Originally published in The News and Observer In the wake of the despicable terrorist act at the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo and the Kosher supermarket in France, a lot of questions are being asked about the tolerance and peaceful nature of the followers of Islam. Studying the Quran and the prophet Muhammad’s life, however, it becomes abundantly clear that this barbaric act is against the true...
Originally Published on Faithstreet.com I will readily admit that a look at Muslim nations today paints a rather bleak picture. Some have spiraled into chaos, while others are choking under the pale of dysfunction and directionless, corrupt leadership. Extremism, violence, and intolerance seem unstoppable. Further exacerbating this perilous state of affairs are biased mouthpieces of Islamophobia...
Originally published in The Express Tribune Mr Abbasi stated that judging someone’s faith – whether they were Muslim or not, and how ‘true’ of a Muslim they were – was a prerogative of God alone. Human beings must not judge others, or at least not punish and hurt others based on their own judgment. This is a very simple concept. But in Pakistan, where narrow-minded intolerant religious scholars...
Originally Posted in the Hudson Hub Times As ISIS continues to gain ground in Syria, the Muslim world and the entire world at large must look for examples of peaceful Muslims. There is no better example than the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community which is led by Hadhrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad. Recently, Ahmad went to the Dutch Parliament explaining ways that both the West and Muslim-majority governments can...
Originally published in The Austin American Statesman The news of 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed being arrested in Irving for bringing a homemade clock to school is disturbing on many levels. The fact that he showed it to his teachers as an accomplishment should have vouched for the fact that it wasn’t mischief. It is equally as disturbing that when it was clearly established to be a clock, the teen...
Originally published in Courier Post As a Muslim-American, I welcome Pope Francis to America. Pope Francis’ attitude towards Islam — from praying in the Blue Mosque of Istanbul facing Mecca to his comment, “Authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Quran are opposed to every form of violence” — is refreshing and encouraging. With rising Islamophobia in America and with GOP presidential...
Originally published in The Huffington Post Dear daughter, Next month I’ll become a father for the first time to a girl. You will be my daughter. Your mother and I are blessed with two boys already, and we are thrilled to finally have the blessing of a girl in our home. But, my dear, as I look around the world I see a frightening reality. One in which women are valued less than men...
Originally published in Patheos Experience has shown that many natural phenomenon or processes are initially discovered with limited understanding or benefit to society. However, with pain staking effort and unbiased approach to the phenomenon, many of the unknown qualities that were initially observed as bad turn out to be good upon further examination. A case in point is the annotation of human...
Originally published in The Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette After suffering grueling punishment for 13 long years in Mecca, Prophet Muhammad and his small band of believers had reached their Promised Land, Medina. There, the majority chose the prophet as their ruler. Prophet Muhammad gave them a constitution that would grant freedom of religion and equal rights to all its citizens —...
Originally published in The Pak Tea House In Part 1 of this article published here on Pak Tea House on the 15th of September, 2015, I wrote about how the 1974 Second Amendment to Pakistan’s constitution declaring Ahmadis as non-Muslim reveals a miscarriage of due process in the proceedings. I closed Part 1 by quoting Dr. Mubashir Hassan who said the 1974 event was politically motivated and...