CA: Muslims Fearful of Visible Roles in Mosques
CA: ON THEIR GUARD Imam Mohammad Azeez reads aloud the weekly announcements on this Friday afternoon and again wonders why he couldn’t find anyone else to do it. “Remember to sign up for the new class starting soon,” he says as many worshippers file out the mosque doors. Pray for the mother of a member […]
PA: Islamic Heritage Festival
PA: A DAY OF KORANS AND CAMARADERIE They came from far: Pakistan, Lebanon and India, organizers said. And from near: 80 percent were African Americans from Philadelphia, they added. With the Delaware River flowing serenely in the background and strains of Middle Eastern music rising from red-capped singers on a bright and warm late spring […]
MA: Christian-Muslim History Not All Hostile
MA: CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM HISTORY NOT ALL HOSTILE From the Crusades to 9/11, history has given many laypeople a tale of unrelenting hostility between Christians and Muslims. Michael Penn, who teaches religion and gender studies at Mount Holyoke College, is assembling a different picture by poking in an obscure nook of history. He recently was awarded $120,000 […]
UT: Utahns Open New Mosque
UT: UTAHNS OPEN NEW MOSQUE Tucked in the corner of a strip mall, right beside a closed-down Lowe’s home improvement store, Utah Muslims have a new place to pray and gather. At the spiritual helm of the Utah Islamic Center is Imam Shuaib-ud Din, the longtime religious leader of the Islamic Society of Greater Salt […]
MA: Canopy’s Rise Signals End of Mosque’s Plight
MA: CANOPY’S RISE SIGNALS END OF MOSQUE’S PLIGHT As a crane hoisted a 5,000-pound, copper canopy toward the top of a red brick tower in Roxbury yesterday afternoon, thousands of area Muslims looked upward, some with tears running down their cheeks. “This is the moment we have been waiting for for two decades,” yelled Yousef […]
CA: UCI Deals with Claims of Anti-Semitism
CA: UCI DEALS WITH CLAIMS OF ANTI-SEMITISM A young man in a turban, his face covered, marches around UC Irvine with signs saying “Death to Infidels. Death to Israel” during a week of campus demonstrations by Muslim students. Here’s the catch: He’s not Muslim. In fact, he’s not even a student at UCI. Instead, he’s […]
NY: Prisons Ban Religious Books to Target Islamic Texts
NY: PRISONS BAN BOOKS OVER FEAR OF RADICALS Inmates at the federal prison camp in Otisville, N.Y., were stunned by what they saw at the chapel library on Memorial Day _ hundreds of books had disappeared from the shelves. The removal of the books is occurring nationwide, part of a long-delayed, post-Sept. 11 federal directive […]
CAIR-OH: Muslim Father Embraced Hard Work, Family
CAIR: LESSONS OF THE FATHER Searching for her family after the 2003 Reynoldsburg High School commencement, Samar Shalash spotted her father with flowers in hand and arms wide open. Abdel Shalash hugged and kissed the oldest of his six children, then impulsively removed her purple mortarboard and plopped it cockeyed on his head. “Every time […]
CAIR: Image of US Muslims Distorted
CAIR: MEDIA LENS DISTORTS IMAGE OF MUSLIM AMERICANS A friend recently asked me a question familiar to many Muslim Americans: “Why don’t I hear anything from American Muslims denouncing terrorism?” Muslim Americans are, in fact, constantly condemning terrorism. Muslim leaders and groups throughout the country, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, have repeatedly and unequivocally […]
CAIR-CA Letter to the Editor on Pew Poll
CAIR-CA LETTER TO THE EDITOR: POLL VS. POLL Editor — Carson Watson (Letters, June 3) needs to remove his blinders to see the reality of Muslims. Considering that he has a “serious problem” with the revelations of the Pew study, I’m sure he would be much more concerned that 51 percent of all Americans believe […]