Last September a group known as the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) asked to purchase advertising space on the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA) as part of a larger anti-Islam campaign that AFDI has pursued in transit systems in several major cities across the country. We recently wrote about responses to this in California through street and bus art. Although SEPTA declined to run the ads due to their inflammatory anti-Islamic content, a federal judge granted AFDI’s motion for a preliminary injunction. The ads ran for four weeks, beginning on April 1, 2015, on 84 SEPTA buses.
Buddhist-Muslim Meeting Pushes for Peace
As reported in The Jakarta Post, the Muslim and Buddhist leaders of Southeast Asia and South Asia released the Yogyakarta Statement to refute the “use of Islam and Buddha in the olitics of discrimination and violebnce.” As a result of the “Overcoming Extremism and Advancing Peace with Justice” meeting, which drew leaders from Buddhism and Islam to Indonesia, the Yogyakarta Statement was released Thursday, March 5.
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
Raheel Raza: Not Afraid of Getting into Trouble
Malala’s Muslim Faith: A Voice of Islam for the Next Generation
Muslim Students Exploring 'Religion and Science'
What You Can Learn from the Fight to End Islamophobia – July 25th, 3:30 ET
Quranic Values as an Inspiration for Gay Marriage
Hate Comes to Manchester, Tennessee
Muslims and Evolution in the 21st Century: A Galileo Moment?
A Salute to America
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.