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AuthorAhmed Khan

Ahmed Khan received his BSc in Computer Science from University of Maryland Baltimore County and works as an IT Consultant in Oshkosh. He has published in various local and state newspapers and is an active member of the Muslim Writers Guild of America.

A Country Where Selling Books Is an Act of Terrorism

Originally Published in The Huffington Post  Imagine a local bookseller in the United States being arrested by the federal government in his own bookstore and being charged with a federal crime. His crime: the sale of books deemed hurtful or hateful to another religious group’s beliefs. His punishment: eight years in prison. Any American would find this unbelievable and absurd for something...

Muslims Are the Biggest Allies Against Groups Like ISIS

Originally posted in The Huffington Post President Jerry Falwell Jr. of Liberty University is not doing himself any favors by spewing ambiguously dangerous statements that promote the killing of Muslims. It is the most reckless type of demagoguery that can lead to further endangering or loss of more innocent lives. Instead he should have just focused on the fourteen lives that were taken in the...

Fighting Arguments With Arguments, Not Violence

Usama Dakdok is no Pamela Geller but he creates an equally ravenous appetite for anti-Islamic hatred. His Islamophobic rants spare no comments to disrespect Prophet Muhammad and Islam in general. His opinion is heard by anyone who would like to perpetuate hatred towards Islam within their community. Neither him nor his ilk, like Pamela Geller, are ever deserving of violence though. Their free...

ISIS antithetical to Islam’s notion of peace and governance

Originally published in Journal Sentinel Two terms used in the media today in conjunction with each other are ISIS and “Caliphate.” The former is the acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, an extremist militant group waging a territorial war in that region; the latter is a divinely guided spiritual leadership from the perspective of Islam. These two things cannot possibly...

Islam upholds education for men and women

Originally published in The Northwestern What makes me furious today is that whenever a Muslim extremist group wants to push a personal political agenda anywhere in the world, it is at the cost of human suffering and the unjustifiable use of the name of Islam. This time, it is 276 Nigerian school girls who have been kidnapped by Boko Haram (a banned terrorist group). As a father of a daughter, I...

Peace must never be compromised

Originally published in The NorthWestern If you look at the headlines of any newspaper today, you will notice at least one of them being about Russia. President Putin – current Russian incumbent – has become the center of western vilification because of his approval and decision to allow for the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine into Russia without any legal recourse. But no one, neither from the...

Ending prejudices key to stopping racial inequality

Originally published in The Northwestern The Richard Sherman — current cornerback for the Seattle Seahawks — saga was a complete portrayal by the media through the looking glass of Twitter and other social outlets. The excoriation that he received from them labeled him as a thug, a racially biased stereotype of the persona of an angry black man. In his words he described the use of the word...

Former execs tweet reminder to use free speech responsibly

Originally Published in The Northwestern Imagine going on a 12-hour flight not knowing that one of your tweets has gone viral, and when you reach your destination, you find out you have lost your high-profile job because of it. This actually happened to a PR executive of the IAC Media Company who had tweeted a very casual, racist remark. People not being careful of what they say and recognizing...

How to thwart a war on Christmas

Originally Published in the Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel One of my favorite lines from Edwin Starr’s 1970 song “War” is “War, huh, yeah. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.” It resonated with the people of the time because no war is ever a good war and it is not good for anyone who experiences it. Recently, I have been hearing a lot of buzz that there is...

Mandela’s legacy is freedom and tolerance

Originally published in the Northwestern What do Ted Cruz, Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Oprah Winfrey, Chris Rock, and Bono all have in common? They all supported the late Mr. Nelson Mandela in one way or another sometime during their life. It’s strange to know that such a motley crew would appreciate Mandela but to me his biggest ideals were equal rights irrespective of race, sex, religious...