Posts tagged "North America"

Swiss businessman defiantly builds minaret to protest ban

by Abdullah on Dec 11, 2009 Islam, Muslims, North America, Protest, World News • Comments Closed • Islam, Muslims, North America, world

Swiss businessman Guillaume Morand erected a minaret atop the chimney of his office building

In a country where failing to use official, region-specific trash bags can incur a hefty fine, defying a architectural ban on minarets is practically an act of terrorism.

But that didn’t stop Swiss businessman Guillaume Morand, who protested last month’s constitutional amendment banning minarets by building one atop the chimney of his office in the city of Lausanne.

Morand, who owns a chain of shoe stores, told the AFP news agency that the ban is shameful, and blamed liberal parties for failing to counter what he described as right-wing scare tactics. The Swiss People’s Party, which spearheaded the initiative to ban minarets on mosques, released an aggressive campaign including posters of women in face-covering burkas and minarets shaped like rockets.

The ban was all the more scandalous, Morand said, given that Switzerland encourages Arabs to “visit the country and to spend their money here.”

Morand joins prominent Jewish leaders and the Vatican in condemning the referendum last month, when 53% of Swiss voters went to the polls to decide whether to outlaw the construction of any more minarets, although only four mosques in Switzerland have them. The amendment passed with 57% of the votes. (more…)

“Gay Travels in the Muslim World”

by Asad on Dec 22, 2009 Islam, Knowledge, North America, World News • Comments Closed • Gay, Islam, North America, world

The Middle East is famous for hospitality, but will that extend to the tour for the Routledge Press book, Gay Travels in the Muslim World?

The book, edited by Michael Luongo, is the first and only gay themed American book ever to be translated into Arabic. The tour begins at Lebanon’s Beirut Book Fair where Luongo will be signing the book today at the Arab Diffusion. After Lebanon, Luongo will travel through Syria, Jordan, Palestine, and Egypt, among other countries during his six week tour.

“I’ve had conversations for the past two years about presenting this book in the Middle East, but until now, that just hasn’t happened,” said the 41 year old editor, noting he had tried to present the book at the Emirates Airlines Book Fair in the past.

“Ironically, the Arabs who were part of the Fair said yes, but the Europeans, afraid of controversy, said no. Homophobia is complicated, isn’t it?” So far in Lebanon, there has been a positive reaction, and Luongo said even a member of the Saudi government bought a copy of the book and asked about possibly presenting it in Riyadh.

The book has been a consistent gay travel best seller in the United States and was originally published by Haworth Press in 2007, until the company was bought by Routledge/Taylor & Francis in 2008.

In 2009, the Lebanese publishing company Arab Diffusion launched the book in Arabic. This itself was not without controversy as the publisher used the Arabic word “shaz” in its translation for gay, a word meaning “different” but which can also mean “pervert,” and historically used to mean gay. The lost-in-translation problem made headlines across the globe, including in the New York Post’s Page 6 gossip column. Arab Diffusion has agreed to recover the book using the more sensitive word “mithlee” a modern Arabic literal translation of homosexual. (more…)

“Wahhabis” Suspected in Killing of Muslim Cleric

by Abdullah on Sep 21, 2009 Eid, Islam, Muslims, North America, Terrorism, World News • Comments Closed • Eid, Islam, Muslims, North America, Terrorism, world

Ismail Bostanov

The Deputy Chairman of the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Karachaevo-Cherkessia and Stavropol, Ismail Bostanov, was murdered in the city of Cherkessk on Sunday (September 20). Interfax quoted a law enforcement source in Karachaevo-Cherkessia as saying the attack took place when Bostanov’s was stopped at a traffic light and unidentified attackers opened fire on him. Bostanov was killed and his son was wounded and hospitalized (Interfax, September 20). According to other reports, the attack took place at a gas station (RIA Novosti, September 20). Bostanov was reportedly traveling back from a mosque in Ust-Dzheguta, south of Cherkessk, with his son when the attack occurred (www.newsru.com, September 20).

Bostanov was the Deputy Chairman of the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Karachaevo-Cherkessia and Stavropol for over 20 years and rector of the Islamic Institute in Karachaevo-Cherkessia for more than 10 years (www.gazeta.ru, RIA Novosti, September 20). In December 2006, three masked attackers broke into Bostanov’s home in Cherkessk, knifed and shot him and with firearms and beat up his wife. However, investigators at the time concluded that attack was part of an attempted robbery because the raiders stole money from Bostanov’s house (Kommersant, September 21).

