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The founder of the Islamophobia Register, Mariam Veiszadeh was the winner of two awards in categories, “Role Model of the Year” and “Women of the Year” at the 9th Australian Muslim Achievement Awards 2015 held on Saturday 19 December at The Bryan Brown Theatre in Bankstown.

“It was extremely humbling to receive the Woman of the Year and the Role Model of the Year Award at the Australian Muslim Achievement Awards this evening. I’m truly overwhelmed by it all”, Mariam said.

She thanked her whole family, specially her mother, “an epitome of courage” and her husband Ehsaan Veiszadeh “my rock” for his support during tough times.

“I’d also like to thank those who have been instrumental in providing me a platform – without you I wouldn’t be where I am today. Congratulations also to all of the other nominees and award winners”, she added.
 

AMAA event is held on an yearly basis to honour high achievers in the community in a large number of categories. The event is coordinated by Hanan Dover of Mission of Hope and is sponsored by various community organisations and businesses.

Mariam, a lawyer and community rights advocate has been leading the charge against Islamophobia. During her keynote speech she shared the trauma she had to go through and the challenges she faced during her advocacy campaign for the last two years.

Other speakers at the event included Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohammed, Mufti of Australia, and Ghaith Krayem and performances were given by Hameed Attai, Nasheed Singer and Zohab Khan, a Spoken Word Artist.

The Lifetime achievement Award was won by Mrs Mona Abdel-Fattah, the principle of Australian Islamic Academy at Strathfield campus.
 

The People’s Choice Award 2014 was won by Osman Korolia, Deputy Principle at Unity Grammar College who had the following comments “An inspiring evening though with some amazing people here who all do amazing in their everyday life and in doing so make our society a better place. Congratulations to Hanan Dover and the team at Mission of Hope and their sponsors for this incredible event and dinner that followed. Above all I wish to express my eternal gratitude to my wife Salima Hawli Karolia, this award is dedicated to her and her endless and unwavering support for all that I do.”

The Media Outlet of the Year award winner Randa Abdel-Fattah said “honestly stunned to win media personality award. So humbled and grateful to those who supported me. I’m very conscious of the enormous responsibility media engagement demands. Thanks for supporting me during the good ones and the brutal cringe worthy stuff ups! And thanks Hanan Dover and the Mission of Hope team for putting on a really inspiring night. Blessed to have shared the night with my family and mother who won Lifetime Achievement Award.”

Sean McNulty and Soumayya Najjarine acted as the masters of ceremony with their usual entertaining style.

The winners in various categories were as follows:

Best New Community Project - Brothers In Need
Creative Artist of the Year - Ahmad Sabra – Falafel and Photography
Business of the Year - Nadine Bakka Mobile Speech Therapy Services
Community Organisation of the Year - Islamic Relief Australia
Event of the Year - Eid Show
People’s Choice 2014 – Osman Karolia
Abyssinian of the Year – Damian Ridgwell
Role Model of the Year - Mariam Veiszadeh
Media Outlet of the Year - Randa Abdel-Fattah
Professional of the Year – Nooria Mehraby
Lifetime Achiever Award – Mona Abdel-Fattah
Woman of the Year – Mariam Veiszadeh
Man of the Year – Dr Yassir Morsi
Youth of the Year - Yassmin Abdel-Magied
People’s Choice for 2015 – Julide Turker

Zia Ahmad

Zia Ahmad is the Managing Editor of the Australasian Muslim Times AMUST and is based in Sydney.
 

Source: Australasian Muslim Times

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ISLAMICA 500 is a guide of selected thought leaders, executives, professionals and entrepreneurs from around the world, active in the Islamic Economy and the Halal industry.

It acts as a reference for Global Leaders in the Islamic Economy.

Making the Top 50 list is Mr. Yassine Talal, Managing Director of Crescent Wealth.

The full list can be viewed here.

Personalities listed have been selected from across the globe and invitation is granted only to those individuals who have demonstrated leadership, achievement and contribution to the development of the Islamic economy.

They have been surveyed to assess their contribution on the Islamic Economy to World economy.

"The TOP 50 are based on a series of criteria to highlight who are providing the most cutting edge and innovative achievements to the Islamic Economy.
 

