SPREAD OF ISLAM: Part 2

A. J. Arberry has also pointed out that the reason for the spread of Islam is Islam itself and its religious values. (Aspects of Islamic Civilization, p.12)

He writes:

‘The rapidity of the spread of Islam, noticeably through extensive provinces which had long been Christian, is a crucial fact of history. The sublime rhetoric of the Qur’an, that inimitable symphony, the very sounds of which move men to tears and ecstasy…and the urgency of the simple message carried, holds the key to the mystery of one of the greatest catalysms in the history of religion. When all military, political and economic factors have been exhausted, the religious impulse must still be recognized as the most vital and enduring.’

Brockelman, who is usually very unsympathetic and partial, also recognizes the religious values of Islam as the main factor for the spread of Islam (History of the Islamic Peoples, p.37). Rosenthal makes his point as follows: ‘The more important factor for the spread of Islam is the religious Law of Islam (Shari‘a, which is an inclusive, all-embracing, all-comprehensive way of thinking and living) which was designed to cover all manifestations of life.’ (Political Thought in Medieval Islam, p.21).

Besides many other reasons which are responsible for the spread of Islam, it is the exemplary life-style and unceasing efforts of individual Muslims to transmit the message of Islam throughout the world which lie at the root of the conquest of hearts by Islam. Islamic universalism is closely associated with the principle of ‘amr bi’l-ma’ruf (enjoining the good) for Islam is to be spread by Muslims by means of ‘amr bi’l-ma’ruf. This principle seeks to convey the message of Islam to all human beings in the world and to establish a model Islamic community on a worldwide basis. The Islamic community is introduced by the Qur’an as a model community: We have made of you an Ummah justly balanced, that you might be witnesses (models) for the peoples, and the Messenger has been a witness for you (2.143). A Muslim or the Muslim community as a whole thus has a goal to achieve. This is the spread of Islam, conveying the truth to the remotest corner of the world, the eradication of oppression and tyranny and the establishment of justice all over the world. This requires the Muslim to live an exemplary life, and thus the moral and the ethical values of Islam have usually played an important part in the spread of Islam. Here follow the impressions of the influence of Islamic ethics on black Africans of a Western writer of the nineteenth century:

‘As to the effects of Islam when first embraced by a Negro tribe, can there, when viewed as a whole, be any reasonable doubt? Polytheism disappears almost instantaneously; sorcery, with its attendant evils, gradually dies away; human sacrifice becomes a thing of the past. The general moral elevation is most marked; the natives begin for the first time in their history to dress, and that neatly. Squalid filth is replaced by some approach to personal cleanliness; hospitality becomes a religious duty; drunkenness, instead of the rule becomes a comparatively rare exception chastity is looked upon as one of the highest, and becomes, in fact, one of the commoner virtues. It is idleness that henceforward degrades, and industry that elevates, instead of the reverse. Offences are henceforward measured by a written code instead of the arbitrary caprice of a chieftain–a step, as everyone will admit, of vast importance in the progress of a tribe. The Mosque gives an idea of architecture at all events higher than any the Negro has yet had. A thirst for literature is created and that for works of science and philosophy as well as for the commentaries on the Qur’an.’ (Quoted from Waitz by B. Smith, Muhammad and Muhammadanism, pp.42-43)

The tolerance of Islam is another factor in the spread of Islam. Toynbee praises this tolerance towards the People of the Book after comparing it with the attitude of the Christians towards Muslims and Jews in their lands. (A Historian’s Approach to Religion, p.246). T. Link attributes the spread of Islam to the credibility of its principles together with its tolerance, persuasion and other kinds of attractions (A History of Religion). Makarios, Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch in the seventeenth century, compared the harsh treatment received by the Russians of the Orthodox Church at the hands of the Roman Catholic Poles with the tolerant attitude towards Orthodox Christians shown by the Ottoman Government and prayed for the Sultans (T. Link, A History of Religion).

