{"id":124,"date":"2008-11-21T21:38:34","date_gmt":"2008-11-21T21:38:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2008\/11\/mikael-jackson-ya-wanna-be-sta.html"},"modified":"2008-11-21T21:38:34","modified_gmt":"2008-11-21T21:38:34","slug":"mikael-jackson-ya-wanna-be-sta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/11\/mikael-jackson-ya-wanna-be-sta.html","title":{"rendered":"Mikael Jackson: Ya Wanna Be Starting Something"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m not particularly keen to judge another man&#8217;s faith, so I pass no judgement on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/sol\/homepage\/showbiz\/bizarre\/article1954666.ece\">Michael Jackson&#8217;s conversion to Islam<\/a>. However, I will note that Islam is big enough to contain me and Jackson within itself. <\/p>\n<p>Check out <a href=\"http:\/\/talkislam.info\/2008\/11\/21\/after-years-decades-of-being-an-urban\/\">the discussion about Jackson&#8217;s conversion<\/a> at Talk Islam.<\/p>\n<p>UPDATE (2\/13\/09): <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/gossip\/2008\/11\/24\/2008-11-24_michael_jackson_and_prince_of_bahrain_se.html\">Jackson&#8217;s lawyer denies it<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m not particularly keen to judge another man&#8217;s faith, so I pass no judgement on Michael Jackson&#8217;s conversion to Islam. However, I will note that Islam is big enough to contain me and Jackson within itself. Check out the discussion about Jackson&#8217;s conversion at Talk Islam. UPDATE (2\/13\/09): Jackson&#8217;s lawyer denies it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[54],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-islamerica","tag-religious-freedom"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mikael Jackson: Ya Wanna Be Starting Something - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mikael Jackson: Ya Wanna Be Starting Something - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#8217;m not particularly keen to judge another man&#8217;s faith, so I pass no judgement on Michael Jackson&#8217;s conversion to Islam. However, I will note that Islam is big enough to contain me and Jackson within itself. Check out the discussion about Jackson&#8217;s conversion at Talk Islam. UPDATE (2\/13\/09): Jackson&#8217;s lawyer denies it.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/11\/mikael-jackson-ya-wanna-be-sta.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-11-21T21:38:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mikael Jackson: Ya Wanna Be Starting Something - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mikael Jackson: Ya Wanna Be Starting Something - City of Brass","og_description":"I&#8217;m not particularly keen to judge another man&#8217;s faith, so I pass no judgement on Michael Jackson&#8217;s conversion to Islam. However, I will note that Islam is big enough to contain me and Jackson within itself. Check out the discussion about Jackson&#8217;s conversion at Talk Islam. UPDATE (2\/13\/09): Jackson&#8217;s lawyer denies it.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/11\/mikael-jackson-ya-wanna-be-sta.html","og_site_name":"City of Brass","article_published_time":"2008-11-21T21:38:34+00:00","author":"Aziz Poonawalla","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/11\/mikael-jackson-ya-wanna-be-sta.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/11\/mikael-jackson-ya-wanna-be-sta.html","name":"Mikael Jackson: Ya Wanna Be Starting Something - City of Brass","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-11-21T21:38:34+00:00","dateModified":"2008-11-21T21:38:34+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/11\/mikael-jackson-ya-wanna-be-sta.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/11\/mikael-jackson-ya-wanna-be-sta.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/11\/mikael-jackson-ya-wanna-be-sta.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Mikael Jackson: Ya Wanna Be Starting Something"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/","name":"City of Brass","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Aziz Poonawalla","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb","name":"Aziz Poonawalla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","caption":"Aziz Poonawalla"},"description":"Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}