A memo to the president-elect about the people he fears. BY LAWRENCE PINTAK

When he invited me, it clicked. I realized this was the time. I knew it was the truth, and I had to make a decision.

I Planned to Destroy Islam, I Became Muslim
 

Shariffa Carlos amazing Journey to Islam

The story of how I reverted to Islam is a story of plans.

I made plans; the group I was with made plans, and Allah made plans. And Allah is the Best of Planners.

When I was a teenager, I came to the attention of a group of people with a very sinister agenda. They were and probably still are a loose association of individuals who work in government positions but have a special agenda — to destroy Islam. It is not a governmental group that I am aware of, they simply use their positions in the US government to advance their cause.

One member of this group approached me because he saw that I was articulate, motivated and very much the women’s rights advocate. He told me that if I studied International Relations with an emphasis in the Middle East, he would guarantee me a job at the American Embassy in Egypt. He wanted me to eventually go there to use my position in the country to talk to Muslim women and encourage the fledgling women’s rights movement.

I thought this was a great idea. I had seen the Muslim women on TV; I knew they were a poor oppressed group, and I wanted to lead them to the light of 20th century freedom.

With this intention, I went to college and began my education. I studied Quran, hadith and Islamic history. I also studied the ways I could use this information. I learned how to twist the words to say what I wanted them to say. It was a valuable tool.

Once I started learning, however, I began to be intrigued by this message. It made sense. That was very scary. Therefore, in order to counteract this effect, I began to take classes in Christianity. I chose to take classes with this one professor on campus because he had a good reputation and he had a Ph.D. in Theology from Harvard University. I felt I was in good hands. I was, but not for the reasons I thought. It turns out that this professor was a Unitarian Christian. He did not believe in the trinity or the divinity of Jesus. In actuality, he believed that Jesus was a prophet. 
 

Muslim Man Dabs After Massacring 11 Pakistanis On Live Television

A Muslim-Australian man has massacred eleven high-profile Pakistanis in the centre of Sydney, it has been confirmed.

The man, an Australian citizen who was also born in Pakistan, took up to three hours slowly murdering the victims with the help of several other non-Muslims. The entire ordeal was broadcast live on Channel Nine.

Australian sports broadcaster Mark Taylor, who witnessed the massacre, said it was a very impressive effort.

“He was really knocking them”

“Slice, slice, slice. He really proved himself with the aggression”
 

THE ERASURE OF ISLAM FROM THE POETRY OF RUMI

By Rozina Ali

A couple of years ago, when Coldplay’s Chris Martin was going through a divorce from the actress Gwyneth Paltrow and feeling down, a friend gave him a book to lift his spirits. It was a collection of poetry by Jalaluddin Rumi, the thirteenth-century Persian poet, translated by Coleman Barks. “It kind of changed my life,” Martin said later, in an interview. A track from Coldplay’s most recent album features Barks reciting one of the poems: “This being human is a guest house / Every morning a new arrival / A joy, a depression, a meanness, / some momentary awareness comes / as an unexpected visitor.”

Rumi has helped the spiritual journeys of other celebrities—Madonna, Tilda Swinton—some of whom similarly incorporated his work into theirs. Aphorisms attributed to Rumi circulate daily on social media, offering motivation. “If you are irritated by every rub, how will you ever get polished,” one of them goes. Or, “Every moment I shape my destiny with a chisel. I am a carpenter of my own soul.” Barks’s translations, in particular, are shared widely on the Internet; they are also the ones that line American bookstore shelves and are recited at weddings. Rumi is often described as the best-selling poet in the United States. He is typically referred to as a mystic, a saint, a Sufi, an enlightened man. Curiously, however, although he was a lifelong scholar of the Koran and Islam, he is less frequently described as a Muslim.

The words that Martin featured on his album come from Rumi’s “Masnavi,” a six-book epic poem that he wrote toward the end of his life. Its fifty thousand lines are mostly in Persian, but they are riddled with Arabic excerpts from Muslim scripture; the book frequently alludes to Koranic anecdotes that offer moral lessons. (The work, which some scholars consider unfinished, has been nicknamed the Persian Koran.) Fatemeh Keshavarz, a professor of Persian studies at the University of Maryland, told me that Rumi probably had the Koran memorized, given how often he drew from it in his poetry. Rumi himself described the “Masnavi” as “the roots of the roots of the roots of religion”—meaning Islam—“and the explainer of the Koran.” And yet little trace of the religion exists in the translations that sell so well in the United States. “The Rumi that people love is very beautiful in English, and the price you pay is to cut the culture and religion,” Jawid Mojaddedi, a scholar of early Sufism at Rutgers, told me recently.

