Atheists and Muslims may have a few things in common in the US

by Salman Hameed

The Pew Research Center has a new survey out that looks at the growing political polarization in the US. One of the questions asked if one would be happy if a family member married an atheist, and another question asked about a similar marriage to born-again Christian". Well, roughly half of all Americans (49%) say they will be unhappy if a family member married an atheists, and only 9% unhappy with a born-again Christian (including most atheists). Here are the results divided up by religious (and non-religious) denominations:

Now the Pew survey also asked about a member of another religious faith. But I was wondering how the numbers would look like for a family member marrying a Muslim. My guess is that they won't be that different from atheists. Here is a Gallup poll from earlier this year that showed that Americans are least likely to vote a Muslim or an and atheist for President:

This is the reason I think it will be interesting to see the marriage question for Muslims as well. I should add that this is also a temporary thing, as the same Gallup poll showed that the acceptability for atheists and Muslims go up for the younger generation.

Back to the Pew Survey. Here is the Pew marriage question again and now divided by political leanings:

Perhaps not too surprisingly, liberals (as defined in the survey) place importance on ethnic diversity, whereas conservatives lean towards a similar faith community when picking a place to live:

You can read the full Pew report here.

Check out "Jodororowsky's Dune"

by Salman Hameed

This is a documentary about the crazily ambitious attempt to adapt Frank Herbert's Dune to film. I loved the book, but was disappointed by David Lynch's 1984 adaptation (with Sting!). But I didn't know that before Lynch, Chilean director, Jodorowsky made an attempt to turn Dune into the mother of all science fiction films. He wanted Dali to play the master of the universe, and Dali's demands in return matched-up perfectly with the craziness of Jodorowsky. In addition, he convinced Orson Welles and Mick Jagger to be in the movie, and Pink Floyd to do the soundtrack (along with metal band, Magma - "they were awful" so Jodorowsky thought they were perfect for the darker elements of the film). Some of the artwork was done by Giger, who went on to create the alien of the Alien series of films. And yes, Giger himself comes off as a bit scary (by the way, he died just about a month ago).

Here are two of Giger's images for Dune (the first one is Baron Harkonnen's palace in the shape of Harkonnen's face):

This documentary is about the unbridled enthusiasm for creating art for the sake of art. Jodorowsky is completely crazy and at 84, he still has amazing energy. His recollection of going to see David Lynch's Dune is also quite funny. If you have chance, do check out Jodorowsky's Dune. Here is the trailer:

Jodorowsky's Dune - Official Trailer by itsartmag

Lifting bans on liberal and secular Facebook pages in Pakistan

by Salman Hameed

Couple of days ago, Facebook inexplicably banned the page of Pakistan's lefty, liberal, rock band, Laal. Following an international outrage, the page appeared again in Pakistan and the band posted this on their Facebook page:

Yes its true. We were banned. We fought back. And we won. We want to thank all our supporters who supported us on social media and the mainstream media. This was your victory. They say the people united can never be defeated. Today progressives proved their strength through their unity. They forced the authorities to retreat from the ban. This may be a very small victory in relation to all the problems that Pakistan faces today. But a victory nonetheless. Let us take confidence from this victory and continue our work to unban the other progressive pages that continue to suffer from censorship. And struggle for a progressive Pakistan. The struggle continues.

So why was their page banned in Pakistan? Here is a bit from NYT:

Facebook said on Friday that it had blocked users in Pakistan from access to the pages of a popular Pakistani rock band and several left-wing political pages, drawing sharp criticism from free-speech activists who accused the American company of caving in to government censors. 

Members of the band, Laal, whose members have frequently spoken out against the Taliban, confirmed that their Facebook page, which had over 400,000 “likes,” had been blocked. 

Following an outcry on social media and inquiries by reporters to the Pakistani government and to Facebook, the government reversed itself and Facebook restored access to Laal’s page. 

But advocates said late on Friday that at least six other Facebook pages that promoted progressive debate in Pakistan and that had been blocked during the week remained inaccessible.
...
A spokeswoman for Facebook in London said the company’s policy was to adhere to local laws, and that it blocked the pages after receiving an official request from the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, which regulates Internet content in Pakistan. 

“While we never remove this type of content from the site entirely, like most Internet services, we may restrict people from accessing it in the countries where it is determined to be illegal,” the spokeswoman said, adding that questions about why specific pages were blocked were “best addressed to the authorities who issue these orders.”

There you have it folks. Facebook is a hapless company that is forced to please authorities everywhere. So while Laal's ban has been reversed, there are other pages that are still inaccessible in Pakistan. So here is a direct petition to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to lift their bans as well.

I will leave you with two Laal songs (with english subtitles), both featuring the poetry of Faiz Ahmad Faiz. Here is Gham na Kar, and it is described by the band as follows:

Laal made this video in Afghanistan. We salute the bravery and fortitude of our nations against the gravest and most unyielding of odds. Let us re-build the broken bridges and heal old wounds for we are bound together by the memory of countless centuries. Let us strive forward together, for ours is the same struggle, the same fight. Against all those who seek to oppress and enslave us. And against tyranny everywhere.

Laal - Gham Na Kar (Faiz) by Taimur_Laal

And here is an earlier song featuring a famous Faiz poem:


By the way, there is a local connection as well. The former lead vocalist for Laal, Shahram Azhar, is currently pursuing his doctorate in economics from UMass-Amherst. I haven't had a chance to run into him yet, but I hope to dod so before he leaves the area.

Video of Saba Mahmood's lecture on "Religious Liberty, the Minority Problem and Geopolitics"

by Salman Hameed

If you are interested in the question of human rights and religious minorities, then do check out this lecture by Saba Mahmood. She starts by providing a historical context for the origin(s) of this discourse, and its use and misuse for political reasons. For example, she points to the US (around 17 minutes in) for championing equal rights for all individuals, while at the same time refusing equal rights to African Americans. But she then spends a large portion of her talk on the case of Egypt, and the case of Coptic Christians in Egypt (in fact, check out the bit about the shifting identity of Coptic Christians in Egypt, about 26 minutes in). Towards the end of her talk, she makes an interesting point that the construction of a "minority" itself, creates a sense of being an outsider, which in turn can lead to hostility against the minority. But there clearly is tension as it is the majorities that also creates such conditions. She doesn't necessarily provide a clear-cut solution, but at least she provides with a set of questions, or as she puts it, "at least we should try to understand how the current system got established". With Q&A, the whole session is about an hour and twenty minutes, and I think it is worth your time if you are interested in the topic.

