Jody Kamali is a half-English, half-Iranian British standup comedian from Bristol, England. He's just getting started in his career, but has a few characters and hopefully that my take him down the Paul Calf/Steve Coogan route.
He's on MySpace and Twitter and denies any rivalry with Omid Djalili in this interview.
Jon Lee Anderson sheds some light onto Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's politics and life in his Letter from Tehran. People living outside of the Islamic Republic are unlikely to ever see one of Ahmadinejad's presidential campaign videos, but Anderson details their contents:
The signature videos for his 2005 Presidential campaign were two thirty-minute productions that expertly portrayed him as a man of the people. In one scene, Ahmadinejad is in line for lunch at a self-service canteen; in another, he walks among the poor. The videos were aired on television repeatedly. The campaign tagline was “It’s doable—and we can do it.”
Part of Ahmadinejad's presidential schtick has been his man-of-the-people-ness and simplicity. Whilst he has a personal history that includes many of the key events in the history of the Islamic Republic, he is still to some extent an outsider, frowned upon by the likes of Rafsanjani and the political mullahs:
A European diplomat said that a senior Iranian official had confided to him that before Ahmadinejad became President he was the sort of man whom the official would have kept waiting for thirty minutes outside his office, just to put him in his place.
The complete article that appeared in the New Yorker discusses the upcoming presidential elections in Iran, the different factions and their prospects.
Vali Nasr's The Shia Revival: How conflicts within Islam will shape the future is a fast-paced and readable account of the history and current state of Shi'ite Islam. He covers the original schism between the followers of Ali (Muhammed's cousin) and the ruling Caliphs - a schism which may appear to be about religion now, but was essentially a power struggle. Most importantly, Nasr explains what the differences and animosities are now.
Shi'ites believe that the 12 Imams were able to extract an esoteric understanding of Islam that Sunnis don't believe exists. Sunnis insist that religious sources must be read literally and that the 12 Imams didn't have any deeper understanding than can be achieved by laymen.
Sunnis believe that worldly power, order and control embody a government with legitimacy, whereas Shi'ites believe legitimacy stems from being the best of Muslims (hence their support for Ali as the true Caliph and opposition to the Umyyad and Abbasid monarchies). Being in power and the Imams' failure to take power is taken by Sunnis as evidence against the right of the Imams to rule.
Sunnis don't believe that the Imam's have any better/deeper/esoteric or more insightful knowledge of Islam and don't believe in an intermediary between man and God. Sunnis also believe that the Shi'ite reverence for the Imams and other members of the Prophet Mohammed's family is heretical. For some Sunnis, even the Prophet Mohammed is not to be exhalted above any other Muslim. The Qu'ran is the only direct link to God.
Shia theologians reasoned that the [Twelth] imam's withdrawal must mean that in the interim before his return, political authority could never escape imperfection. Until the end of occultation, there could be no true Islamic rule, and anyone who claimed to be setting up such a regime would by definition be a pretender. Their goal from then on was to keep faith until the imam's return. Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival: How conflicts within Islam will shape the future
Henry Corbin characterised Shi'ism as Islam iraniene. My Iranian friend Kamran explained it to me thus: in order for Islam to consolidate itself as the state religion, it had become "Persianised" rather than the Persians becoming "Arabised". Appealing aspects of Zoroastrianism, rather than being left behind, were incorporated into Persian Islamic thought and practice. Islam colonised Persia and supplanted Zoroastrianism, but Zoroastrianism's revenge has been to fundamentally alter those parts of Islam is came into contact with.
The Islamic conquest of Persia and led to the demise of Zoroastrianism and the rise of Islam in Persia, but Shi'ism only really established itself in Persia when the Abbasid dynasty establish Shi'ite Islam as the state religion.
That is much like Christianity's encounters with animist local religions in Africa and South America, where attempts to completely displace the local gods and religious power-structure were not always successful. Either the missionaries themselves co-opted the local gods to their cause or they allowed the congregationists to take a lunch-buffet approach to their religion: snack on the interesting/meaty bits and leave the religious celery (bland, of no real use) for someone else. Or the Hare Krishna movement in the West (where Krishna has, for all intents and purposes, become nothing more than a blue Jesus).
There are still those aruging that Shi'ites aren't Muslim or wishing "Death to the Shi'ites!".
Matin Sabzehroo is an Iranian-American actor, standup comedian and er... rapper? Wikipedia certainly seems to know quite a bit about him. Although there doesn't seem to be much beyond this comedy routine.
