Perception of Islam

[kmaherali]

This video is about how the media distorts and amplifies the bias
and misconceptions about Muslims. When terrorist acts are done by others not much attention is given, while on the other hand when these acts are done by Muslims, widespread media attention and publicity is given.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PR9yjl4paQ

[kmaherali]

Towards Informed and Conscientious Media Coverage of Islam
by Karim H. Karim

The violence and destruction visited upon New York’s World Trade Center, its occupants and their loved ones on September 11, 2001 has brought into sharp focus the stark differences in what we had begun to think of as “the global village.” The remarkable advances in transportation and communications of the last few centuries have made the world increasingly smaller. Supersonic air travel and the Internet have changed our notions of time and space, vastly accelerating our ability to reach the distant lands physically and virtually. Despite these significant achievements, the cognitive frameworks which govern our interactions with other cultures continue to be based on age-old stereotypes. Recent events have underlined the vast gulf in understanding between Northern1 and Muslim societies. Lack of information and misunderstandings exist on both sides. But the world-wide dominance of Northern-based global media networks makes it imperative that they make sustained efforts to better understand Islam and Muslims. Violence by militant Muslims is usually portrayed by journalists within frameworks whose cultural biases are centuries old. For example, editorial cartoons draw on images such as the bloodthirsty Saracen wielding “the sword of Islam”, an image embedded in medieval European literature. Such depictions hinder the understanding of violence as well as of Islam.

More....

http://www.sacredweb.com/online_articles/sw8_karim.html

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Teachers from around the country attend webinar on "The State of Muslims in America"
September 06, 2011

The webinar “The State of Muslims in America: Reflections on the 10th Anniversary of September 11th, 2001,” featured a presentation by Hussein Rashid of Hofstra University, welcomed participants from Miami, Washington D.C., and California among other location in the United States and beyond. The session was moderated by Outreach Center Curriculum Coordinator Anna Mudd. This webinar was the second in a series of programming on the 10th Anniversary of September 11th, 2001, including webinars for educators, lesson plans, and a campus wide panel discussion. See more information here.

Dr. Rashid began by situating the topic of Muslims in American within a broader historical context, emphasizing that the first Muslims arrived well before the establishment of the nation, most of them as part of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Bookending this in the 10th century, Rashid discussed the large numbers of South Asia Muslims who arrived following the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Noting parallels within communities of Jewish and Catholic immigrants, he discussed the ways in which ethnic diversity within religious groups plays a role in the project of defining a unified sense of American identity.

http://cmes.hmdc.harvard.edu/node/2777

[kmaherali]

Editorial:

Ten Years After 9/11: What Have We Learned?

Mahmoud Eid
University of Ottawa, Canada

Karim H. Karim
Carleton University , Canada


http://www.gmj.uottawa.ca/1102/v4i2_eid ... rim_e.html

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Video - Muslims are our fellow Americans

They are part of the national fabric that holds our country together. They contribute to America in many ways, and deserve the same respect as any of us. I pledge to spread this message, and affirm our country’s principles of liberty and justice for all.

http://myfellowamerican.us/videos/who_i ... rican.html

****

[kmaherali]

Wahabi extremism denounced by Indian Sunni clerics

Mon, Oct 17th, 2011 9:39 pm BdST

DELHI, Oct 17 (bdnews24.com/Reuters)- The ideology of Islamic radicalism and its justification of related terrorism as 'jihad', which is predicated on a distorted interpretation of the tenets of Islam, received a major jolt from Indian Sunni clerics on Sunday in Moradabad, a small town in Uttar Pradesh.

Maulana Syed Mohammad Ashraf Kachochavi, general secretary of the All India Ulama and Mashaikh Board (AIUMB) which represents the majority of Sunni Muslims in India, denounced the hardline Wahabi interpretation of Islam espoused by Saudi Arabia.

Addressing his constituency of over 100,000 people at a 'maha-panchayat' (great congregation), the Maulana exhorted his flock to reject such distortion of the normative principles of Islam.

Bemoaning the fact that a small group of Muslims had given a bad name to their great religion, he added: "The time has come for us to come out and claim our rights. Let us take a pledge that we will never support Wahabi extremism -- not today, not tomorrow".

Since the tragedy of 9/11 that felled the Twin Towers and the more recent terror attack on Mumbai in November 2008, there has been considerable ferment in the Indian Muslim populace (estimated to be 138 million as per the 2001 census data) about the distorted ideology which has been justifying and nurturing such extremism.

As is often the case, the larger majority of Muslims the world over are law-abiding citizens who do not support the malignancy of Islamic extremism -- but have either been silent or invisible.

Thus, the unambiguous stand taken by the AIUMB which represents almost 80 percent of India's Sunni Muslims -- who in turn are the majority faction of Indian Muslims (the Shia, Ismaili and Ahmadiyya amongst others are estimated to be less than 30 million in all) -- is a very significant development in the ongoing contestation about the interpretation and practice of Islam.

The stand taken by AIUMB President Hazrat Syed Muhammad Ashraf Ashrafi and his colleagues was long overdue, for many Indian Muslims had warned of the dangers being posed by the spread of virulent Wahabi ideology in Indian madrasas, which received generous funding from Saudi sources. The control of madrasas and what they teach and propagate to impressionable minds has been a contentious issue in India for decades.

It is regrettable that the state in India has chosen to turn a blind eye to this malignant trend for short-term electoral considerations. Hence, many poisonous and anti-national ideologies and discourses have been swirling amongst the Indian Muslim constituency.

Calling for the creation of a Central Madrasa Board that would monitor these religious prep schools, Maulana Kachochavi asserted: "Right now, the madrasas are under the control of Wahabi-inspired organisations which run on Saudi money. The ideology they teach and spread is hardline Wahabism". The proposed Board, he added, would keep a watch on the flow of Saudi money into madrasa education in India.

India has been a model of relative tolerance, as far as the practice of Islam is concerned, for over a millennium and is currently home to as many as 150 million Indian Muslims. The factional diversity in India which has a mix of Sunni, Shia and other smaller sects is the envy of many Muslim nations and the syncretic culture that has evolved for centuries has withstood many challenges including the partition of 1947 and the more recent 2002 pogrom in Gujarat.

However, in recent years, the hardline Islamic factions that have an Arab-Wahabi texture to them have been gaining ground in India and many subtle changes have been evidenced. For instance, the common greeting in the sub-continent, 'salam-alekum' has gradually transmuted into 'khuda-hafiz' and has now become 'allah-hafiz'. The word 'khuda' has been dropped since it is of Persian origin and is also seen to be preferred by the Shia populace.

Predictably, women have become the target of such imposed conformity and the new advocacy of groups like the Tablighi is that a 'purdah' (veil) to cover the face is not enough -- young Muslim girls are now advised (firmly) -- to keep a 'purdah' on their voices. To be barely seen and remain submissively within the family fold, in a silent mode, is the prevailing Wahabi-derived prescription for the young Muslim girl -- a template that the Taliban and their adherents in Afghanistan and Pakistan ardently support.

The post 9/11 global challenge to quarantine and shrink terror predicated on a distortion of Islam cannot be won by military means alone. The greater war is that of resisting toxic interpretations of the Quran and insidious narratives that serve pernicious political ends.

The Maulanas in Moradabad have picked up the gauntlet. This denunciation of the distortion of Islam and the hijacking by the Wahabi school is to be globally commended and calls for many debates within the Muslim fold -- with women and girls being allowed to voice their opinions about what constitutes a gender equitable interpretation of Islam.


bdnews24.com/lq/2139h.

http://world.bdnews24.com/details.php?id=209142&cid=1

[agakhani]

Maulana Syed Mohammad Ashraf Kachochavi, general secretary of the All India Ulama and Mashaikh Board (AIUMB) which represents the majority of Sunni Muslims in India, denounced the hardline Wahabi interpretation of Islam espoused by Saudi Arabia.