An excellent article on revoking Spinoza's 17th century excommunication

by Salman Hameed

Here is an excellent and thoughtful article on how should we think about Spinoza's 17th century
excommunication today. A panel of four scholars, including Steve Nadler, was asked to look into the possibility of lifting the ban on Spinoza. After all, the Catholic Church decided to exonerate Galileo in the 1990s, so why not Spinoza? The judgment came out against lifting such a ban, but in many ways, it is about respecting Spinoza and his ideas. If you have time, you should read the full article, but here is the bit about the differences in the cases of Spinoza and Galileo:

Moreover, if we were to ask Spinoza, “Would you like the ban lifted?” I am certain that his answer would be, “I could not care less.” It is clear that he did not have any interest in being reintegrated into Judaism, much less into the particular Portuguese community that banned him. You might even say that to want to reintegrate Spinoza into Jewish life by lifting the ban would be to misunderstand what Spinoza stood for, given his strongly negative views on organized religion, and on Judaism in particular. 

Here the analogy with the case of Galileo is misleading. Galileo was promoting a set of purely scientific doctrines, albeit doctrines that the Catholic Church had deemed inconsistent with biblical texts and religious dogma. Spinoza, on the other hand, was defending views that were direct and blatant denials of some core elements of the Jewish faith. It is one thing to insist that the Earth goes around the sun, and even to insist (as Galileo did) that the Bible should not be regarded as a source of scientific knowledge; it is quite another to claim that the observance of Jewish law is no longer valid or necessary, or that the biblical prophets were uneducated individuals who spoke not from understanding but only from imagination.

While there are may be good reasons for the ban to stay in place, the article ends with an argument against conformity of ideas and censorship, especially when it comes to the search for religious truth(s):

I think a larger, and more pressing, question concerns the wisdom and efficacy of enforcing orthodoxy, or conformity in the matter of ideas (as opposed to conformity in the matter of behavior), in religious communities. Presumably, religion, in addition to being for many people a source of identity, community, comfort and moral guidance, is also a quest for understanding and truth: truth about ourselves and about the world. As John Stuart Mill and many other thinkers have argued, exercising any kind of censorship over ideas and restricting freedom of thought and speech only make it less likely that, in the end, the truth will be discovered. Why should this be any less a matter of importance in the domain of religious belief than in philosophy, science and other areas of human intellectual endeavor? 

Spinoza believed that he had, through metaphysical inquiry, discovered important truths about God, nature and human beings, truths that led to principles of great consequence for our happiness and our emotional and physical flourishing. This, in fact, is what he called “true religion.” There is a lesson here: By enforcing conformity of belief and punishing deviations from dogma, religious authorities may end up depriving the devoted of the possibility of achieving in religion that which they most urgently seek.

Read the full article here.

Steve Nadler was also our Science & Religion speaker last year, and gave an excellent talk on Spinoza. Here is the abstract followed by the video of the talk, and the Q/A session underneath. Enjoy!

Abstract

In 1656, the young Baruch Spinoza was excommunicated from the Amsterdam Portuguese-Jewish community with extreme prejudice; by the end of his short life he was regarded as one of the most radical and dangerous thinkers of his time. Among his alleged "abominable heresies" was, according to one contemporary report, the belief that "God exists only philosophically." In this lecture, we will examine Spinoza's conception of God, whereby God is identified with Nature, and address the question of whether he is, as is so often claimed, a "God intoxicated" pantheist or a devious atheist, as well as the implications of this for his views on religion.



and here is the Q/A session:

Telescope at a madrassa and students in bombed out schools in Pakistan

by Salman Hameed

There are a number of awful news around Pakistan in the last couple of weeks - especially around the use of the Blasphemy Law (see the next post coming up). But in the midst of it, there are also some bright spots. I have noted on several occasions the rise of public astronomy in Pakistan. Umair Asim in Lahore, with the help of Lahore Astronomical Society and Khwarizimi Science Society, has been tireless in his efforts to bring telescopes to as many people as possible (just see his public outreach page here). I haven't been to Lahore in 8-9 years, but looking at these activities, I will have to take the opportunity to attend one of these telescopic sessions on my next visit to Pakistan.

I wanted to highlight Umair's latest experience of inviting madrassa students to view the Sun through a telescope. This is interesting as madrassas are often in the news usually for something bad. Furthermore, almost all madrassa students in Pakistan belong to lower socio-ecomomic and often forgotten class. This is how Umair described his experience:

This was one of the most memorable outreach session for me. The students of a Madrassa literally came running to the solar telescope as soon as they saw an odd looking machine near their mosque. 

First i gave them the solar glasses. Now just look at them smiling with these on their faces :) I gave them all the glasses i had in my car and requested  to take these to their homes and show their class fellows, siblings and parents. Next they saw the sun through the halpha telescope. Everyone just glued himself with the eyepiece; i was requesting for others' right to see the sun. 

Nothing was planned there. I actually went to see my friend and when we ordered the food, the thought came to my mind. There is a Madrassa right there so why not show the kids the wonders of the universe. Wherever i go, my halpha telescope is always in my car trunk. So there i was, showing them the 'fire' on the sun and how much they got excited is beyond the words i can write.

Here are some pictures from the event:

Then Al Jazeera English published a series of pictures of students in the north-western parts of Pakistan attending bombed out schools. These schools have been a constant target for the Taliban (most often the Pakistan Taliban - TTP), and over 450 have been bombed so far (usually - and thankfully - with no students inside). These pictures are interesting because it shows that kids still want to go to school, and it all shows the conditions of their educational environment. Here are two pictures from the collection: 

Islamophobia, Satanism, and freedom of religion

by Salman Hameed

I think Michael Muhammad Knight is one of the most interesting Muslim writers out there. He is prolific, insightful, and provocative. I was introduced to him through the film adaptation of his novel, The Taqwacores (see the trailer here). His novel also inspired the movement of Punk Islam, depicted in the documentary film The Taqwacore [it features a Pakistani punk band, The Kominas].

