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Islam

The Middle East & the West – Building Bridges through the Arts

“Art is the conversation … Art offers an opening for the heart ... Art is, at least, the knowledge of where we are standing … In this Wonderland … we are partners straddling the universe.’”

First All-Women Mosque in America Launched

Gold and green balloons strained to be released and soar into the sky at midday on Friday, January 30, at the entrance to the Pico Union Synagogue in Los Angeles, one of the oldest synagogues in LA, now an interfaith and multicultural arts center that regularly hosts multiple religious communities. This house of worship, with its huge multicolored stained-glass Star of David, was about to become the weekly home of the first all-women’s mosque in America and the site of the first jummah prayer in LA led exclusively by women.

On Being a Muslim Parent

Last year, as I was unpacking my son’s school backpack, I found the children’s book on the Prophet Muhammad that my wife and I read to him at night. He had brought it to school without telling us. “It was for show and tell,” he explained to me.

How a Muslim Experienced Agape at Puja

In the tradition of Thanksgiving, I would like to show my appreciation for the unique interfaith environment at Georgetown University. Here is a story of how a devout Muslim learned about the Christian concept of agape by engaging with the Hindu community.

A Muslim Initiative Addresses Radicalization of Young People

Moderate Muslims and interfaith activists are regularly, persistently asked the question: Why don’t your leaders step forward and protest the advancing threat of Islamic extremism? Especially in light of troubling headlines from Iraq and Syria in recent weeks?

In fact, American Muslims have established dedicated websites brimming with articles and YouTube segments by prominent Muslims leaders, citing the Quran and full of harsh condemnation against religious extremism – websites mostly unknown to the greater public. Heretics have “high-jacked” their religion and caused Muslims in America and the world to be targets of Islamophobia, and they are raising their voices. Only recently have major media started to pay attention.

Understanding the Roots of the ‘Angry Muslim’

“Brother, brother,” a young man called out to me, as I hurriedly left a lecture hall in a community centre in Durban, South Africa. This happened at the height of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, after all efforts at stopping the ferocious U.S.-Western military drives against these two countries had failed.

Young Muslims in Poland: Renewal of a Centuries-old Legacy

A Small Muslim Minority in Poland Making a Big Difference

Raheel Raza: Not Afraid of Getting into Trouble

Helping Liberate Islam from Extremists

Malala’s Muslim Faith: A Voice of Islam for the Next Generation

A Sixteen-Year-Old Points the Way

Muslim Students Exploring 'Religion and Science'

Report

What You Can Learn from the Fight to End Islamophobia – July 25th, 3:30 ET

RFPUSA Webinar Series

Quranic Values as an Inspiration for Gay Marriage

Revisioning Islamic Same-sex Relations

Hate Comes to Manchester, Tennessee

Shameful Demagoguery at “Public Discourse”

Muslims and Evolution in the 21st Century: A Galileo Moment?

Religion and Science from Muslim Perspectives

A Salute to America

From the Board – Recognizing Goodness Regardless of the Rhetoric

Why Young Adults Are Disappearing from Our Congregations

My work life so far has focused on the youth and young adult communities in Muslim and Unitarian Universalist (UU) settings, and this essay is about the challenges they face. Many American faith communities face the problem of large elderly populations and small to non-existent populations of young people from 18 to 30. The Pew Forum reports that a third of the U.S. population under 30 now identifies as religiously unaffiliated. Clearly, faith communities are having trouble maintaining relationships with their estranged youth communities.

The Mosque Cares’s Ramadan Sessions as Communal Education

What follows is a brief program description from The Mosque Cares, one of RFPUSA’s religious communities. The program is designed to instill a sense of community identity while ministering to its neighborhood. This is the first in a series portraying activities of religious communities that are members of RFPUSA.

Listening and Achieving the Impossible Dream

Can Jews and Muslims actually get along? For the average American, plagued by widespread misinformation and skewed biases from the media, this might seem nearly impossible. In light of the ubiquitous news of conflict in the Middle East, coexistence between these two faith traditions is often perceived as a lost cause. However, here in the Southern California an number of Jewish and Muslim communities are working in harmony towards peace and understanding.

Faithful to the Truth

Mirabai Starr speaks of the great tree of monotheism with its roots entrenched in the immutable soil of the metaphysical truth of love and its trunk extending heavenwards.

Challenging Evangelical Assumptions

Evangelicals face enormous challenges in the pluralistic public square in the 21st century, especially among Muslims. Suspicion and fear of Muslims exist in many quarters as a result of 9/11 and other radical Muslim acts of terror in places like Spain and London and some bad habits about how most of us absorb news. We firmly believe that radical Muslims do not represent the majority of Muslims in the West, who have repeatedly disavowed terrorism. Clearly, most Muslims in the U.S. seek to live out their Muslim faith in ways that affirm and resonate with American values.