There is one proverb in Urdu
"Chalo Der se aaye magar durast aaye"
چلو ڈرسے اے مگر درست اے

Above idiom/proverb totally fit to Sunni Muslims now, at least they understand the true meaning of "Zehad".
By the way:-
1,Can anyone tell me more about Wahabi sect? Who started it, when it was started, why it was started? any link in Ismaili.net?
2, Is the "DEVBANDI" sect separate than Wahabi sect?

[kmaherali]

1,Can anyone tell me more about Wahabi sect? Who started it, when it was started, why it was started? any link in Ismaili.net?
2, Is the "DEVBANDI" sect separate than Wahabi sect?

You will find the answers here at:

Doctrines --> Did the Wahaabi sect exist?

http://www.ismaili.net/html/modules.php ... ght=wahabi

Current Issues --> Is wahabism doctrine similar to Koresh's pre Hazrat Mohammat

http://www.ismaili.net/html/modules.php ... ght=wahabi

[agakhani]

Thanks Kbhai for referring above links, after reading both links, two questions arises in my mind; these question are as follows:-

1, Did the Wahhabi Sect exist at the time of the Hazarat Ali (a.s.)?
as per the first link Wahabi sect was there ( with name of Rafji if I am not mistaking) during the time of Hazarat Ali (s.a.) and Prophet Mohd (swt).
Prophet Mohd (swt) was born in 570 and died in year 670.

2, As per wikipedia the founder of Wahabi sect was Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahab, he was born in 1703 and died in year 1792. now the main question arises here is who was really founder of Wahabi sect? some unknown person at the time of Prophet Mohd (s.a.) 1400 hundred years ago or Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahab just 300 hundred years ago?

There are almost 1100 years differences between Prophet Mohd (s.a.) and Muhammad Ibn Wahab!!
Any clarification of my above questions are welcome and appreciate.

[kmaherali]

Ladha: Ignorance is what fuels fear of Muslims
By Mansoor Ladha March 26, 2012 Comment 7 •Story•Photos ( 1 )
Mansoor LadhaPhotograph by: HandoutI was distraught to learn that half of all Canadians believe Muslims can’t be trusted.

Fifty-two per cent of Canadians said “not at all” or only “a little” when asked if Muslims can be trusted. However, 48 per cent responded that they trusted Muslims “a lot” or “somewhat.” Seventy per cent of French Canadians, who usually have stronger negative views than English Canadians, expressed little or no trust in Muslims compared to 43 per cent of English-speaking Canadians.

The poll results should disturb the Muslim community because this indicates how their fellow Canadians perceive them. The Muslim leadership should look for reasons why they are not trusted and come up with some concrete solutions to the problem.

One of the major reasons why Muslims are not trusted is because of the adverse publicity generated by 9/11, the Osama bin Laden episode and the continuous terrorist attempts made by al-Qaeda. This century has not been a pleasant one for Muslims as they have been branded as terrorists and barbarians.

Several incidents of harassment of Muslims were reported in the U.S., especially in the aftermath of 9/11, and in some incidents, shops owned by Muslims were looted and vandalized. Muslim children have been bullied and called names in schools.

To make matters worse, those responsible for terrorism have been Muslims or converted Muslims who call themselves jihadists and have religion as their battle cry. The word jihad is an Arabic word, which means strive. Jihad is an effort to practice religion in the face of oppression and persecution.

When Saddam Hussein asked his Islamic leaders to join him in his jihad to defeat the U.S. when it attacked Iraq, it was his holy war he was talking about. People like bin Laden and Hussein try to mislead the world that their war has become a jihad, and therefore there is a communal responsibility for all Muslims to get involved. They are guilty of twisting their political ambitions through religious means. Their holy war is a political war.

Qur’an burning and the ensuing riots in which 30 Afghans and six U.S. soldiers were killed reinforces fear of Islamism, a fundamental, extremist ideology, culminating in the mistrust of Muslims. It is wrong to blame the whole community — all Muslims — for the actions of a few. Such stereotyping must stop. Muslims must be judged as individuals who have contributed to their adopted land, and Canadians should not form an opinion based on the actions of the most violent factions.

So what should be done to solve this problem? Muslim leadership has a responsibility to find ways to promote better understanding between religions and communities. That means promoting interfaith, intercultural relations and building bridges between different communities to combat stereotypes and discrimination.

As the Aga Khan points out in his book, Where Hope Takes Root: “A dramatic illustration is the uninformed speculation about conflict between the Muslim and others. The clash, if there is such a broad civilizational collision, is not of cultures, but of ignorance.”

It is the fear of the unknown and ignorance of the other guy, be it his religion, culture or race, which is the root cause of the conflict.

In a speech, the Aga Khan said: “Instead of shouting at each other, our faiths ask us to listen – and learn from one another. As we do, one of our lessons might well centre on those powerful, but often neglected chapters in history when Islamic and European cultures interacted co-operatively and creatively to realize some of civilization’s peak achievements.

“The spirit of pluralism is not a pallid religious compromise. It is a sacred religious imperative. In this light, our differences can become sources of enrichment, so that we see ‘the other’ as an opportunity and a blessing — whether ‘the other’ lives across the street or across the globe. If our animosities are born out of fear, then generosity is born out of hope. One of the central lessons I have learned about a half century of working in the developing world is that the replacement of fear by hope is probably the single most powerful trampoline of progress.”

On a governmental level, Canada is in a unique position to broaden and develop its governance and pluralist experience. Canada’s justice system, federalism and pluralist democracy are distinct and inspirational. The policy-makers have to use these tools effectively for this purpose.

This survey indirectly blames our educational system, schools and teachers for not combating stereotypical thinking. Trustees, teachers and professors should don their thinking caps to evaluate the issue and seek ways to improve the education system.

On a personal level, individuals — Muslim and non-Muslim — have to build their own personal bridges by extending a hand of friendship to their co-workers, neighbours and friends. It is time to invite your neighbours for coffee and cakes; it is time to go for coffee with your co-workers so that they can understand that you may belong to a different religion or culture, but underneath, we are all the same. It is at this individual and personal level that these stereotypes will be eradicated.

If everyone took this personal campaign seriously, then I believe the next poll taken in Canada will reflect positive results.


Mansoor Ladha is a Calgary-based journalist and the author of A Portrait in Pluralism: Aga Khan’s Shia Ismaili Muslims.

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/op ... story.html

[kmaherali]

BOOK REVIEW

All-American: 45 American Men on Being Muslim. White Cloud. (I Speak for Myself). 2012. c.256p. ed. by Wajahat Ali & Zahra T. Suratwala. illus. ISBN 9781935952596. pap. $16.95. REL

Too various for a simple description, this fascinating book brings together 45 brief testimonies from American men who are Muslim, men who run the full range of experience, identity, and persuasion—gay and straight, convert and birthright, immigrant and native, conservative and radical. These candid and unfailingly fascinating life-writings should give us all hope that it is possible to see Islam as a faith, and not a threat. VERDICT This volume should appeal not only to Muslim readers, but to the broad spectrum of readers interested in contemporary American spirituality, as well as men’s religious experience. A complementary volume in the series, I Speak for Myself: American Women on Being Muslim, was published in 2011

http://reviews.libraryjournal.com/2012/ ... y-15-2012/

[kmaherali]

Popular anti-Muslim myths busted in new book

It started “in the far reaches of the Internet and the mutterings of the political right, then in increasingly mainstream and mass-market venues” and has since entered “the central corridors of European and American politics.”

So writes Doug Saunders in The Myth of the Muslim Tide (Alfred Knopf Canada), to be released next week. He is the European bureau chief of the Globe and Mail, and author of the much-acclaimed Arrival City (about the sprawling slums of Mumbai, Rio, London, Paris, Chongqing, Los Angeles, etc. — the first stop in the mass migration of millions from rural to urban areas).

