The Council on American-Islamic Relations welcomes Brandeis University’s cancellation of an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an activist with a long record of vicious anti-Islam statements, some of which are quoted in your article. Honoring Ms. Hirsi Ali would have been an insult to the legacy of Justice Louis D. Brandeis and his great defense of religious freedom and civil liberties.
There is currently a nationwide scam targeting Muslims with calls from people falsely claiming to be IRS agents to obtain sensitive information or demand money. The fake agents claim that money is owed and threaten dire consequences, including arrest, if…
Asalaam Alaykum. As you read in our last newsletter, our 2014 Annual Banquet was a huge success, and we continue to hear overwhelmingly positive feedback about the banquet program. Due to the community’s generosity, we raised over $170,000 in donations…
I was very excited that Imam Zaid Shakir, Co-Director of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, CA, and the keynote speaker at our Annual Banquet on March 15, devoted the first few minutes of his inspirational talk to the subject of climate change. For those new to the discussion of faith-based responses to this issue, the subject of climate might seem like an odd choice for a banquet presentation, and perhaps a not especially Islamic question. It was the opinion of Imam Zaid, as well as other contemporary Muslim scholars I have read in the last few years, that far from being irrelevant, climate change is the single greatest challenge facing humankind, and a profoundly Islamic issue for the following reasons.
CAIR-Philadelphia and its Staff Attorney Ryan Tack-Hooper now represent two Muslim women who were forced to remove their hijabs for photographs at different state agencies. We are working with both women to gain legal relief, not only for these individuals,…
Nearly 700 CAIR-Philadelphia supporters and invited guests filled the Springfield Country Club ballroom on March 15 for our chapter’s 8th Annual Banquet. It was a joyous affair for all who attended. The evening program began with a welcome by our…
On March 16th, the day after the Annual Banquet, Staff Attorney Ryan Tack-Hooper and I traveled to Washington DC to participate in CAIR’s Annual National Council Meeting. Over 80 staff and board members from CAIR’s 30 chapters attended. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet in person with people from around the country I have been emailing with for the past six months. During the meeting we shared ideas and strategies with each other on issues such as fundraising, grant applications, legal tactics, lobbying government officials, chapter growth, and building interfaith coalitions. Ryan and I were warmly received and made to feel part of the CAIR extended family.
Last week on Monday and Tuesday, following the CAIR National Council Meeting, CAIR staff and activists headed to Capitol Hill to meet with our elected representatives about two pieces of legislation of vital concern to the Muslim American community. Executive…
The essence of xenophobia is to extend to an entire group the actions of the few. Prof. Ira Sharkansky of Hebrew University, in his article “Muslims, Jews, See the World Differently” (San Diego Jewish World, Feb. 24) follows this simplistic and bigoted line of discourse to conclude that valuing “human life” and opposing “bloodshed as a means of settling disputes” are just not “Muslim ways or perspectives.”
