Archive for June, 2008|Monthly archive page
Changing the Media’s Relationship to Muslims
By Owais Bayunus, Islamic Center of Minnesota
As we all know, the media is the most important tool of modern times. It provides us not only with knowledge of what is happening in the world around us, but it also profoundly affects our analysis of world affairs. Due to our hectic way of life, most of us believe in what we see and hear in the news as holy truth. We don’t have time to check the authenticity of what has been shown or told to us.
I hadn’t realized the effect of media on even very young children until I recently overheard my four-year-old grandson telling his seven-year-old sister that he liked Obama. The six-year-old yelled back that she liked Hillary.
Unfortunately, Muslims in America have a unique relationship with the news media. Read more »
Far, Far Away (from Muslims) You Say?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Al-Haytham, Al-Jabr, Al-Jazari, Dark Ages, Heba Abdel-Karim, House of Wisdom, Ibn Firnas, ink of the scholar, inventions, Islam, Islamic Empire, Islamic Golden Age, Islamic inventions, Islamic Renaissance, missing history, muslim, Muslim Heritage, Muslim inventions, Muslim scholars, Muslims, qahwa, untold history
Comments (13) By Heba Abdel-Karim, Engage Minnesota
You have an everyday link to Muslims. Yes, you do. You may not realize it, but there are many things we use in our daily lives that come from a “Muslim” background. From math and science to education and commerce, it may surprise you how much Muslim inventions have influenced the world, starting centuries ago and making their overlooked way into our day-to-day lives.
You were taught that the Greeks were the developers of trigonometry, right? Not exactly. Take out the word developers and replace it with “continuers.” Trigonometry was “developed to a level of modern perfection” by Muslim scholars, meaning that it’s of Muslim origin, even though the Greeks take the credit.
Such inventions vary from equipment, to concepts, to food, to science and medicine—you name it. Read more »
Understanding Islam: A Conversation with Arafat El-Bakri
By Lydia Howell
In the almost seven years since the September 11th attacks, intensifying after the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, non-Muslim Americans have been fed a steady diet of myths, distortions and outright hatred propagated about Islam. The religion has 1.4 billion believers worldwide, and more of Minnesotans’ neighbors are Muslim, hailing from Somalia, different Middle Eastern countries and South Asia. Islam is also winning many American converts. One of the most surprising facts in a wide-ranging interview with Arafat El-Bakri is that the biggest group of the 5 million American converts to Islam are educated women.
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Event:
“Meet Your Muslim Neighbors: A Dialogue”
Thursday June 26, 7 p.m.
Robbinsdale United Church of Christ
4200 Lake Road, Robbinsdale, MN
Free and open to the public
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El-Bakri is participating in a series of events to challenge the misconceptions about Islam and Muslim people, and to foster interfaith dialogue, at the Robbinsdale United Church of Christ. He is the founder of the Islamic Relief Social Services in Minneapolis, an outgrowth of his work on the Bosnia Relief Committee. An imam, he is on the boards of many Islamic organizations, and serves on the board of Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless.
“A lot of words are being used to discredit and smear Islam,” El-Bakri says. “Jihad literally means ‘struggle’. It’s mostly translated as ‘holy war’–a concept that is not in Islam at all. Jihad is a struggle–struggle against your own desires, struggle in education, struggle on the battlefield. For us, war is justified or unjustified. There’s nothing holy about war. Wars are bad. The highest jihad is with yourself.”
Read more »
Rebuilding a Legacy
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: American Muslim history, American-Muslim identity, Asma Saroya, cair, CAIR-MN, Cedar Rapids, Cedar Rapids Muslims, Flood Relief, Imam Taha Tawil, Iowa Muslims, Mother Mosque, Mother Mosque of America, Muslim youth
Comments (2) By Asma Lori Saroya, Engage Minnesota
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| Flood damage at the Mother Mosque. |
On our first visit to the Mother Mosque of America, my family and I were greeted by an eager imam. He came outside to welcome us.
Imam Taha Tawil, Executive Director of the Mother Mosque, showed great passion for history and for the American Muslim identity as he gave us a two-hour tour of the tiny mosque. We were presented with stories, history lessons, photos, documents, and other artifacts from–with the exception of the slave trade–some of the earliest Muslim immigrants to America.
We returned, many times. My family and I attended monthly halaqas there and, as a teenager, I always found that Imam Taha boldly fielded my questions. I attended meetings in the Mother Mosque with Muslim youth from across the state.
I gave tours to visitors, who watched us pray in shifts in the small prayer area. I got married there. Read more »
Preventing the Next War?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Ahmadenijad, fatwa, Guest bloggers, Iran, Keith Ellison, Khamenei, war
Comments (1) Keith Ellison’s Iran Forum and the June 10 Call-In to Congress
By Lydia Howell
On May 28, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., hosted Iran scholars for a community forum in a packed hall at the First Unitarian Society church in Minneapolis. The focus was on the U.S.-Iran relationship, estranged for over 30 years, which many fear may become the next chapter in the Bush administration’s “war on terrorism.”
“Nary a day goes by that someone isn’t saying something abut Iran in the media. Part of my responsibility as a U.S. congressman is to be a forum to discuss the critical issues we face and to promote dialog about the most pressing issues,” said Ellison. “To quote [African-American writer] James Baldwin: Anything that cannot be faced cannot be fixed.”
Read more »
Thanking the Twin Cities Daily Planet
Filed under: Engage Minnesota | Tags: Engage Minnesota, Minnesota media, multiculturalism, Twin Cities Daily Planet
Leave a Comment A brief note:
We at Engage Minnesota would like to express our gratitude to the Twin Cities Daily Planet (which regularly reposts columns from Engage Minnesota) for being committed to fair journalism and serving as a true mirror for the views of the communities living in the Twin Cities.
Kudos, TC Daily Planet!