Saunders was living in the U.S. during the Sept. 11 attacks and in London during the July 7, 2005, subway bombing. He has reported extensively on the war on terror and on Islamophobia in Europe.

There, conspiracy theories about an Arab/Muslim takeover of the continent — “Eurabia” — helped propel far-right political parties to prominence.

In the U.S., anti-Muslim bigotry has reached such alarming levels that four of the leading Republican presidential candidates went mostly unchallenged as they spread patently false notions about Muslims and Islam, often at the behest of their rich Islamophobic funders.

Saunders tackles and counters several myths:

• Muslims are breeding like rats.

In 2010, the Muslim population of the European Union plus non-members Switzerland and Norway was 18.2 million, or 4.5 per cent. By 2030, it would be 29.8 million — 7.1 per cent. By 2050, it would reach 10 per cent. That’s according to three authoritative studies.

In 2010, the American Muslim population was estimated at 2.6 million. By 2030, it would be 6.2 million, or 1.7 per cent — as numerous as Jews and Episcopalians.

But facts don’t seem to matter. A YouTube video “Muslim Demographics” has been watched by 13 million people, even though “every one of its claims is untrue.”

• Islamic belief equals high birth rates.

“There is no tie between Islamic beliefs and fertility rates,” even if five of the 10 most fertile countries are Muslim-majority nations.

“Muslim countries are undergoing one of the fastest rates of fertility decline in history . . . and are converging with those of Europe.”

Iranian average family size has fallen to 1.7 children, a lower rate than in Britain or France. Indonesia’s is down to 2.19, Turkey’s to 2.15, Tunisia’s to 2.04, the UAE’s to 1.9, Lebanon’s to 1.86, and Bosnian Muslims’ to 1.23.

• A majority of immigrants are and will be Muslims.

“If the West is being overwhelmed at all, it is not by Muslims.”

Spain, close to the Arab world, gets a majority of its immigrants from Romania or from the other side of the Atlantic. In Britain, only 28 per cent of immigrants are Muslim. “If a religious group is taking over in the U.K., it is Catholics.” In Germany, fewer than 15 per cent of immigrants are Muslim. A far larger group comes from Eastern Europe.

Only in France are Muslims the largest immigrant group, mainly because many were French citizens a generation ago, when Algeria and Tunisia were French territories.

Belgium, Netherlands and Scandinavia are attracting waves of Poles, Romanians and Russians.

• Muslim immigrants live apart and in ghettoes.

Some impoverished ones do, especially in Europe. But that’s a function of economics. They are paying “an ethnic and a religious penalty in the labour market,” according to a study of 11 European cities by the Open Society Institute.

Their case is no different than that of those from, say, the Caribbean (mostly Christian) or Suriname (mainly Christians and Hindus).

In Canada, too, studies show that “skin colour, not religion, affected the ability to integrate and that Muslims are no less (and sometimes slightly more) able to integrate economically and socially than other people of the same race.”

Measured by rates of employment, home ownership and naturalization, one study shows the “assimilation index” of Canadian Muslims as “the highest — 77 out of a possible 100. The U.S. came close with a score in the 60s but Muslims in Europe lagged far behind.”

Muslims are not loyal to host countries.

On the contrary, Muslims are more committed. Polls show that British and French Muslims, for example, express stronger attachment to Britain and France than other citizens.

• Muslim immigrants are angry.

In fact, Muslims are among the least disenchanted and most satisfied people in the West, according to several polls.

• Muslim immigrants want to impose sharia.

Rather, it is a majority of American Christians who want laws to be based on the Ten Commandments. The few Muslims who do use sharia, especially in Britain and the U.S., do so for religious arbitration in personal and business matters, just as Christians and Jews do.

• Islam breeds terrorism.

In fact, terrorists tend to be non-faithful individuals (many using drugs, alcohol and prostitutes), who are drawn to radical peer groups for political or personal but not religious reasons, according to the British intelligence agency M15. Very few have been raised in religious households.

There is indeed evidence that a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalization.

In summing up, Saunders says that these and other claims are “demonstrably untrue. The Muslim-tide hypothesis on the whole has no merit . . . The idea of a stealth takeover by Islamic believers is a delusion.”

What’s being said about Muslims is what was once said about Catholics and Jews in the 19th and early part of the 20th century. Both groups were also accused of being religiously motivated aliens incapable of integration and hell-bent on changing society.

“We have forgotten how alarming the waves of Roman Catholic and Jewish immigrants from the fringes of Europe appeared to North Americans and Western Europeans only a few decades ago.

“Their home countries seemed less democratic, less economically free, and more prone to religious law and political extremism. Right up through the early 1950s, it was commonplace for thinkers across the political spectrum to argue that Catholic immigrants were driven by the dictates of their faith to promote fascism, violence and religious extremism, and therefore could not be assimilated into non-Catholic cultures.

“By the end of the 20th century, though, most people had forgotten about their earlier fears of religious minorities . . .

“Muslim immigrants are no more ‘different’ and no more threatening than earlier larger waves of religious minorities who contribute to the current populations of most Western countries.”

Yet we cannot be complacent. The stakes are high. The Muslim-tide beliefs have already become the founding myth behind several alarming political movements and the cause of one notable act of terrorism” — perhaps two, Norway’s Anders Breivik last year and American Wade Michael Page this month, who may have mistaken Sikhs for Muslims.

Haroon Siddiqui’s column appears Thursday and Sunday. [email protected]

http://m.thestar.com/opinion/editorialo ... n-new-book

[kmaherali]

Myths about Muslims proved wrong
Mansoor Ladha | | Posted: 17 January 2013

http://www.theanchor.ca/2013/myths-abou ... ved-wrong/

[kmaherali]

Is Islam to Blame for the Shooting at Charlie Hebdo in Paris?

Terror incidents lead many Westerners to perceive Islam as inherently extremist, but I think that is too glib and simple-minded. Small numbers of terrorists make headlines, but they aren’t representative of a complex and diverse religion of 1.6 billion adherents. My Twitter feed Wednesday brimmed with Muslims denouncing the attack — and noting that fanatical Muslims damage the image of Muhammad far more than the most vituperative cartoonist.

The vast majority of Muslims of course have nothing to do with the insanity of such attacks — except that they are disproportionately the victims of terrorism. Indeed, the Charlie Hebdo murders weren’t even the most lethal terror attack on Wednesday: A car bomb outside a police college in Yemen, possibly planted by Al Qaeda, killed at least 37 people.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/opini ... d=45305309

[Admin]

It is said that when there is a crime, look to whom it benefits. The Paris senseless and horrible killing certainely does not benefit the Muslim. The extremists are killing Muslims and Muslim's reputation all over the world. These so called "Islamic" extremists "jihadists" kill more Muslims then any other communities.

Yesterday I heard one radio commentator saying that the head of the snake was in Syria and Irak. Westeners do still not get it right, the head of the snake is in the Saudi Arabia. The snake is supported by westeners with millions of dollars that go directly to the terrorists. The 9/11 terrorists were nor Syrian or Irakis, they were Saudis. The day West stops feeding Saudis and Wahabbis, there will be a lot less terrorism in the world.

[kmaherali]

Yesterday I heard one radio commentator saying that the head of the snake was in Syria and Irak. Westeners do still not get it right, the head of the snake is in the Saudi Arabia. The snake is supported by westeners with millions of dollars that go directly to the terrorists. The 9/11 terrorists were nor Syrian or Irakis, they were Saudis. The day West stops feeding Saudis and Wahabbis, there will be a lot less terrorism in the world.

