Muslim Charity Health Clinics in the United States

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/video/module.html?mod=0&pkg=muslimhealth&seg=1

This is 10-minute segment about free health care clinics established by Muslims in the United States. It focuses on a clinic in Montgomery County, Maryland, USA.

Testimony of Muslim Advocates Before United States Senate Judiciary Committee Regarding Customs Laptop Searches

http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearing.cfm?id=3420

Click on the Webcast link. Ms. Khera's testimony begins at 57:45. The text of Ms. Farhana Y. Khera's testimony is available. Ms. Khera is the Executive Director of Muslim Advocates.

MLK Quote: Are our Religious Institutions Social Clubs?

From the sermon "The Drum Major Instinct":

And the church is the one place where a doctor ought to forget that he's a doctor. The church is the one place where a Ph.D. ought to forget that he's a Ph.D. (Yes) The church is the one place that the school teacher ought to forget the degree she has behind her name. The church is the one place where the lawyer ought to forget that he's a lawyer. And any church that violates the "whosoever will, let him come" doctrine is a dead, cold church, (Yes) and nothing but a little social club with a thin veneer of religiosity.

MLK Quote: Time Doesn't Necessarily Lead to Progress

From the sermon "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution"

Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God. And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. So we must help time and realize that the time is always ripe to do right.

Comments on Georgia Social Studies Curricula for 6th and 7th Grade

The failure of 70-80% of Georgia 6th and 7th graders to pass their social studies exams in the spring of 2008 has caused the state of Georgia to rewrite its standards. Without commenting on the overuse of standardized tests in today's public schools, I was curious to see what these standards were, and I felt strongly enough about a couple issues to pass on some comments which I'm including in this blog post. Access the draft curricula at http://www.georgiastandards.org/socialstudies.aspx.

KABOBfest: Keffiyeh infiltrates our nation's youth

Funny video about the Dunkin Donuts kufiyya/Rachael Ray controvesy!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkOpggUnZFM

The ANSWER Coalition launched a campaign to tell Dunkin Donuts that its response was incorrect.

Testimony of Jonathan Rowe: "Our Phony Economy"

The text of Jonathan Rowe's testimony of March 12, 2008 before the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Subcomittee on Interstate Commerce is reproduced in Harper's Magazine, June 2008. The author explains why Gross Domestic Product is an inadequate measure of the nation's economic strength. Katharine G. Abraham, Professor of Survey Methodology, University of Maryland, also testified at this hearing.

Thanks to my cousin Wael Fadel for pointing me towards this topic!

Review: Graphic Novel: Arab in America, by Toufic El Rassi

Toufic El Rassi's Arab in America (ISBN-13: 978-0-86719-697-3, 117 pp, 2007) is an autobiographical graphic novel about growing up and maturing as an Arab in suburban Chicago. It is published by Last Gasp Books. I also saw it being sold at Copacetic Comics and Things From Another World. The lowest price I found was at Shop.com. A friend of mine from Chicago sent me the volume, so I did not purchase it from any of these vendors. I read this volume in one sitting, which to me is the most important litmus test about the authenticity of this book. I began to think about the memorable moments in my life:

1. When do you realize you are different? (1st day in 2nd grade at new school in suburban Augusta, GA: are you black or white? Let's fight! Alhamduillah, I was the biggest kid in my grade, and I had a good mean streak as well.)
2. When do you see your parents unable to defend themselves against an unjust attack based on their religion or ethnicity? (I can't share this, but I remember that time very well.)
3. When did you fail to defend someone else who was attacked for his/her appearing to be of an unwanted group? (In Augusta, GA, I would not have had any problem knowing what "nigger" meant, as oppposed to Toufic and his little brother.)
4. When did an authority figure (teacher, policeman, airport official) single you out for harsh treatment? (Detroit airport, 1994, only passenger whose luggage was searched by customs on a flight returning from Amsterdam(?)).
5. When did co-workers or bosses discriminate against you? (This one you suspect, but you can almost never prove!)

The graphic novel has similar scenes from the life of Ustaz Toufic.

Ustaz Toufic's discussion of his friends Hamid, Laila and Ahmad is another highlight of the novel. Are our paths geniunely our own, or are we simply reacting to the pressure around us?

Another great feature of this graphic novel is that it "teaches" history to our attention-deficit disorder generation. It is a discreet bibliographic essay, introducing the reader to Amin Maalouf's book The Crusades Through Arab Eyes and William Blum's Killing Hope and Rogue State.

At the same time, Ustaz Toufic does not portray himself as perfect. He admists his weaknesses in resisting peer pressure and his sexism/temptation in dealing with women anti-war activists. So a warning to the holier-than-thou crowd: book contains profanity, some poorly drawn female flesh and portrayals of the author in non-shariah compliant positions! I recommend the novel for its authenticity, honesty and information content. The Young Adult Library Services Association nominated it for an award in the Great Graphic Novels for Teens category. Ustaz Toufic was also interviewed for an upcoming documentary entitled Beard Club.

