Mosque Firebombed in NYC: Mayor Condemns

New York City police are investigating as possible hate crimes a wave of firebombings that included a Islamic center, New York papers are reporting today. A bodega and two private homes also were targeted. No injuries were reported.

Update at 1:19 p.m. ET: Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the violence, the Associated Press reports. “The four reported attacks on Sunday night go against everything we stand for as New Yorkers and Americans,” Cuomo said in a statement. “Attacks such as this have no place in our open and inclusive society.” CAIR called on police and Muslim institutions to step up security measures around mosques. Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the advocacy group, said CAIR recently called on the FBI to investigate threats targeting mosques posted on an anti-Islam blog called “Bare Naked Islam.” One comment on the site read: “Throw 10 Molotov cocktails into these mosques and burn them down,” Hooper says.

FULL ARTICLE FROM USA TODAY

Faith Under Fire: A 9/11 Muslim Chaplain’s Response to the King Hearings

The recent hearings on “Radical Islam” are not going to strengthen us, they are just going to push us further apart, says Imam Khalid Latif, a Muslim chaplain at New York University and with the New York Police Department. Demonizing a group isolates them from the rest of society, he says, and prevents us from being able to understand the qualities and values that we do share. He also talks about standing with families of 9-11 victims, as a Muslim chaplain with the New York Police Department, and how the families have accepted him although the Secret Service has not always been as welcoming. Learn more about Imam Khalid Latif.

VIDEO CLIP FROM ODYSSEY NETWORKS

Anti-Muslim rally raises fears among American Muslims

US anti-Muslim rally raises fears – Americas – Al Jazeera English.

Political Islam an Unfortunate Hot Potato

Former Arkansas governor and 2012 presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee found himself in hot water this week afterhe called Islam the “antithesis of the gospel of Christ”and said that churches that share worship space with Muslims are caving to a religion “that says that Jesus Christ and all the people that follow him are a bunch of infidels who should be essentially obliterated.”

In an analysis of how Islam may shape campaign politics, Politico’s Bryon Tau wrote: “As Republican candidates define their national security stands in the 2012 elections, conservative discomfort with Islam in America will be a feature of the debate.”

Should Islam be debated on the campaign trail? Are religious issues in danger of being exploited?

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE WASHINGTON POST

Muslim American Organization Asks Presidential Hopeful to Apologize for Comments on Islam

Mike Huckabee falsely claims Muslims believe Jesus and his followers are ‘infidels’

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization today called on presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee to apologize for “inaccurate and offensive” comments about Islam and to meet with Muslim leaders to discuss growing Islamophobia in American society.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) made those requests after the Fox News host and possible 2012 presidential candidate falsely claimed that Muslims believe “Jesus Christ and all the people who follow him are a bunch of infidels who should be essentially obliterated.”

In his recent “Fox and Friends” interview, Huckabee referred to Islam as the “antithesis of the gospel of Christ.” He also seemed to compare Muslim prayer being allowed in a church to the showing of pornographic films.

Video: Huckabee Infuriated by Church Allowing Muslims to Pray There

http://tinyurl.com/4bsagg3

FULL ARTICLE FROM PR NEWSWIRE