May 15th, 20210Saudi Arabia, in which Wahhabism is the state form of Islam, has a long history of vandalizing and demolishing historical monuments. Cultural devastation of Islamic heritage sites is not a new phenomenon to the Bedouin kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
After the conquest of Mecca and Medina in the mid-1920s Saudis went on an orgy of...
August 3rd, 20190DETROIT — The Democratic primary debate that took place July 30 left the audience with a comprehensive idea of which candidates seem to stand a chance of winning the nomination, what their plans entail and just how each of them could be right for Detroit, specifically, and Michigan at large.
Despite competing for voters at the left...
June 4th, 20190KABUL - Muslims around the world celebrated the Eid-al-Fitr religious holiday on Tuesday, marking the end of Islam’s holy month of Ramadan.
Like the start of Ramadan, during which believers abstain from eating and drinking during daylight hours, Eid-al-Fitr depends on the sighting of the moon and its celebration varies in different...
April 2nd, 20190I visited the city of Christchurch on May 23, 2018, as part of a larger speaking tour in New Zealand that also took me to Auckland, Wellington, Hamilton and Dunedin.
New Zealand is an exceptional country, different from other countries that are often lumped under the generalized designation of the “Western world.” Almost immediately...
January 14th, 20191DEARBORN — On Friday, April 19, members of the Muslim community will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the American Moslem Society (ASM).
Established in 1938 by first generation Muslim immigrants, AMS is celebrating 80 years of serving the community.
The AMS, also known as the Dearborn Mosque, is one of the oldest mosques in...
November 25th, 20180WASHINGTON — Hate crimes in the United States in 2017 saw the largest increase — to more than 7,000 — since a period immediately after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, new FBI data said Tuesday.
The 2017 data is the latest uniform crime reporting compilation of bias-motivated incidents from more than 16,100 U.S. law...
November 22nd, 20180The Muslims are no longer coming—they are here!
Well, in reality Muslims have been in America and contributing to it even before the nation was formed, since approximately 15 percent of the slaves from Africa were Muslim.
But now Muslim Americans are “here” in a whole new way as a record number won their elections on Nov. 6....
August 25th, 20180MINA, Saudi Arabia — More than two million haj pilgrims headed back to Mecca for final prayers on Thursday as organizers said the world’s largest annual gathering of Muslims had gone smoothly in the face of political tensions and huge logistical challenges.
Senior Saudi officials said the rituals - which have been marred in the...
August 22nd, 20180JAMARAT, Saudi Arabia - More than 2 million Muslim pilgrims hurled pebbles at a giant wall in a symbolic stoning of the devil on Tuesday, the riskiest stage of the annual haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia where hundreds died in a crush three years ago.
Clad in white robes signifying a state of purity, men and women from 165 countries...
June 15th, 20181The author of the Declaration of Independence had sought to protect not just Christians, but Americans of all faiths.
After last year’s deliberate break with tradition, President Trump has resumed the iftar dinner—the sundown meal during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. An estimated 3.3 million American Muslims celebrate...
June 9th, 20180DEARBORN – Local officials in Wayne County hosted several iftars for area Muslims.
Wayne County Executive Warren Evans hosted his annual iftar for county Muslim leaders at the Grapevine Restaurant in Canton.
Dearborn Mayor Jack O’Reilly held two iftar dinners at Habib’s Cuisine, one for heads of local Arab and Muslim...
June 9th, 20180FLINT, Michigan — U.S Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Flint), along with his congressional staff in Washington, D.C., fasted Wednesday June 6 in solidarity with Muslims in Michigan and around the world in observance of Ramadan. Ramadan is a holy month of fasting during which Muslims may not eat or drink from sunrise to sunset.
This will be the...
May 31st, 20181COPENHAGEN — Denmark has banned the wearing of face veils in public, joining France and other European countries in outlawing the burqa and the niqab worn by some Muslim women to uphold what some politicians say are secular and democratic values.
Parliament voted on Thursday for the ban proposed by the center-right government, which...
May 11th, 20180"Many of the ICA's congregants are Arab Americans who have fled war and poverty caused by Israeli aggression in their homeland." - Suhail Bitar, whose relatives were slain during the 1996 Qana massacre
DEARBORN – It was clear it wasn’t going to be a regular Sunday prayer service at the Islamic Center of America (ICA), the...
