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Newsday on America to Zanzibar

Here is a Newsday article on the exhibit America to Zanzibar: Muslim Cultures Near and Far, at The Children’s Museum of Manhattan, for which I was the lead academic advisor. It’s a good chance to shout out my friends from high school. “Our goal is to have children deal with differences in a healthy, positive way and encourage them to be inquisitive while exploring the world instead of running away from its differences,” Rashid said, an experience not so different from his years growing up in Elmont.  

Islam scholar Bernard Lewis left unfair legacy of disdain for Muslims – Religion News ServiceReligion News Service

Islam scholar Bernard Lewis left unfair legacy of disdain for Muslims – Religion News ServiceReligion News Service. Lewis’ transformation from scholar to neo-imperialist was not sudden, but there is a hint to be found in “The Assassins.” Originally published in 1967, it is an erudite work that sought to correct the record on the Nizari Isma’ilis, a Shiite Muslim community that had long been maligned as consumers of hashish, known in Arabic as “hashashin,” which transformed into the word “assassin.” The book fascinated me because it was a scholarly book at a time when scholarship was rarely applied to such topics.…

Should You Social Media Fast During Ramadan?

Should You Social Media Fast During Ramadan?. Islamic scholar Hussein Rashid, on the other hand, has been going the exact opposite route when it comes to the holy month and social media since 2009. Over the last three Ramadans, Rashid estimated that he has tweeted between 35 and 40 percent of the Quran to his 3,000 followers.  “I can definitely see the argument that you want to abstain from things that engage you too much, that are a distraction from your spiritual life,” Rashid said. “I guess my approach is that these are things that are part of my daily…