This is not the only example of preference by the followers of the religions for Muslim rule over that of their own co-religionist. The Orthodox Christians of Byzantium openly expressed their preference for the Ottoman turban in Istanbul to the hats of the Catholic cardinals. Elisee Reclus, the French traveller of the nineteenth century, wrote that the Muslim Turk allowed all the followers of different religions to perform their religious duties and rituals, and that the Christian subjects of the Ottoman Sultan were more free to live their own lives than the Christians who lived in the lands under the rule of any rival Christian sect (Nouvelle Geographie Universelle, vol. 9). Popescu Ciocanel pays tribute to the Muslim Turks by stating that it was luck for the Romanian people that they lived under the government of the Turks rather than the domination of the Russians and Austrians. Otherwise, he points out, ‘no trace of the Romanian nation would have remained,’ (La Crise de l’Orient).

The Muslims’ attitude towards the people they conquered is quite clear in the instructions given by the rightly-guided Caliphs: ‘Always keep fear of God in your mind; remember that you cannot afford to do anything without His grace. Do not forget that Islam is a mission of peace and love. Keep the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) before you as a model of bravery and piety. Do not destroy fruit-trees nor fertile fields in your paths. Be just, and spare the feelings of the vanquished. Respect all religious persons who live in hermitages or convents and spare their edifices. Do not kill civilians. Do not outrage the chastity of women and the honour of the conquered. Do not harm old people and children. Do not accept any gifts from the civil population of any place. Do not billet your soldiers or officers in the houses of civilians. Do not forget to perform your daily prayers. Fear God. Remember that death will inevitably come to every one of you some time or other, even if you are thousands of miles away from a battlefield; therefore be always ready to face death.’ (Andrew Miller, Church History; Ali lbn Abi Talib, Nahj al-Balagha)

A historical episode which Balazouri, a famous Muslim historian, relates, tells about how pleased the native peoples were with their Muslim conquerors is of great significance

When Heraclius massed his troops against the Muslims, and the Muslims heard that they were coming to meet them, they refunded the inhabitants of Hims the tribute they had taken from them, saying: ‘We are too busy to support and protect you. Take care of yourselves.’ But the people of Hims replied: ‘We like your rule and justice far better than the state of oppression and tyranny in which we were. The army of Heraclius we shall indeed, with your help, repulse from the city.’ The Jews rose and said: ‘We swear by the Torah, no governor of Heraclius shall enter the city of Hims unless we are first vanquished and exhausted.’ Saying this, they closed the gates of the city and guarded them. The inhabitants of other cities–Christians and Jews–that had capitulated did the same. When by God’s help the unbelievers were defeated and Muslims won, they opened the gates of their cities, went out with singers and players of music, and paid the tribute (Futuh al-Buldan).

To sum up, although most Western writers, under the instigation of biased Orientalists of the Church, have alleged that Islam spread by the force of the sword, the spread of Islam was because of its religious content and values, and ‘its power of appeal and ability to meet the spiritual and material needs of people adhering to cultures totally alien to their Muslim conquerors’, together with some other factors. Some of these factors are the tolerance which Islam showed to people of other religions, the absence of ecclesiastic orders and hierarchy in Islam, mental freedom and absolute justice which Islam envisages and has exercised throughout the centuries, the ethical values it propagates, and Islamic humanitarianism, universalism and brotherhood, and its inclusiveness. Sufi activities, the moral superiority of Muslim tradesmen, the principle of ‘enjoining the good’, and Islamic dynamism and the magnificence of the Islamic civilization contributed of their own to the spread of Islam.

The main religious qualities which attracted people to Islam were:

(i) the simplicity of the theological doctrines of Islam based on the Divine Unity;

(ii) rationalism of the Islamic teachings;

(iii) the complete harmony of the Islamic ideals and values with human conscience;

(iv) the inclusiveness and comprehensives of Islam, covering all aspects of physical, mental, and spiritual life of individuals and societies, hence the harmony of religion and life which it established;

(v) the lack of formalism and mediation;

(vi) the vividness, dynamism and resilience of the Islamic theology, and its creativity and universalism, and its compatibility with established scientific facts;

(vii) the cohesion and harmony of the Islamic principles, and

(viii) the shortcomings of other theological systems.

