Timothy Welbeck, a civil rights attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations and a Temple University Africology professor, said that history is the reason he, his wife and three children attended the festival.
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Hundreds gather to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan
In his sermon, [CAIR-Philadelphia Vice President] Iftekhar Hussain congratulated Muslims for experiencing Ramadan — a month, he said, “to give us shade.” He noted that like society today, the prophet Muhammed saw oppression, violence and exploitation. Just as he would leave society to recharge himself, Hussain said Ramadan gives Muslims today a chance to refresh and to become active in their communities. With Ramadan at an end, he said, “Now is the time to engage in society.”
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8 Days to Go – There is still time to donate to CAIR-Philadelphia
Alhamdulillah, CAIR-Philadelphia has four very talented individuals working for us: Jacob Bender our executive director, Timothy Welbeck, Esq., our staff attorney, Dr. Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu, our outreach and education director, and Leena Jaffer, our operations manager. They have been able, due to your continuous and generous support, to provide our community and the general public with an unprecedented level of services, all the more important in these perilous times.
Continue readingA Letter from Jacob Bender About His Colleagues
There can be no doubt that Islam, viewed as a systematic and religiously-based physiological guide for human behavior, frowns upon extravagant displays of arrogance on the micro-level (“The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said: No one who has the weight of a seed of arrogance in his heart will enter Paradise…” Sahih Muslim), as it eschews extremism on the macro level (“Oh People of the Book, don’t go to the extreme in your religion…” [Qur’an, An-Nisa’ 4: 171]).
It is best, therefore, to praise others than to heap acclaim and acclamation upon oneself. It is in this spirit (especially prescribed during Ramadan) that I take this opportunity to write about my two colleagues: Dr. Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu and Timothy N. Welbeck, Esq., respectively, CAIR-Philadelphia’s Education and Outreach Director, and our Civil Rights Attorney…
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Victory! CAIR-Philadelphia Helps Secure the Right to Wear the Hijab for Student Athletes
In what is widely heralded as a victory for religious freedom, the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (“PIAA”) recently voted to amend its policy requiring a waiver for student athletes to wear religious head coverings during athletic competitions. CAIR-Philadelphia and other civil rights groups and elected officials, pushed for this change in support of Nasihah Thompson-King, who could not play in a playoff game for her school’s basketball team earlier this year because she refused to remove her hijab.
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