At 6-foot-4, 250 pounds, Maj. Khallid Shabazz is physically imposing. But what seems to intimidate some people more than his size is the little crescent moon stitched above the name tag on his uniform. That crescent identifies Shabazz as one of five Islamic chaplains, called imams, in the Army. It’s a position that often draws considerable attention and sidelong stares given that America’s armed forces have fought Muslim extremists for more than a decade.

Underwraps will represent beautiful Muslims proving that the heady world of fashion does not need to exist at pains with the sanctity of Islamic customs.

A very neat Aaron Carroll chart shows that, on average, conservative states feature more "dependency" on federal programs than do liberal ones. You can slice this kind of data in a variety of ways, but you always end up with the same aggregate pattern. It happens to be the case that the richest parts of the United States (think the San Francisco Bay area or Connecticut) favor Democrats and also that conservative areas of the country are overrepresented in the Senate. Transfers, on average, flow away from high-income and underrepresented areas and toward low-income and overrepresented areas. I think the overall pattern is best described as a coincidence and not a pattern of large-scale hypocrisy but there are two important points to make about it.

Religious leaders must be able to speak in the language and culture of the people they represent. In America, that means tending to one of the most diverse Muslim populations in the world, especially as distinctions linked to ethnicity or sects within Islam become less and less important for the Muslim American community.

Recently, a number of Spanish scholars, such as Jose Erugo, Celso Garcia de la Riega, Otero Sanchez and Nicholas Dias Perez, have concluded that Columbus was a Marrano, whose survival depended upon the suppression of all evidence of his Jewish background in face of the brutal, systematic ethnic cleansing.

I could feel how torn he was. His most important teacher had told him that he had a choice to make. He felt pulled in different directions by the two things that mattered most in his life: his wife and his faith. Nobody had told him that his wife could be completely with him on his journey even if they were never going to be in complete agreement. My teacher in Hebron, for whom any difference was an excuse for disconnection, expressed the same mind-set. Either the cause was perfect and for everybody, or it was flawed and therefore for nobody.

The United States government has never acknowledged any error in detaining Mr. Boumediene, though a federal judge ordered his release, for lack of evidence, in 2008. The government did not appeal, a Defense Department spokesman noted, though he declined to answer further questions about Mr. Boumediene’s case. A State Department representative declined to discuss the case as well, except to point to a Justice Department statement announcing Mr. Boumediene’s transfer to France, in 2009.

‘Granddad, There’s a Head on the Beach’ and Other Summer Reads - NYTimes.com.

But this year’s improbably charming book about hackers is “Alif the Unseen,” a novel prompted by its author’s frustration. G. Willow Wilson, admired for her graphic novels and memoir, says that she was sick of treating her readers as separate factions (“comic-book geeks, literary NPR types and Muslims”) and sick of assumptions that blogging and social media could not have political consequences. 

So she conjured Alif, a young Arab-Indian hacker living in an unnamed Middle Eastern high-security state. Alif falls for Ms. Right on the Web, meets her in real life (“in an instant he forgot all his mental projections of Lebanese pop stars and Egyptian movie actresses”), gets into trouble with the authorities, taps into the secrets of a genie and stirs up a bookload of wizardry and glee. For all its spirited fun, this book incorporates the violence that spills off the Web and into Tahrir Square.

Tony Sanfilippo reimagines the bookstore as a place with bestsellers up front, a print-on-demand machine in the middle, and a scale of pricing options for how to buy or rent the books in the rest of the store, including ebooks

But unlike most people working at AOL's Palo Alto, Calif., campus who were surely still hours from showing up at the sprawling complex, Simons was already there. He'd been living there for two months, hiding out at night on couches, eating the company's food, and exercising and showering in its gym. And now, with an angry security guard bellowing at him, it was all over.

Of course, it is only one small detail in the overall paranoia-inducing fantasy that all (that is, every last one) of the mainstream American Muslim organizations are “fronts” for the Muslim Brotherhood.

On that day, two blessed leaders, Imam W. D. Mohammed (religious and spiritual leader of the largest constituency of Muslims in America), and Chiara Lubich (president and spiritual leader of the Focolare Movement worldwide), held a joint meeting at the Mosque to formalize a “pact” illustrating their commitment to work together to promote unity. This collaboration was not only between their own communities, but also with people of faith from all religions, based on common principles and values.

THE United States has been narrowly saved from lethal terrorist plots in recent years — or so it has seemed.

Although traditionally known for its strong Catholic community, Mexico is also home to a small yet diverse community of Muslims.