In any case, he has a fascinating article about on the fracas about Harvard canceling a planned Satanic mass by the Satanic Temple. Knight links this to the issue of freedom of religion and argues - successfully, I think - that Muslims should support Satanists in this instance. His key points are about the lopsided power relations regarding big religions versus small religions. I have sympathies with this as I teach about UFO religions (Raelians, Scientology, Unarians, etc) in one of the classes, and they face similar issues of ridicule from the press and from members of other religions. In any case, here is Knight:

Following Catholic uproar, a proposed Satanic mass at Harvard has been canceled. The mass was going to be put on by the Satanic Temple, the group who also has plans to plant a Baphomet figure on the front lawn of the Oklahoma Statehouse. Despite the fact that the Harvard Extension School Cultural Studies Club dropped its sponsorship, the group still managed to have an unsanctioned "black mass" at Harvard Square's Hong Kong restaurant and lounge. What bothers me the most about the official quashing of the Satanic Temple's mass by Harvard is that it is being hailed as a victory for religious tolerance—it's not. Instead, it's a case of a small group getting bullied into submission because it offended a big religion. 

In an editorial for the Harvard Crimson, Francis X. Clooney, Harvard professor and director of its Center for the Study of World Religions, expresses concern for what he calls this proposed “disconcerting incident.” He presents the elements in satanic ritual that invert and “blaspheme” Catholic sacraments as a potential slippery slope, asking, “What’s next? The endeavor ‘to learn and experience the history of different cultural practices’ might in another year lead to historical reenactments of anti-Semitic or racist ceremonies… or parodies that trivialize Native American heritage or other revivals of cultural and religious insult.” 

Clooney’s nightmare scenario ignores one important question, that of institutional privilege: While racism is an oppressors’ power play that always moves from the top down, Satanism critiques a target immeasurably more powerful than itself. For Catholics at Harvard to complain about Satanists offending them is like white people complaining about Louis Farrakhan’s “reverse racism.” 

In addition to his positions at Harvard, Clooney is also a Cat holic priest. I know the history of Catholicism in America, and am sure that Clooney does as well. There was a time when Catholics were persecuted, reviled, and marked as the definitive “un-American” religion. Within the developing field of religious studies, the privileged position of liberal 19th-century Protestantism as “real” religion in its most evolved form also led to unfair anti-Catholic prejudice within the academy. Catholicism has struggled in the United States for recognition both as authentically Christian and authentically American.  

Michael is not the first one to draw parallels to treatment of US Catholics in the 19th and early 20th centuries to that of Muslims today, but he then does a fine job of connecting to the larger issue of religious pluralism:

Times have changed, so I’d like to tell Dr. Clooney how the American religious landscape looks in 2014. Dr. Clooney, I am a Muslim. As a Muslim in the cliché context of “post-9/11 America,” I encounter anti-Muslim discourses that use the same arguments that you have employed against Satanists. In more than one American city, Islamophobes have opposed the establishment of mosques by claiming that Muslims are intolerant and incapable of coexisting with other communities, or even that Islam is not a “real” religion and therefore cannot be entitled to the same defense of its freedoms. In the case of the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque,” people argued against the presence of a Muslim community simply on the basis that it would hurt their feelings.  

As a Muslim, I have to support the Satanists. Public revulsion of Muslims in this country is so popular that I have no choice but to stand with religions that are marked as ugly, offensive, and intolerant. Rather than join the anti-Satanist outrage and try to convince Christians that Muslims deserve to be included as “children of Abraham” or whatever, I would suggest that Muslims take a radical stand on behalf of the religious freedoms that we claim for ourselves. The people who wish to insult Muslims are not members of ridiculed fringe groups. They are not just isolated Qur’an-burning pastors, but extraordinarily well-funded and networked activists. Islamophobia is so mainstream that as Muslims, we must support freedom for all marginalized religions, because too many people have marginalized us. 

I have no doubt that in his commitment to religious pluralism and interfaith understanding, Clooney supports the inclusion of Muslims as full participants in American life. His work in comparative theology, which focuses on dialogue between Catholicism and Hinduism, reveals great insight as to how we can be enriched by traditions that are not our own. Unfortunately, the projects of interfaith dialogue tend to privilege old religions over new ones, and big ones over small ones. Christian-Muslim dialogue, for example, isn’t typically going to invite Mormons or Ahmadiyya to the table.  

Ah. I think it is great that he brings in Mormons and the Ahmadiyya to the conversations as well. In fact, he goes onto to give specific example of how the Five Percenters have been denied their religious rights in prison (Knight, I think, was a Five Percenter himself for a while):

In his treatment of Satanic mass, Clooney’s playing an authenticity game in which privileged religions get to name the terms by which something counts as “religion,” and respect for the sacred thus means respecting what privileged religions mark as sacred. I have seen this game played with destructive consequences for the Five Percenter community. In US prisons, Five Percenters have been historically denied the freedoms of conscience and assembly that are routinely protected for adherents to other traditions. 

Warith Deen Mohammed, one of the most important Sunni leaders in American Muslim history, endorsed the prison industry’s characterization of Five Percenters as a “dangerous” and “corrupt” group. Incarcerated Five Percenters have been thrown into solitary confinement for no other reason than their personal conviction. Their right to assemble has been taken from them and the lessons that they study have been designated as contraband. Outside of the prison system, Five Percenters have been occasionally denied the right to change their legal names to Allah, with at least one judge stating that for a man to name himself Allah is inappropriate and even blasphemous. 

In prejudice against Five Percenters from both Muslims and non-Muslims, broader US Islamophobia, and Clooney’s attack on the Harvard black mass, we find the same mistake: A general failure to ask these people what their outrageous, offensive beliefs, and behaviors actually mean to them. Reducing the Satanic mass to a parody of the Catholic mass, he assumes that the Satanists involved must have no personal conviction that might endow the act with meaning, and discusses the act without any engagement of the human beings for whom it matters.  In his editorial, they remain faceless, nameless, and voiceless.…

What Clooney and Faust miss is that some of us find claims of Jesus Christ as the only means of salvation from eternal torture to be incredibly offensive. Any tradition whose advocates promise to be exclusive possessors of the capital-T “Truth” is going to bother someone. Should all religious discourse that claims supreme truth-making power over other religions disappear from the public? I get that Harvard Divinity School’s preferred religiosity tends to go soft in this regard: At Div School, folks don’t go much for the hellfire talk or claims of superiority. Maybe there’s a Div School version of Satanism that Clooney could go for. Or not, but who cares—Clooney’s personal taste does not provide the measurement of Satanism’s legitimacy.  

