Originally Published in The Finger Lakes Times My buddy Joseph, whose father’s name is also Joseph, just had a baby. The baby’s name is Joseph. For some unfathomable reason, when the baby’s name was being chosen, “Sardar Anees” wasn’t on the table. Names aside, everyone will agree that a child’s birth ushers in a great deal of happiness – and anxiety. The...
Originally Published in The Washington Post As an American Muslim activist, I receive this question all too often: “America is about freedom, free speech, and democracy—why do Muslims hate us?” The question is not at all why they hate us, but why don’t we get it. Many of age Americans remember Sept. 11, 2001—a day we justly cried out for freedom, free speech, and democracy. Fewer, however...
Originally Published in The Express Tribune and The Huffington Post Sir, it was 1995, North Medical Ward of Pakistan’s Mayo Hospital, where you famously said in your English-Punjabi accent, “Putter ji, batti uthay balo, jithay hanaira howay” (Son, light a candle where it’s dark). You didn’t want your students to go abroad after completing medical school. You wondered...
Originally Published in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel I have a favorite line from a poem, Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” Our nation needs to work together to fight intolerance regardless of how difficult it is because it will make the difference to...
Originally Published in The Oshkosh Northwestern Last week a despicable movie was released on youtube as a cheap publicity stunt. Following that we saw an array of wonderful trailers of the movie from around the world. We saw trailers of the movie in Egypt, Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, India, Australia, and Libya. In Libya the promoters of the movie really outdid themselves where they killed the...
Originally Published in The Santa Clarita Valley Signal Eleven years after the most horrific terrorist event of our generation shook us to our core, the long shadow of 9/11 still casts a terrible pall on the world. Recent events have shown how fringe elements, such as a film producer looking to libel a religion, can rile up misguided and extremist mobs in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere. The work of...
Originally Published in The Washington Post As with many of you, my Twitter feed spiked Wednesday with tweets about an anti-Islam film and ensuing murder of U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens. Moments later and likewise, posts demanding an unequivocal condemnation from American Muslims flooded my Facebook. Though it astounds me that some hold Muslim Americans accountable on behalf of...
Originally Published in The Washington Post “You don’t have to do this! You shouldn’t have to. It’s a disgrace.” At the height of the 2010 Park 51 “Ground Zero Mosque” controversies, I, along with thousands of Muslim American youth nationwide, was engrossed in a massive “Muslims for Peace” flyer distribution. Days before the ninth anniversary of Sept. 11, I met my match at a Wisconsin State Fair...
Originally Posted on PakTeaHouse More than 40,000 civilians and 5,000 soldiers dead at the hands of religious fanatics leaves every Pakistani guessing – where did we go wrong? Can we point out any single day in our 65 year history which symbolizes our collective decision to surrender to the Mullah? Thirty eight years ago, on 7th of September 1974, the Parliament of Pakistan brazenly...
Originally Published in The Washington Post and The Huffington Post The straw man of the famous post-Sept. 11 slogan, “Not every Muslim is a terrorist but every terrorist is a Muslim” was debunked by a 2005 FBI report. It showed that only 6 percent of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil from 1980 to 2005 were carried out by extremists calling themselves Muslims. But one group has sustained the...