WORLD TRUMP BAN: HOW TO HELP MUSLIMS AFFECTED BY TRAVEL BLACKLIST

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Trump’s new travel ban—which bars citizens from six Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States for a period of 90 days—is allowed to restart Thursday.

Citizens from from Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Iran and Yemen must now prove they have a parent, sibling, or child in the United States in order to visit. Visas already issued will not be revoked.

The ban has been criticized by politicians, judges and foreign leaders of other countries. The Council of American-Islamic Relations, said the ban “ignores the Islamophobic origins of the policy and emboldens Islamophobes in the Trump administration.”

Journalists, students, workers or lecturers who have employment contracts in the United States are exempt from the ban. Existing visas have not been revoked, and there should be less chaos at airports this time.

During the last travel ban, immigration lawyers headed to airports to offer their services for free. Immigration lawyers who want to help can get in touch with the organizations below to offer their services free of charge once again. Anyone who needs help can contact the following organizations for legal advice.

FULL ARTICLE FROM NEWSWEEK 

One Photographer’s Series Will Capture The Diversity Of Muslims Across All 50 U.S. States

Carlos Khalil Guzman is on a mission: the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based photographer has made it his goal to dispel the stereotypes of the Muslim community in America, one state at a time.

By photographing subjects from each state across the country who identify as Muslim, Guzman is showing firsthand how vastly diverse the community is through his photo series, Muslims of America.

“As a photographer, I know that art has been used throughout history as a tool to fight oppression in various social movements, such as the fight to end apartheid in South Africa, to the Palestinian struggle to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine, to Black Lives Matter,” he told A Plus.

“With the rise of Islamophobia in the States and abroad, with the latest terrorist attack committed against 17-year-old Nabra Hassanen, where she was abducted and beaten to death for being Muslim, I felt the need to be proactive and use my craft to reclaim our Muslim narrative,” Guzman continued, “one that continues to be distorted by the mainstream media.”

Each subject — which are primarily women due to the targeted prejudice against them, and includes Syrian refugees and a Native American Muslim, who protested the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock — chooses their favorite verse of the Quran, which helps them cope with the present-day hate against Muslims.

The diversity among the Muslims he’s photographed is not just in the way they look but in the cultural descent they represent, which includes Palestinian, Filipino, Ecuadorian, Somali, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Moroccan, Lebanese, and African-American Muslims.

FULL ARTICLE FROM A PLUS

Teen Makes Spreadsheet Of Muslim Groups Denouncing Terrorism

When 19-year-old Heraa Hashmi isn’t studying molecular biology at the University of Colorado Boulder, she’s working on her YouTube channel, writing novels or tweeting with her 54,000 followers about everything from social justice to the minutiae of campus life. Heraa is also a Muslim American and an Indian American. So when a fellow student challenged her by claiming that Muslims never denounce acts of terrorism carried out in the name of Islam, she decided to show him the receipts. The result was Worldwide Muslims Condemn List — a spreadsheet with 5,720 instances of Muslim groups and leaders denouncing various acts of terrorism.

“I felt that the conversation would go nowhere unless I presented his ‘proof’ on a platter,” Heraa told Teen Vogue in an email. “And to respond to not only him, but any news agencies, public figures, and even the common layman, I began to compile a list with every source I could find.”

Heraa worked on the list about two hours ever day for three weeks, she said, using Google to search for statements and adding them to the spread sheet by hand. She plans to continue adding to it, too, building it into a searchable database for researchers and activists.

FULL ARTICLE FROM TEEN VOGUE 

Islamophobia & the Catholic Media

When I went to Catholic elementary school in the 1960s, the Crusades were taught as a glorious fight against the “Mohammedans.” One teacher said the next great war would be about religion, which presumably meant that we boys needed to be ready when called on to storm the bastions of atheistic communism.

That strain of the faith lingers in the anti-Muslim, Steve Bannon-style Catholicism found among some Baby Boomers and their elders, notwithstanding the new direction the Second Vatican Council charted in 1965 with Nostra Aetate, its document on relations with non-Christian religions. And, according to a study issued last week [.pdf] by Georgetown University’s Prince Alaweed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and its Bridge Initiative, anti-Islam polemics find friendly platforms across substantial segments of the Catholic media. Meanwhile, the study reports, nine out of ten Catholics have never heard of Nostra Aetate, and only 16 percent surveyed in a poll said they knew about church teaching on Islam.

In Nostra Aetate the council stated that the Church “has a high regard for the Muslims” and expressed appreciation for the religiosity of Islam’s faithful. “Over the centuries many quarrels and dissensions have arisen between Christians and Muslims,” the document reads. “The sacred council now pleads with all to forget the past, and urges that a sincere effort be made to achieve mutual understanding.”