It would be great if religions can always play nice. When they can’t, I am less concerned with Satanism’s alleged power to make Harvard unsafe for Catholics than the problem of big and powerful religions enforcing their privilege by stomping on small and powerless ones. This is where Clooney gets it wrong in a big way. There has never been—and I am guessing that there will never be—an openly self-identified Satanist with Clooney’s institutional power at Harvard. Because I care about religious freedom not only for the center, but also the margins, count this Muslim with the Satanists.  

I agree with Knight on this. Count me in as well!

Read the full article here. On a somewhat related topic, here is an earlier post Moral Outrage: Burning of the Quran versus Free Speech. 

A Task Force for Science Teaching in the Muslim World

by Salman Hameed

Last week, a Task Force was launched focused on the teaching of science in the Muslim world. Below is the poster for it that also lists the people involved. This looks like an interesting endeavor that will address, among other things, the role of universities in scientific progress and innovation, university culture, and issues of academic freedom. There are some good people involved in the project, including Nidhal Guessoum, Adil Najam, Michael Reiss, and Athar Osama (he is not mentioned here, but is part of the team behind the Task Force). Looking forward to their thoughts on science education in the Muslim world.

An excellent lecture on myths associated with history of science

by Salman Hameed

Two weeks ago I had a chance to visit Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. Lovely campus with a lot of history. Unfortunately, I missed by a week a chance to a attend a wonderful history of science conference organized by Nicolaas Rupke. The conference in some ways is a follow-up to an excellent collection of essays titled Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about  Science and Religion, edited by Ronald L. Numbers and published by Harvard University Press in 2009. If you are interested in the topic of science and religion (and I'm assuming you are, since you are here on Irtiqa), then you should definitely own a copy of this book. The 'sequel', as Nicolaas Rupke calls it, was a conference titled Newton's Apple and Other Historical Myths about Science that took place last week at Washington & Lee University (you can download the pdf program of the conference here).

I'm sure that the resulting volume will be excellent as well. In the mean time, you can enjoy the keynote address by John L. Heilbron of the University of California, Berkeley. It takes on notion of myth and talks about not only scientific myths, but also those that are a part of the scholarship of history of science. This is an excellent talk, but it is too bad that there was no Q/A session afterwards, as I could see some spicy exchanges about some of the statements in the talk. Nevertheless, you should definitely check out discussion on science and religion about 15 minutes into the talk, where after discussing the gross historical misrepresentations of the topic, John Heilbron takes an interesting position that science and religion are (should?) always potentially at odds with each other, and he goes on to explain why he thinks that and why that might even be a good thing. He then provides some interesting examples of myths from history of science before spending a considerable amount of time on the myth associated search for the ultimate physical theory (Theory of Everything). Hold on. But myth is not simply a false story - and that is one of the points he wants to stress.

If you have an hour, this is a worthwhile lecture to listen to. Enjoy.

Freedom of religion, but not atheism, in Indonesia

by Salman Hameed

There are increasing number of atheism stories coming out from the Muslim world. In some cases it is about someone's proclamation as an atheist (see the case in Indonesia below), in others it is about the government or political groups silencing opponents by calling them atheists (see for example, the riots in Bangladesh last year). But doubters of all shades (from deists to hardcore atheists) have always been present in all societies, and Muslim countries are no exception. The sudden increase of such stories is probably due to a combination of reasons. On the one hand, you have the globalization of religion-atheism debate (one can be a participant is this debate from a computer anywhere in world) and a related increase in the number of people who declare themselves to be atheists. In the debate over self-expression in many parts of the Muslim world, the declaration of atheism then becomes one of the battles in deeply religious societies. On the other hand, the social upheavals (and political turmoil in many cases) of the past few years are leading to intolerance towards religious minorities (including those of different Muslim sects) and atheists boogeymen (for example, see Egypt). In addition, such stories become a rallying cry for fundamentalists (see the case of Saudi Arabia) as well as a good material for newspapers in the West (see again the case of Saudi Arabia, but also see a US example).

All that said, the Indonesian atheism case is troubling but it also highlights some of the tensions of adjusting to the modern world. Here is a case of an Indonesian who struggled with his faith, became an atheist, commented on a Facebook page started by Indonesians living in the Netherlands, and went to jail for 19 months on the charge of "inciting religious hatred". From yesterday's NYT:

Growing up in a conservative Muslim household in rural West Sumatra, Alexander Aan

hid a dark secret beginning at age 9: He did not believe in God. His feelings only hardened as he got older and he faked his way through daily prayers, Islamic holidays and the fasting month of Ramadan. 

He stopped praying in 2008, when he was 26, and he finally told his parents and three younger siblings that he was an atheist — a rare revelation in a country like Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. They responded with disappointment and expressions of hope that he would return to Islam. 

But Mr. Aan neither returned to Islam nor confined his secret to his family, and he ended up in prison after running afoul of a 2008 law restricting electronic communications. He had joined an atheist Facebook group started by Indonesians living in the Netherlands, and in 2011 he began posting commentaries outlining why he did not think God existed. 

“When I saw, with my own eyes, poor people, people on television caught up in war, people who were hungry or ill, it made me uncomfortable,” Mr. Aan, now 32, said in an interview. “What is the meaning of this? As a Muslim, I had questioned God — what is the meaning of God?” He was released on parole on Jan. 27 after serving more than 19 months on a charge of inciting religious hatred.

And here is the bit where freedom of religion is well, not exactly freedom of religion:

Indonesia’s state ideology, Pancasila, enshrines monotheism, and blasphemy is illegal. However, the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and speech, and the country is 16 years into a transition from authoritarianism to democracy. 

But Mr. Aan’s case is one of an increasing number of instances of persecution connected to freedom of religion in Indonesia in recent years. Although Indonesia has influential Christian, Hindu and Buddhist minorities, every year there have been hundreds of episodes, including violent attacks, targeting religious minorities like Christians and Shiite and Ahmadiyah Muslims, as well as dozens of arrests over blasphemy against Islam. Numerous churches have been closed for lacking proper permits.

