The Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s leading Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today condemned the deadly vehicular attack which occurred yesterday afternoon on the West Side Highway bike path in Manhattan. The attack, which is being investigated by police as a potential terrorist incident, killed at least eight people, leaving an unknown number wounded.
It should come as no surprise to this audience that today, across the country, the immigrant Muslim community is a community living in fear. But first, some background. Over 200,000 Muslims live in the city of Philadelphia, and contrary to the distorted discourse in the public arena, over 85% of these are not immigrants, but American-born Muslims, African Americans, some of whom are second, and third, and fourth generation Muslims. These statistics should contradict the prejudicial perception of Islam as a foreign faith attempting to foster the “Shariaization” of America upon an unwitting public. And while African American Muslims certainly face anti-Muslim prejudice, that bigotry pales in comparison to the original sin of white supremacy embedded into all facets of American life.
On Friday October 20, 2017, I spoke on a panel as part of the third annual Advance Initiative Conference. The conference, hosted at Stone Hill Church in Princeton, NJ, is a national gathering of church leaders, primarily of Indian descent, who seek to provide a more profound understanding of biblical application for churches that service immigrant and second-generation American communities.
On October 18, 2017, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf announced the appointment of 13 dedicated business, civic, and community leaders to serve on the Pennsylvania Commission for Women. Among the new appointees is CAIR-Philadelphia Executive Committee Member Salima Suswell. Salima is a business owner, Philadelphia community leader, and political activist.
CAIR-Philadelphia president Osama Al-Qasem, an advisory board member, and staff members Timothy Welbeck and Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu traveled to Harrisburg to meet with community leaders and mosque representatives from the Harrisburg and Mechanicsburg area communities. The meeting was kindly hosted by Islamic Society of Greater Harrisburg (ISGH) and brought together more than 15 community leaders.
The Boyers have complained to the Philadelphia chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, which advocates for the civil liberties of Muslims and is investigating. As CAIR attorney Timothy N. Welbeck said, “I find that claim [by Targetmaster] to be plausible but not particularly credible.”
CAIR-Philadelphia mourns the death of other 50 of our fellow human beings in Las Vegas, and the wounding of several hundred others, the victims of senseless gun violence. CAIR Urges American Muslims to Donate Blood for Las Vegas Shooting Victims
In a sermon titled “How to be religious today,” Muslim speaker Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu asked the 100-plus members at the Islamic Community Center of Lancaster how they could leave last Friday’s call to prayer as confident Muslims who are “proud in our skins and proud in our identity and aware of our obligations to Allah.”
The Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations today called on the Marple-Newtown School District in Newtown Square, Pa., to allow a Sikh high school soccer player to compete while wearing his religiously-mandated head covering.