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weekendwarriorblog · 5 years ago

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND October 18, 2019 - MALEFICENT, MISTRESS OF EVIL, ZOMBIELAND: DOUBLE TAP, THE LIGHTHOUSE, JOJO RABBIT

We’ll see how far I get on this week’s column because I haven’t seen nearly as much as I want to, I don’t have nearly as much time as I’d like to, and I have a lot of stuff to write for my other gig at The Beat. I know… excuses, excuses.

Well, you can probably already guess that I haven’t seen Disney’s MALEFICENT, MISTRESS OF EVIL, starring Angelina Jolie, because I never saw the original movie, and I have only been invited to one Disney movie in three years. (I got into a few thanks to being in the Critics Choice Association and there being awards screenings, but I have zero interest in this, even less in Frozen 2, and I’ll probably just use my AMC A-List to see Star Wars.)

I did see Sony’s ZOMBIELAND DOUBLE TAP, and that I really liked a lot. You can read my full review of this over at The Beat. I also interviewed director Ruben Fleischer and have an interview with writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick waiting in the wings. I’m pretty amazed that the three of them were able to get the whole gang back together, including Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Jesse Eisenberg and Abigail Breslin

Let’s just get to what I hope you’re reading this column for...

LIMITED RELEASES

I’ll admit freely that I just didn’t have as much time to watch stuff the past week as I’d like to, so some of the movies below I just haven’t gotten around to watching but hopefully they’re as good as others have said.

There are a few “special event” screenings this week, including Kevin Smith’s JAY AND SILENT BOB REBOOT (Saban Films), which screened nationwide via Fathom Events last night and will get another screening on Thursday night. It’s actually not bad, at least compared to his last movie Yoga Hosers. This one is a direct sequel to Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which I wasn’t a very big fan of despite liking a few of Smith’s other films like Chasing Amy and Dogma. Reboot harks back to some of Smith’s earlier work with nods to many of his previous films and cameos from almost every actor who has ever worked with him? I also interviewed Jason Mewes for The Beat, and I’ll have an interview with Harley Quinn Smith soon, too.

Also, on Saturday, Bruce Springsteen’s doc WESTERN STARS will get a nationwide screening via Fathom Events. I haven’t seen this one, and I’m not really that big a fan of the Boss, but hey, it’s happening if you’re interested.

The on Tuesday, October 22, you can see Neil Young’s latest movie Mountaintop in a one-night only event via Abramorama, the movie showing Young and his band Crazy Horse getting ready to record their first album in seven years. I haven’t watched it yet, but it’s interesting that Young is letting fans into the process, and I only recently saw Jim Jarmusch’s doc Year of the Dog, so I’m kind of in a Neil Young headspace. This one is directed by Young under his film direction pseudonym “Bernard Sharkey.”

Another movie worth seeking out this weekend is THE LIGHTHOUSE (A24), Robert Eggers’ follow-up to The Witch, this one starring Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe as two men who are sent to care for a lighthouse during a particularly turbulent storm season. Dafoe is a crusty and cranky seadog who really puts Pattinson through his paces, but as the two men are holed up together (and eventually trapped on the location), they each begin their own slow descent into madness. I’ll have an interview with Eggers up at The Beat later today where we talk about the intriguing way he made this film, and it rose out of his frustration with trying to get The Witch financed.

