Originally Published in The Huffington Post “As a Jew, I am offended to my core. Muslims have no right to invoke Moses and Abraham. This is a delegitimization of Judaism. It is offensive and vile. And while Jesus is not my guy, the same thing goes for him. It is a delegitimization of Christianity. These are not Muslim prophets.” This typical quote from Pamela Geller perfectly...
Originally Published in The Duluth News Tribune On May 21, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback signed legislation barring all Kansas state courts from considering “foreign” law in their rulings. While many other states, including Minnesota, attempted in vain, Kansas became the fifth state to successfully enact such legislation, joining Oklahoma, Arizona, Louisiana and Tennessee. The undertone of “foreign”...
The Summer 2012 issue of The Muslim Sunrise, entitled, “In Defense of Islam: Confronting the Critics,” responds to anti-Islam allegations made by 10 infamous critics of Islam. The Muslim Sunrise invites these critics to debate representatives of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community publicly, in an effort to expose their allegations “as either baseless, dishonest, or criticisms of...
The inside back-cover of Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam book, “Marked for Death,” says it all: “Expelled from Britain, banned from Indonesia, denounced by the UN Secretary General … Wilders is unbowed and unapologetic.” After having read his book, another word to describe Wilders comes to mind: uninformed. Wilders promises many things in his book, above all that...
Originally Published in The Cincinnati Enquirer I take pride in the fact that America, in the face of adversity, strives to take the high road; there is a clear distinction between us and our enemies. Our enemies are the ones that spread terror, they are the ones that attack churches, and they are the ones that wish to subjugate the world. Lt. Col. Dooley’s class aimed at educating military...
Waqar Hasan was a Pakistani Muslim immigrant who had come to New Jersey to live the American dream. Leaving his family in Milltown, NJ, he went to Dallas, TX, to open a grocery store. Four days after 9/11, a gunman came to his store and shot him in the face. The killer went on to shoot two more Muslims that same week, avenging the 9/11 attacks. 9/11 unleashed the most intense manhunt in American...
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;...
Monday marks the 26th anniversary of the first observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. While we commemorate the sacrifices this great leader made, Americans, including Muslim Americans, must remember the spirit of change that the civil rights movement embodied. The same spirit is required today to change the false perceptions of Islam in America. According to a 2010 Pew poll, fewer Americans...
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...
Originally Published in the Hopkins Halaqa Islam is under attack daily every time you flip the channel. The words “Muslim Extremist” and “Jihadist” are being thrown around like everyday words. For instance, what does the phrase “Muslim extremist” really imply? One is inclined to think that those who diligently follow the teachings of Islam are those that perpetrate the bombings and killings of...