Rumi was born in the early thirteenth century, in what is now Afghanistan. He later settled in Konya, in present-day Turkey, with his family. His father was a preacher and religious scholar, and he introduced Rumi to Sufism. Rumi continued his theological education in Syria, where he studied the more traditional legal codes of Sunni Islam, and later returned to Konya as a seminary teacher. It was there that he met an elder traveller, Shams-i-Tabriz, who became his mentor. The nature of the intimate friendship between the two is much debated, but Shams, everyone agrees, had a lasting influence on Rumi’s religious practice and his poetry. In a new biography of Rumi, “Rumi’s Secret,” Brad Gooch describes how Shams pushed Rumi to question his scriptural education, debating Koranic passages with him and emphasizing the idea of devotion as finding oneness with God. Rumi would come to blend the intuitive love for God that he found in Sufism with the legal codes of Sunni Islam and the mystical thought he learned from Shams.
 

Muslims must engage with mass media

by Abdul Malik Mujahid

I will never forget this conversation.

An award-winning writer was working for a top American newspaper. I don’t remember why I ended up giving her a ride, but I remember that she kept asking me why Muslims don’t respond to media coverage. She said that each time she wrote a positive story about Muslims, her paper received hundreds of emails, letters, and calls in protest while receiving hardly any appreciation. Her bosses didn’t like that, and it was counted against her.

She was eventually let go from that publication.

nother award-winning journalist, with no relation to the writer mentioned above, and working in a separate paper, told me exactly the same and was also eventually let go.

Muslims, like all Americans, love to hate the media.

Americans’ trust in mass media “to report the news fully, accurately and fairly” has dropped to its lowest level, at 32%, in Gallup polling history.

But the media’s work has real consequences for Muslims. According to the last survey available, the approval rating of Muslims stands at 17%. When the survey asked Americans why they have a low opinion of Muslims, they pointed to the media.

The media has allowed Islamophobia to go mainstream. And although Americans don’t trust the media, television, radio, and newspaper publications (both print and online) are still major sources of news, with 57% saying television is their main source of news.

So if you’re worried about the bullying of Muslim children increasing by 660%, and 20% of bullies being teachers, you need to look no further than the media.

The media can play a positive role. After 9/11, the approval rating of Muslims went up as high as 59% as the media made a serious effort to be positive about Islam and Muslims.

This can happen again, but it will require work. It will require us to try and influence the media by developing relationship with the human beings working in the media.

But don’t delegate this to some organization. Organizations will do their work, but the media is too massive and too omnipresent to be a task delegated to a couple of staffers or even volunteers.

Each Muslim needs to take personal charge of this work, and each masjid needs to focus on at least one media outlet.

Here is what you can do personally:

1. Can you or your family adopt one media outlet? Consider, for example, Channel 7.
2. Whenever you’re watching Channel 7 (and try to watch it regularly, so you get a feel for their work), keep an eye on their representations of Muslims, civil rights issues, climate issues, etc.
3. Whether the content is good or bad, make a note of it with the date & time, as well as the reporter’s or producer’s name.
4. Send them appreciative messages about what you like, and send them feedback about what you dislike.
5. Twitter is the best way to connect with them, although good old letters to the editor are still very influential.
6. Try to understand their personal likes and dislikes through their Facebook newsfeed.
7. Personalize your communication to specific individuals instead of addressing the company in general.
8. Pitch an idea: Don’t just be reactive, suggest ideas! LinkedIn is very useful since you can search media professionals and develop a feel about the stories they might be working on already. That can help you pitch an idea to them.
9. Please keep a detail record of your communications. It will help to be very helpful information.
 

Helping your masjid and organization:

1. Get your masjid or your organization to write formally to them. Organizational input is taken seriously by the media.
2. You can organize a meeting between key members of your Islamic center and the editorial board of that media organization.
3. One of the menu item on your website should be “Press” or “Media.” It should list your spokesperson or media contact to facilitate media contacting you for your perspective.
4. Organize a media workshop at your masjid.
 

Remember that the media is made up of humans, and relationships matter a great deal. You can influence them. Reporters appreciate it when you get to know who they are and what they care about.

I am aware of several success stories when individual Muslims have been able to win over the heart and mind of human beings in media.

However, sabr–or patience–is the key. Change will not happen overnight. Relationships take time.

The consequences of bad media coverage for Muslims are high. Don’t expect some organization to handle media relations for you. You and I, as responsible citizens, must personally engage in this work as well.
 

KB says: This is one of the tastiest banana breads I made for tea which my family and friends enjoyed, its really worth that little effort instead of a store bought one.