These criteria are :  Innovation, Substance, Ethics, Entrepreneurship, Global or international impact, Sustainability & Long-term projects and Multi-sector approach
 

"The research is based on the work of highly qualified consultants and peer-to-peer review."

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Minister for Multicultural Affairs Grace Grace has announced funding of $1,000,000 for 128 events and projects to be delivered across the state in 2016.

These events and projects will celebrate and promote Queensland’s multicultural identity, increase community awareness of benefits of multiculturalism, foster community cohesion, and support equal access to opportunities by people from diverse cultural backgrounds.

Amongst the recipients of grants in this round were:

For the full list of recipients click here.

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The Muslim communities then have been turning to the Family Court to authorise the heavily weighted “agreements’’, which often provide “guardianship” of school-aged children to men and incorporate the return of any marriage dowry as well as other financial compensation from the women.

The “guardianship” principle under sharia law means the parent can make all the significant decisions about a child, irrespective of who has custody.

The Australian has learned that Muslim women agree to the sharia agreements so that they can then initiate a religious ¬divorce before Islamic imams, and avoid being stuck in a restrictive “limping marriage’’.

An issue of increasing ¬concern is where a Muslim man refuses to give his wife a religious divorce, even though the couple may be civilly divorced, and she is unable to remarry or travel to many Islamic countries and can be ostracised in her community.

The husband is not penalised however, as he can take up to four wives without penalty under Islamic law.

But even women awarded religious and civil divorces can find sharia principles restrict their future life decisions.

Muslim single mother and asylum-seeker Tahira Sajid fears being sent back to Pakistan after her husband divorced her under the “three strike’’ sharia process and then later under Australian law. Ms Sajid said unmarried women faced a higher risk of violence and persecution in Pakistan but she was caught in a cultural bind because, if she remarried, her ex-husband could take away her eight-year-old daughter, Malaika.

“I felt intimidated into a divorce,” Ms Sajid said. “And now if I remarry, under sharia law he can take Malaika away.”

Ms Sajid said she worried about going back to Pakistan where she would have no legal protection against her ex-husband.

“I feel safe here under a protection visa,” she said.

Ms Sajid’s friend Ammara Nazish said it was “impossible to practise sharia law 100 per cent” and she appreciated her newfound freedoms as a woman after arriving in Australia in 2012.

Muslim communities in Australia have been quietly practising sharia law in negotiating divorces, disadvantaging women in custody and property arrangements.

The Muslim communities then have been turning to the Family Court to authorise the heavily weighted “agreements’’, which often provide “guardianship” of school-aged children to men and incorporate the return of any marriage dowry as well as other financial compensation from the women.

The “guardianship” principle under sharia law means the parent can make all the significant decisions about a child, irrespective of who has custody.

The Australian has learned that Muslim women agree to the sharia agreements so that they can then initiate a religious divorce before Islamic imams, and avoid being stuck in a restrictive “limping marriage’’.

An issue of increasing concern is where a Muslim man refuses to give his wife a religious divorce, even though the couple may be civilly divorced, and she is unable to remarry or travel to many Islamic countries and can be ostracised in her community.

The husband is not penalised however, as he can take up to four wives without penalty under Islamic law.

But even women awarded religious and civil divorces can find sharia principles restrict their future life decisions.

Muslim single mother and asylum-seeker Tahira Sajid fears being sent back to Pakistan after her husband divorced her under the “three strike’’ sharia process and then later under Australian law. Ms Sajid said unmarried women faced a higher risk of violence and persecution in Pakistan but she was caught in a cultural bind because, if she remarried, her ex-husband could take away her eight-year-old daughter, Malaika.

“I felt intimidated into a divorce,” Ms Sajid said. “And now if I remarry, under sharia law he can take Malaika away.”

Ms Sajid said she worried about going back to Pakistan where she would have no legal protection against her ex-husband.

“I feel safe here under a protection visa,” she said.

Ms Sajid’s friend Ammara Nazish said it was “impossible to practise sharia law 100 per cent” and she appreciated her newfound freedoms as a woman after arriving in Australia in 2012.

“In Pakistan women die every year from rape on the streets and domestic violence no matter how well educated you are,” said Ms Nazish, who holds a masters degree in environmental science. “I love the rights I have here and how safe I feel every day.”