All of this is tied to experimentation with a new media as well as with a new democracy:

“It’s funny — we say we have freedom of expression, but it’s only up to a certain point,” said Enda Nasution, an Indonesian blogger. “I think we are absorbing all of these new norms, and with the Internet, we are experimenting with what we can and can’t do. Atheism is a no-no, it seems.” 

Christian groups and religious and human rights advocates say that rising religious intolerance is also linked to the efforts to promote regional autonomy in Indonesia in 1999 as part of the country’s transition to democracy after three decades of highly centralized, authoritarian rule under President Suharto. 

More than half of Indonesia’s 491 provincial districts have enacted various bylaws inspired by Islamic law, or Shariah, in recent years. 

“So much power was given to local authorities, and in many cases — in particular in regions where Muslim organizations dominated — there were violations against religious freedom, and freedom, for example, for someone to say they are an atheist,” said Theophilus Bela, secretary general of the Indonesian Conference on Religions for Peace, a nongovernmental organization focused on interfaith dialogue.

I still think that all of this is an adjustment phase towards a broader acceptance of global religious plurality (hmm…yes, seeing the glass at a 50% level), and we are seeing the expected bumps on the road. This won't comfort people like Aan, who unfortunately, are paying the price simply for their beliefs (or lack thereof).

Read the full story here. 

Postdoctoral Fellowship opportunity in Science and Islam at Hampshire College

by Salman Hameed

We are looking for a postdoctoral fellow in Science and Islam at Hampshire College. It is a one-year position and the the postdoc will spend half her/his time on the proposed project (see below) and the other half to her/his own research. Yes, ABD's are welcome to apply. Here is the full announcement:

Postdoctoral Fellow in Science and Islam:

The Center for the Study of Science in Muslim Societies (SSiMS) at Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts, invites applications for a one-year postdoctoral fellowship under the general category of Science and Islam. The fellow will spend half their time developing a categorization scheme to evaluate the quality of content in online Islam and science videos. A team of scholars in fields of history, religious studies, and natural sciences, will serve as advisors for the project. The fellow will also have half-time to dedicate to her/his own research, and there are no associated teaching responsibilities. The fellowship award provides an annual salary of $55,000, plus benefits. A PhD. with an emphasis on Islam and/or Muslim societies in fields such as religious studies, history, Middle Eastern Studies, science and religion, philosophy, or sociology, is desirable. The start date is expected to be July 1, 2014. The fellowship is funded by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

Hampshire is committed to building a culturally diverse intellectual community and strongly encourages applications from women and minority candidates.

Please submit a letter of interest that describes your qualifications and interest in the project, a CV, and two letters of recommendation at http://jobs.hampshire.edu/ 

No hard copies will be accepted. Review of applications will begin May 9, 2014.

Inquiries may be addressed to Dr. Salman Hameed (Director of the Center for the Study of Science in Muslim Societies) at shameed@hampshire.edu

Hampshire College is an equal opportunity institution, committed to diversity in education and employment.

Here is the second episode of "Your Inner Fish"

by Salman Hameed

I know I know Cosmos is going on these days, and its last episode about stellar lives and deaths was excellent. But you should definitely check out the recently concluded 3-part series, Your Inner Fish (here is the link to the PBS site where you can watch all three episodes, and here is an earlier post about the first episode). I have embedded here the second episode titled, Your Inner Reptile. You should watch the full episode, but check out the spectacular bit about the yolk-less egg in humans (pregnant women), starting about 9 minutes into the show. What an excellent way to connect with our reptilian cousins. I also like the overall use of animations in the show (I think Cosmos is over-doing it), which are both elegant and useful. In any case, here is the second episode:


Your Inner Fish -episode 2 - Your Inner Reptile by costello74

Carl Sagan's daughter on lessons about life and death

by Salman Hameed

In Carl Sagan's last book, Billions and Billions, he had an amazingly powerful article titled In the Valley of Shadows. He wrote the article when the doctors had told him that he had 3-months to live. And yet, the chapter is honest about his desire to have an afterlife and the reason why he might think otherwise. But ultimately, it is about the celebration of the life we have. Here is one of my favorite quotes from the piece:

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.

Sagan already knew that the book's final editing will be done by his wife, Ann Druyan. This is what she had to say about his death in the Afterward of the book:

Contrary to the fantasies of the fundamentalists, there was no deathbed conversion, no last minute refuge taken in a comforting vision of a heaven or an afterlife. For Carl, what mattered most was what was true, not merely what would make us feel better. Even at this moment when anyone would be forgiven for turning away from the reality of our situation, Carl was unflinching. As we looked deeply into each other's eyes, it was with a shared conviction that our wondrous life together was ending forever.

Now their daughter, Sasha Sagan, has a wonderful article in the new issue of New York Magazine. Here she recounts of her father's explanation of death - a subject indeed difficult to address with children:

After days at elementary school, I came home to immersive tutorials on skeptical

thought and secular history lessons of the universe, one dinner table conversation at a time. My parents would patiently entertain an endless series of "why?" questions, never meeting a single one with a “because I said so” or “that’s just how it is.” Each query was met with a thoughtful, and honest, response — even the ones for which there are no answers.
One day when I was still very young, I asked my father about his parents. I knew my maternal grandparents intimately, but I wanted to know why I had never met his parents.
“Because they died,” he said wistfully.
“Will you ever see them again?” I asked.
He considered his answer carefully. Finally, he said that there was nothing he would like more in the world than to see his mother and father again, but that he had no reason — and no evidence — to support the idea of an afterlife, so he couldn’t give in to the temptation.
“Why?”
Then he told me, very tenderly, that it can be dangerous to believe things just because you want them to be true. You can get tricked if you don’t question yourself and others, especially people in a position of authority. He told me that anything that’s truly real can stand up to scrutiny.

And then again, there is a message of hope and celebration of life: 

As far as I can remember, this is the first time I began to understand the permanence of death. As I veered into a kind of mini existential crisis, my parents comforted me without deviating from their scientific worldview.

“You are alive right this second. That is an amazing thing,” they told me. When you consider the nearly infinite number of forks in the road that lead to any single person being born, they said, you must be grateful that you’re you at this very second. Think of the enormous number of potential alternate universes where, for example, your great-great-grandparents never meet and you never come to be. Moreover, you have the pleasure of living on a planet where you have evolved to breathe the air, drink the water, and love the warmth of the closest star. You’re connected to the generations through DNA — and, even farther back, to the universe, because every cell in your body was cooked in the hearts of stars. We are star stuff, my dad famously said, and he made me feel that way. 

