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...
Originally published in Time News The fiasco continues. Islamophobes are fabricating the myth that Islam promotes Jew-hatred by taking out ads on D.C. buses. Take a look at the ad, linked above—does anyone else find it insane that these ignorant people are spending money promoting pictures of Adolf Hitler? Now, certainly some Muslims are anti-Jewish, as are some Christians, agnostics...
Originally published in The Daily Bulletin After the death and resurrection of Jesus (peace be upon him) as believed by Christians, nothing is closer to their heart or more central to their belief than his long-awaited second coming. Biblical prophecies about the second coming have been debated by Christian scholars for centuries. When Jesus failed to reappear at the dawn of the second...
Originally published in The Washington Post On May 21, the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York is scheduled to release “The Rise of Al Qaeda,” a seven-minute film telling the story of the attacks. Full disclosure: I have not watched the film. But last week, The New York Times reported how American Muslims were concerned that the film uses words such as “Islamist” and “jihadist,”...
Originally published in Santa Barbara Independent He wore a red bandana. Despite seeing the blood of those dying around him, he decided to go back into the smoky building. Despite the noise of the stricken building, his soothing voice calmed the injured. Despite being just a young 24-year-old among fleeing civilians, he was found buried among firefighters, emergency personnel, and other heroes...
Originally published in the Orange County Register Boko Haram is another example of a terrorist organization spitting in the face of the religion it tries to represent. The abduction and imprisonment of innocent girls misrepresents Islam. The group’s actions are a blatant violation of the Qur’anic injunction: “O ye who believe! It is not lawful for you to inherit women against their will; nor...
Originally published in USA Today and Indianapolis Star The world has been gripped by the deplorable story evolving in Nigeria about the mass abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls between the ages of 16 and 18. Their “crime” was simply that they were girls and had the audacity to seek an education. Meet Boko Haram, the name most commonly used to refer to a sadistic terrorist...
Originally published in Time News The fiasco continues. Islamophobes are fabricating the myth that Islam promotes Jew-hatred by taking out ads on D.C. buses. Take a look at the ad, linked above—does anyone else find it insane that these ignorant people are spending money promoting pictures of Adolf Hitler? Now, certainly some Muslims are anti-Jewish, as are some Christians, agnostics...
Originally published in Fox News I was invited to appear alongside Dinesh D’Souza as a guest on Fox News’ “The Kelly File” on Tuesday night, May 13, to answer the question of why many Muslims and non-Muslims have taken issue with the film “Rise of Al Qaeda,” which is set to air within the new National September 11 Memorial Museum in New York City. Museum officials screened the...
Originally published in The Huffington Post When the news broke that over 200 girls had been abducted by Boko Haram, I was prepared for some Islamophobic rhetoric from the Spencer/Gellar ilk. What I was not expecting were Pulitzer prize winners like Leonard Pitts, even for once, falling for the sensational “extremist Islam is scared of little girls” narrative. It’s not Islam but...