Originally Published in Courier-Post While the Quran (5:33) promotes the sanctity of human life, “whosoever killed a person, it shall be if he had killed the entire mankind,” Boko Haram, a terrorist group in Nigeria, has taken thousands of innocent lives. While the Prophet Muhammad stated that, “It is incumbent on every Muslim man and woman to seek knowledge,” by kidnapping young girls from...
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 Santa Barbara Independent He wore a red bandana. Despite seeing the blood of those dying around him, he decided to go back into the smoky building. Despite the noise of the stricken building, his soothing voice calmed the injured. Despite being just a young 24-year-old among fleeing civilians, he was found buried among firefighters, emergency personnel, and other heroes...
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 St. Louis Dispatch As we reflect on the tragic events that unfolded at the Boston Marathon a year ago and try to understand what brought the perpetrators to this dark place, let us not blame the Islamic faith. There is no place in a true Islamic conversion experience that allows for the wanton killing of other people. The Holy Quran, the main sourcebook of Islam...
Originally published in The Huffington Post March 8 is International Women’s Day. One crime against women that continues to plague humanity is FGM, i.e female genital mutilation. Experts estimate that some 3 million women suffer through FGM annually. The following is an excerpt from my upcoming book titled EXTREMIST. This excerpt specifically repudiates the barbaric myth that Islam in any...
Originally Published in The Express Tribune I was born in 1982, in the beautiful American city of San Jose, California. A proud patriotic Muslim American, my dad would decorate our house with lights every Fourth of July. Fast forward to the year 2001, when I got admitted to one of America’s top medical schools – the Harvard Medical School in Boston. Moving from San Jose was hard. I stayed in the...
Originally Published in the Herald-Mail Media When jazz master and Grammy award-winning musician Yusef Lateef left this world on Dec. 23, the music world lost one of its greatest giants. That same day, however, the world of Islam also lost one of its greatest giants. His name was also Yusef Lateef, and he was the man behind the music. The man who, for the last 30 years, chose not to perform at...
Originally published in the Oshkosh Northwestern As Thanksgiving comes around, many of us will become pre-occupied with food, family, shopping and football – this is Packer nation after all. It would be nice if we were also thankful for all the blessings we enjoy. Thanksgiving should be about tradition and food but it should also include thinking and caring for the less...
Originally Posted in The Baltimore Sun Mr. President, you and I having a similar challenge: selling a military strike against Syria as a “moral imperative.” But we have different audiences. Your constituents come from all parts of the country; mine from different parts of the world. Yours are driven by myriad interests; mine are simply seeking justice. Yours are young and old; mine...