My parents taught me that even though it’s not forever — because it’s not forever — being alive is a profoundly beautiful thing for which each of us should feel deeply grateful. If we lived forever it would not be so amazing.

All of this doesn't mean that there is no sense of loss or grief when one loses someone so close. This is a sentiment that is present all too clearly in the article itself. Nevertheless, it is wonderful to see a life through this cosmic perspective.

Read the full article here. 

This is fantastic! Here is the first episode of "Your Inner Fish"

by Salman Hameed

When it comes to science documentaries, all of the attention is currently focused on the new Cosmos. This is good. But in all this, people might be missing a superb series on PBS called Your Inner Fish. It is based on the excellent book of the same title, and the show is hosted by its author, Neil Shubin. What I like about the show is that there is an enormous emphasis on "how" we know what we know about evolution. Shubin is well known for his discovery of a flat-headed fish named Tiktaalik which is considered to be the transitionary animal from water to land. The first episode talks it and that whole segment is very well done. But I loved the bit about the study of chickens eggs to understand how our limbs might have formed (it starts about 35 minutes into the first episode, but you should watch the full episode anyways). This is absolutely riveting stuff! Here is the first episode (the embedded video is on Youtube - but for folks in Pakistan, where Youtube is still banned, you can go and watch the videos here):



The second episode focused on "Your Inner Reptile". I will embed it when it is available. It also had an excellent segment on egg yolks (didn't know that humans have the egg part, but the genes that regulate the yolk are no longer functioning) and another fantastic one on our skins and its reptilian origins. You can watch the full episode on the PBS website. But here is a short segment from episode 2 that talks about the way smaller bones from reptilian jaws were later accommodated into mammalian ears. Fascinating stuff!

Public astronomy flourishing in Pakistan

by Salman Hameed

I have posted many times about astronomy in Pakistan (see links below), which I think is maturing nicely. There still aren't that many professional astronomers, but the amateur astronomy scene seems to have attained a critical mass. I know that there are active groups both in Lahore and Karachi, and there is growing interest in Islamabad as well. I don't know when is a good time, but may be they should think about forming a national body (Pakistan Astronomical Society?) that can coordinate astronomy outreach, facilitate annual or bi-annual gatherings, and can even launch some systematic observing projects. While there have been many efforts to build professional telescopes as well, the formation of such an organization may also streamline that process. In balance, there is a downside as well. Some of the wonderful energy that is driving the current astronomy scene may get diverted into dealing with organizational matters of the more boring side. I think the formation of a larger umbrella organization will have benefits in the long run - unless it gets mired into pointless bureaucracy.

In any case, here are some wonderful pictures from a public event in Lahore held on April 12th (you can see more images from Umair Asim's website here):

And they are not wasting their time during the day either. Here are some pictures from March 25th:

Here is a trip to Lahore Grammar School on February 22nd:

And here is a spectacular image from Umair Asim's solar telescope:

Not to be left behind, Karachi Amateurs Astronomers Society (KAAS) also held public functions in the last couple of weeks. Here are some pictures:

And from an event on April 6th: 

Recently, Dawn newspaper provided a wonderful photographic essay on one of KAAS's observing excursions. I will here add only two photographs, but you should check all of these out here:

Related posts:
Astronomy catching on in Pakistan
Pakistani Astronomers Shine During the International Year of Astronomy
Another Astrofest by Khwarizmi Science Society
More Astronomy News from Pakistan
International Year of Astronomy in Pakistan

Video: Quasicrystals in Medieval Islamic Architecture

by Salman Hameed

Back in 2007 I had posted about the discovery of a particularly complex mathematical pattern (quasi-crystalline Penrose patterns) in 15th century tiles in Isfahan, Iran (see Islamic Tiles and Modern Mathematics). Actually the discovery is indeed quite stunning!

Here is a lecture on this topic by one of the original authors of the study, Peter Lu (tip from 3quarksdaily):

A look at the anti-vaccination movements in the US and in Pakistan

by Salman Hameed

Here is an excellent article that looks at the deeply problematic anti-vaccination movement in the US (yes, measles is back and the cases are on the rise in the US) and the physical attacks in Pakistan on polio vaccination teams: Someone should introduce anti-vaxxers to children with polio in Pakistan (full disclosure: the article is by my nephew):

The argument of these so-called “anti-vaxxers” is simple: vaccinations in infancy can cause autism and auto-immune diseases, so you shouldn’t vaccinate your children. That argument is also very wrong. The link between vaccines and autism has been disproved repeatedly, and studies continue to reiterate their safety and effectiveness. 

Most anti-vaxxers are unmoved by the research. And as measles cases mount around the country, I’m reminded of another disease, similarly resuscitated from the brink of eradication by ignorance and paranoia, although under very different circumstances. 

Ten years ago, Pakistan was poised to become the next country to eliminate polio, the devastating paralytic illness that crippled millions of children around the world throughout the 20th century. An aggressive immunization campaign powered by the World Health Organization and thousands of local citizens had reduced polio cases globally from an estimated 350,000 in 1988 to just a few hundred in the early 2000s. 

But as conflict enveloped the region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, paranoia came with it. Rumors and conspiracy theories about the vaccine, once only the territory of the most superstitious extremes of society, gained volume and attention: the vaccine was a Western formula to sterilize our children, the vaccination would infect our children with other diseases, the vaccine’s ingredients were against Islam.

While the focus often goes on a simplistic "Muslim opposition to polio" (for example biologist Jerry Coyne often sees religion as the sole cause), what is important is to not only point out the complex set of reasons that have led to polio opposition in Pakistan, but also the tremendous bravery and sacrifices of those individuals (many of the them also Muslims - and also from Pakistan) who are risking everything to eradicate polio in Pakistan. Here is Mustafa again:

Still, as those barriers to eradication arose in Pakistan, the WHO and its Pakistani partners continued their work. They launched campaigns to educate local authorities about the polio vaccine. They gathered religious leaders to dispel rumors of the vaccine being anti-Islamic. The vaccination program was steadily put back on track—only 49 cases of polio were recorded in 2011, when the government declared the disease a national emergency to be wiped out within two years. 