Ms Nazish’s husband, Imran Yousef, said the practice of sharia law in Australia was “bizarre”. “I follow the Koran but I follow the law of the land,” Mr Yousef said.

Sydney mother Mahassen Issa discovered the problems of not obtaining a religious divorce when she was charged with adultery and bigamy and detained for nearly three months in Lebanon after holidaying with a new partner last year.

A former adviser to the Lakemba mosque in Sydney’s west, solicitor Hasaim Farache, is one of several Muslims being trained by Legal Aid to facilitate culturally specific consent orders for the Family Court.

Mr Farache admitted to applying sharia principles to his arbitrations. He said sharia had been playing out since the mediation aspect of the Family Court was introduced in 2005 and claimed the application of sharia at the mediation level avoided expensive litigation.

The Family Court registers an agreement between a couple believing it has been jointly agreed, and there is little scrutiny of the cultural pressure Muslim women face in coming to make the deal.
 

Senior NSW lawyer Jamila Hussain said the Muslim community was not using sharia tribunals, as none existed in Australia, but were instead relying on a commonsense application of sharia principles to circumvent a limping marriage, also euphemistically labelled “marital captivity’’. “We are not using sharia tribunals, but we rely on trained Muslim mediators who are legally qualified people we can go to and who advise what to do under Australian law and to get an Islamic divorce,’’ Ms Hussain said.
 

She agreed it was a pragmatic approach but added: “It works because it overcomes the problem (Muslim) women would otherwise face when obtaining a divorce in the Family Court.’’

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The General Secretary of Jamiyyatul Ulama India, Sheikh Abu Bakar Ahmed, will be visiting Brisbane this week to deliver lectures at Algester Mosque and the Al Mustapha Academy.

 
"The Sheikh is a prolific author of numerous award winning books in different languages and recognized for his humanitarian efforts by many organizations. He plays a pivotal role in maintaining harmonious relationships with people of other faiths," Imam Yusuf Thaqafi told CCN.

He will be delivering on only two lectures this week:

• Monday 28 December at 8:30pm: Algester Mosque
• Tuesday 29 December at 7:00pm: Al Mustapha Academy Australia: 48 Scrubby Creek Road, Browns Plains

"All brothers and sister welcome!"

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Horrified by recent terrorist attacks in the name of religion, many Muslims living in the West are keen to explain that the bloodlust of ISIL does not represent either their values or the pulse of mainstream Islam. Despite the West’s many liberal democracies’ public stance against Islamophobia, it remains necessary to publicly state the remarkably obvious point that not all Muslims are alike.

Community leaders typically enter the public eye a day after a terrorist attack to condemn ISIL, as well as distance themselves from the toxic narrative of extremists.

In response to the recent San Bernardino, California, shootings, Hussam Ayloush, a representative of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, explained why it responded with a statement on how it unequivocally condemned this horrific act.

Mr Ayloush said: “There’s a lot of anti-Muslim sentiment, fuelled by pundits. We felt there was a need for our fellow Americans to know that all American Muslims share with the rest of the country, our sorrow today, our shock and our agony for what happened.”

Its not my point to say we shouldn’t distance Islam from ISIL, but to note how such distancing is so often done through appeals to secular and colour-blind liberal sensibilities about local Muslims, sharing citizenry and a denunciation of the binary “us” and “them” rhetoric.

Language matters greatly in these times, so we have to ask what really can be said about Islam in this current climate?

Effectively, no matter how complex Islam is, Muslims in the West commonly find ourselves saying nothing much other than the word “not”. Islam becomes simply defined through a string of negations. For the radical Muslim, Islam is a negation of the West. For moderate Muslims, Islam is a negation of the radical’s negation: we are not terrorists, this is not the Sharia, this is not the true meaning of jihad.

A spiral of “nots” string together our public speeches, which say nothing about the religion other than what it opposes. In this spiral, everyday Muslims occupy a burden to confess where they are situated in this radical-moderate line.

Indeed, one of western society’s fundamental rituals is the act of inducing confessions. We are commonly told that upon our confession we have liberated ourselves from carrying the burden of our heavy sins. We are more honest, more likely to change, we are taking a step to our redemption.

Confession, we are told, purges us of the parasite of secrecy that gnaws at our conscience.