Time to Lift Veil on Saudi Arabia’s Hijacking of Islam

By Fintan O'Toole

Jan 13, 2015

Saudi Arabia has spent $100 billion in recent decades spreading an extremist ideology

Imagine an attempt to ban the veneration of the Prophet Muhammad. Go further and imagine a plan to level his tomb in Medina, the second holiest site in Islam, dig up his remains and rebury them in a secret, unmarked grave. Go further again and imagine the actual, systematic destruction, in the early years of Islam, of the tombs of the major figures, including the prophet’s closest relatives.

What lunatic would even imagine going to these extreme lengths to provoke, insult and enrage Muslims? Well, the House of Saud, rulers of Saudi Arabia and guardians of the extremist ideology that fuels much of today’s Islamist terrorism, wouldn’t just imagine them. It does them.

In all the official rhetoric about freedom of speech in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, it is notable that there are two words that apparently must not be spoken: Saudi Arabia. Yet it is impossible to understand what is happening now without grasping the fact that the mentality of the killers is not a weird aberration. It is shaped by an official cult propagated by a government western states are anxious to appease at almost any cost. Saudi Arabia has spent about $100 billion in recent decades spreading an extremist ideology, a hybrid of Wahhabism and Salafism, two versions of an Islam supposedly “purified” of its “foreign” influences.

Saudi Largesse

These are not ancient traditions. Wahhabism was born in the 18th century, Salafism in the 19th. And they are not “Islam” – Salafis and Wahhabis make up 3 per cent of Muslims. One of the more bizarre aspects of this ideology is that it involves attacks on things most Muslims regard as sacred. When western liberals wring their hands about giving offence to Muslims by depicting or representing the prophet, they miss the most important point. Cartoons in Charlie Hebdo are vastly less offensive to most Muslims than the destruction of early Islamic tombs by the Saudis. But of course self-appointed defenders of Islamic sensitivities, funded by Saudi largesse, won’t tell you that.

In the last 20 years or so, the Saudis have destroyed hundreds of holy sites in Mecca to clear ground for the construction of hotels and shopping malls and around the Grand Mosque. Much of this is about money, of course, but the destruction is sanctioned by Wahhabi ideology and Saudi history. The Wahhabi sect regarded the veneration of sacred tombs as heretical.

The Wahhabis destroyed dozens of holy tombs in Mecca and Medina when they conquered those cities in 1806 and even attempted to level the prophet’s tomb. They did the same when they reconquered the cities in 1925. This mania continues: just last year, a senior Saudi cleric prepared a detailed plan for the dismantling of the prophet’s tomb. The followers of this ideology have continued to destroy sacred Islamic sites and tombs in Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere.

Muslim Outrage

How do most Muslims feel about this? Outraged of course. A large survey in 2012 of opinion among Muslims in Western Europe, west Africa and Malaysia found 75 per cent of respondents believed the veneration of the graves of Muslim “saints” (Ziyarah) was essential or desirable.

For the vast majority of Muslims the running story of sacrilege and provocation is not a few cartoons in secularist European newspapers, it is the Saudi iconoclastic assault on veneration of the prophet.

And yet we never hear about this when the question of “insulting” the prophet or disrespecting the sacred traditions of Islam is raised in Europe. Why? Money. The Saudis have vast amounts of it and use it to fund mosques, schools and Islamic cultural centres all over Europe. A hundred billion dollars buys you a lot of silence. And that silence engenders one of the great hypocrisies of our times: a cartoon of the prophet is a provocation that deserves death but the destruction of his tomb is a religious duty.

This hypocrisy is underwritten by a tacit understanding among western governments: don’t mention the Saudis. The house of Saud runs a vicious tyranny that, among other things, treats women as badly as apartheid South Africa treated blacks. While the Charlie Hebdo killers were going about their ultimate acts of censorship, the Saudi government was savagely lashing the blogger Raif Badawi for daring to promote public debate in his blog.

But the Saudis are “our” Islamist extremists and they’re sending us lots of cheap oil right now. So when we talk about not insulting Muslims, we ignore what most Muslims regard as most offensive. And when we talk about confronting the nihilistic bigotry of extremist Islamism, we ignore the government that is pumping it into our societies through its promotion of a cult that most Muslims reject. It is long past time for democracies to take offence.

Source: http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/finta ... -1.2063268

URL: http://www.newageislam.com/islam-and-po ... m/d/101029

[kmaherali]

The Muslims of Early America

No matter how anxious people may be about Islam, the notion of a Muslim invasion of this majority Christian country has no basis in fact. Moreover, there is an inconvenient footnote to the assertion that Islam is anti-American: Muslims arrived here before the founding of the United States — not just a few, but thousands.

They have been largely overlooked because they were not free to practice their faith. They were not free themselves and so they were for the most part unable to leave records of their beliefs. They left just enough to confirm that Islam in America is not an immigrant religion lately making itself known, but a tradition with deep roots here, despite being among the most suppressed in the nation’s history.

More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/09/opini ... 05309&_r=0

[kmaherali]

Reading The Bible Like We Read The Quran

Only 0.6% of the population in the United States is Muslim.

Most of us in the 99% haven't even held a Quran in our hands.

Yet, remarkably, we are a country full of Islamic experts; many of whom are self-professed Christians.

From Facebook to cable news to talk radio, we're a nation swarming with folks convinced they know what Islam is really about and we've got verses from the Quran to prove it.

Armed with these contextless passages from a book we've never read and know nothing about about, we beat the drums of war and sanctify our hatred. Not simply against ISIS, but against anyone of a different skin color who reads the Quran and worships at a mosque.

But here's the thing....

If we cherry-pick verses from the Bible the way we cherry-pick verses from the Quran, we can "read" the Bible exactly like we "read" the Quran and come to the exact same conclusions about Christianity that we do about Islam being a religion of hate, violence, and oppression.

More...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-hunt ... 47950.html

[kmaherali]

Most Canadians believe Western and Islamic societies “irreconcilable:” Poll

Most Canadians think “irreconcilable” differences exist between Western and Muslim societies, according to polling to be revealed at this week’s Metropolis conference in Vancouver.

Whether it’s the rise of Islamic State zealots, the killing of free-speech advocates in Paris and Copenhagen or disputes over niqabs, the polling shows Canadians are not immune to global anxiety about religion-fuelled conflict.

The Leger Marketing polls found 63 per cent of Canadian Protestants, 62 per cent of Jews, 60 per cent of Catholics and 46 per cent of the non-religious believe Western and Islamic societies are “irreconcilable.”

Even 42 per cent of Canadian Muslims believe the contrast between the West and Islamic cultures was irreconcilable.

The subject of religion and social tension – and how to counteract it – is on the minds of more than 1,000 people attending two related conferences this week in Vancouver.

“It’s quite disconcerting that our poll results consistently show about 60 per cent of Canadians see the West and Islamic society as ‘irreconcilable.’ It puts you up against a dead end,” said Jack Jedwab, vice-president of the Association for Canadian Studies, which commissioned the Leger polls.

said Jedwab, who took part Tuesday in Our Whole Society: Bridging the Secular Divide, which aims to create openings for religion to become a more positive force in Canada’s secular society.

With Canadians embroiled in national debates over face-covering niqabs, “self-radicalized” homegrown terrorists and border security, Jedwab will, on Thursday afternoon, present the findings of his two extensive polls on how Canadians view religion and its potential for tension or reconciliation.

He’ll be doing so as part of the 17th national Metropolis conference, titled Broadening the Conversation: Policy and Practice in Immigration, Settlement and Diversity, which runs Thursday to Saturday.

The belief of a majority of Canadians that the West and Islamic society are locked in inevitable antagonism, Jedwab said, echoes the thesis of political scientist Samuel Huntington, author of The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of Political Order.

The Harvard professor argued people’s cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world.

The Pew Research Centre also reported this year that worldwide social hostilities involving religion reached a six-year peak in 2012 and have remained basically stuck at that level.

