Originally published in Duluth News Tribune One year removed from the Boston Marathon bombings, people raise eyebrows about Muslims’ loyalty to the United States or Islam’s viewpoint on terrorism. The bombings had no relationship with the beautiful teachings of Islam. My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of the bombings. The holy Quran condemns all forms of cruelty, violence or extremist...
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 Abury Park Press Today, the general public views the religion of Islam with malevolence. I have experienced this myself as a 14-year-old Ahmadi Muslim, living in the suburbs of New Jersey. My mother and sister both cover themselves in public, and I pray five times every day. Because of these practices, people look upon Muslims such as myself as different. The attack on...
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 Huffington Post Last week, the Grand Mufti of Kyrgyzstan was forced to resign amidst allegations of adultery with a woman he says is his second wife. He claimed he had the proper Islamic marriage ceremony with her, but since Article 153 of Kyrgyzstan’s criminal code forbids polygamy, this woman could not have legally been a second wife. Thus came allegations of...
Originally Published in The Delco Times As I walk through the mall during this time of the year, I see people with numerous bags in their hands, rushing from store to store desperate to find those last minute deals. My email is overflowing with advertisements of items I will probably never buy. As an American Muslim, I wonder if the true spirit of Christmas has been drowned out by all this focus...
Originally Published in the Star Tribune Generally, everything that happens to us for the first time becomes a lasting memory. On a recent weekend, having spent only a couple of months in the United States, I was still in discovery mode. The beautiful time my husband and I spent with friends in Duluth came to an end on our way home when our car’s exhaust pipe began dragging on the ground. Just...
Originally Published in The Baltimore Sun American drones have been operating since 2004 in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, my motherland. But on Nov. 21, a drone fired missiles at a religious seminary in Hangu, a settled area in mainland Pakistan, killing five men in addition to a top leader of the pro-Taliban Haqqani network. Pakistanis are angry. Imran Khan...
Originally published in the Baltimore Sun American drones have been operating since 2004 in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, my motherland. But on Nov. 21, a drone fired missiles at a religious seminary in Hangu, a settled area in mainland Pakistan, killing five men in addition to a top leader of the pro-Taliban Haqqani network. Pakistanis are angry. Imran Khan, the chairman...