Originally Published in The Everett Herald Muslims – the riots must drain out. In case you haven’t noticed the vicious cycle, let me illustrate. On one hand, you have the anti-Islam propagandist who time and again in the guise of freedom of speech create and promote baseless shameless materials. On the other, you have fanatics who react to such propaganda and wreak havoc resulting in loss...
Originally Published in The Washington Post As an American Muslim activist, I receive this question all too often: “America is about freedom, free speech, and democracy—why do Muslims hate us?” The question is not at all why they hate us, but why don’t we get it. Many of age Americans remember Sept. 11, 2001—a day we justly cried out for freedom, free speech, and democracy. Fewer, however...
Originally Published in The Dallas Morning News It is hardly a fair and accurate assessment to say Islam — a religion of over 1 billion followers — has “a penchant for murder.” While an extremely vocal minority commits violent and inexcusable acts, they do not reflect the beliefs of the overwhelming majority of Muslims – nor of Islam. Their actions find prohibition both in the Quran and the...
Originally Published in The Oshkosh Northwestern Last week a despicable movie was released on youtube as a cheap publicity stunt. Following that we saw an array of wonderful trailers of the movie from around the world. We saw trailers of the movie in Egypt, Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, India, Australia, and Libya. In Libya the promoters of the movie really outdid themselves where they killed the...
Originally Published in The Washington Post “You don’t have to do this! You shouldn’t have to. It’s a disgrace.” At the height of the 2010 Park 51 “Ground Zero Mosque” controversies, I, along with thousands of Muslim American youth nationwide, was engrossed in a massive “Muslims for Peace” flyer distribution. Days before the ninth anniversary of Sept. 11, I met my match at a Wisconsin State Fair...
Originally Published in The San Francisco Chronicle and The Sacramento Bee I find it alarming that Anders Breivik, the Norwegian mass murderer, has been declared “sane” by Norwegian courts (“Mass murderer gets at least 21-year term,” Aug. 25). Indeed, being declared sane was part of Breivik’s master plan. He wanted to murder, get caught and draw public attention to...
Originally Published in The Washington Post and The Huffington Post The straw man of the famous post-Sept. 11 slogan, “Not every Muslim is a terrorist but every terrorist is a Muslim” was debunked by a 2005 FBI report. It showed that only 6 percent of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil from 1980 to 2005 were carried out by extremists calling themselves Muslims. But one group has sustained the...
Originally Posted on The Huffington Post I was attending a LIVE online conference this morning when a friend’s email instantly brought tears to my eyes. He broke the news of the tragic shooting at a Sikh temple near Milwaukee. I was racked with pain. My first reaction was to pray to God to ease the suffering of those directly affected by the tragedy and then to contact my friends at the Sikh...
Originally Posted on The Huffington Post I was fasting but had to fight the incessant urge to vomit, as my Twitter feed spiked with tweets about a shooting at a Sikh Gurdwara. Hoping against hope it was a mistake, my heart began to race and my teeth clenched as several news reports confirmed the incident. Another terrorist attack against innocent souls, this time just south of Milwaukee, but an...
Originally Published in The Dallas Morning News Senator Michele Bachmann’s recent accusations of Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the United States government is McCarthy-esque fear-mongering for the 21st century. Her baseless accusations that top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, is an agent of the Muslim Brotherhood sent to infiltrate the U.S. Government is not...