Originally Published in the Daily Times How could a person celebrate Mandela’s fight against discrimination in his society and condone the same bigotry against a community at home? How can we love the doctor and the disease he fights, at the same time? One of the world’s most celebrated heroes passed away this week. Nelson Mandela was known for his persistent and...
Originally Published in The Huffington Post There is never a dispute about the “what” and “who” of mass shootings. For instance, take the recent attack on September 16. What: Thirteen killed and over a dozen injured in a rampage at the Washington D.C. naval yard. Who: A 34-year-old African American male, Aaron Alexis with security access to the building. But mention the...
Originally Published in The Washington Post This is the story of two Washington Iftar dinners. First, the Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren invited Muslim leaders to a diplomatic Iftardinner last week and Imam Antepli of Duke University wondered aloud if the event was meaningful. And then the Obama administration invited Muslim leaders to the White House Iftar dinner and Omid Saifi, the Islamic...
Originally Posted in The Express Tribune Reading such knock-knock jokes on the last page of The Lahore is one of my fondest memories of growing up in Lahore. At the age of ten, honestly, I could not comprehend the literary, cultural and political content of the magazine. So of course, I was surprised to read that such an innocuous magazine was able to “offend” the clergy class in Pakistan. For...
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...