Book Review–Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak

I cannot help but reflect on the what I see is a spritual lesson in the publication of poems by 17 detaineess in Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak by Ariel Dorfman, Marc Falkoff, and Flagg Miller.

There is an verse in Quran that, for me, addresses all aspects of the events surrounding the existence of Guantanamo.  No need to rehash them here.  The verse reads:

Book Review: When You Hear Hoofbeats

When You Hear Hoofbeats, Think of a Zebra by Shems Friedlander is a book which contains stories, vignettes and admonitions to soften the heart.  The title comes from the author’s suggestion in the introduction that in order to develop ourselves spiritually, we have to release our thoughts from the mundane and prosaic concerns of our worldly existence in order to connect with our spiritual selves and grow closer to Allah.

Book Review: A Return to Modesty

A Return to  Modesty: Discovering a Lost Virtue by Wendy Shalit. 

This book by a young Jewish woman is an unexpected gift to Muslim women who cover and are experiencing increasing hostility because of doing so worldwide, in non-Muslim and Muslim countries alike.  Quite simply, Ms Shalit details what happens to the social, moral and psychological development of young females in a society that conspires to indoctrinate its male and female children with a value system from which modesty as a virtue is excluded.