Originally published in OnFaith He turned away with a look of disgust. “You’re a kafir, an apostate,” he said. “I do not need to touch your filthy hand, and I do not need to say any salaam to you. Come back when you’re not a filthy kafir.” My heart sank. “But, the Qur’an says to respond to salaam with a better salaam,” I insisted, still trying to smile, my hand still hanging in the air. “Do not...
Originally published in Time News Like hundreds of other Ahmadi Muslims, Dr. Mehdi Ali Qamar was murdered only for his faith. Combined, education and compassion can conquer such extremism. Dr. Mehdi Ali Qamar was the type of friend every American would proudly brag about. He was a loyal U.S. citizen. He was only 50, a loving husband and father of three. He dedicated his life to medicine and to...
Originally published in The Express Tribune Ashir is just two-years-old. Yesterday, he was witness to the most horrific tragedy anyone can imagine. His father – a 50-year-old doctor – was brutally murdered in Pakistan. His crime: He belonged to the Ahmadiyya community. Dr Mehdi Ali was a US-trained cardiologist on a medical mission to Pakistan. He was visiting Tahir Heart Institute; a state-of...
Originally published in The Daily Caller Some 50 years before terrorists brutally murdered him because they believed him an infidel, Mehdi Ali Qamar was born a Muslim. But by the age of 10 Pakistan’s government declared him an infidel, an apostate, and in the opinion of many extremist clerics — worthy of death. But that didn’t deter him. By the age of 20 Pakistan’s government declared Qamar a...
Originally published in OnFaith Last week, I read with great interest Herb Silverman’s column describing six events that led him to believe that “Islam is the worst and most dangerous religion by all human rights standards.” Although I believe Islamophobia to be a real phenomenon, I do not consider Mr. Silverman to be an Islamophobe.Rather, he brings up legitimate concerns with the actions...
Originally published in The Huffington Post The Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram recently kidnapped young girls, allegedly to sell into sexual slavery. Extremist Muslim clerics and extreme critics of Islam have long shared the conviction – amongst some others – that Islam allows keeping slaves, at least in certain circumstances, and permits their rape. This myth is completely...
Originally published in USA Today The world has been gripped by the deplorable story evolving in Nigeria about the mass abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls between the ages of 16 and 18. Their “crime” was simply that they were girls and had the audacity to seek an education. Meet Boko Haram, the name most commonly used to refer to a sadistic terrorist organization in Nigeria who...
Originally published in The Northwestern What makes me furious today is that whenever a Muslim extremist group wants to push a personal political agenda anywhere in the world, it is at the cost of human suffering and the unjustifiable use of the name of Islam. This time, it is 276 Nigerian school girls who have been kidnapped by Boko Haram (a banned terrorist group). As a father of a daughter, I...
Originally published in Time News The fiasco continues. Islamophobes are fabricating the myth that Islam promotes Jew-hatred by taking out ads on D.C. buses. Take a look at the ad, linked above—does anyone else find it insane that these ignorant people are spending money promoting pictures of Adolf Hitler? Now, certainly some Muslims are anti-Jewish, as are some Christians, agnostics...
Originally published in The Daily Bulletin After the death and resurrection of Jesus (peace be upon him) as believed by Christians, nothing is closer to their heart or more central to their belief than his long-awaited second coming. Biblical prophecies about the second coming have been debated by Christian scholars for centuries. When Jesus failed to reappear at the dawn of the second...