Stephen Suleyman Schwartz
| Stephen Suleyman Schwartz | |
|---|---|
 Stephen Suleyman Schwartz in 2013. | |
| Born |
September 9, 1948 Columbus, Ohio, U.S. |
| Occupation | Journalist, writer |
| Religion | Islam-Hanafi, Sufism[1] |
Stephen Suleyman Schwartz (born September 9, 1948) is an American Sufi[1] journalist, columnist, and author. He has been published in a variety of media, including The Wall Street Journal.[2] He is the founder and executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Islamic Pluralism. In 2011–2012 he was a member of Folks Magazine's Editorial Board.[3]
He has been an adherent of the Hanafi school of Islam since 1997.[1] His criticism of Islamic Fundamentalism, especially the Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam, has attracted controversy.
Early life
Schwartz was born in Columbus, Ohio to Horace Schwartz, a Jewish independent bookseller. His mother, the daughter of a Protestant preacher, was a career social services worker. Schwartz later described both of his parents as "radical leftists and quite antireligious",[4] his father a "fellow traveller", his mother a member of the Communist Party. He was baptized in the Presbyterian church as an infant.[4]
The family moved to San Francisco when he was young, where his father Horace became a literary agent.[5] At Lowell High School[5] Schwartz made his first serious writing attempts, focusing initially on poetry.[6] He became affiliated with Leninist communism until 1984.[4]
Labor activism and literary career
After college, Schwartz became a member and officer in the Sailors' Union of the Pacific, as well as an employee of locals affiliated with the AFL-CIO. Among others, he founded a small semi-Trotskyist group FOCUS.[7] In 1985, the S.U.P. commissioned Schwartz to write Brotherhood of the Sea: A History of the Sailors' Union of the Pacific as part of its of 100th anniversary commemoration.
In the 1990s, Schwartz spent a decade as a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. He was a member of the local union at the Chronicle, a branch of the Newspaper Guild.
At the end of 1997, he converted to Islam.[4] In 1999, Schwartz left the Chronicle, and moved to Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he lived for the next 18 months.[8]
Schwartz supported the Iraq War.[9]
On March 25, 2005, Schwartz launched the Center for Islamic Pluralism. The Center is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., with Schwartz as executive director.
Published works
Books
- A Sleepwalker’s Guide to San Francisco: Poems from Three Lustra, 1966–1981. San Francisco: La Santa Espina, 1983.
- Brotherhood of the Sea: A History of the Sailors’ Union of the Pacific. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1986. ISBN 0-88738-121-9.
- Spanish Marxism vs. Soviet Communism: A History of the P.O.U.M (with Victor Alba). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1988. ISBN 0-88738-198-7.
- A Strange Silence: The Emergence of Democracy in Nicaragua. San Francisco: ICS Press, 1992. ISBN 1-55815-071-4.
- From West to East: California and the Making of the American Mind. New York: The Free Press, 1998. ISBN 0-684-83134-1.
- Kosovo: Background to a War. London: Anthem Press, 2000. ISBN 1-898855-56-0
- Intellectuals and Assassins: Writings at the End of Soviet Communism. New York: Anthem Press, 2001. ISBN 1-898855-55-2.
- The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror. New York: Doubleday, 2002. ISBN 0-385-50692-9.[10]
- An Activist's Guide to Arab and Muslim Campus and Community Organizations in North America Los Angeles: Center for the Study of Popular Culture, 2003 ISBN 9781886442344
- Sarajevo Rose: A Balkan Jewish Notebook. London: Saqi Books, 2005. ISBN 0-86356-592-1.
- Is It Good for the Jews?: The Crisis of America's Israel Lobby. New York: Doubleday, 2006. ISBN 0-385-51025-X.
- The Other Islam: Sufism and the Road to Global Harmony. New York: Doubleday, 2008. ISBN 0-385-51819-6.
Articles
- "The Universe As Seen From North Beach". SF Chronicle August 17, 1997
- "Defeating Wahhabism". FrontPage Magazine, October 25, 2002.
- "A Different Kind of Filial Piety". Wall Street Journal, February 10, 1999.
- "Ground Zero and the Saudi Connection". The Spectator, September 22, 2001.
- "Spanish Revision". The Weekly Standard, June 1, 2009.
See also
Notes and references
- 1 2 3 "About Us". Center for Islamic Pluralism.
- ↑ E.g., see Schwartz's Intellectuals and Assassins (2001).
- ↑ Magazine, Folks. "Folks Magazine". Retrieved 28 August 2011.
- 1 2 3 4 Schwartz, Stephen (2007-02-19). "Why I Chose Islam Instead of Judaism". Jewcy. Retrieved 2014-12-27.
- 1 2 Reidel, James (2002). "Ex-Libris Weldon Kees". The Cortland Review (Fall 2002).
- ↑ Schwartz, Stephen (2003-02-20). "Remembering an SLA Terrorist". FrontPage Magazine. Retrieved 2014-12-27.
- ↑ Alexander, Robert International Trotskyism: a documented analysis of the world movement Durham, Duke University Press 1991 p. 943
- ↑ Schwartz, Stephen. "Behind the Balkan Curtain". San Francisco Faith, May 2000.
- ↑ Bacon, Katie. "The Real Islam". The Atlantic. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
- ↑ Note: The subtitle on the paperback version was changed to Saudi Fundamentalism and Its Role in Terrorism.
External links
- Interviews
- Q&A with Schwartz from National Review Online
- Booknotes interview with Schwartz on The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror, February 2, 2003.
- Stephen Schwartz: Eternally with Albanians from Telegrafi.com