April 6th, 20180There are many times we need to ask ourselves, what are our true priorities?
A couple of weeks ago, thanks to social media, and fake news, we were all made aware of a suspicious flyer that supposedly originated somewhere in the United Kingdom, but no one was able to determine who was behind it.
The “Punish a Muslim Day”...
March 16th, 20180On Monday evening, I sat next to two women who are social workers in Dearborn schools and mothers to college students. We were at a community workshop held by the Dearborn Police Department, titled “Defending Against Hate Crimes and Domestic Terror Acts, and Law Enforcement and Mental Health Intervention.” Part of a Department of...
February 16th, 20181By Farah Harb
WASHINGTON D.C. — The Pew Research Center issued a report in January stating there are as many Muslims leaving Islam as there are Muslims converting to it, leading two of Dearborn's Muslim leaders to question the report's validity.
The Pew Research Center stated in its report that 23 percent of adults who were...
February 13th, 20180COPENHAGEN — Denmark’s government said last Tuesday it planned to fine people who covered their face in public, putting it in line to join France and others restricting the burqa and the niqab, worn by some Muslim women.
The center-right government, which is backed by the nationalist Danish People’s Party, said it would bring in...
February 9th, 20180WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Department of Homeland Security called on authorities in a draft report from late January to continuously vet Sunni Muslims coming into the U.S. who fit an "at-risk" demographic profile.
The report, obtained by Foreign Policy Magazine, reviews 25 terrorist attacks in the United States between October 2001 and...
December 15th, 20178FARMINGTON HILLS — Even in the multicultural Queens, New York City, Noura Embabi greatly felt the ripple effects of anti-Muslim bigotry immediately after Sept. 11, as a 16-year-old high school student.
She grew up in an Egyptian Muslim American family, but incidents like a car attempting to run over her family while walking the...
December 12th, 20170JERUSALEM — Less than an hour after President Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Palestinians protested by turning off the lights on the Christmas tree outside Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, the traditional birthplace of Jesus.
It was a timely reminder that while headlines focused on Islamist calls for...
December 5th, 20170AMMAN — Jordan’s King Abdullah told President Trump on Tuesday that any move by the United States to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel would have “dangerous repercussions” for regional stability, a Jordanian palace statement said.
Trump said he intended to go ahead with a decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to...
November 23rd, 20170As Arab American and Muslim families gather around the dinner table this Thanksgiving holiday, they will show gratitude for their blessings, but will also be bound to express fear for each other’s safety.
Since President Trump’s candidacy and after his election, the country has been deeply inflamed with hate crimes, racism and...
November 17th, 20170NAZARETH—“You see them, you love them; they are human like you,” Shady Srour, writer and director of the film “Holy Air”, said about the movie’s two main characters, Adam and Lamia. “They are modern, they want to live.”
Srour is a self-described minority inside a minority. He grew up an Arab living in Nazareth.
He...
November 3rd, 20170By Afaf Humayun and Stephen Martin
DETROIT—“We have no time, there are people counting on us,” said Linda Sarsour in the opening session of the Women’s Convention in Detroit at Cobo Hall on October 27. “People’s literal survival lies in our hands to protect those among us that are the most marginalized.”
Sarsour is a...
November 3rd, 20171NEW YORK CITY—Conservative activist Laura Loomer was banned from the ride-sharing services Uber and Lyft on Wednesday after unleashing an anti-Muslim tweetstorm in the wake of the New York City attack on Tuesday that killed eight people, the companies said.
Loomer released numerous posts on Twitter about Muslims on Tuesday and...
October 27th, 20171HAMTRMACK – A few divisive races and shake ups in the City Council are bound to emerge during elections in a town as diverse as Hamtramck.
After a contentious debate over who to appoint as the new city manager, disparaging remarks by a Council member and a state investigation over voter fraud by an incumbent Council candidate,...
October 6th, 20170On Sunday night, Oct. 1, a White terrorist named Stephen Paddock, sadly not branded as such by the president, police or media outlets, shot more than 500 people and killed 59 at a country music concert from his 32nd floor suite of the Mandalay Bay Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.
According to police, Paddock, 64, had 23 guns in his hotel...