Not every encounter with the TSA results in harassment or an uncomfortable "enhanced" screening, but if you feel you've been unjustly targeted by airport security for searches or other invasive procedures, now you can file a report directly from your mobile phone. FlyRights does two things; it gives you a copy of your legal rights to read and carry with you at all times, and it gives you a quick form to use to report inappropriate profiling by screening agents directly to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials.

RavelUnravel, an exploration of the tapestry of religious and spiritual identities that make up our community and world. Watch video interviews with people of diverse faiths, beliefs and cultures talk about their identity and experiences and upload your own to add to the movement.

via andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com

Paper Proposals Due: July 1, 2012

Conference Date: Oct. 12-13, 2012

Claremont Lincoln University, USC’s Office of Religious Life, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and the Center for Global Peacebuilding at Claremont Lincoln are co-sponsoring a conference on Muslim Perspectives on Peacebuilding, from Oct. 12-13, 2012, in Claremont, Calif.

They’ve issued a call for papers from community leaders, activists, educators, researchers, and professionals to inspire fellow scholars and community members interested in peacebuilding from Muslim perspectives, by sharing their experiences in resolving family, community and interfaith conflicts. Themes should relate to Family, Community, and Interfaith conflicts, and, within these themes, conflicts based upon gender, age, culture, and race.

The aim is to deeply engage what it means to approach these issues from Muslim perspectives and develop methodologies and models of intervention and prevention to address the range of issues presented.

Click here for details. 

Why hasn’t Obama taken such an approach? He’s had more than three years as president of the United States to stand loud and firm about how problematic it is to use the label “Muslim” as a pejorative. The television sitcom “Seinfeld” dedicated an episode to this sort of liberal hypocrisy, with Jerry and George denying being gay lovers followed by a quick “not that there's anything wrong with that” with each denial. The sitcom was mocking the insincerity of those who preach acceptance of a minority group but display revulsion when mistakenly confused as a member of that group.

A Muslim, El Akkari has just become the first non-Mormon student-body president in the 57-year history of Brigham Young University-Hawaii.

Craig Monteilh says he did not balk when his FBI handlers gave him the OK to have sex with the Muslim women his undercover operation was targeting. Nor, at the time, did he shy away from recording their pillow talk.

The bebop and cool jazz of American music will be explored when The University of Texas at Arlington’s College of Liberal Arts and School of Architecture welcome back Hussein Rashid, adjunct professor of religion at Hofstra University, to the campus next week for the discussion, “Everyday Art: Islamic Contribution to American Music.”

Canvases with bold colors and Arabic letters lined the walls of the rooms. Downstairs, students rapped about Islam and Judaism to their own version of the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” melody, followed by songs performed in Arabic, Hebrew and English. For the first time, Muslim and Jewish students at Emory University collaborated for an interfaith art gala.

Most of them will never know what it's like to be taunted for their faith.

They'll likely never be bullied or physically attacked for what they wear or have racial epithets thrown their way. 

But on Thursday afternoon, some members of the West Broward High flag football team took a stand and got a small taste of how difficult life can sometimes be for one of their own. 

Before taking the field for their regular-season finale at McArthur High, many of the Bobcats voluntarily donned a hijab, the traditional head scarf worn by Muslim women.

What do Bruce Springsteen, Mahalia Jackson, and John Coltrane all have in common? Well according to Dr. Hussein Rashid of Hofstra University  each bear witness to the Islamic Contribution to American Music. This was the title of his lecture at my law school alma mater, Southern Methodist University.

So I sit here today, with the first words I have written since.   First words since trusting this child of God to God’s earth, and hoping and praying to see this sweet child again, luminous and risen, enfolded and embraced by God’s own presence.  The parents of this beautiful child are people of faith.   They are the pillars of their faith community, and an inspiration to all who know them.   These are the very best of people, and here is the worst of fates happening to the best of people.    And I have no answers, no ultimate explanations. And yet, and yet, maybe it’s too much to ask for religion to give us the “why” answer.  

ShaykhaFest: Celebrating Female Scholarship in Islam

Sunday, June 23 in NJ.

ShaykhaFest_Flyer.pdf

Let’s be honest: Most investigative reporting doesn’t get widely read because it’s dense, inaccessible and not very compelling. It lands with a thud and isn’t heard from again. That’s why I was rooting for a couple of guys this time around for Pulitzers whose work was doggedly reported, widely read, and forced the powers that be to react.

A conversation with Dr. Eboo Patel
Recipient of Hofstra University’s 2012 Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize and Founder and President of Interfaith Youth Core

Moderated by Dr. Hussein Rashid
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Religion, Hofstra University

Wednesday, April 18, 2012 4:30-6:30 p.m.
The Helene Fortunoff Theater, Monroe Lecture Center, South Campus

37697 Guru Nanak Poster.pdf