Almost three in four global citizens, Pew reports, live in countries where religion-fuelled conflicts run the gamut from vandalism of property and desecration of sacred texts to violent assaults resulting in deaths and injuries.

Jedwab’s polling revealed Canadians’ concerns about religion-related conflict is leading many to yearn for tighter border restrictions, even in this era of high immigration.

Asked whether governments should deal with security concerns by “making it more difficult for people to come across national borders,” 68 per cent of Canadian Catholics agreed.

So did 62 per cent of Canadian Protestants and Jews, as well as 51 per cent of the non-religious. Only 42 per cent of Muslims agreed.

The two Leger polls of 2,000 people in Canada, including 500 born outside the country, were conducted in 2013 and 2014. They have an accuracy of plus or minus 2.9 per cent 19 times out of 20.

In general, the polling results did not show marked differences between the responses of native-born Canadians and immigrants.

Asked if Westerners’ perceived rivalry with Islamic societies might replace the Cold War-era conflict with the former Soviet Union, Jedwab said, “I’d like to think we’re not there yet.”

But he acknowledged attitudes in the West began hardening after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York.

Jedwab urged politicians and other leaders “not to exploit anxieties about religious differences.”

Asked if he believed Prime Minister Stephen Harper was exploiting Canadians’ fears with his denunciation of Muslim terrorists, Iranian leaders and a Pakistani immigrant’s campaign to wear her face-covering niqab during Canada’s citizenship ceremony, Jedwab declined to comment.

Jedwab said tolerance-oriented Canadians are caught in an ethical bind over the way married Ontario resident Zunera Ishaq, 29, is going to court to fight for what she considers her religious freedom to cover her face when she’s sworn in as a citizen.

“As a liberal you struggle with her choice. Patriarchal views are repugnant to many of us in the West,” Jedwab said.

In Saudi Arabia and parts of Pakistan, Jedwab said even Western women would be expected to wear a headscarf or veil in public.

So why wouldn’t a woman in Canada, Jedwab wondered, be expected to not cover her face? He acknowledged, however, that “liberalism isn’t in the vocabulary” in certain patriarchal nations.

“Some people say the niqab reflects the oppression of women. Others say it’s just a piece of clothing. My view is it does represent the oppression of women.”

However, Jedwab generally feels sympathy for Canadian Muslims. Whenever Muslim terrorists launch an attack someplace in the world, Jedwab urged people in the West not to immediately demand so-called moderate Muslims condemn their actions.

Since the world’s diverse Christians, Jews and Buddhists are not normally pressured to denounce the despicable acts of fellow members of their religion, Jedwab said it’s a double standard to require Muslims to do so.

[email protected]

http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2015/03/2 ... able-poll/

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The Other Terror Threat

THIS month, the headlines were about a Muslim man in Boston who was accused of threatening police officers with a knife. Last month, two Muslims attacked an anti-Islamic conference in Garland, Tex. The month before, a Muslim man was charged with plotting to drive a truck bomb onto a military installation in Kansas. If you keep up with the news, you know that a small but steady stream of American Muslims, radicalized by overseas extremists, are engaging in violence here in the United States.

But headlines can mislead. The main terrorist threat in the United States is not from violent Muslim extremists, but from right-wing extremists. Just ask the police.

In a survey we conducted with the Police Executive Research Forum last year of 382 law enforcement agencies, 74 percent reported anti-government extremism as one of the top three terrorist threats in their jurisdiction; 39 percent listed extremism connected with Al Qaeda or like-minded terrorist organizations. And only 3 percent identified the threat from Muslim extremists as severe, compared with 7 percent for anti-government and other forms of extremism.

More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/opini ... d=45305309

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Obama tells Americans to start listening to Muslims

http://www.dawn.com/news/1190061/obama- ... to-muslims

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has urged anti-Islam demonstrators in the United States to “stop yelling and start listening”, telling them that they would find Muslims peaceful and welcoming if they reached out to them.

He read out a message of peace at an iftar-dinner he hosted at the White House on Monday, noting that more than 1.5 billion people around the world observed Ramazan as “a time of spiritual renewal and a reminder of one’s duty to our fellow man”.

He recalled that when three young Muslim Americans were brutally murdered in Chapel Hill, South Carolina, earlier this year, Americans of all faiths rallied around that community.

He noted that in the same state last week a white supremacist murdered nine African Americans at a church in Charleston.

“As Americans, we insist that nobody should be targeted because of who they are, or what they look like, who they love, how they worship. We stand united against these hateful acts.”

He noted that many people in America did not personally know Muslims and formed their opinion on second hand knowledge. “They mostly hear about Muslims in the news — and that can obviously lead to a very distorted impression,” he said.

Mr Obama recalled that recently a group of Americans gathered outside a mosque in Arizona with offensive signs against Islam and Muslims but when the mosque’s leaders invited them inside to share in the evening prayer, their opinion changed.

“One demonstrator, who accepted the invitation later, described … how he finally saw the Muslim American community for what it is — peaceful and welcoming,” he said. “That’s what can happen when we stop yelling and start listening.”

Mr Obama said the Holy Quran teaches people to “tread gently on the earth and, when confronted by ignorance, reply ‘peace’. We affirm that whatever our faith, we are one family.”

President Obama said the White House iftar was also a reminder of the freedoms that bound Americans together, “including the freedom of religion — that inviolable right to practise our faiths freely”.

The iftar-dinner continues a tradition started by president Bill Clinton and continued by president George W. Bush.
There were about 150 guests, including some Muslim members of Congress. Since June 21 is the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere the White House meal was served promptly.

The menu included vegetable salad with rosemary pita chips, lemon lamb, crushed peanut potatoes, French beans, chocolate flourless cake, cherry compote, and iced tea and yogurt sorbet.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2015

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Subject: Mehdi Hasan’s Reply to Extremists

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdpJqi3XcuI

Mehdi Hasan on Islam and blasphemy: Muhammad survived Dante’s Inferno. He’ll survive a YouTube clip

Like freedom, tolerance is not a western invention or innovation; it is an Islamic virtue

http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affai ... utube-clip

******

Islam and the modern age
Moving beyond dogmatic doctrine

Whoever equates Islam with Islamists has allowed themselves to be taken in by the radicals and ignores the fact that there are many liberal Muslims who have adapted their faith to the requirements of the modern world. By Rainer Hermann

Just over a quarter of a century ago, the French Islamic scholar Maxime Rodinson wrote a book entitled "Europe and the Mystique of Islam". Since then, Islam has come to be viewed as a threat. Nowhere else in the world are there as many wars as in the area that stretches from North Africa, through the Levant and all the way to the Hindu Kush. The countries spanned by this arc have one thing in common: they are all Muslim.

The terrorist organisations Boko Haram and Islamic State as well as the Taliban also share a common feature: they all claim to be based on Islam. Moreover, in recent weeks, pro-Palestinian demonstrators on the streets of Europe have attracted attention to themselves by shouting anti-Semitic slogans.

All of this tends to bolster the viewpoint that Islam is fixated on violence and is irreconcilable with the modern age. Although there might appear to be evidence to support this view, basing an opinion on such evidence is far too simplistic. The problem is not Islam itself, but rather the Muslims who practice it.

Open to interpretation

World religions such as Christianity and Islam have been able to endure for so long because they are flexible and always offer the faithful enough room to adapt to new circumstances. Islam permits a great deal, among other things because one Koran sura says one thing and another says the opposite.

In every era, there have been terrorist groups in the Islamic world. In the twelfth century, for instance, there were the Assassins, the equivalent of today's al-Qaida and its successor organisations. Such groups were and still are dangerous. However, they have never developed into mass movements. In fact, the opposite is the case. The Arab Muslims were only able to conquer the Levant virtually without a fight in the seventh century, because the local Oriental Christians welcomed them as liberators from the repressive Byzantine state church.

