Month: March 2011

Interview with Wajahat Ali | FPIF. Basically, the reason they’re taking place now is that this is an unprecedented time in American history for the mainstreaming of Islamophobic sentiment and rhetoric. What was once allowed to operate on the fringes and by fringe actors has been co-opted by mainstream political actors and parties to capitalize on people’s fears, panic, and hysteria. You see this pattern in American history. When there is a moment of panic and fear around an economic downturn, politicians and people in cottage industries turn on minorities. It has happened with Jews and with African Americans in…

Guest Voices: Peter King’s Muslim hearings: more questions than answers – On Faith at washingtonpost.com. Approximately half-way through the King hearings today, I am struck by how nebulous the purpose of the hearings are. I am unclear as to why Rep. King has called them, and what goals they will serve

Muslim Baiting: Peter King’s Dangerous Obsession. Agrees Hussein Rashid, a professor at Hofstra who blogs at HusseinRashid.com: “Most domestic terror does not come from the Muslim community. The equivalent would have made all Irish Catholics suspects in ’80s, Jews in Communist era, blacks in rise of the Black Panthers, or that all Italians would be responsible for the mob. It is unacceptable.  “It shows that King is unaware of his constituency in New York. It shows a real lack of engagement with those constituencies and shows a real lack of awareness of what being in charge of Homeland Security actually…

Faith in Public Life :: Bold Faith Type. The Hill is reporting that Peter King has received threatening phone calls as his controversial hearings on the “radicalization” of the American Muslim community approach. This is contemptible. Such actions have no place in our society. We also hope anti-Islam activists do not seize on these threats to broadly impugn Muslims.

What Unites Us. WhatUnites.Us calls on Americans to aspire to common values. The campaign brings together Americans from all walks of life to push back against anti-Muslim rhetoric and make it unacceptable for public figures of any kind, but especially elected officials, to espouse anti-Muslim hate. The campaign calls on Americans to focus on what unites us and to call out rhetoric and actions that divide us. The campaign is built around the American values of freedom, truth, fairness, justice and diversity. The site features video testimonials, blog content, campaign actions and more.

Setting the Record Straight on Sharia. Sharia is the ideal law of God according to Islam. Muslims believe that the Islamic legal system is one that aims toward ideals of justice, fairness, and the good life. Sharia has tremendous diversity, as jurists and learned scholars figure out and articulate what that law is. Historically, Sharia served as a means for political dissent against arbitrary rule. It is not a monolithic doctrine of violence, as has been characterized in the recently introduced Tennessee bill that would criminalize practices of Sharia.

Richard Cohen – Rep. Peter King’s hearings on Islamic radicalization: Fuel for the bigots. King is setting a dangerous precedent. The government has no business examining any peaceful religious group because a handful of adherents have broken the law. If it did, it would be past time to look into the Roman Catholic Church, which clearly was – or maybe still is – concealing the sex crimes of priests and others. The organization BishopAccountability.org reports that “perhaps more than 100,000 children” have been sexually abused since 1950 by Catholic clergymen of one sort or another. Nearly 6,000 priests have been…