It was the philosopher Michel Foucault who suggested that our “incitement to speak the truth” relies on our assumption of freeing what remains concealed within, and thus he famously claims that Western man “has become a confessing animal”.

Even our democratic ethos is tainted with the same confessionals. The call for a politics to be transparent is a call to expose inner motives, which claims to induce a confession for the sake of our polity’s salvation.

In our act of confessing, Foucault argues that we become at once the governor and the governed, the observer and the observed. By confessing all that is within, all that is hidden, all that we can know about ourselves, we are delivering our deepest sense of self to society so we can be forgiven, counselled, judged, corrected, weighed or punished.

We become through our confession an object of judgement. It becomes all the more a hierarchy of judge and suspect when that relationship between confessor and forgiver is a racial one.

We saw last year the #muslimapologies campaign where Muslims mock the idea that they have to apologise for terrorism by affirming their contributions to history: as one tweet suggested, “sorry for inventing algebra”.

Source: The National

RELATED TOPIC:

‘Why I refuse to answer the question: Do you condemn ISIS?’: (Susan Abulhawa, Al Jazeera)

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Today, the Latin alphabet is the international standard for phonetic writing. But this is a modern phenomenon.

For centuries, Arabic was the central language to science and trade, and consequently, the use of its script was dominant worldwide well into the 19th century.

Yet the 17th-19th centuries saw a slow decline in the use of Arabic, and a critical loss over ten years from the late 1920s to mid-1930s in the former Ottoman and new Soviet territories as Latin letters, and to a lesser degree Cyrillic, became the script of choice.

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A GROWING number of Muslim men and their multiple wives are exploiting a loophole to get taxpayer handouts.

Centrelink has confirmed it has investigated up to 20 cases of multiple relationships, including polygamy, in the past two years for payment irregularities.

It has forced some families to pay money back.

Polygamy is illegal in Australia, but a Centrelink spokeswoman said it was not the welfare agency's job to police polygamy laws.

"It's not our concern if they are a member of a polygamist relationship," the spokeswoman said.

"We look at whether they are receiving the correct rate of payment. We treat each couple independently."

But Islamic Women's Welfare Council of Victoria director Joumanah El Matrah said some men were exploiting Australia.

She said Muslim men who took more than one wife and relied on Centrelink payments to support their families were not following Islamic law, which dictated they could only take multiple wives if they could afford it.

"What these men are doing is exploiting Islam and they are exploiting the system in Australia," she said.

A 2008 report by the women's group found Centrelink payments had encouraged polygamy in a small section of the Islamic community.

"Community workers who have provided support to women whose husbands took another wife religiously, said that women blame the availability of Centrelink benefits ... since one or the other wife will be claiming it, relieving the husband of the responsibility of supporting two families," the report stated.

Centrelink general manager Hank Jongen admitted the agency was making payments to people in multiple-couple relationships.

"There's nothing preventing them from being in more than one 'member of a couple' relationship at a time," he said. "In these cases, Centrelink pays each person the relevant income-tested payment at the partnered rate."

Some Muslim men have married several wives in their country of origin or at local mosques so they are not recognised under Australian law by state-based births, deaths and marriage registries.

Mr Trad agreed only those who could afford a second wife, without reliance on Centrelink, should marry more than one woman.

"Marriage, whether they are single or plural, I believe in the old adage, they are made in heaven," he said.
 

Source: Herald Sun

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Warning issued against backlash as survey shows community experiencing racism three times the national average.

Muslims in Australia say they are increasingly being viewed with suspicion.

Some say they are being abused by strangers on the streets. Others say a security crackdown by police and government authorities unfairly targets their community.

Duncan Lewis, chief of Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), has said the backlash against Muslims is dangerous and a threat to national security.

He has asked politicians to tone down criticism of Islam.

A November survey by two universities and a research centre suggests that Muslims in Australia experience racism three times the national average.

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By the end of the century, Muslims could outnumber Christians for the first time in history, according to a report released by the Pew Research Center.

"Another way of thinking about it is Christianity had a seven-century head-start on Islam, and Islam is finally catching up," says Alan Cooperman, the director of religion research at Pew.

Christianity is currently the world's largest religion, making up a third of the world's population with 2.2 billion adherents. Pew research shows that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. The religious group will make up 30 percent of the world's population by 2050, compared to just 23 percent of the population in 2010. That means the number of Muslims in the world will nearly equal the number of Christians by 2050.

