Blast-Off

This Salon article by Steve Paulson titled, “The Religious State Of Islamic Science” begins:

In October, Malaysia’s first astronaut will join a Russian crew and blast off into space. The news of a Muslim astronaut was cause for celebration in the Islamic world, but then certain questions started popping up. How will he face Mecca during his five daily prayers while his space ship is whizzing around the Earth? How can he hold the prayer position in zero gravity? Such concerns may sound absurd to us, but the Malaysian space chief is taking them quite seriously. A team of Muslim scholars and scientists has spent more than a year drawing up an Islamic code of conduct for space travel.

Which, at least to me, strongly implies that Malaysia’s first astronaut is also Islam’s first astronaut. But Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who went up on a Space Shuttle mission in 1985, and at least according to Wikipedia (I think they’re actually correct on this one, for a change) was the first Muslim in space. And the Iranian-American Anousheh Ansari is also Muslim, at least according to my intensive research efforts (i.e., a few minutes of Googling).

Paulson’s introductory paragraph appears tacked on, possibly at the editor’s request, to make his interview (which is pretty fascinating stuff) with Taner Edis, the author of An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam a bit more timely. I’m not sure why it doesn’t mention the previous two Islamic astronauts, though.

Update: While I mainly focused on the article’s lead, Ace gives it one hit to the body:

Hey, Christian conservatives? You want to win your creationism cases? Start bringing in Muslim creationists. And watch your liberal opponents suddenly finding it much more plausible that God — or, rather, Allah — created the earth, the animals, and humans directly.

To paraphrase a prominent resident of Springfield, It’s depressing because it’s true.