NY: Passengers Report Muslim Men ‘Counting’ on Trains
After 9/11, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority coined the slogan, “If you see something, say something,” and put it on posters encouraging subway and bus riders to call a police counterterrorism hot line if they encountered anything suspicious. Then, last July, the authority trumpeted results on new posters and in television ads: “Last year, 1,944 New […]
CAIR: Who Shapes Candidates’ Foreign Policy Opinions?
Lawrence Korb, now working for Sen. Barack Obama, doesn’t like the way American foreign policy has been conducted by George W. Bush.In an interview last fall, Rep. Peter King complained that “we have too many mosques in this country.” That caused a stir, especially since the New York Republican is among those advising presidential candidate […]
New Jersey Weighs Tougher Hate-Crime Law
The state Assembly on Monday overwhelmingly approved a bill to toughen the state’s hate crime and bullying laws. The bill, which had passed in the state Senate unanimously, now heads to desk of Gov. Jon S. Corzine. He is expected to sign it into law. The measure amends an existing bias intimidation law by adding […]
CAIR: Why US Muslims Live in Peace
Wherever you have a Muslim community, you’ll find trouble, you’ll find friction, you’ll find national-religious demands, and you’ll find terror. Isn’t that so? No, it isn’t, at least not where the Muslim community in the United States is concerned.At a time when European countries are debating among themselves about how to deal with the burgeoning […]
‘Organized Islamophobia’ in the West
The Swedish far-Left, anti-racist organization Expo recently released a publication ( pdf, in Swedish) entitled “Kriget mot islam,” “The war against Islam,” in which they worried about an increasing trend towards “organized Islamophobia” in the West. According to them, “Parallel with the growth of SIOE, a new anti-Islamic network of academics, bloggers and politicians is […]
Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy
In their new book, Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy, coauthors Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg explore a largely unexamined phenomenon – the “deeply ingrained anxiety” some Westerners, and especially Americans, experience when considering Islam and Muslim cultures. Peter Gottschalk, professor of religion at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and the author of Beyond Hindu and Muslim, […]
MI: Focusing on Humility, Spirituality
Asad Hayat called it the experience of a lifetime. He was full of emotion Thursday in the Kalamazoo Islamic Center as he tried to explain his feelings, three days after returning from a spiritual journey he says has changed him forever. Hayat, a 24-year-old man born in Kalamazoo and raised in Portage, joined two other […]
Immigration Issue Fizzles Again
[Joshua Hoyt is Executive Director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights] One of the rituals of going after that elusive big-game target, the “Middle-America White Male Voter,” is the hunting trip. The day after Christmas, Mike Huckabee tromped through the Iowa fields with a contingent of newspeople. Huckabee’s hunting party bagged three […]
LA: Jewish-Muslim Alternative Spring Break
Never could I have possibly imagined a trip that would end with Jews and Muslims sharing their meals in the kosher cafeteria. Or with Muslims asking me if I am coming to Shabbat dinner on Friday night. Or with Jewish students sitting around a bonfire shouting “Takbir,” an exclamation Muslims use to proclaim the greatness […]
Tariq Ramadan: On Reading the Quran
For Muslims the Koran stands as the Text of reference, the source and the essence of the message transmitted to humanity by the creator. It is the last of a lengthy series of revelations addressed to humans down through history. It is the Word of God – but it is not God. The Koran makes […]