Originally Published in The Express Tribune I was putting my shoes on, leaving for my evening prayers, when my phone buzzed with a text: “Saw a CNN byline linking ‘Night of Power’ to the recent terror alert. Talk of sensationalism.” You know how it goes. The story was largely accurate – prompted by fears of a terrorist attack, in an unprecedented move on Sunday; the US closed 21 embassies across...
Originally Published in The Washington Post This is the story of two Washington Iftar dinners. First, the Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren invited Muslim leaders to a diplomatic Iftardinner last week and Imam Antepli of Duke University wondered aloud if the event was meaningful. And then the Obama administration invited Muslim leaders to the White House Iftar dinner and Omid Saifi, the Islamic...
Originally Posted in The Express Tribune Reading such knock-knock jokes on the last page of The Lahore is one of my fondest memories of growing up in Lahore. At the age of ten, honestly, I could not comprehend the literary, cultural and political content of the magazine. So of course, I was surprised to read that such an innocuous magazine was able to “offend” the clergy class in Pakistan. For...
Originally Published in The Christian Science Monitor We have seen the pictures of the Tsarnaev brothers. We know their names, and we are learning facts about their lives – one a boxer, and the other a student. But we still don’t really know their identity. And neither did the brothers, as they allegedly planted those bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathonlast week. Or at least, that’s...
Originally published in The Sun Opinion and Inland Valley Daily Bulletin Can Muslims celebrate Thanksgiving? Of course they can! Muslims should celebrate Thanksgiving because it’s all about being thankful to God and that is what Islam is all about. As Muslims, we are taught that God blesses us all the time — indeed, every breath we take is a gift from God — and so we should be grateful to God...
Originally published in The Huffington Post As this brown, bearded Muslim was getting ready to pick up his Thanksgiving turkey order from a local Boston Market, news broke of racist graffiti in New York city. Gap had recently launched a holiday ad campaign featuring diverse models. One such ad showcasing the famous designer and actor Waris Ahluwalia, a Sikh American, had been vandalized, its...
Originally published in The Huffington Post As the freezing winds pierced through Washington DC this past weekend, Tehran warmed up to a nuclear peace deal. Since you may have gotten an earful about the three decades of US-Iranian diplomatic quagmire, the two decades of Israeli-Iranian mien of ancient warriors, and a decade old label of “Axis of evil,” I won’t dwell over it...
Originally published in Rochester Hills Patch Why must everyone continue to take one side, and ignore the innocent lives that are lost on the other? Blood has long stained the land of Palestine. But at home, we see something different. Sympathy for the Palestinian people is rare—the bias cannot be overlooked. A recent poll done by CNN shows that only one out of every four Americans gives support...
Originally published in the Pak Tea House With the death of anti-Pakistan outlaw Hakimullah Mehsud, our right-wing anchors and politicians have begun howling foul and have termed his killing as ‘murder of peace’. As head of TTP, Mehsud had taken responsibility for (i) the attacks on Mehran naval base, (ii) the killing of Pakistan army officers and soldiers, and (iii)...
Originally Published in the Express Tribune Blog Though Malala survived the Taliban’s bullets last year, she is now again under attack in Pakistan by the very same ideology. They attacked her physically then, and now they are out to get her soul. Right-wing anchors and self-proclaimed intellectuals have taken to disrepute her book by claiming that it reeks of a...