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 Express Tribune I was born in 1982, in the beautiful American city of San Jose, California. A proud patriotic Muslim American, my dad would decorate our house with lights every Fourth of July. Fast forward to the year 2001, when I got admitted to one of America’s top medical schools – the Harvard Medical School in Boston. Moving from San Jose was hard. I stayed in the...
Originally Published in The Santa Barbara Independent About 85 years ago, a man was brought into the world who forever challenged racism in America. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of creating a racism-free America has since challenged racial inequality in various ways. But even before the advent of Dr. King, Prophet Muhammad of Islam challenged racism in the world 1,500 years ago...
Originally published in The Daily Caller Some 1400 years ago the unjust Meccan government criminalized the Qur’an. They arrested, beat, and murdered those who insisted on reading it. Today, another unjust government has criminalized the Qur’an and once again, those who insist on reading it are arrested, beaten, and murdered. Today, as Dr. Masood Ahmad sits in prison for the crime of reading the...
Originally published in The Huffington Post Last week, the Grand Mufti of Kyrgyzstan was forced to resign amidst allegations of adultery with a woman he says is his second wife. He claimed he had the proper Islamic marriage ceremony with her, but since Article 153 of Kyrgyzstan’s criminal code forbids polygamy, this woman could not have legally been a second wife. Thus came allegations of...
Originally published in The Daily Star I was born in Pakistan, a few months before the war which resulted in the creation of Bangladesh on December 16, 1971. And it was only after I moved to the US that I recognised the magnitude of human rights abuses the Pakistani army committed against their Bengali “brothers and sisters in faith.” So now, whenever I come across a Bengali in the...
Originally Published in Daily Bulletin My column last month entitled “Focus on God should not be split” generated a few letters in response. You can read my Dec. column here. One letter came from Mr. George C. in Ontario and another from Mr. Tom V. in Chino Hills. Thank you both for your letters — I always welcome them. And while Tom wrote a polite two-page letter quoting many Bible verses to...
Originally Published in Faith Street We’ve all heard the story of Pakistan’s most courageous teen—Aitzaz Hasan—who stopped a suicide bomber before he killed hundreds. Aitzaz could have run and saved his own life. He could have pretended it wasn’t his responsibility. He could have been selfish. But instead Aitzaz gave his life to save countless more. And as a result, Pakistan and Muslims worldwide...
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...
Originally published in the Santa Barbara Independent I know what you are thinking:”Happy holidays” is just an in inclusive way for non-Christians to say “Merry Christmas,” particularly when Chanukah was celebrated earlier this year. Muslims don’t celebrate Christmas, right? Au contraire, mon frère, Muslims may not celebrate Christmas, but Muslims do commemorate and honor Jesus Christ and...