CategoryOp-eds

Will Mainstream Media Speak for the Voiceless

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The last counsel by the Holy Prophet (pbuh) right before his passing away was for Muslims to guard against violating the rights of women and the slaves. In the Islam Republic of Pakistan today, that should have automatically meant that the rights of vulnerable and weak are safeguarded zealously. Instead, a declaration of war seems to have been made against the dispossessed and the powerless –...

My Legal Journey From Muslim to Non-Muslim and Back

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Originally Posted on PakTeaHouse I was born a Muslim. Until the second amendment was passed in Pakistan’s constitution in 1974, I remained a legal Muslim.  I was very young when this happened, too young to remember it well. Hence, I did not have the opportunity to carry out and observe Islam’s practices before I was declared non-Muslim by State and before these practices were banned on me. I...

How Pakistan got boxed into religion

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Originally Published in The Express Tribune The National Database and Registration Authority’s (NADRA) refusal to change MPA Rana Mahmood’s religion from “Islam” to “Christianity” has many boxed in. A plethora of questions have arisen. Is this a human rights violation? Will Mahmood be considered an apostate if his records were to reflect that he left Islam? How can you change someone’s faith with...

Mango Juice Ban Symbolizes Injustice

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Originally Published in Al-Bayan: The Muslim Student Publication At The University Of California, Berkeley What if I told you the American Bar Association banned Pepsi from court vendors because it is produced by Christians. You’d probably be dismayed by the irony of injustice perpetrated by an institution of justice, right? Well so was I, friends, when I heard the Lahore Bar Association in...

Interfaith Inclusion – an Islamic tenet

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Originally Published in Al-Bayan Some may disagree with this article’s title. As non-Muslims face religious persecution in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran, some rightly ask whether Islam can cultivate interfaith inclusion. Just recently, Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti called for the destruction of all churches in the Arabian Peninsula. If this heinous act is carried out, it would...

Five reasons to stop questioning the president’s faith

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I thought the question was so absurd to begin with, that it would go away on its own. I was wrong. Four years later, that absurd question, “Do you think Barack Obama is a Muslim?” keeps nagging the American psyche in national and regional polls – despite ample data to the contrary. In 2009, a Pew Research Center poll showed that one in ten Americans believed President Obama was a Muslim;...

Pastor Nadarkhani, Islam and Punishment for Apostasy

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Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani is currently on death row in Iran for the “crime” of converting to Christianity from Islam. The charges of his initial arrest in 2009 were for protesting, which were later changed to apostasy and evangelism. In Sept. 2010, an Iranian court verbally delivered a death sentence, which was then delivered in writing a month later by the 1st Court of the...

Do I have the right to remain Ahmadi?

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Originally Published in The Express Tribune In 1966, nearly 180 million people in the US received Miranda rights – the right to remain silent to avoid self-incrimination. Half a century later, a religious community in Pakistan, another country of nearly 180 million people, is facing a rather caustic version of the Miranda rights. They don’t have the right, but a duty, to remain silent. The...

Lowe’s: ‘Let’s Build a Prejudiced America?’

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Originally Published in The Record The world’s second largest hardware chain, Lowe’s, is ranked among the Top 50 corporations in America. Its website proudly displays the slogan “Let’s Build Something Together.” However, the company’s recent actions suggest that this togetherness might not include Muslim-Americans. The company recently pulled its ads from a...

An Ahmadi Muslim’s Plea: Be My Voice

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Religious freedom (or the lack thereof) in Pakistan cannot be emphasized enough. Due to the preposterous demeanor of Pakistan’s self-righteous right-wing, many in the world today are aware of Pakistan’s notorious blasphemy problem. Much frustration has been expressed on liberal Pakistani blogs and through international media outlets — especially after the heartless murders of...