Originally Published in the Dailyherald.com Living in this beautiful country grants us freedom. But unfortunately, the land of the free isn’t free of horrific tragedies. The senseless and brutal killings of innocent people at the elementary school in Connecticut has shocked and saddened the entire nation. The lone gunman took his own life after taking 26 others, that included 20...
Originally published in MyCentralJersey The thought that I could have been at that New York City subway station on Dec. 30 terrifies me. I am a 15-year-old Pakistani-American, just the reason I could have been dead. I love this country in every way. Lately, I have been noticing that a lot of people have been expressing their hate for other American communities and nothing is being done to...
Originally Published in The Patriot News As I walked into the New York subway, I read an ad on the wall that quoted the Quran “Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers” with a picture of the Twin Towers burning beside it. Had the Al-Qaeda taken over? No, rather, this was an Islamophobic hate ad. America was founded on religious freedom for all, yet recently in a...
Originally Published in Montgomery News and Phillyburbs.com What is the best way to achieve world peace? With President Obama’s inauguration ceremony right around the corner, scholars will propose what the president should do, indirectly answering the question above. As a Muslim-American, I want to first congratulate the president on his re-election and pray that he will lead the nation...
Originally Published in WashingtonPost.com & HuffiingtonPost.com Let me guess: A flu-like illness afflicted you or someone you know in the past two weeks. What else would you expect? CDC is now reportingwidespread Influenza (flu) activity in more than 41 states. Since the virus infects blacks and whites, gays and straight, Christians and Muslims — indiscriminately — it kills...
Originally Published in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette As we prepare to re-inaugurate President Barack Obama, let us remember that the majority voted back into office a Nobel Peace laureate who worked in the last four years to bring together members of all faiths on common grounds. For example, as a Muslim-American, I was heartened to see that in 2009 the president, a devout Christian, spoke to the...
Originally published in The Syracuse Post-Standard An innocent Hindu man was pushed in front of a subway because he was mistaken to be a Muslim (the alleged assailant presumably did this because she blamed all ”brown” people for 9/11). It is unfortunate that people still believe a Hindu, a Muslim or a Middle Easterner are all held responsible for the 9/11 attack just because they have...
Originally on the CNN Belief BLOG (Repost Courtesy: CNN) Editor’s Note: Qasim Rashid is a national spokesperson for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA. Follow him on Twitter @MuslimIQ. By Qasim Rashid, Special to CNN (CNN)–My New Year’s resolution is to not die for my faith. I’d hoped that 2012 would bring a revolution among Muslims and Muslim-majority nations to free oppressed minds. Yet I find...
The Muslim Writers Guild of America (Majlis Ansar Sultan ul Qalam, USA) is holding regional conferences across the country. The aim of these conferences is to emphasize the significance of utilizing the pen in spreading the beauties of Islam and defending the honor of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). The conference schedule is as follows: 1) Harrisburg, PA on Jan 5 2) Houston, TX on Jan 12 3) Milwaukee...
Originally Published in The New York Times Recently, before the tragedy in Newtown, Conn., the high school I attend had a lockdown drill (lights off, doors closed). No one ever takes these drills seriously. Despite instructions, we feel that it is O.K. to keep talking and not follow protocol, because we believe that the drills are a useless waste of time. I always wonder, What if there actually...