If Islam's growth spurt continues, Pew data shows, Muslims could outnumber Christians soon after the year 2070.

That's not to say that the total number of Christians is decreasing; Christianity's growth rate is just not as fast as Islam's. While the number of Christians will increase from about 2.1 billion to 2.9 billion by 2050, Muslims will jump from 1.6 billion to 2.8 billion.

This growth has to do with the relatively young age of the Muslim population as well as high fertility rates. Other religious groups have aging populations. Among Buddhists, for example, half of adherents are older than 30 and​ the average birth rate is 1.6 children. By contrast, in 2010, a third of the Muslim population was under 15. What's more, each Muslim woman has an average of 3.1 children, while the average for Christian women is 2.7.

The Pew research revealed two other interesting shifts in world religious perspectives, Cooperman says.

Atheists, agnostics and those who do not affiliate with religion will make up a smaller percentage of the world's total population by 2050 — even though the group is growing in the U.S. and Europe. The decline is primarily because those who are unaffiliated religiously have low fertility rates, with women bearing an average of 1.7 children in their lifetime.

Between now and 2050, the hub of Christianity will also shift — from Europe to sub-Saharan Africa. As of 2010, the majority of the Christian population — 25.5 percent — lived in Europe, but sub-Saharan Africa will become home to nearly 40 percent of the world's Christians by 2050. Fertility rates are also behind this change. Christians living in sub-Saharan African have the highest fertility rates among Christians worldwide: Each woman has, on average, 4.4 children.​

Cooperman emphasizes that a lot could change between now and 2050.

"We're not saying that this will happen; it's if current patterns and trends continue," Cooperman says. "We do not know what's going to happen in the future. There could be war, revolution, famine, disease. These are things no one can predict and that could change the numbers."
 

Source: NPR

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This 807-year-old Persian mystic and dervish has a massive following in the US and around the world. Jane Ciabattari explains his enduring influence.

The ecstatic poems of Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, a Persian poet and Sufi master born 807 years ago in 1207, have sold millions of copies in recent years, making him the most popular poet in the US. Globally, his fans are legion.

“He’s this compelling figure in all cultures,” says Brad Gooch, who is writing a biography of Rumi to follow his critically acclaimed books on Frank O’Hara and Flannery O’Connor. “The map of Rumi’s life covers 2,500 miles,” says Gooch, who has traveled from Rumi’s birthplace in Vakhsh, a small village in what is now Tajikistan, to Samarkand in Uzbekistan, to Iran and to Syria, where Rumi studied at Damascus and Aleppo in his twenties. His final stop was Konya, in Turkey, where Rumi spent the last 50 years of his life. Today Rumi’s tomb draws reverent followers and heads of state each year for a whirling dervish ceremony on 17 December, the anniversary of his death.

The transformative moment in Rumi’s life came in 1244, when he met a wandering mystic known as Shams of Tabriz. “Rumi was 37, a traditional Muslim preacher and scholar, as his father and grandfather had been,” says Gooch. “The two of them have this electric friendship for three years – lover and beloved [or] disciple and sheikh, it’s never clear.” Rumi became a mystic. After three years Shams disappeared – “possibly murdered by a jealous son of Rumi, possibly teaching Rumi an important lesson in separation.” Rumi coped by writing poetry. “Most of the poetry we have comes from age 37 to 67. He wrote 3,000 [love songs] to Shams, the prophet Muhammad and God. He wrote 2,000 rubayat, four-line quatrains. He wrote in couplets a six-volume spiritual epic, The Masnavi.”

During these years, Rumi incorporated poetry, music and dance into religious practice. “Rumi would whirl while he was meditating and while composing poetry, which he dictated,” said Gooch. “That was codified after his death into elegant meditative dance.” Or, as Rumi wrote, in Ghazal 2,351: “I used to recite prayers. Now I recite rhymes and poems and songs.” Centuries after his death, Rumi’s work is recited, chanted, set to music and used as inspiration for novels, poems, music, films, YouTube videos and tweets (Gooch tweets his translations @RumiSecrets).

Why does Rumi's work endure?