My Interview with Robert Eggers

The movie I was most excited to see this weekend was Taika Waititi’s JOJO RABBIT (Fox Searchlight), since I’ve been a fan of his work going all the way back to when Eagle vs. Shark debuted the Sundance Film Festival. I was really hoping I’d like this enough to feature it at the top of this column, but since it’s not there, you can read my review at the link below to find out why not. Based on Christine Leunens’s novel, it stars newcomer Roman Griffin Davis as Jojo, a 10-year-old German boy in the Hitler Youth who just can’t get his shit together, although he does have an imaginary friend in Adolf Hitler (played by Waititi) who urges the boy on. Injured in an accident, Jojo is homebound when he learns that his mother (Scarlet Johansson) has been hiding a young Jewish girl named Elsa (Thomas McKenzie from Leave No Trace) in the house attic, so he has to figure out whether to report them, or use her to learn more about Jews. You can read my review below to see that I can’t really recommend the movie wholeheartedly, but it will open in New York and L.A. this weekend and you can decide for yourself.

MY REVIEW OF JOJO RABBIT

French auteur Francois Ozon returns with BY THE GRACE OF GOD (Music Box Films), a very serious drama about three grown men (Melvil Poupaud, Denis Ménochet, Swann Arlaud) who team together to expose a priest who molested them as boys but is being protected by the Catholic Church. The story is based on the real French scandal surrounding Cardinal Philippe Barbarin who was convicted earlier this year for concealing the conduct of a preacher, Father Preynat. Ozon is coming off his excellent film Franz and the equally intriguing Double Lover, so he’s definitely upped his game from the sometimes-frivolous earlier fare for which he became known. This is a really tough movie to get through and maybe that made it harder for me to enjoy, but it’s another fine piece of filmmaking by Ozon. It opens at New York’s Film Forum and the Landmark on 57 and probably in a theater in L.A. as well.

Opening at New York’s Angelika Film Center and the Landmark on 57 is Alexis Michalik’s Cyrano My Love (Roadside Attractions) set in Paris 1897 and dealing with the relationship between playwright Edmond Rostand and actor Constant Coquelin, for what becomes the play Cyrano de Bergerac. And I have absolutely zero interest in seeing this.

Another movie that I saw and absolutely loathed was Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe’s GREENER GRASS (IFC Midnight), a movie that I couldn’t begin to describe except that it takes place in a suburban neighborhood where a yoga teacher has been murdered by a seria killer and all sorts of other strange things are going on. The filmmakers play best friends and soccer moms Jill and Lisa, the latter who borrows the former’s baby, but honestly, the tone of this movie reminded me about the stuff on Adult Swim that I hate such as the Tim and Eric shows and such, where it just seems to be weird for weirdness-sake, and there’s absolutely nothing that kept me even remotely interested. It opens at the IFC Center this weekend.

I still haven’t found the time to watch all of THE CAVE (National Geographic Documentary Films), Feras Fayyad’s follow-up to his Oscar-nominated film Last Man in Aleppo, but I hope to get to it fairly soon, since I was such a fan of that movie. I just need to be right in the headspace to watch this one, if it’s anything like that one.

Apple TV+’s first movie on the streaming channel will be Mark Deeble and Victoria Stone’s THE ELEPHANT QUEEN (A24), a documentary that follows the elephant matriarch Athena, who is forced to protect her family after they leave their watering hole. Although I understand the purpose of this movie to show how climate change is affecting these majestic animals, this one feels very much like something I’ve seen before from DisneyNature and others, so it didn’t really shed any new light on elephants, and it felt very much dummed down for kids. Voiced by Chiwetel Ejiofor, it will get a limited theatrical release this weekend before debuting on the channel November 1.

There are a couple other docs out this weekend, including Barbara Miller’s #FEMALEPLEASURE (Abramorama), which follows five women fighting against their patriarchal societies; Serendipity: The Story of French Artist Prune Nourry (Cohen Media Group) directed by French artist Prune Nourry; opening at New York’s Film Forum on Wednesday is Erin Derham’s doc Stuffed (Music Box Films) about taxidermists, and then there’s Julie Simone and Vicki Vlasic’s doc Fiddlin’ (playing at the Cinema Village) covers the Fiddler’s Convention.