Exactly two hundred years ago, Goethe began reading the "Divan" by the Persian poet Hafez. Five years later, he created a monument to the Muslim Orient with his "West-Eastern Divan." Goethe was deeply impressed by Hafez' liberal observance of Islam, convinced that such a free spirit could never have been inspired by a totalitarian form of Islam.

More....

http://en.qantara.de/content/islam-and- ... c-doctrine

[kmaherali]

The Growing appeal of Sufism in America

Islamophobia may reach a manageable equilibrium

The future of Islam in America is bright. Even though many American Muslims are reluctant to acknowledge it, there is clearly a uniquely American Islam on the horizon. What is hopeful about this American Islam is that perceptions of it are gradually becoming immune to the violence, the human rights violations and the political chaos that is perpetrated in the name of Islam in many parts of the Muslim World.

Many Americans today are able to make a distinction between “our Muslims” meaning American Muslims and “those Muslims”, meaning Muslims in Europe, Middle East and generally “over there”. This is a gradual development and is apparent from opinion surveys which show low favorability for Islam – because it is shaped by realities in the Islamic World – and higher favorability towards American Muslims – because this opinion is shaped by interaction with American Muslims who are generally successful, devout, moderate and increasingly engaged in interfaith dialogue and volunteerism.

Muslim activists, organizations and scholars today are scrambling all the time to combat Islamophobic episodes or acts of violence that may engender more hate towards Islam and Muslims. Periodically we have to deal with critical moments -- the attacks on soldiers in Fort Hood in 2011, the Boston bombings in 2013 and the Chattanooga shooting in 2015 -- that cause setback to our efforts to fight Islamophobia.

Hopefully as American Muslims become more insulated from the negative consequences – Islamophobia -- of the political and cultural realities of the Muslim World by distancing themselves from the theological and political proclivities over there, they will become safer and will thrive more than ever before over here. Surveys conducted by Pew have found that opinions of Islam and violence did not change after the attacks on the Boston Marathon in 2013, suggesting that we are reaching equilibrium and this bodes well for the future.

Islamism to American Muslim Exceptionalism

In the 1980s and 1990s politically active American Muslims, mostly new immigrants, were deeply influenced by political Islam and its vision of Islamic revivalism. Many of the Islamic institutions that were established by the American Muslim community in this period, such as the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) were clearly influenced by Islamic movements in South Asia and the Arab world.

But the rise of Islamophobia in the U.S., and the consistently anti-political Islam discourse in the American public sphere has started eroding the control and influence of political Islam on the culture and politics of American Muslims. This trend began after the aggressive response from American federal agencies to the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. American Muslim organizations distanced themselves from their mother-movements and also stopped taking funds and donations from Arab governments and private overseas donors. These changes essentially weakened the grip of political Islam on key Muslim organizations and also created an opportunity for political active Muslims to introduce a new kind of Muslim politics.

This new politics of American Muslims embraces to some extent American exceptionalism and seeks to fight prejudice against Islam and Muslims within the ethical and legal framework of American constitution. Additionally there has been a conscious attempt to put the American in American Muslim. Pride in American values of democracy, freedom and civil rights is shaping this new politics and identity of American Muslims who are moving away from Islamism towards American exceptionalism.

Soft Sufism

Given the strong association of Salafi Islam -- which is narrow, literalist, puritanical, and intolerant -- with terrorism and groups such as Boko Haram and ISIL many American Muslim communities and theological leaders are distancing themselves from it. As a result the appeal of Sufi and quasi-Sufi movements and scholars is on the rise among younger generation of American Muslims as evident from the popularity of gatherings such as ‘Reviving the Islamic Spirit’, Islamic singers such as Meher Zain and Sami Yusuf and rock star Imams like Hamza Yusuf.

Unlike traditional Sufism, which tends to revolve around long standing mystical orders (Tariqas), order specific practices, veneration of saints and devotional music, America’s emerging soft Sufism revolves around the cult of celebrity Imams, huge five star conventions, global spiritual tourism and, this is positive, more knowledge oriented than traditional Sufism.

I am bullish about the future of American Islam. It will be marked by two trends: the embracing of the American in American Muslims more substantively through enhanced engagement in politics and service locally, and through a shift in theological orientation towards a more spiritual Islam.

http://www.turkeyagenda.com/the-growing ... -2798.html

[kmaherali]

Religions Are What People Make Them

The current crop of Republican presidential candidates is accomplishing something I would have considered impossible: making George W. Bush look like a statesman. Say what you like about his actions after 9/11 — and I did not like, at all — at least he made a point of not feeding anti-Muslim hysteria. But that was then.

Reason probably doesn’t do much good in these circumstances. Still, to the extent that there are people who should know better declaring that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with democracy, or science, or good things in general, I’d like to recommend a book aIrecently read: S. Frederick Starr’s Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age From the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane. It covers a place and a time of which I knew nothing: the medieval flourishing of learning — mathematics, astronomy, medicine, philosophy — in central Asian cities made rich by irrigated agriculture and trade.

As Starr describes their work, some of these scholars really did prefigure the Enlightenment, sounding remarkably like Arabic-speaking precursors of David Hume and Voltaire. And the general picture he paints is of an Islamic world far more diverse in its beliefs and thinking than anything you might imagine from current prejudices.

Now, that enlightenment was eventually shut down by economic decline and a turn toward fundamentalism. But such tendencies are hardly unique to Islam.

People are people. They can achieve great things, or do terrible things, under lots of religious umbrellas. (An Israeli once joked to me, “Judaism has rarely been a religion of oppression. Why? Lack of opportunity.”) It’s ignorant and ahistorical to claim unique virtue or unique sin for any one set of beliefs.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/0 ... d=45305309

[kmaherali]

New Poll Finds Anti-Muslim Sentiment Frighteningly High

Call it Trumpism, an ad-hoc term for the cresting wave of white Republican resentment that Donald Trump has been surfing like Duke Kahanamoku. Some find it fascinating. Late-night comics like Stephen Colbert have been treating it like it’s hilarious.

But a lot of people take Mr. Trump completely seriously, and support him fervently. So when do we start being frightened for this country?

A poll came out today. It’s just one poll in one Southern state, North Carolina, by one polling outfit (Public Policy Polling, or PPP) with Democratic Party ties, asking questions of a few hundred Republican primary voters.

But still, these results:


“Do you think a Muslim should ever be allowed to be President of the United States, or not?

A Muslim should be allowed to be President of the United States: 16 percent

A Muslim should not be allowed to be President of the United States: 72 percent

Not sure: 12 percent”



“Do you think the religion of Islam should be legal or illegal in the United States?

Islam should be legal in the United States: 40 percent

Islam should be illegal in the United States: 40 percent

Not sure: 20 percent”

Do these people know what it means to outlaw Muslim worship? Do they teach history in the North Carolina schools? Do they know what would happen if we closed mosques, arrested worshipers and prayer leaders, imposed religious tests for public office? Are these overwrought questions, or do the ugly answers in this poll portend something seriously wrong: an outbreak of a deadly fever this country has seen many times before?

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/201 ... d=45305309

[kmaherali]

Why I converted to Islam

BY SARAH PRICE

Islamist. Jihadist. ISIS. Terrorist. Women banned from driving in Saudi Arabia. Burqa. 9/11... For a word that means 'peaceful submission to God', Islam is a religion that is connected to some pretty negative connotations and often seen in the media for all the wrong reasons. So, why would an educated, independent and well-travelled young Australian woman decide to convert to a religion widely considered 'backwards'?

I get confused looks at my fair skin and light eyes. Some Australians ask what country I'm from, and get shocked to hear I’m Australian. Australian AND Muslim? The combination is unthinkable to some.

