Originally Published in USA Today Two gunmen opened fire in Garland, Texas, Sunday, outside an event hosted by the American Freedom Defense Initiative. Cartoons of Mohammed were displayed. As a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, I condemn the attacks wholeheartedly. The prophet in his lifetime repeatedly tolerated such abuse. However, the actions that provoked this atrocity also need to be...
Originally Published in The Austin Chronicle Dear Editor, The shooting outside an event in Garland where people were asked to draw cartoons of Prophet Muhammad should be condemned by all. Islam does not condone any punishment for blasphemy. In fact, during the Prophet Muhammad’s life, people hurled all kinds of abuse at him yet he bore it with patience and forgave them all. Those who act against...
Originally Published in the Star Tribune The inflammatory comments made by Big Stone County Republican Party chairman Jack Whitley, and the subsequent developments, made me, as an American Muslim, appreciate how fortunate I am to reside in this country (“FB posts cost GOP boss day job,” Nov. 25). From the action taken by business owners Bob and Sue Kulbeik to stand up against bigotry, to the...
Originally published in Religion News Service (RNS) Sentenced for professing his atheism, Alexander Aan was recently released after 18 months in an Indonesian prison. Masood Ahmad has already served over two months in a Pakistani prison for reading the Quran as an Ahmadi Muslim. Pastor Saeed Abedini languishes in an Iranian prison for preaching Christianity. They are but a sliver of the...
Originally Published in the Dailyherald.com Living in this beautiful country grants us freedom. But unfortunately, the land of the free isn’t free of horrific tragedies. The senseless and brutal killings of innocent people at the elementary school in Connecticut has shocked and saddened the entire nation. The lone gunman took his own life after taking 26 others, that included 20...
Originally published in Cincinatti.com Originally published in Cincinatti.com On Sunday I saw some pictures of the Sandy Hook Elementary victims. The thought of the killer shooting at these little angels multiple times brings me devastating grief. I cannot imagine what must have been their last thought. No religion promotes such barbaric acts. I am glad that the killer’s religion—if he even had...
Originally published in The DailyHerald.com Pamela Geller has tactlessly taken constitutionally protected “free speech” to a whole new level of offense. She has put thousands of dollars into ads offensive toward minority religious groups on CTA buses in Chicago. Whatever her intentions, Islam teaches that the best response is to condemn Geller’s hateful message and respond with...
Originally Published in The Richmond Times-Dispatch Being the exception is a good thing, right? Maybe not, if you’re Pakistan. Christians have endured persecution for so long in Pakistan that it may rightly be considered commonplace. Therefore, I had little hope for a pending case against Rimsha Masih — a 14-year-old Christian girl, who is also mentally ill, charged with allegedly burning the...
Originally Published on HartfordFavs.com “Anything you can do, I can do better. I can do anything better than you. No, you can’t. Yes, I can. No, you can’t. Yes, I can…” Though only some know the Broadway musical to which these charmingly obnoxious lyrics belong, all of us are undeniably accustomed to such immature vanity. The real life repercussions of this age-old feud...
Originally Published in TheNorthwestern.com Here we go again. Pamela Geller is at her best one more time, this time taking her hate campaign to Chicago’s CTA buses. I agree with her in that “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.” The point of contention is about who here is civilized? After millions of years of evolution is this how we define...