Mitt’s Muslim Problem: Controversial anti-Muslim Adviser

After a prominent Baptist minister proclaimed last week that Mormonism is a non-Christian “cult” that would ideally disqualify adherents from the White House, Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney enjoyed a full-throated defense from people all over the political spectrum who considered the pastor’s remarks an ugly example of religious bigotry. But Romney, a practicing Mormon, may soon find himself facing allegations of intolerance from another religious minority: American Muslims.

The Daily Beast has learned that the nation’s leading Muslim advocacy group sent a letter to the Romney campaign late Tuesday calling for the ouster of the candidate’s recently appointed foreign-policy adviser, Walid Phares. In the letter, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) refers to Phares as “an associate to war crimes” and a “conspiracy theorist,” citing ties to a violent anti-Muslim militia. Scholars and leaders throughout the Islamic community are adding pressure on Romney to drop the adviser immediately. (The Romney campaign and Phares did not immediately respond to requests for comment.)

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE DAILY BEAST 

Muslim American Convention Tackles Islamophobia

CAIRO – Addressing American Muslim concerns, leading Muslim figures urged thousands of attendants at the continent’s largest Islamic convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) to be more involved in the society to stem the growing Islamophobia, The Huffington Post reported.

“We have to balance the internal needs of the Muslim-American community with our need as Muslims to defend Islam,” Ingrid Mattson, a member of ISNA’s executive council and a professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary, said during ISNA’s 48th convention.

“We have to constantly battle those negative threats to define us.”

FULL ARTICLE FROM ONISLAM.NET