What a Muslim American Learned from Zionists

2014/06/28 Leave a comment

An interesting and challenging initiative by the Shalom Hartman Institute that brought American Muslim thought leader to a year-long fellowship in Jerusalem that helped both sides understand each other’s narrative:

Despite living on the front lives of this conflict, many Jewish friends at Hartman said it took the relationships built through the program for our Jewish friends to fully absorb the Palestinian narrative.

After a year we built the trust necessary for a needed exchange of admissions. The Muslim fellows understood Jewish fear and the Jews’ deep desire for a homeland after thousands of years of being a mistrusted minority. And Israeli Jews affirmed to us the daily devastation of the occupation and the shattering of Palestinians through which Israel was born. These exchanges between Zionists and pro-Palestinians were monumental.

They are also an affirmation that there is still hope for dialogue and relationships that can actually make a difference. Until now, both parties have been speaking inside their own bubbles, safe in dialogue with people that agree with them. The walls have been built so high that breaching them to reach out to the other side is tantamount to treason. Hartman and the participants both took huge risks in being part of this program with hopes to forge a new way forward. This fellowship proves that building relationships between people who fundamentally disagree can uncover empathy and mutual recognition that despite differences, everyone deserves dignity, security, prosperity and self-determination.

What a Muslim American Learned from Zionists | TIME.

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An Open Letter to Bill Maher From a Muslim American

2014/05/14 Leave a comment

Rabia Chaudry on Bill Maher’s anti-Islam rants (to be fair, he rants against all religions):

Nothing I tell you would matter, though. The facts are irrelevant. That’s how bigotry operates. It’s both telling and troubling that you referred to these issues as “the Muslim question.” The reference didn’t escape me and it’s hard to believe it was anything but deliberate. Think for a second about what was unleashed by the “Jewish question” in Europe. Bigotry sometimes does that, too.

So while I support you in continuing to expose Muslims and others who shock the conscience of decent people, who destroy lives, and who wreak havoc, I caution you on the anti-Islam rhetoric. You have a massive following and are successfully leading a movement to demonize Islam in the liberal left, a place many American Muslims call home. You are leading people into rocks and hard places when you posit that Islam is the problem. You are putting Muslims up against a wall and pushing those who fear us further into spaces where little choice is left. As the mother of two American-born daughters, and a Muslim who calls the U.S. her home, I worry deeply about the solutions your followers may propose to your “Muslim question.” You should too.

An Open Letter to Bill Maher From a Muslim American | TIME.com.

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A New Muslim Renaissance is Here | TIME.com

2014/04/19 Leave a comment

Rabia Chaudry in Time on some of the progressive trends among Muslim Americans, reminding of the diversity within Muslim communities and on change from within:

It’s heady, scary, and exciting to watch the face and discourse of American Muslims change and expand before your eyes. The Islam I grew up with in America is not the Islam my children are experiencing. The possibilities for their lives are much more expansive than the possibilities for my life were. The largely comfortable integration and success of American Muslims that sets them apart from their counterparts in Europe also lends space for these possibilities. From tremendously increased participation in American civic and cultural life, to pressing internal demands on religious orthodoxy, another generation or two will see a vastly different American Islam that will likely have an impact on Muslims globally. From marginalized minority, American Muslims are poised to become mainstream leaders and influencers. And it’s no small irony that while historians bemoan conquest and Western colonialism as the death knell for Islam’s “Golden Age”, this new Muslim renaissance is growing out of the West itself.

A New Muslim Renaissance is Here | TIME.com.

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