Anti-Islam polemics find friendly platforms across substantial segments of the Catholic media

Since then, popes and others in the Catholic world, such as the Franciscan order, have steadily sought dialogue and cooperation with Muslims. Pope John Paul II, in particular, worked tirelessly at it. Pope Francis has too, while challenging the claims of anti-Islam polemicists that Islam encourages violence.

The Georgetown study covers a lot of ground, so I’ll focus on just one aspect: The attention it gives to the prolific author Robert Spencer, who runs the hardline website Jihad Watch. Spencer’s argument is essentially that Islam is inherently violent. He saysPope Francis was wrong for saying, “It’s not fair to identify Islam with violence. It’s not fair and it’s not true.” Spencer argues that the pope was also wrong when he wrote in Evangelii Gaudium that “faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalizations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence” (No. 253). Further, Spencer counters John Paul II—who said Christians and Muslims worship the same God—by insisting that Vatican II’s call for dialogue must be qualified in light of earlier Church tradition, such as the teachings of Pope Callixtus III, whom he says pledged in 1455 to “exalt the true Faith, and to extirpate the diabolical sect of the reprobate and faithless Mahomet in the East.”

FULL ARTICLE FROM COMMONWEAL MAGAZINE 

Interfaith Dialogue: What it is and what it is not

Before we get into what the interfaith dialogue entails, let me start by making it clear what interfaith dialogue is NOT about. Interfaith dialogue is not intended for converting people to your faith!

This is a question that so many people, Muslims, and people of other faiths have asked me when I invite them to be part of the interfaith dialogue in their communities. They sometimes ask, “how many people have you converted to Islam in your years of working on interfaith issues?

My answer surprises some while disappointing others. I have converted exactly zero people to Islam as an interfaith worker. I have very likely changed the perception of Islam and Muslims for thousands of people, but have not ‘converted’ anyone. Would you consider this a ‘failure’? I certainly don’t feel it that way, simply because that is not the objective of interfaith dialogue.

What else is interfaith dialogue NOT about?

1. It is not about telling who is right and who is wrong.
2. It is not about agreeing or accepting everything about the other faith traditions (but it does involve respecting others’ views despite the disagreements. Sometimes we have to agree to disagree but in a civil manner)

FULL ARTICLE FROM PATHEOS 

Islam greets Christianity in Oman

ON THE border with Saudi Arabia, an American clergyman partners with a sultan keen on religious coexistence.

Imagine David Cameron in Norfolk, about to speak on ‘British values’. He then invites forward a Muslim imam, and asks him to explain Islam.

Transfer the scene to the Sultanate of Oman, and witness an American Christian pastor make clear the gospel in the austere heartland of Ibadi Islam.

Now picture a tolerance that predates Britain’s embrace of multiculturalism—on the border of Saudi Arabia.

The analogy is not perfect. Sultan Qaboos bin Said is an absolute monarch, ruling since 1970. Proselytisation is forbidden in any direction.

But the Shiva Temple in the capital of Muscat has served the Hindu community for over 200 years. Since the early 1900s the government has given land to build churches.

Saudi Arabia’s chief cleric has repeatedly called for all non-Muslim houses of worship in the Arabian Peninsula to be destroyed in accordance with sharia law.

Clearly, Oman does not share Wahhabi convictions. There appears a similarity in strict practice, but not in the approach to others. The Ibadi branch of Islam is far older than the eighteenth-century Saudi creed, dating to its formative scholar from the old capital in Nizwa in AD 711.

And to this region where Islam originally took hold, the Ministry of Religious Affairs invited Revd Douglas Leonard to speak.

FULL ARTICLE FROM LAPIDIOMEDIA.COM

Muslims, Christians have a tearful exchange of roses on Eid’l Fitr in the Philippines

A distance from the devastation and turmoil in Marawi City was a peaceful moment—Christians and Muslims exchanged flowers in celebration of Eid al-Fitr at an evacuation community in Iligan City, Lanao del Norte on Sunday.

The interreligious gesture brought tears to some Muslim women of the 180 families seeking shelter in the Iligan City National School of Fisheries, the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) reported on their website.

“The OPAPP is currently conducting a series of ‘social healing’ activities in Lanao del Norte that aim to restore trust and respect among the different ethno-religious groups in the affected areas,” the article said.

With the ongoing crisis in Marawi proving to be a challenge for Maranao unity, the residents who have spent a month in the facility took part in an OPAPP-hosted celebratory program welcoming the end of Ramadan.