Patrick Monahan is a Irish-Iranian comedian. He appears regularly in minor roles on British TV and in comedy clubs nationwide. He has a chatty, story-telling standup routine.
Visit his website: www.patrickmonahan.co.uk and watch his showreel.
It is always disturbing to be reminded of the atrocities and brutality of the Taliban (warning: contains images of horrific violence and brutality) in Afghanistan. With the ever-changing allegiances of the different factions and leaders and no discernible difference between the politics and religious views of the Taliban, Northern Alliance and Hamid Karzi's religious extremist bed-fellows, there is no solution to the dismal human rights situation and abject poverty (in material and spirit) in Afghanistan.
Karzi's acquiescence to religious extremism (seen most recently the "Family Code" which disinherits women, legalises spousal rape, child marriage, etc.) shows that groups like RAWA that are fighting for freedom, peace and human rights are firmly shut out of formal politics and still face life-threatening risks.
It is important that the innocent and defenseless victims of the Taliban and other religious fanatics in Afghanistan be remembered. Their stories should be told and kept from being blown away with the dust of history.
Who was this woman murdered by the Taliban on the dirt of a football pitch? How will she be remembered and by whom? What was she like? Was she funny and outgoing or shy? Did she tell jokes? What was her laugh like? What colour were her eyes? What was her favourite flavour of ice-cream? Was she kind to her sisters and brothers? Did she like reading and telling stories? Was she clumsy and apologetic when she knocked over a glass of tea? Did she like cooking or was she lazy but sly and quick to convince her sister that she was a terrible cook who would only ruin an evening meal?
How long did she have to wait, trembling and crying knowing her death was inevitable? Or was she calm and resigned? Did she hope someone would notice? Did she fear that nobody would ever know what happened to her? What "crime" had she committed before having her memories, dreams and fears shot out of the back of her head by a hate-fuelled fanatic? Did she know her killers? Her accuser? Did she have children or elderly parents she had to care for? Who betrayed her and let the Taliban take her? Was she loved? Is she missed?
What was her name?
Maybe her's is a story that can never be told but there must be others and they must be.
Take one look at Tissa Hami and you think Iranian!. And you're right. But she's a fiercely funny Iranian American standup comedienne...
Tissa Hami is one of the world’s few female Muslim stand-up comics. Her unique act and fresh perspective on life as an Iranian-American woman leave audiences in shock and awe. From Islamic fundamentalists to white liberals to good old-fashioned racists, no one is safe from Tissa’s sharp wit. (source)
After the 9/11 attacks on America, Hami felt the need to get active in promoting another view of Muslims in America to the one constantly being shown in the media. Since starting as a standup comic she's worked around the US and taken part in the Randomly Selected and Coexists? comedy tours and featured on a PBS documentary.
A Muslim comedienne and wearing a hijab automatically makes me think of Shazia Mirza from the UK. Their comedy is very different though. Tissa Hami fits in closely with the American standups around the Axis of Evil comedy tour, whereas Sharia Mirza's comedy is more awkward and crude. Shazia Mirza no longer wears a hijab, and for Hami it's part of her act (similar to Omid Djalili starting in mock Persian broken English). Hami has come to be seen as something of a novelty, like Matisyahu (the Hassidic reggae star), in a setting where you'd least expect to find a Muslim woman. In this Australian documentary she talks about what motivates her.
Find out more about Tissa Hami on her website: http://www.tissahami.com/
A gallery of photos of lost cities. The tragedy of civilisation is that for a new one to rise, another must be displaced.
Onstage Sheila Vossough looks like your average college age American woman wearing a baggy shirt and jeans giving off a Roseanne Barr kind of vibe. But she's a great Iranian American comedienne as the videos below show...
During her stand-up routine, Vossough had a warning for Iranian women wanting to come to America: "Women of Iran, please stop trying to get the hell out. Where do you think you're going? If any of these stories about your nightlives are true, stay. I swear to God, when you set foot in the States, all this attention from men stops. Men here are not as horny as you're used to." (source)
The internet doesn't seem to know much about Sheila Vossough at the moment, even though she's apprently had her own TV show and been a moderately successful stage actress.
Cities like New York, London and Tokyo are famous for their street art and ever-changing graffiti. It's also popular in the Middle East. Flickr has a photo pool devoted to collecting pictures of street art in the Middle East.
There's also the gorgeous Arabeque book about graphic design with the Arabic script (both Arabic and Persian). The website has a great gallery of photos of Cairo and the contents of the book.