If you’re not quite ready for Halloween, there’s the horror filmTrick (RLJEFilms) from Patrick Lussier (My Bloody Valentine, Drive Angry) about a Halloween party in 2015 where Patrick “Trick” Wever killed a bunch of his classmate and then escaped after being shot five times by a detective (Omar Epps) so everyone thinks he’s dead. But guess what? He’s not!! It also stars Jamie Kennedy and Tom Atkins.

There are a couple other movies, but the main ones you should know about are above.

LOCAL FESTIVALS

The big one this week, at least in New York, is the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, which starts Thursday night with Jeffrey Brown’s The Beach House and continues through the weekend with Daniel Isn’t Real, Swallow, and the World Premiere Fessenden’s Depraved: Making Frankenstein a Brooklyn Loft, a making-of doc about Larry Fessenden’s latest.

Starting Friday at New York’s Cinema Village is the Wildlife Conservation Film Festival, which I really don’t know very much about, although they seem to have an interesting selection of nature docs, both features and shorts, none of which I’ve seen.

In L.A., you can catch the Animation is Film Festival starting Friday with animated movies from across the group including I’m anticipating like Makoto Shinkai’s Weathering with You, and White Snake from China, which will be in competition with films like France’s I Lost My Body. There are special events for Disney’s Frozen 2, Netflix’s Klaus, a special screening of the Chinese hit Ne Zhan and Steven Universe the Movie before it hits Apple TV+ on November 1.

Also happenin’ in New York is the Nordic International Film Festival, which is taking place at the Roxy Hotel, in case you wonder why it’s missing from the repertory section below. That’s why.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Steven Soderbergh’s THE LAUNDROMAT will arrive on Netflix this weekend, and you can read what I thought of that in my previous column here.

Streaming on Netflix Friday is Ed Perkins’ documentary TELL ME WHO I AM about the relationship between two twin brothers, Marcus and Alex Lewis. When Alex wakes up after a motorcycle accident, he relies on Marcus to fill him on who everyone else is over the next 35 years, but Marcus may be keeping a dark family secret from his brother to protect him. (It also will open theatrically at the Quad Cinema on Friday.)

Sinister 2 director Ciaran Foy’s new film Eli will start streaming on Friday, about a boy who receiving treatment for an auto-immune disorder who finds out that his house isn’t as safe as thought. It stars Kelly Reilly, Lili Taylor, Max Martini and Charlie Shotwell in the title role.

There’s also the Spanish film Diecisiete (Seventeen) from Daniel Sánchez Arévalo about a 17-year-old named Héctor who forms a bond with a dog as part of a reintegration program at his juvenile detention center. When the dog is adopted, Héctor goes on a journey to rescue him.

One of the exciting debuts on cable this weekend is HBO’s WATCHMEN series, created by Damon Lindelof, and what I’ve heard about the show is that it’s pretty good, taking place in the modern day of the world created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons in the comics (which took place in the ‘80s.).

Also, while I haven’t seen it yet, Iranian filmmaker Babak (Under the Shadow) Anvari’s horror thriller WOUNDS will debut on Hulu this weekend, and since I have Hulu, I’ll be able to watch it! It stars Zazie Beetz, Dakota Johnson and Armie Hammer, the latter playing a bartender who has all sorts of weird things happen to him when he picks up a phone at a bar.

REPERTORY

There are a few really awesome repertory series starting this weekend as well as the return of one of New York’s primary midtown rep houses, which has been closed for renovations for most of the summer.

METROGRAPH (NYC):

Before I get to the Metrograph’s great new series starting this weekend, I want to draw special attention to Metrograph Pictures’ new 35mm print rerelease of Edo Bertoglio’s 1981 film Downtown ’81. This is a really amazing movie that stars late NYC artist Jean Michel Basquiat, and while it does show him doing his graffiti art, the movie isn’t so much worth seeing for its amazing writing or acting but for it being an amazing time capsule of New York in 1981 with performances by Kid Creole and the Coconuts, DNA, The Plastics and other No Wave bands in the year when punk was transforming into New Wave but New York bands were still experimental and arty, doing whatever it took to avoid getting into the mainstream. Metrograph releasing this reissued restored film makes sense as they were one of the first to herald Glenn O’Brien’s cable show TV Party, so if you get a chance, get down to the Metrograph where the movie will be shown exclusively probably for a week or two.