FULL ARTICLE FROM GMA NETWORK (PHILIPPINES)

Eid al-Fitr: Muslims around world celebrate end of Ramadan fast

This weekend, Muslims all over the globe begin celebrations for Eid al-Fitr, to mark the end of Ramadan.

The name translates as “the festival of breaking the fast” as during the month of Ramadan, Muslims perform one of the five pillars of Islam: the fast.

Food, water and sexual activity are all banned until after sunset.

Ramadan takes place in the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar. It is believed that the Quran’s first verse was revealed during the last 10 nights of this month.

The exact date of Eid depends on the lunar cycle, and it is traditionally celebrated for three days – although from country to country, the festival can last anywhere from one to four days.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE INDEPENDENT (UK)

Eid Al-Fitr: A Time for Celebration

Every year, Muslims celebrate Eid Al-Fitr which marks the end of Ramadan. This celebration is the most festive of the Eids, and takes place over three days. Preparing for Eid means wearing your nicest clothes and indulging in various festivities. Although celebrations differ based on culture, the significance of this holiday remains constant across borders. Here are four fascinating festivities that are typically celebrated on Eid Al-Fitr!

1. Festive Wear: Dress your Best!

Wearing your finest, most ornamental clothing is common on Eid Al-Fitr. For example, in the Middle East and other Islamic states, women generally wear long gowns or embellished abayas, while in Southeast Asia, women generally wear salwar kameez. It is also typical for western or modern Muslims to wear formal western attire. Alternatively, men either wear thawab, a festive pant suit, or formal western clothes.

1. Common Festivities: Eat, Laugh, and Dance

During this celebratory time, Muslims gather for parties during the day and night. Typically large feasts are arranged where family and friends come and indulge in their country’s cultural cuisine. If you travelling abroad in a predominantly Muslim country, you may see festive lights and ornaments around the city. It is common to give gifts to those observing Eid, so, if you work with Muslim counterparts, a box of dates is a nice gesture. Additionally, prayers are often arranged and friends and family commonly pray together. After dinner, friends and family have a good time, chat, and enjoy the feast. For example, Chaand raat, or “night of the moon,” an Urdu phrase coined in the Indian subcontinent, includes dancing, cultural foods, and henna hand art.

1. Charity: Giving back

Giving back is a part of the celebration! During Ramadan, Zakat, or giving charity to the less fortunate is an important part of the holiday. These practices are further encouraged on Eid Al-Fitr by giving both food and money to underserved communities. Although it is typical to indulge with friends and family, giving to those who cannot indulge is recommended and remains a large part of observing the Muslim faith. When participating in an Eid celebration with Muslim friends, it is also common for adults to give children Eidi, or ‘goodwill’ money as a part of celebrating.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE HUFFINGTON POST 

The Power of Storytelling: Creating a New Future for American Muslims

The Muslim American storytellers of the 21st century need to mine our rich Islamic and American identity and history to tell new stories that will benefit and add to the ever-growing multicultural mosaic that is America.

By Wajahat Ali

In 7th-century Arabia, the storyteller was valued more than the swordsman. The audience sat on the floor surrounding the gifted orator as he captivated the eager listeners with beautiful poetry narrating their history. In the 21st century, the art form may have evolved to include motion pictures, TV shows, theater productions, novels, and standup comedy, but they all serve the same function: storytelling.

Ideas and principles are most effectively communicated and transmitted when they are couched in a narrative. Stories, whether they concern the etiquette and biography of prophets or the trials and tribulations of America’s founding fathers, inform and influence a cultural citizenry of its values and identity.

Stories of the Prophet Muhammad most effectively communicate the Quran’s eloquent exhortation to tolerate and embrace diversity: “O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise [each other])” (49:13).  The Prophet’s cordial diplomacy and communication with the Christian, Abyssinian King yielded one of the first alliances of the young Muslim community. Furthermore, the Prophet displayed unconditional love for his diverse companions, who comprised the gamut of Arab society including former slaves, orphans, widows, wealthy dignitaries, and non-Arabs.

 

Similarly, the story of a biracial man with an Arabic name and a Kenyan father elected to the highest office in the land reminds the world that indeed America can live up to its cherished principles of freedom and racial equality, and her citizens are capable of reflecting a magnanimous and egalitarian spirit bereft of prejudice.

If a person were to read these stories comprising the core values of Islamic and American history, one would assume their respective cultural fabrics resemble a generous, messy, lively, colorful mosaic perpetually adding and experimenting with new colors, styles, and hues to beautify its narrative.

FULL ARTICLE FROM PATHEOS