NY: Of Islam and Inventions
The story of aviation often begins with Leonardo da Vinci’s designs for flying machines, which would later inspire the Wright brothers and their famous sustained flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903. Yet centuries before Leonardo, in A.D. 875, Abbas bin Firnas, a Muslim inventor in Spain, cloaked himself in bird feathers, strapped himself to a […]
FL: Hebrew Charter School Draws Critics
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (AP) – A school opening this month is named for a Jewish high priest, is directed by a rabbi, will have kosher food and will teach Hebrew. It’s also a public school, funded by public tax dollars and following state curriculum guidelines. Ben Gamla Charter School, billed as the nation’s first publicly funded […]
NY: Mosque to Hold Town Hall Mtg on Arabic Academy Controversy
[CONTACT: CAIR-NY Civil Rights Coordinator Aliya Latif, Tel: 212-870-2002 or 732-429-4268, E-Mail: alatif@cair.com] (Special thanks to Ms. Almontaser and Ms. Alhusseini for their transparency in providing us with the correct information so as to leave no room for speculation.) In response to the resignation of Debbie Almontaser as principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, […]
NY: ‘Islamic Terrorism’ an Insult, Distorts Reality
[Jimmy E. Jones is chairman of the Department of World Religions at Manhattanville College in Purchase, N.Y., and president of Masjid Al-Islam New Haven. Write to him at P.O. Box 8484, New Haven 06531. E-mail: jonesyahya@yahoo.com.] My wife, Matiniah, and I just returned from Cairo, Egypt, where we directed our third annual month-long Intensive Arabic […]
AR: US Muslims Setting International Example
The leader of the largest Muslim community in America said Friday that Muslims here live in harmony overall with people of other religious backgrounds and Muslim nations abroad are taking note. “I believe that Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and perhaps many other Muslim nations, are really studying (Muslim) life here in America to see […]
CAIR-CA: Muslims Commemorate Isra and Miraj
One night more than 1,400 years ago, the Islamic faith teaches, God took the Prophet Muhammad on a journey from Mecca to Jerusalem to heaven. Muslims believe that during the trip, Muhammad met with other prophets, including Adam, Abraham, Moses and Jesus. And that it was the night God assigned to him the five daily […]
CAIR-FL: Family Meets with Accused Student
The family of Youssef Megahed, one of two University of South Florida students accused of carrying pipe bombs in his car trunk, met with him Friday inside the South Carolina jail where he is held. “He’s holding up,” said Ahmed Bedier, after speaking by phone with Megahed’s family. Bedier is the executive director of Tampa’s […]
CAIR-SC: Area Muslims See Prejudice
The message Imam Mohamed Melhem delivered during the Friday afternoon prayer service at the Central Mosque of Charleston emphasized the unity of Islam and its universal message of peace. But in the wake of the recent arrests of two Egyptian students driving through Goose Creek, he also expressed the collective frustration of local Muslims, many […]
CAIR: Are U.S. Muslims Second-Class Citizens?
[Dr. Parvez Ahmed is Board Chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)] In December 2001, the U.S. Treasury Department named the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation (HLF), at that time the nation’s largest Muslim charity, as a terrorist organization. The government seized HLF’s assets and shut it down, effectively freezing millions of dollars in religiously […]
DC: CAIR to Host Catholic-Muslim Dialogue
WHAT: American Muslim-Catholic Dialogue: A Model for Communal Understanding WHO: Rev. Francis TisoUnited States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)Secretariat for Ecumenical and Inter-religious Affairs Dr. Muzammil SiddiqiDirector of the Islamic Center of Orange County, California WHY: For more than a decade, American Muslims and Catholics have engaged in substantive exchanges. Father Francis Tiso and Dr. […]