Tag Archives: Islam
Halal meat market on the rise in Chicago dining
By Amy Zaiter
Going out to eat, ordering in, and even grocery shopping for a home cooked meal are all things easily taken for granted by those without dietary restrictions. With so many different dietary restrictions today, it is unrealistic to expect restaurants and grocers to cater to everyone. It is, however, notably more difficult for many American Muslims to find halal meat options.
Democracy and Sharia Law: mutually exclusive or mutually misunderstood?
By Nadia Atassi
Sharia Law. The antithesis of good; the epitome of evil; the way of life that Muslims bring to the western world with the intention of undermining the democratic institution and beheading the infidels who dare to defy the Islamic way.
Or, the scapegoat used by every ignorant Islamophobe when something terrible and inexplicable happens, even when Sharia Law is completely irrelevant.
Muslim fraternity dispels stereotypes about Islam and Muslim men
You don’t have to go far to find harmful stereotypes of Muslims and Arabs in the mainstream media. In fact, there is a name for those stereotypes—billionaires, bombers, and belly dancers—known as the “three B syndrome,” coined by Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, author of 100 Years of Anti-Arab and Anti-Muslim Stereotyping. In addition, these images have been excessively saturated over the years in American culture and media, especially in post-9/11 America. As Qumsiyeh explains, the U.S. needs a “demonstrable enemy who will not go away,” and Muslims and Arabs have consistently been that enemy.
The relevance of Islam: Increasing the influence of Islam on university campuses
By Nadia Atassi
Every semester, students are asked to fill out course evaluations in which they give their professors feedback on their teaching and the course in general. This last semester, I took a class on the Christian Tradition, and on the very first day of class, my professor told us something that I later heard students say over and over again. He said that the number one comment that he gets on his course evaluations is that, as necessary as it is to learn about Christianity, students desire to learn about other religions. The Christian Tradition is a mandatory class in my academic program, and while all of my classmates, the majority of whom are Christians, were complaining about the class, I was jealous that they got to learn about their own tradition, while I was struggling to restructure my cognitive framework to allow a different and distinct tradition into my mind. Why? Because I have no access to a class about Islam at my university.
Glenn Beck’s ‘The Blaze’ gets it wrong on the #MyJihad campaign
The letter to the editor below was submitted to The Blaze on Monday, January 7, 2012.
Sharona Schwartz, author of the January 7, 2013 Blaze article, “‘My Jihad’: CAIR ad campaign tries to rebrand ‘jihad’ as a positive word,” presents clear misrepresentations regarding the #MyJihad Public Education Campaign.
Letter to the Editor: USA Today, what’s in a name?
In a recent article titled “Israel warns against Palestinian U.N. bid,” dated on November 29th, 2012, USA Today failed to produce a culturally sensitive report, which I find intolerant and reflecting nothing short of lazy journalism. This, in turn, shines a bad light on the quality of USA Today’s work.
David Frum offers me condescending praise
By Ahmed Rehab
For those of you who may not be familiar with the name, David Frum is a contributing editor at Newsweek, a featured writer for The Daily Beast and a CNN contributor. He is also the former White House speechwriter who co-wrote Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address that accused Iraq of being part of an “axis of evil.” He enjoys the dubious distinction of having been a notable neocon along with Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, Richard Perle, William Kristol and other human gems of spreading peace (read: war) in the Middle East.
The media’s silence on the genocide of Rohingya Muslims
Genocide remembrance in the United States follows a dispiriting pattern. We read in horror the accounts of Armenians, Jews, Rwandan Hutus and others who were slaughtered by the millions, shudder, and promise to ourselves and the world “never again.” Yet when the time comes for each generation to stand up and to do the right thing where others once stayed silent, we shirk our duties to humanity and let history repeat itself yet again.
The most segregated hour in America
By Sarah Goomar
Eleven o’clock on Sunday Morning is said to be the most segregated hour in America.
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. startled listeners with this proclamation at first, shedding light on the fact that despite being followers of the same faith, blacks still constituted the “other” and virtually worshipped solely among themselves. As a reverend and champion of civil rights, King waited and hoped for a time when Americans could live and worship together, across color lines. The usage of these words is widely viewed as cliché today.
The media’s (false) dilemma: Word choice
By Sarah Goomar
Tom Krattenmaker, a member of USA Today’s Board of Contributers and a writer on religion and the public sphere recently wrote an opinion piece titled “Use ‘terrorist’ label carefully and consistently”. Krattenmaker begins his piece by highlighting an important disparity between two recent events that received a fair amount of media attention: in the first, he details Nidal Hasan’s shooting spree at Fort Hood, where 13 were killed and 30 wounded. In the second, he recalls the death of six people including a U.S. District Judge and the injury of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, among others, at the hands of Jared Loughner.