Converting to Islam hasn’t been easy. I’ve been called names, been scrutinized, rejected and fired from jobs, lost friends and had a really difficult time with my family accepting the changes in my life. Despite the harsh and rude comments about my change in faith (including how some assume I converted for a man), I’ve also had people come up to me and ask me why. It’s a question I’m happy to answer. My conversion to Islam was down to three main factors. This is my story and the story of the journey that led me over the course of two years to where I am now.

More....
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/why-i-convert ... 56754.html

[kmaherali]

For Muslim-Americans, Baby Aidan or Baby Muhammad?

“ALHAMDULILAH, by the greatest blessings of God, we are overjoyed to announce the birth of our beloved new baby son, Aidan.”

I sincerely celebrated the good news, deferred to social media etiquette and clicked “like” on my friend’s post. Another new Muslim baby Aidan had entered the world.

He joins lots of little Aidans, Rayans and Adams, Sarahs, Laylas and Sophias smiling and drooling their way through my Facebook feed. Not popping up as much? Bouncing baby Muhammads.

The logic goes that “Rayan” can blend in as a moderate “Ryan,” “Aidan” is cool, mysterious and thus inherently likable; and “Adam,” inspired by the prophet, is sturdy, safe and reliable like George, William and Oprah. And who doesn’t like a plain and tall “Sarah,” an exotic “Layla,” who even got Eric Clapton on his knees?

The process of choosing a name for a tiny human being is a tremendous, anxiety-inducing responsibility that can lead to marital spats, desperate crowdsourcing and late-night prayers for divine inspiration.

For Muslim parents, it carries a much heavier burden.

“Should we give our baby a less Muslim-y name?” I asked my wife after we did an awkward, late-night celebration dance upon seeing the “+” sign appear on the pregnancy test over a year and a half ago.

It wasn’t crazy to be entertaining the question. Why burden your kid with a profile-worthy name in addition to the problems he will likely inherit because of his skin color, ethnicity and religion?

Some numbers to consider: In a recent poll, 30 percent of Iowa’s Republican voters said they wanted the practice of Islam to be illegal. Nearly three dozen states have introduced bills to ban the influence of foreign laws, targeting Shariah law, which are about as necessary and useful as anti-Bigfoot and anti-unicorn bills, and many Americans don’t want a Muslim as president, even though 29 percent think they’ve already elected a Muslim twice.

The Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson doubled down on his recent inflammatory statements and said he would not support a Muslim for president unless he or she renounced central tenets of the religion. His bigotry was rewarded with a huge rise in Facebook friend requests and a surge in fund-raising.

In 1980, I think my immigrant parents were more concerned about saving money to buy halal meat and removing turmeric from under their fingernails than the social consequences of naming their only child “Wajahat.”

It’s a trisyllabic name with Arabic roots that means “esteemed,” and is used by certain Pakistani parents who want to guarantee that their American-born Muslim child experiences childhood mockery.

“Whatchamacallit?” “Waja-the-Hut” and “Warbalot” are my all-time favorite mispronunciations over the past 34 years.

“Why is your name so difficult?” I was constantly asked by the Travises, MacKenzies and Joshes of the elementary school world.

By fifth grade, the scimitar forged by and for mainstream simplicity chopped off two syllables, leaving me as only “Waj” — the friendly neighborhood token American Muslim kid of Pakistani descent with lentil stains on his OshKosh B’Gosh shirt and husky pants.

However, like premature balding and chest hair, “Wajahat” has grown on me over the years. As a member of the 9/11 generation, I’ve owned, defended and attempted to honor the name with all its baggage.

When the towers fell, I was a 20-year-old University of California, Berkeley, student who experienced a baptism by fire, like many of my Muslim peers.

I emerged as the accidental activist and cultural ambassador, a walking Wikipedia and defense counsel of 1,400 years of Islamic civilization and 1.5 billion people. Our patriotism and moderation were always indicted, tried and convicted by a nameless judge who thought Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were the religion’s brand names.

I assumed that participating in the “condemnathons” — monthly rituals where Muslims are asked to vociferously condemn acts committed by violent extremists they’ve never met on continents they’ve never visited — would abate anti-Muslim fears.

I was wrong.

When I was growing up, the worst name I was called was “Gandhi,” which is actually a compliment. Even being labeled “Apu” — a character from “The Simpsons” — wasn’t that insulting. He has great catchphrases (if questionable entrepreneurial sensibilities), and married the smart, attractive Manjula.

Fast forward to 2015. My brown-skinned Muslim baby, who eats tandoori chicken, graham crackers and mashed potatoes, and is infatuated with Elmo, is seen as a “problem” by some American voters because of his religious identity.

In Texas, a 14-year-old teenager who made a digital clock to impress his teacher was humiliated and handcuffed. If his name wasn’t Ahmed Mohamed, what would have happened instead? He’d probably be hailed as the Texan Jimmy Neutron or teenage Tony Stark.

Like most parents, I could never forgive myself for causing my child undue pain.

But if a Wajahat can survive and thrive in America, then why should we be afraid? Why not throw down and give the boy a symbolic, honorable “Muslim-y” name?

So, we named our son “Ibrahim.”

One might assume it’s because “Ibrahim,” the Arabic pronunciation of Abraham, is the dear friend of God revered by all monotheistic religions, who rebuilt the Kaba in Mecca, offered to sacrifice his son, and was promised a blessed progeny that would inherit the land. One might also think we chose the name to honor Abraham Lincoln, who ended slavery — and earned Daniel Day-Lewis a third Academy Award.

The name is in fact a hopeful prayer — both for my son and the future of America. It’s inspired by a verse in the Quran: “O fire, be coolness and peace upon Ibrahim.”

As a parent of a multisyllabic young boy, I pray that the fires of America will be cooled by and for the Ibrahims of the world. May the Travises, Laylas, Sarahs and Aidans join him in this difficult but necessary task.

Wajahat Ali, a writer and the author of the play “The Domestic Crusaders,” is a journalist at Al Jazeera America.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/opini ... ammad.html

[kmaherali]

There are far more Muslims ready to fight for the West than against it

By Edward E. Curtis IV November 20


Edward E. Curtis IV is editor of the Bloomsbury Reader on Islam in the West.

On Oct. 19, 2008, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman and secretary of state Colin Powell went on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to endorse Barack Obama for president. Troubled by accusations that Obama was secretly a Muslim, Powell asked the obvious question: “What if he is?”

One reason Powell was so bothered by the suggestion that a Muslim could not become president was, he said, because he had recently seen a photograph of a mother leaning on the gravestone of her fallen son at Arlington National Cemetery. The soldier was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, a New Jersey native and Muslim American recipient of a Purple Heart and Bronze Star.

Though terrorist attacks in the United States and Europe get far more attention, the fact is that Cpl. Khan’s service in the military represents, by far, the vast majority of political violence carried out by Muslims in the West.

True, this Muslim war-making is state-sponsored violence, not terrorism. But it is political violence all the same, and it is committed by religious Muslims, most of whom are also deeply loyal to their Western nation-states.

Tens of thousands of Muslims serve in the U.S. military and in the military forces of countries across Europe. And they always have.

From the time they began arriving in the 8th century, when the military leader Tariq ibn Ziyad conquered Gibraltar, Muslims have been part of the multi-religious military forces of the West.

One reason we think of Muslim warriors as foreign to the West rather than part of it is because much of Western identity has been built on an imaginary conflict between the Christian West and the Muslim East, as so poetically rendered in the French national epic, “The Song of Roland.”

The historical record contradicts that mythology. During the Middle Ages in Iberia, Southern Italy and Anatolia, Muslims and Christians were as likely to fight on the same side as they were to oppose each other.

As Muslims disappeared from Spain after Ferdinand and Isabella’s conquest of Granada in 1492, they continued to make their mark on Western military history in Ottoman Hungary and in the Battle of Warsaw in 1656, when indigenous Tatar Muslims fought bravely for Poland.