Another exciting series at my local theater as Julie Andrews will be there in person for “Blake Edwards: A Film Selection by Julie Andrews,” celebrating the life and career of her late husband. The series will include That’s Life (1986), Wild Rovers (1971), 10 (1979), the Inspector Clouseau film A Shot in the Dark (1964), 1981’s S.O.B., 1961’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s and a Members Only screening of Victor/Victoria (1982) with a QnA with the actress. Also, the Academy returns to the Metrograph for its monthly series, this one very Halloween-appropriate, as they’ll be showing Fulci’s Zombi 2 (aka Zombie) from 1979.

This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph is still David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. (2001) and also, because the Metrograph will make any excuse to show Brian De Palma’s 2002 dog Femme Fatale… they’re showing Femme Fatale again. what gives Metrograph? You now taking cues from the IFC Center by showing the same movies over and over? Tsk, tsk… This weekend’s Playtime: Family Matinees is Brad Bird’s animated classic The Iron Giant from 1999. Welcome To Metrograph: Redux seems to be taking the weekend off, probably to make room for some of the above.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

The other series I’m really excited about is the three-week “Shitamachi: Tales of Downtown Tokyo” but I get to that, I want to mention that I had a chance to see Yoji Yamada’s Tora-San, Our Lovable Tramp (1969), which plays for two more days, and it’s quite wonderful so definitely try to get to it as this became a very popular series in Japan. Okay, back to the other Japanese series, this one runs for three weeks and it’s co-presented with the Japan Foundation. This weekend, you can see Akira Kurosawa’s Drunken Angel (1948) and Stray Dog (1949) on Friday and Saturday as well as Ozu’s Record of a Tenement Gentleman from 1947. Sunday and Monday is Kurusawa’s Ikiru (1952) and a couple others. There’s just an abundance of riches including a couple rare prints that were imported from Japan for the series. Apparently, the Film Forum thinks Milos Forman’s Hair(1979) which I just saw at the Metrograph is okay for kids, which is why it’s programmed as this week’s “Film Forum Jr.”

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

The Wednesday matinee is the classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), while Weds. and Thurs. see double features of P.T. Anderson’s Inherent Vice (2014) with Jacques Demy’s Model Shop (1969). Friday’s matinee is Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992), while the weekend “Kiddee Matinee” is the Disney movie Blackbeard’s Ghostfrom 1968. (I wonder if that will be on the Disney+ service.) Friday night’s midnight movie is Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Til Dawnand then Saturday night is an “All Night Horror Show” which is sold out, sadly. Monday’s matinee is The People Under the Stairs (1991), and Monday and Tuesday nights are double features of Tom Laughlin’s The Born Losers (1967) and Billy Jack (1971).

MOMA (NYC):

It’s exciting news that MOMA reopens NEXT MONDAY, and their first two series are Modern Matinees: Iris Barry’s History of Filmand Vision Statement: Early Directorial Works. The first of these is an attempt to recreate some of the early film programs from the early days of the MOMA Film Library, including a screening of the 1914 film A Fool There Was on Monday, and I’ll write more about this next week. “Vision Statement” begins with Andrzej Żuławski’s The Third Part of the Night (1971) and Satyajit Ray’s 1955 film Pather Panchali, and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s 2003 film The Return and Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993) both screen on Tuesday.

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE BROOKLYN (NYC)

I’ll be at tonight’s “Weird Wednesday” Born of Fire (1987), which is almost sold out but has a few seats left. Monday night’s “Fist City” selection is David Fincher’s 2002 movie Panic Room, starring Jodie Foster and a VERY young Kristen Stewart, while “Video Vortex” presents the horror classic A Night to Dismember: The Original Cut. Next week’s “Terror Tuesday” is 1983’s Devil Fetus, and what do you know? Julie Andrews will be there doing a QnA right after showing Blake Edwards’ 1982 movie Victor/Victoria – I wonder where they got that idea (or maybe Ms. Andrews is just doing a tour right now). Next week’s “Weird Wednesday” is the 1993 film Fire in the Sky and RottenTomatoes is hosting a party centered around The Craft (1996), which is already sold out.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Recent Spanish Cinema 2019 continues this weekend so no rep stuff but a couple movies worth checking out are the doc The Silence of Others and the animated film Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles.