In Pakistan, though, it was never enough just to beat back superstition. The Taliban, who had previously enforced a vaccination ban in the Swat Valley in 2008 and 2009, combined anti-vaccine paranoia with outrage over drone strikes and a CIA-sponsored fake hepatitis B vaccine drive to impose a blanket ban on polio vaccinations in Waziristan and Taliban-controlled districts of Karachi. In December 2012, they began targeting health workers for assassination. 

Dozens of health workers and police officers protecting them have now been killed in bomb blasts and machine gun attacks around the country, a campaign of violence without precedent as a challenge to global health. Two weeks ago, a lady health worker named Salma Farooqi, who was kidnapped at gunpoint from her home in a suburb of Peshawar, was found dead. “The body was taken to a hospital where doctors said it bore bullet injuries and marks of torture,” Dawn reported. “The woman had been hit by rifle butts and knives.”

This last paragraph is heartbreaking and shows the viciousness of the Taliban campaign. Nevertheless, as Mustafa points out, the roots of anti-vaccination movements in both Pakistan and in the US lie in a rejection of reason:

And as this vital battle against disease and ignorance rages on half a world away, armchair anti-vaxxers in New York and D.C. and Kansas and California continue their defiance of science and reason, fighting, in effect, to bring disease back into the world. I wonder how many of them realize that their rhetoric is a reworking of the same kind of superstition that kindled the Taliban’s ban. And I wonder—if they were to meet a child crippled by polio or parents who wanted to protect their children but could not, would that change their minds?

Read the full article here.

Related posts: 
An Obama apology may save polio campaign in Pakistan
Pakistan's polio eradication problem
Polio may be the winner between the Taliban and the CIA
Is there ever a justification for a fake vaccination program? 
Between fatwas and polio
Anti-vaccination idiocy at a Texas megachurch

A multiverse suggestion from the 13th century?

by Salman Hameed

It is generally a good practice to be highly skeptical of people claiming to find ideas from modern science in literature written centuries or millennia before. However, here is an interesting inter-The Ordered Universe Project, that deserves more attention. It deals with a 13th century treatise, De Luce (On Light), by English scholar Robert Grosseteste (1170-1253 CE). What is interesting in Grosseteste's work is his idea that the same physical laws govern both the Earth and the heavens - something that went against the accepted wisdom of the time. Here is a bit from Nature:
disciplinary project,

De Luce (On Light), written in 1225 in Latin and dense with mathematical thinking, explores the nature of matter and the cosmos. Four centuries before Isaac Newton proposed gravity and seven centuries before the Big Bang theory, Grosseteste describes the birth of the Universe in an explosion and the crystallization of matter to form stars and planets in a set of nested spheres around Earth. 

To our knowledge, De Luce is the first attempt to describe the heavens and Earth using a single set of physical laws. Implying, probably unrealized by its author, a family of ordered universes in an ocean of disordered ones, the physics resembles the modern 'multiverse' concept. 

Grosseteste's treatise was translated and interpreted by us as part of an interdisciplinary

project led by Durham University, UK, that includes Latinists, philologists, medieval historians, physicists and cosmologists (see ordered-universe.com). Our experience shows how science and humanities scholars working together can gain fresh perspectives in both fields. And Grosseteste's thesis demonstrates how advanced natural philosophy was in the thirteenth century — it was no dark age.
…
By the late twelfth century, Aristotle's observation-oriented science had burst afresh onto the European scene, transmitted in a long series of cross-cultural translations from Greek to Arabic to Latin. Great questions arose in the minds of scholars such as Grosseteste, Averroes (in Cordoba) and Gerard of Cremona (in Toledo). What is colour? What is light? How does the rainbow appear? How was the cosmos formed? We should not underestimate the imaginative work needed to conceive that these questions were, in principle, answerable. 

Grosseteste (c.1175–1253) rose from obscure Anglo–Norman origins to become a respected theologian and Bishop of Lincoln. He was one of the first in northern Europe to read the newly translated scientific works of Aristotle, attempting to take forward the big questions of what we can know about the natural world (ontology) and how we know it (epistemology). The late thirteenth-century philosopher Roger Bacon called him “the greatest mathematician” of his time. Grosseteste's work on optical physics influenced mathematicians and natural philosophers for generations, notably in Oxford during the fourteenth century and in Prague during the fifteenth.

The authors provide several examples of Grosseteste's work dealing with science. However, the most interesting one deals with something that looks like an idea for the Big Bang. But I think here we also have to be very careful. Remember, that Grosseteste is working in a geocentric universe - and a universe that is dominated by planets that are visible to the naked eye (separate spheres for Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and yes, the Moon and the Sun). Here is the bit about the Big Bang:

The third remarkable ingredient of De Luce to modern eyes is its universal canvas: it suggests that the same physics of light and matter that explains the solidity of ordinary objects can be applied to the cosmos as a whole. An initial explosion of a primordial sort of light, lux, according to Grosseteste, expands the Universe into an enormous sphere, thinning matter as it goes. This sounds, to a twenty-first-century reader, like the Big Bang. 

Then Grosseteste makes an assumption: matter possesses a minimum density at which it becomes 'perfected' into a sort of crystalline form. Today, we would call this a phase transition. The perfection occurs first at the thinnest outer edge of the cosmos, which crystallizes into the outermost sphere of the medieval cosmos. This perfect matter radiates inward another sort of light, lumen, which is able to push matter by its radiative force, piling it up in front and rarefying it behind. An analogous process in today's physics is the inward propagation of shock waves in a supernova explosion. 

Like a sonata returning to its theme, that finite ratio of infinite sums reappears, this time as a 'quantization condition' — a rule that permits only discrete solutions such as the energy levels in atoms — that limits matter to a finite number of spheres. Grosseteste needed to account for nine perfect spheres in the medieval geocentric cosmos: the 'firmament', the fixed stars, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon. By requiring that the density is doubled in the second sphere and tripled in the third, and so on, a nested set of spheres results. 

In an impressive final stroke of unification, he postulates that towards the centre of the cosmos, the remaining unperfected matter becomes so dense and the inwardly radiating lumen so weak, that no further perfection transitions are possible. He thus accounts for the Aristotelian distinction between the perfect heavens and the imperfect Earth and atmosphere. 

To our knowledge, De Luce is the first worked example showing that a single set of physical laws might account for the very different structures of the heavens and Earth, hundreds of years before Newton's 1687 appeal to gravity to unite the falling of objects on Earth with the orbiting of the Moon. Our translation has also cleared up a misconception in some previous studies that the light in Grosseteste's treatise travelled both inwards and outwards.