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Some Muslim leaders have expressed "grave concerns" over the Study Qur'an, a recent translation and commentary of the Qur'an led by prominent Muslim scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Their main concern seems to be the promotion of perennialism, a philosophy of religion that views each of the world's religions as sharing a single universal truth.

Eschewing salvific pluralism and universalism, these critics promote exclusivism and supremacism.

For such Muslim leaders, the redeeming features of the Study Qur'an include listing the penalties for apostasy and homosexuality, and talking about the creation of Adam without mentioning evolution and patriarchal gender roles.

They are relieved that the Study Qur'an does not make any apologies for verses that appear "inegalitarian, malevolent" or incompatible with "contemporary liberal society."

In this context, one celebrity Muslim leader preached social ostracism:

For such Muslims, the right belief takes precedence over how we live. They reject salvific universalism as emanating from interfaith circles and from sympathy for one's non-Muslim parents. They scripturally bully fellow Muslims who uphold pluralism, labeling them heretics and threatening them with dire consequences in the hereafter.

This judgment of fellow Muslims is the first step towards dehumanization of others. Frank Parmir, the director of Muslims for Progressive Values in Columbus, Ohio, has aptly observed:

Muslim exclusivists withhold the salvation offered in verse 2:62 from Jews and Christians. Through classical Qur'anic commentaries, they justify referring to Jews and Christians as those who have incurred wrath and gone astray, respectively. To buttress their theology of exclusivism, they marshal many verses which depict Jews and Christians as rejectors (3:70), disbelievers (98:1), oppressors (61:6-7), instigators of corruption (5:64) and as being punished (5:18).
 

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More than 2.5million users will leave Facebook unless certain Islamic pages are reinstated, it has been claimed.

A template letter that has been pasted into numerous Facebook pages accuses founder Mark Zuckerberg and other senior members of Facebook of 'ignoring the feelings of more than 2.5million Muslims'.

The Muslim community is angry that four extremely popular Islamic pages were removed from the site and the letter warns that unless its demands are met Facebook's Muslim users will move to an Islamic alternative.

The letter demands not only that the pages are reinstated but that new rules are introduced which make it a violation of Facebook’s terms to post anti-Islamic comments.

And Facebook is given notice that unless the changes are introduced then 2.5 million Muslim users will leave to join madina.com, a social networking site for Muslims.

The letter reads: ‘Although you have attended the world’s best communication skills courses you have been most successful in growing great hatred and hostility between you and Muslims around the world, but seriously this time you have caused an almost unrepairable [sic] damage.’

It also accuses Facebook of ‘irresponsible behaviour’ for allowing to host ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day’ pages which sparked controversy for encouraging users to draw portraits of the Prophet.

There is no specific ban on images of Allah or the Prophet Mohammed in the Koran but there is one line which is commonly taken to mean that it is impossible for human hands to recreate his likeness. To attempt to do so would is an insult to Allah, it is believed.

The letter demands that the four deleted pages are reinstated, disrespecting Islamic religious symbols is banned and any Facebook page which does so is disabled.

Madina.com was a social networking site set up specifically for the Muslim community.

It pledges to abide by the 'highest Islamic principals' and encourages Muslim unity. Female users are asked not to use pictures of themselves as profile pictures.

According to Facebook the Islamic pages, which included 'I love Mohammed' and 'Quran Lovers', were taken down because they were being used to 'spam' users, which is against the company's policy.

The pages were were using a JavaScript code that when entered in the address bar, would add all a user's friends to the Page Suggestions – making it similar to spamming people across Facebook.
 

Source: Daily Mail UK

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1. "Hamdullilah," The Narcicyst (2009)

I've been listening to Yassin Alsalman nonstop since we interviewed him a few months ago. He was born in Dubai to Iraqi parents, and was raised in the United Arab Emirates and Canada.

His music — which deals a lot with the experience of being young, Arab and Muslim in a post-9/11 world — draws both hip-hop fans and peace activists alike.

Plus, he's pretty hilarious.

Want an example? Check out the video for "P.H.A.T.W.A." which is about being racially profiled at the airport. I challenge anyone to not smile at his deadpan delivery of the line "Iraq is the new black."
 