Updated 2021-Aug-9: See my review of Moustafa Bayoumi's book How Does it Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America, which explored similar issues.

"Dry, dead, do-nothing religion"-quote from Dr. King

From A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr (edited by Clayborne Carson and Peter Holloran). From the sermon, "Why Jesus Called a Man a Fool" (p. 147)

And any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that cripple the souls--the economic conditions that stagnate the soul--is a dry, dead, do-nothing religion in need of new blood.

The text of this sermon is available at Stanford University's Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. It's also worth it to listen to the audio clips, just to hear Dr. King's recorded voice.

Indianapolis Interfaith Trip to Israel, Jordan and Syria

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080512/LOCAL18/805120387/1195/LOCAL18

Kudos to the Indianapolis doers of good!

Note added June 13, 2008. The delegation is blogging at http://indymideast.blogspot.com.

Lawful Election Activities Advisory for U.S. Muslim 501(c)(3) Organizations

The Muslim Advocates and Alliance for Justice have issued an advisory and organized conference calls to educate Muslim 501(c)(3) organizations on how to avoid activities which jeopardize this status.

Military Recruitment: Sir, No Sir

One of the ways to end this war in Iraq and prevent war in Iran is to decrease the number of enlisting U.S. soldiers. The military is obviously very concerned with recruitment, even going to the extent of cooperating with Hollywood to produce pro-military films like Iron Man.

I recently saw the DVD of the film Sir, No Sir, and it is absolutely critical for every young person considering joining the military to watch this film. The official web site is http://www.sirnosir.com/.

For more information, also visit http://militarylies.typepad.com/.

I attended Private Ryan Jackson's court martial in Fort Gordon, GA on Friday, May 30, 2008.

A new film is being made about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For those of you with children, please visit http://www.leavemychildalone.org/, which will inform you about how one of the provisions of No Child Left Behind is exposing children to military recruiters and will inform you how to opt out of your child's school's military recruitment list.

Human Rights Watch-Perpetual Minors-Human Rights Abuses Stemming from Male Guardianship and Sex Segregation in Saudi Arabia

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/saudiarabia0408/saudiarabia0408web.pdf

The above link is to the full report of Human Rights Watch entitled "Human Rights Watch-Perpetual Minors-Human Rights Abuses Stemming from Male Guardianship and Sex Segregation in Saudi Arabia."

Professor Rafia Zakaria commented on this report, especially focusing on how worker diaspora communities can spread these practices to other countries.

Review of Numb3rs, Season 4, Episode 18 "When Worlds Collide"

This is my third review of a TV crime drama episode (spoiler alert) which featured Muslims. After confessing that I'm a sucker for TV crime dramas, I want to highlight some features of these portrayals of Muslims. For reference's sake, my previous two reviews were of 1st season episodes of Bones and The Closer.

NPR Segment "Songs of Sadr Provide Soundtrack for Shiite Militia"

I wanted to congratulate Ivan Watson and NPR for the piece "Songs of Sadr Provide Soundtrack for Shiite Militia."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90465454. The piece is sad because it shows how violence has become so pervasive in Iraq that it enters into popular song lyrics.

There is an error in the translation of one of the songs:

No terrorism or the biggest al-Qaida would stop us
If only Muqtada would point with his right finger
In the face of all takfiris [impious Muslims]
As sharp as swords we will be

"Takfiris" are Muslims who excommunicate other Muslims, thereby making their killing permissible. This is the term many Muslims use to denigrate the extreme "salafi" position which justifies killing of Shiites in Iraq and elsewhere.

Film "Muslims in Love" Just Completed

"Muslims in Love", directed by Zerina Usmen, is a 25-minute documentary discussing the situations Muslims in the U.S. face regarding marriage. The film's official web site is http://www.muslimsinlove.com/.

The URL for the You! Tube trailer is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57u9TWZXB_Q.

The film's web site has an FAQ, biographies and other useful links.

The film starts with the question, "How do you find a mate when you don't date?" The meat of the documentary is the interviews with young Muslims who describe their various experiences, some of them good and others not so good. One commonality among all those appearing in the film is the idea that love, however defined, should be a part of the marriage process or decision. More women are interviewed than men.

A friend of mine reported to me upon returning from the recent 45th Annual Islamic Society of North America convention in Columbus, OH that the session designed to promote marriage had many more young women in attendance than men. Anecdotally, I hear the same thing. I identified at least three reasons:

1. Muslim men are incarcerated more than Muslim women.
2. Some Muslim men marry non-Muslim women.
3. Some Muslim men prefer to marry Muslim women who either have not achieved a lot academically or professionally or who were raised in a predominantly Muslim country.

This friend of mine also believes that this disparity of Muslim men developed in the last 10 years, and he believed that reason #3 above was the most important cause.