AERO (LA):

A couple “Facing Off with John Woo” double features with The Killer (1989) and Hard Boiled (1992) on Friday, and then Face/Off (1997) and Hard Target (1993) on Saturday afternoon. Saturday night is a screening of Woo’s 1990 film Bullet in the Head. Sunday is a Lina Wertmüller double feature called “Swept Away Again by Lina Wertmüller” which isThe Seduction of Mimi (1972) with Love & Anarchy (1973). Tuesday’s “Tuesdays with Lorre” will a 35mm screening of Frank Capra’s Arsenic and Old Lace (1944).

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Wednesday night’s “Movies with MZS” (aka Matt Zoller Seitz) is John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness (1987). It doesn’t look like the IFC Center has set its Fall repertory series yet but Friday and Saturday night at midnight you can see the very first official James Bond movieDr. No(1962) and a 4k restoration of Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981).That said, “Weekend Classics: May All Your Christmases Be Noir” does begin this weekend with Nicolas Ray’s They Live by Night (1948).

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

“See It Big! Ghost Stories” continues this weekend with screenings of one of my all-time faves, Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist, on Friday, and the Japanese horror classic House (Hausu) on Saturday, as well as the 1965 Japanese horror film Kwaidan, plus James Wan’s Insidiouscloses the series on Sunday evening. The “No Joke: Absurd Comedy as Political Reality” continues with 1985’s The Coca-Cola Kid on Sunday afternoon as well as William Klein’s 1969 movie Mr. Freedom, neither of which I’m familiar with. Saturday afternoon is a special screening of Marlon Brando’s 1961 film One-Eyed Jacks with an introduction by William Mann, who wrote “The Contender: The Story of Marlon Brando.”

FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

Freshly recovered from the New York Film Festival, FilmLinc is screening a 25th Anniversary restoration of Béla Tarr’s 1994 film Sátántangó, which also played at the film festival.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

Oh, it looks like the Landmark has been showing Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club Encore all week so you can see it through Thursday. This Friday night’s midnight movie is A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors from 1987.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

Still showing Serge Gainsbourg’s Je T’aime Moi Non Plus (1976) through the weekend.

Next week, it’s an odds and ends weekend including Deon Taylor’s new police drama Black and Blue, the high-tech horror/thriller Countdownand the historical drama The Current War, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland and Michael Shannon.

#WhatToWatchthisWeekend TheLighthouse Maleficent Zombieland Movies Reviews Streaming JojoRabbit

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wisdomrays · 5 years ago

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THE MAIN FACTORS IN THE SPREADING OF ISLAM: Part 2

A. J. Arberry has also pointed out that the reason for the spread of Islam is Islam itself and its religious values. (Aspects of Islamic Civilization, p.12. He writes:

A historical episode which Balazouri, a famous Muslim historian, relates, tells about how pleased the native peoples were with their Muslim conquerors is of great significance:

The main religious qualities which attracted people to Islam were:

the simplicity of the theological doctrines of Islam based on the Divine Unity;

rationalism of the Islamic teachings;

the complete harmony of the Islamic ideals and values with human conscience;

the inclusiveness and comprehensives of Islam, covering all aspects of physical, mental, and spiritual life of individuals and societies, hence the harmony of religion and life which it established;

the lack of formalism and mediation;

the vividness, dynamism and resilience of the Islamic theology, and its creativity and universalism, and its compatibility with established scientific facts;

the cohesion and harmony of the Islamic principles, and

the shortcomings of other theological systems.

4 notes · View notes