Last spring was the beginning of a historic movement to end political corruption and restore democracy in the United States. The Democracy Spring movement began at Liberty Bell in Philadelphia and led a ten-night march to Washington, DC. Tens of thousands of people participated in non-violent direct action, garnering the support of over a hundred national lawmakers.
Last weekend, CAIR-Philadelphia members marched alongside over 100,000 Americans at the People’s Climate March on Washington with an additional 100,000 taking part in local actions around the United States. We demanded the government shift to clean energy, create green jobs, and take action to prevent human suffering caused by pollution and climate change.
This past weekend, following a series of Muslim community conversations organized by CAIR-Philadelphia exploring what would be a meaningful Islamic response to the imminent dangers posed by human-caused climate change, staff and supporters of CAIR-Philadelphia travelled to our nation’s capital to participate — along with over 200,000 of our fellow Americans — in the People's Climate March on Washington.
For the third time in less than 100 days, a court has prevented Trump and his administration from violating the U.S. Constitution.
This past week, Judge Orrick, a federal district judge in San Francisco, placed a temporary hold on Trump's executive order that threatened to defund sanctuary cities. Sanctuary cities seek to reduce cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration enforcement to enhance public safety and foster positive relationships with immigrant communities.
With Earth Day around the corner, and the People's Climate March just two weekends away, CAIR encourages our Muslim sisters and brothers throughout the Delaware Valley to join Faith Climate Action Week. Together with people of all faiths, we can be part of a global solution to the greatest challenge facing humanity on God’s great earth: climate change (and humanity’s own greed and waste).
Human-caused global warming has already begun causing worldwide suffering: extreme weather, drought, flooding, refugee crises, and the terror of warfare. Our Islam calls us to be a force of mercy for all of humanity and to protect God's beautiful miracle of nature, preserving her purity and gaining benefit from her nourishment.
Jews around the world, and my family and I, are now celebrating the eight day-long holiday of Passover (peysakhin Hebrew), commonly known as “The Festival of Freedom.” Passover celebrates four themes or moments of redemption: the liberation of the earth from the harshness of winter; the liberation of the Hebrew slaves from their enslavement in Egypt; the freeing of humankind from idolatry and ignorance; and the personal and spiritual liberation of every human being from darkness and pain.
Today, April 4th, 2017, marks 49 years since the assassination of one of America’s greatest faith leaders and civil rights advocates, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. One year before his death, Dr. King delivered a historic speech at The Riverside Church of New York that forever binds the peace movement with the movement for civil rights and social justice.
China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. These five countries execute more of its citizens than any other countries in the world, in that order. It is interesting to note that three of these countries are predominantly Muslim. While the Qur’an does allow state sanctioned killing in specific situations, Professor Khaled Abou El Fadl of the UCLA Law writes:
Entrusting the state to play this hazardous and often untenable role of carrying out the Divine mandate, if one does in fact exist, raises a set of theological and ethical problems that are not adequately addressed by simple reliance on procedural guarantees or by augmenting the integrity of the process that results in the decision to terminate life.