Some of the subjects in the film expressed these opinions as well.

The documentary balanced these complexities with the "happy" ma sha Allah la quwwata illa billah story of two who do end up getting married. The clips from their wedding party and their nascent domestic life, including a newborn, are attempts to show the happy results of the Muslim marriage process.

While this serves the idea of exposing this aspect of Muslims' lives to their non-Muslim neighbors, I fear that it may perpetuate the idea among Muslims that the worth of their lives is tied to marriage and hence some are winners and others are losers.

The single person's social life is precarious in North American society in general, and particulary so among Muslims. Is it necessary to begin creating social spaces for unmarried Muslims? For example, should Muslims develop a concept of not asking single people why they are not married and not offering to introduce them to ibn al-halal or bint al-halal? Even the idea that there are single Muslim parents escapes us. A registration form for a Sunday school might ask specifically for the father's signature, when really only the mother is in the picture.

While doing this might ease the awkwardness single Muslims may feel around other Muslims, the fact is Islam does strongly encourage marriage. I remember reading about how a performer in Nigeria would sing in front of a bachelor's house, mocking him for not being married.

Alternatively, there should be a serious discussion of why people who do want to get married don't get married. If Muslim men don't measure up, as most of the subjects implied, then there should be a systemic reason why they are inadequate. Is it because their mothers spoil them? Is it because their understanding of Islam causes them to behave badly to their prospective spouses?

One thing I noticed among the Muslim women who discussed their situation was a lack of introspection in their comments about marriage. Now this is probably putting on a brave face for the camera, but there should at least be some entertaining the possiblity that something is driving Muslim men away from Muslim women who grew up in North America.

The discussion of a recent woman convert's situation is good. Her situation combines many difficulties.

I hope that this project can be expanded to cover parents' reactions to their children's love and marriage quest.

Looking back on this review, I see that there is a "stream of consciousness" quality to it that may be more of a reflection of my own attitudes than the film. But I'm leaving the entry like this for now.

I hope that the film can contribute to an improvement in the marriage process among North American Muslims and to a "normalization" of Muslims to non-Muslims.

True Majority Video "Don't Bomb Iran"

http://www.truemajority.org/dontbombiran

Muslim Advocates Comments on Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Report

Read Muslim Advocates's response to the report entitled Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat issued by the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on May 8, 2008.

Hearing helds by that committe on this topic are available at:

Violent Islamist Extremism: Government Efforts to Defeat It, 2007 May 10
http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings.Detail&HearingID=9c8ef805-75c8-48c2-810d-d778af31cca6

http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings.Detail&HearingID=a3a45e4d-8a9f-4a54-a245-f50743eb1b71

The Internet: A Portal to Violent Islamist Extremism, 2007 May 3
http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings.Detail&HearingID=e818e9fb-3103-4cd7-9a75-6db8a33bc379

The Threat of Islamic Radicalism to the Homeland, 2007 March 14
http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings.Detail&HearingID=2fb6902f-72e9-45a6-b5b2-15389ed18ec3

Prison Radicalization: Are Terrorist Cells Forming in U.S. Cell Blocks? 2006 September 19
http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings.Detail&HearingID=b602edb5-1faa-4011-b12c-c312678d1b71

Terrorism Financing: Origination, Organization, and Prevention, 2003 July 31
http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings.Detail&HearingID=9e6956c7-914f-490f-8b0d-5aedc0587db0

Review of Unity Productions Foundation "On a Wing and a Prayer"

Unity Productions Foundation's latest film to be broadcast on PBS is "On a Wing and a Prayer."

The film follows Monem Salam, an employee of Amana Mutual Funds living in Bellingham, WA, as he seeks to acquire a pilot's license.

Along the way, we get a curious look at Muslim domestic life, aviation and aviators, and the work of the travelling committed Muslim businessman and activist. It was quirky, but I liked it, and I think it is precisely the kind of thing Unity Productions Foundation should be putting out. After heavy topics such as the life of the Messenger salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam, the history of the Iberian Peninsula, and the attempts of a Muslim slave in the United States to redeem himself and his family, this film and others like it will help "normalize" Muslims in the United States. It brings us closer to the day when the description "Muslim" will bring no more of an image to the mind than "Catholic", "Baptist", "Jew", "Hindu" or "Atheist." And, yes, it would be nice if the image of "Muslim" was honesty, hard work, sincerity, devotion, but I'd be satisified with a neutral, blank slate. I think it's impossible to expect that Muslims will achieve the more positive idealized notion we promote because we simply don't behave that way. Our media productions should target that blank slate.

Problems with Stereotypes in "LA Woman", Episode 10 of TNT's "The Closer"

TNT's The Closer: L.A. Woman, Episode 10-Plot Problems Based on Stereotypes of Iranians

The episode perpetuates a lot of stereotypes and promotes an anti-civil liberties atmosphere.