State Fair Booth Volunteers Answer Questions on Islam
Visitors to the California State Fair can find booths demonstrating everything from juicers to cleaning products. For the fourth year in a row, there is also a booth about Islam. On the first floor of Building C, next to a space that sells headphones for athletes, fairgoers can pick up free Qurans and brochures. This […]
Halal Not Just for Muslims Anymore
CHICAGO, July 17 (UPI) — With the annual Ramadan celebration just two weeks away, practicing Muslims this year have more alternatives for breaking the monthlong daily fast — a line of prepared foods from Saffron Road that meet halal strictures. The Stamford, Conn., company produces 15 items — 12 of them frozen and three broths […]
Young Somalis Seeking Dialogue
While media attention on Somalia seldom strays from terrorism, piracy, and a 20-year-old civil war, those problems are among the least pressing for young Somali-Americans, according to participants in a weekend conference in Boston. The issues most relevant to them, they said, don’t make headlines: the strain between Americanized youths and their Somali parents, the […]
GOP Presidential Candidate Cain Opposes Planned Tenn. Mosque
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain opposes a planned Tennessee mosque that has been the subject of protests and legal challenges. Cain didn’t bring up the controversial facility in a campaign rally on Thursday, but told reporters afterward that he’s concerned about the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro. “It is an infringement and an […]
CAIR-Ohio: Hijab is a Symbol of Faith, Freedom
It happens so often Roula Allouch is almost used to it. Strangers walk up, point to her hijab – the headscarf some Muslim women wear – and tell her she’s in America now, has rights and can’t be forced to wear the covering. She thanks them. Then she tells them that she’s American-born, Kentucky-raised and […]
NY Arab-American Group Banned on the Fourth of July
A Bay Ridge Arab-American group blasted the planners of a Fourth of July picnic this week after its offer to pitch in during the event was rebuffed by organizers who said they didn’t want to turn a patriotic celebration into an “ethnic event.” The Arab American Association of New York said it offered to help […]
‘Ex-terrorist’ Rakes in Homeland Security Bucks
Rapid City, South Dakota (CNN) — Walid Shoebat had a blunt message for the roughly 300 South Dakota police officers and sheriff’s deputies who gathered to hear him warn about the dangers of Islamic radicalism. Terrorism and Islam are inseparable, he tells them. All U.S. mosques should be under scrutiny. “All Islamic organizations in America […]
VT: Coffee in Burlington Honors Victims of Bosnian Violence
Enver Sehovic watched Sunday from the steps of Burlington’s City Hall as passers-by poured coffee into hundreds of white, porcelain cups arranged on the brick promenade. His daughter conceived the memorial to honor the 8,000 Muslim men and boys systematically killed 16 years ago in Srebrenica, a city in Sehovic’s native Bosnia and Herzegovina. … […]
Ex-Firefighter Can’t Sue to Bar Mosque Near Ground Zero
A Manhattan judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a former New York City firefighter who is trying to stop the construction of an Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan. The former firefighter, Timothy Brown, sought to overturn a decision by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission to deny landmark status for a 150-year-old building […]
Post-9/11, Sikhs Say They Are Mistaken Targets
Kamaljit Atwal’s neighborhood seems like an unlikely place for a hate crime. His street in this Sacramento suburb seems a model of diversity. Atwal and his family are one of two Sikh families on the block from India. On Atwal’s street alone, there’s a Vietnamese family, a Mexican family, a black woman and a white […]