During the Crimean War of 1853 to 1856, sometimes called the first modern war, Muslims could be found on all sides.

American Muslims, both slaves and freedmen, served in the American War of Independence and the War of 1812, and with both the Union Army and the Confederacy during the Civil War.

According to Department of Veterans Affairs burial and memorial records, about 5,470 people with possible Muslim names — there are numerous spellings of Muhammad — served in World War I.

In Europe, the numbers were much higher. Perhaps 400,000 Muslims from the British Empire fought on the Allied side. Tens of thousands fought in the French armed forces, and in 1926, the Grand Mosque in Paris was dedicated in their honor.

Muslims also served Allied forces during World War II. One typical serviceman was John R. Omar, a native of Quincy, Mass., who was a turret gunner on a B-24 Liberator. Assigned to the Eighth Air Force in Europe, Omar was part of 29 missions, including the Battle of the Bulge. Awarded the Purple Heart after he was hit by shrapnel in his right leg, Omar went on to run his own body shop and later performed the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca.

Muslims also served in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf War of 1991 and in post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Perhaps the most decorated Muslim soldier in U.S. military history was Maj. James Ahearn, who converted to Islam while serving in Iraq. He received two Bronze Stars, two Meritorious Service Medals, five Army Commendation Medals and several other honors. He was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad in 2007.

Ahearn’s sacrifice and that of hundreds of thousands of Muslims who have served in Western armies remind us that, as dangerous and frightening as Muslim terrorist attacks have been, there are far more Muslims ready to lay down their lives for the West than to attack it.

Read more on this issue:

David Ignatius: The fight against the Islamic State should unite Muslims and the West

Fareed Zakaria: We need patience, not panic, to defeat the Islamic State

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... story.html

Edward E. Curtis IV is editor of the Bloomsbury Reader on Islam in the West.

[kmaherali]

World's Largest Islamic Organization Tells ISIS To Get Lost

A 50-million strong Sunni movement in Indonesia just launched a global anti-extremism campaign.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ind ... e9d1c26bda

[kmaherali]

Fear Ignorance, Not Muslims

As the country continues a long and dangerous campaign to root out and prevent terrorist threats, it is concerned but not helpless. Federal investigators are starting a terrorism investigation in the California mass shooting, and more facts will emerge about the background of the killers and their links to the Islamic State.

Wherever the investigation leads, Americans must guard against overreaction, and subdue the panicked reflex of distrust and hatred toward the Americans among us who are Muslims. This has been a problem at least since 9/11 and will remain one as long as ignorance about Islam remains deep and widespread. Today the ignorance is being inflamed by know-nothings in the political sphere — by Republican presidential candidates calling for American Muslims to be registered and monitored, and for mosques to be spied on or shut down. Governors of more than two dozen states have declared their borders shut to Syrian refugees, in open defiance of common sense, the Constitution and human decency.

Contrast these amateurs’ panic with the behavior of law-enforcement experts, like the counter-terrorism officials of the Los Angeles Police Department who met on Thursday with Muslim-American leaders to reassure them and the community at large that they are not alone and that they are facing this challenge together.

“Muslim communities are our strength — not our weakness,” Deputy Chief Michael Downing told The Times. “We can’t let this deteriorate our relationship or allow others to isolate or stigmatize the Muslim community.”

More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/opini ... 87722&_r=0

[kmaherali]

The article below discusses the recent history of terrorism in Europe and how other organisations were involved besides the ISIS....

Learning From Terrorism Past

Excerpt:

"In the 1970s and 1980s, terrorist attacks were a daily occurrence, and just as horrible and frightening as the threat later presented by Al Qaeda, and now by the Islamic State. From Ireland’s Irish Republican Army to Spain’s Basque separatist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, from France’s Action Directe to Germany’s Rote Armee Fraktion, to Italy’s Brigate Rosse and the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari, violent extremist political cells were almost the norm."

More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/opini ... 87722&_r=0

[kmaherali]

Muslims in Kenya offer a Christmas present to the world

After a year marred by violence that has led some people to suppose that confrontation is inevitable among humanity's religions, a busload of Muslims in northeast Kenya has given us all a gift beyond measure for Christmas and the New Year.

On December 21, when armed al-Shabab extremists halted a bus near the town of Mandera, they asked the Muslims on board to help separate out the Christian passengers for execution - a pattern of attack with which they have repeatedly traumatised Kenyans in recent years.

But the Muslim passengers threw a human shield around their Christian compatriots and told the attackers that they would have to kill the entire busload, Muslims and Christians alike. Muslim women took off their traditional headscarves and handed them to non-Muslims to wear for protection.

The gift of these Kenyans went far beyond offering protection for their Christian neighbours.

Kenyan society is predominately Christian, but communities of Muslim, Bahai, Buddhist and African traditional religion add an important cultural, economic and social fabric to its citizenry.

Organisations such as the Inter-Religious Council of Kenya - composed of a cross-section of faith-based communities - work vigorously to promote inclusion, and speak to the long-standing tradition in Kenyan society promoting tolerance and inclusion.

Thus, the past week is a reminder to all of us of the power of solidarity against extremism in an increasingly anguished and angry world.

The message of these Muslim bus passengers, with their courage at gunpoint, is that extremist groups will ultimately fail to drive a wedge between Christians and Muslims, in part because the vast majority of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims oppose any religious ideology that embraces violence.

The world's two most populous religious communities share values of tolerance and peace that can prevail over any religious or ethnic division.

Indeed, the Muslim-Christian commitment to mutual respect is rooted in 7th-century East Africa, to which early Muslims fled as refugees and were granted protection in the ancient Christian kingdom of Axum, in an event known as the "First Hijra".

This week's defiant act of peace at a rural roadside is no singular event in Kenya. While communal divisions have flared, it is a nation also steeped in long traditions of tolerance and cooperation among its disparate ethnic and religious communities.

In Nairobi, Garissa and other localities that have been traumatised by terrorist attacks in recent years, local women now run an organisation, called Sisters Without Borders, to prevent radicalisation of young people. They also have lobbied Kenyan legislators to provide better support for Kenyan police.

We too often fail to notice the acts of courageous compassion just like that at Mandera. In February, more than 1,000 Muslims formed a human chain of protection around a synagogue in Norway to condemn an extremist's attack on Jews.

Orthodox Jews in a London district recently formed street patrols in part to protect their Muslim neighbours from hate crimes.

The continuous headlines of warfare in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere have generated deep public frustration with international policies that often seem not to have dented the appeal of extremist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), al-Shabab and Boko Haram.

But social scientists, digging into real data far below the notice of those headlines, are learning about what actually works in preventing extremism. A global research network called RESOLVE, coordinated by the US Institute of Peace, is underscoring a simple point - that any successful strategy must be tailored for, and rooted in, the community where it is being applied.

This point - the criticality of the local context - was illustrated dramatically in the bus confrontation near Mandera. The Muslim passengers acted almost instinctively because they were protecting people they knew as neighbours.

The drama at Mandera triggered an outpouring of support. Kenya's government and the global community have praised the courage of ordinary citizens.

Radio, internet and social media platforms in Kenya, Africa and worldwide are flooded with the hashtags #KenyanMuslims and #WeareallMuslims.

Suddenly and for a moment, the buzz about solidarity, courage and unity is stronger than the narrative of division, violence and "otherness".

But we must remember that Mandera is not a rare event - and that parallel stories of human familyhood are all around us.

When those stories of solidarity are consistently louder than the narratives of those who justify violence or bigotry in the name of religion, we will be a step closer to defeating violent extremism and rebuilding peace in our communities.

Elizabeth Cole is a senior programme officer in the Center for Applied Research on Conflict at the United States Institute of Peace. Muhammad Fraser-Rahim is a programme officer for Africa programmes at the United States Institute of Peace. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

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