NEXT WEEK: 2. "Take Me Home," Brother Ali (2007)
 

Source: PRI

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What have Muslims ever done for America? If your sole source of information were Donald Trump, you’d think that the answer was not much – apart from murdering its citizens and trying to destroy its values. The Republican presidential hopeful has called for a halt to Muslims entering the US until American authorities “can figure out” Muslim attitudes to the US in the wake of last week’s killings in San Bernardino. If only, you might well think, Scotland had had the same thought about Trump before he was allowed in to blight Aberdeenshire with another of his golf resorts.

What Trump doesn’t seem to grasp is his own country’s history, and how many American achievements worth celebrating are the work of the kind of people – Muslims – he wants to keep out.

Here, then, is a guide to some of the things Muslims have done for the US. It’s not an exhaustive list – but it’s still more impressive than what Trump has done for his homeland.

Living the American dream
 

Shahid Khan is the personification of the American dream.

The Pakistan-born billionaire arrived in the US aged 16 on a one-

way trip to the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. “Within 24 hours, I had already experienced the American dream,” Khan said, by which he meant he found a job for $1.20

an hour washing dishes — more than the vast majority of the people back in Pakistan earned at the time. He started a car-parts business after university.

Now, the 65-year-old – best known in the UK for owning Fulham FC – is the head of the $4.9bn (in sales terms) auto-parts company Flex-N-Gate, the 360th richest person on the planet and three years ago Forbes magazine put him on its cover as the face of the American dream.
.

NEXT WEEK: Helping Hillary to the White House

Source: The Guardian

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"A man who does not read is no better than a man who cannot read."

The CCN Book-of-the Week

The First Muslim: The Story of Muhammad

by

Lesley Hazleton

Description

The extraordinary life of the man who founded Islam, and the world he inhabited and remade. Muhammad’s was a life of almost unparalleled historical importance; yet for all the iconic power of his name, the intensely dramatic story of the prophet of Islam is not well known. In The First Muslim , Lesley Hazleton brings him vibrantly to life.

Drawing on early eyewitness sources and on history, politics, religion, and psychology, she renders him as a man in full, in all his complexity and vitality. Hazleton’s account follows the arc of Muhammad’s rise from powerlessness to power, from anonymity to renown, from insignificance to lasting significance.

How did a child shunted to the margins end up revolutionizing his world? How did a merchant come to challenge the established order with a new vision of social justice? How did the pariah hounded out of Mecca turn exile into a new and victorious beginning? How did the outsider become the ultimate insider?

Impeccably researched and thrillingly readable, Hazleton’s narrative creates vivid insight into a man navigating between idealism and pragmatism, faith and politics, nonviolence and violence, rejection and acclaim. The First Muslim illuminates not only an immensely significant figure but his lastingly relevant legacy.

When Lesley Hazleton was writing a biography of Muhammad, she was struck by something: The night he received the revelation of the Koran, according to early accounts, his first reaction was doubt, awe, even fear. And yet this experience became the bedrock of his belief. Hazleton calls for a new appreciation of doubt and questioning as the foundation of faith -- and an end to fundamentalism of all kinds.
 

Would you like to see the cover of your favourite book on our book shelves below?

Then simply email the title and author to thebookclub@crescentsofbrisbane.org

Double click a book cover to find out what others think of the book

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Quick Almond Cake

Jallalludin received a parrot as a gift.

The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary.
Every word out of the bird's mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity.

Jallalludin tried and tried to change the bird's attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to 'clean up' the bird's vocabulary.

Finally, Jallalludin was fed up and he yelled at the parrot. The parrot yelled back. Jallalludin shook the parrot and the parrot got angrier and even ruder. Jallalludin, in desperation, threw up his hand, grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer.

For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed.
Then suddenly there was total quiet. Not a peep was heard for over a minute.

Fearing that he'd hurt the parrot, Jallalludin quickly opened the door to the freezer?

The parrot calmly stepped out onto Jallalludin's outstretched arms and said "I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I'm sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behaviour."

Jallalludin was stunned at the change in the bird's attitude.

As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behaviour, the bird spoke-up, very softly, "May I ask what the turkey did?"

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PLEASE NOTE

1. All Islamic Event dates given above are tentative and subject to the sighting of the moon.

2. The Islamic date changes to the next day starting in the evenings after maghrib. Therefore, except for Lailatul Mehraj, Lailatul Bhahraat and Lailatul Qadr – these dates refer to the commencement of the event starting in the evening of the corresponding day.

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