This is an interesting work. You can read the Nature article here (you may need subscription to access it). 

Bunch of Postdoctoral Positions in Science & Religion at Coventry University

by Salman Hameed

If you are looking for a postdoctoral position in science & religion, check out this fantastic opportunity at Coventry University. There are also some opportunities for doctoral studies as well. All of this is part of an interesting and promising project. I have worked (and still working) with some of the individuals spearheading the project, and I think this will be a great learning experience for both predocs and postdocs.

Here is the announcement with links to individual positions:

Full-Time, Permanent Research Associate, Three-Year Research Assistant, and PhD Studentship Posts in Social Science and Humanities study of Science and Religion.  

We are looking to recruit four full-time permanent contract postdoctoral research associate posts to work on the 'Clash Narratives in Context: Uncovering the Social and Cultural Drivers of Contemporary Science vs. Religion Debates' project within the newly created University Research Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations. We welcome applications from experienced, enthusiastic and creative humanities and social science early career researchers.  

This large scale multidisciplinary project will build an empirical and theoretical understanding of what social and cultural factors have driven, and are currently driving, the narrative in the public domain that there is a necessary clash between religious belief and belonging and acceptance of evolutionary science. It will employ four intersecting approaches: qualitative social science field research; oral history, historical and media discourse analysis; social psychology experimental research; and a large scale quantitative survey of public perceptions, attitudes and identity formation in the UK and Canada.

 Post 1: Qualitative Social Sciences Research Associate 

Post 2: History, Philosophy or Social Studies of Science Research Associate 

Post 3: Social/Experimental or Psychology Postdoctoral Research Associate 

Post 4: Quantitative social studies Postdoctoral Research Associate  

Closing date: 28^th April 2014Interviews: 6th-9th May 2014 We are looking to recruit an experienced three-year research assistant to assist with the overall delivery, communication and management of the project. 

Post 5: Project Research Assistant  

Closing date: 28^th April 2014Interviews: 6th-9th May 2014  

We are also looking to recruit two PhD studentships exploring contemporary debates surrounding ‘science and religion’ by undertaking relevant research in: 

PhD 1: Social Sciences/Humanities; 

PhD 2: Social/Experimental Psychology.  

Closing date: 25 April 2014.Interviews in May 2014.  

In addition the university will offer two competitive two-year postdoctoral follow on research positions dependent on the successful submission of PhD thesis within three years/by September 2017 to enable successful PhD students to be retained and develop further as early career professionals in this field of research.  

Coventry University will lead this 3-year research project funded by the Templeton Religion Trust in partnership with York University (Canada) and National Life Stories at the British Library and British Science Association. The research team is led by Principal Investigators Dr Fern Elsdon-Baker (Coventry) and Prof. Bernard Lightman (York, Canada), and Co-Investigators Dr Carola Leicht (Coventry) and Dr Rebecca Catto (Coventry). The project will commence 1^st October 2014. 

Applicants should apply online, making explicit reference to how they meet the person specification provided.  Specific questions can be directed to Dr Fern Elsdon-Baker by email only (Fern.Elsdon-Baker@coventry.ac.uk)

Just for giggles, Saudi Arabia considers spreading atheism as an act of terror

by Salman Hameed

Here is the headline from the Independent (and many other news papers and websites): "Saudi Arabia declares all atheists are terrorists in new law to crack down on political dissidents". My immediate thought was that well Saudi Arabia indeed has the potential to pass this kind of law in the 21st century. Heck, women still can't drive there and people have been executed and/or placed on death-row for much less charges (for example, see earlier posts here and here). But on the other hand, newspapers, especially in the UK (but elsewhere as well) are also capable of exaggerating issues concerning Muslims and sensationalizing utterings of any obscure Muslim cleric they can find. So what is the deal here? Well, lets say that both groups (Saudis on one hand, and a sensationphilic media on the other) have stayed true to their form.

Here is how the Independent story started:

Saudi Arabia has introduced a series of new laws which define atheists as terrorists, according to a report from Human Rights Watch.

This - if true is indeed crazy and awful. But this is not true (as accurately pointed out by Mufta's Muftic Musings). A little down the same Independent article, it says this:

Yet last month further regulations were issued by the Saudi interior ministry, identifying a broad list of groups which the government considers to be terrorist organisations - including the Muslim Brotherhood. 

Article one of the new provisions defines terrorism as "calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which this country is based".

Okay - so the headline and the opening lines of the article were clearly an exaggeration, and it is the spreading of atheism that is considered terrorism. Whoa!? I mean exaggeration was quite bad but then equating "calling for atheism" as terrorism isn't exactly the most enlightened of thinking. What kind of a terror does it cause? How many instances of such "terror" have been experienced by Saudi Arabia?

I doubt that there are that many open atheists in Saudi Arabia, let alone those that are "calling for atheism" (though there are some- see an article link below). However, this a throwaway crowd-pleaser to be included in the new provisions, and it gives the authorities one more way to execute dissenters (charges of sorcery have already been used for executions).

While in this instance there is some truth to the headline, use your skeptical goggles for much of the news stories about Muslims these days.

In the mean time, there indeed were couple of news stories about atheism in Egypt and the rest of the Arab world. Here is a BBC news story that covers atheists in Egypt (about 3 minutes in length):


And here is an article from Al-Monitor that includes some quotes from Saudi atheists, Gulf Atheism in the Age of Social Media. The article does cite a poll on religion/atheism, but I don't know its reliability (even though it's name is Gallup - it is not the same as Gallup poll):

Although accurate figures on the number of atheists in the Gulf are nearly impossible to come by, a 2012 poll by WIN-Gallup International titled “Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism” published a surprising number of self-professed Saudi atheists. The researchers found that up to 5% of the Saudi respondents declared themselves to be atheist, a figure comparable to the United States and parts of Europe.

I would go with Pew survey results that show a high level of religiosity (Saudi Arabia was not included in the Pew survey, but I can imagine that it would be in the way upper 90s). This does't mean that there are no atheists - but that those that are willing to say so in anonymous polls are still negligibly small in most of the Arab world (Egypt is at 100% - even though we know that there are vocal atheists there):

You can find the Pew Forum report here.