Ismail Berdiev, who is the mufti of Karachaevo-Cherkessia and head of the Coordination Center of Muslims of the North Caucasus, said yesterday that he is convinced that Bostanov was killed by “Wahhabis” -the standard term used by local officials in the North Caucasus, both governmental and religious, for Islamist rebels and their sympathizers. “And who else could it have been -he was not a businessman, so that it could have entered someone’s mind to kill him for the sake of money,” Berdiev told Interfax, adding that Bostanov was known in Karachaevo-Cherkessia as “an active fighter against the spread of Wahhabi ideology.” Berdiev expressed particular indignation over the fact that Bostanov’s murder took place on the Muslim holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan (Eid Al-Fitr started Sunday, September 20, in most Arab and Muslim countries as well as in North America and Europe). “It simply beggars the imagination that someone dared to commit this heinous crime on such a holy day,” Berdiev said (www.newsru.com, September 20). (more…)

5 U.S.suspected of terror links

by Asad on Dec 10, 2009 Islam, Muslims, North America, Pakistan, Terrorism, World News • Comments Closed • Islam, Muslims, North America, Pakistan, Talibaan, Terrorism, USA, world

Nihad Awad, national executive director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, spoke in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday about the arrests in Pakistan of five Americans

Police in Pakistan raided a house linked to an Islamic militant group Wednesday and arrested five young American Muslim men from the Washington, D.C., area, U.S. and Pakistani officials said.

One of the young men had left behind a video showing scenes of war, calling for the defense of Muslims and saying that “young Muslims have to do something,” said a person who had seen the video, describing it as a farewell of sorts.

It was the third known case since September in which Americans with ties to the Pakistan-Afghanistan region have been detained over possible terrorist connections.

The men were not accused of any crime, but their intent remained mysterious, and both U.S. and Pakistani officials emphasized that they were still gathering facts.

The five Americans, ranging in age from 19 to 25, were arrested in Sargodha, a dusty city in Punjab province, where several militant organizations with links to al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban operate, according to a senior Pakistani official and a U.S. official in Washington. Both spoke on condition of anonymity.

Three of the men arrested Wednesday are Pakistani-Americans, one is a Yemeni-American and one an Egyptian-American, the Pakistani official said. Pakistani law enforcement officers had “continuously tracked” the men from the moment they arrived Dec. 1 at Karachi international airport. All carried U.S. passports, he said. (more…)

Abandon the doctrine of jihad

by Abdurrahman on Sep 9, 2009 Muslims, North America, Terrorism, World News • Comments Closed • Islam, North America, Terrorism, world

We Muslims had barely recovered from the news of the 14-year conviction of the Canadian terrorist Saad Khalid, when our Labour Day holiday was interrupted with the bulletin that three of our co-religionists had been found guilty in the U. K. of plotting to kill thousands of people by blowing up planes bound for Toronto, Montreal and other North American cities.

A British court convicted Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, Tanvir Hussain, 28, and Assad Sarwar, 29, of conspiring to activate bombs disguised as soft drinks, and later boasting in videos there would be “floods of martyr operations” that would leave body parts scattered in the streets. “Don’t mess with Muslims,” Hussain threatened.

I will not be surprised if Islamist leaders in the U. K. and North America now line up at the mics and issue the familiar denunciations of terrorism accompanied by the oft-repeated claim that “Islam is a religion of peace.” I say to them, this is not enough. Now is the time to say loudly, the doctrine of jihad is outdated and needs to be abandoned.

(more…)

Abdullah Khadr feared rape of sister

by Abdurrahman on Oct 7, 2009 Canada, Muslims, North America, Pakistan, Terrorism, World News • Comments Closed • Interview, Muslims, North America, Pakistan, Terrorism, world

Canadian captive Omar Khadr at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Abdullah Khadr broke down in a Toronto court Tuesday, saying he told authorities in Pakistan he had bought weapons for Al Qaeda because he feared if he didn’t say that, his sister would be raped.

The 28-year-old, who is fighting extradition to the United States on terrorism charges, said he invented stories because it was the only way to stop his alleged torture by Pakistani and U.S. officials.

Khadr alleges in an affidavit that during his 14 months in detention, Pakistani officers beat him and penetrated him with a stick and American officials threatened to arrest his sister and have done to her what had been done to him.

While testifying, the eldest son of the infamous Khadr family became choked up and wiped away tears.

“(The Americans) told me that if I didn’t confess … they would bring my sister and do terrible things,” Khadr told Crown prosecutor Howard Piafsky.

An FBI affidavit says the interview team “never threatened to harm or retaliate against Khadr, his sister or any family member if he did not give satisfactory answers.

“It also never threatened to send Khadr or his sister to any prison in Egypt or Uzbekistan, or suggested, directly or indirectly, that he or his sister would be raped,” says the affidavit, part of which was read by Piafsky. (more…)

Ad campaign in Bay Area answers questions about Islam

by Abdullah on Sep 15, 2009 Islam, Knowledge, Muslims, North America, World News • Comments Closed • Islam, Muslims, North America, world

Courtesy Islamic Circle of North America -- Billboards such as this one alongside U.S. 101 and Tully Road in San Jose are part of an awareness campaign sponsored nationally by the Islamic Circle of North America, which seeks to dispel misinformation about the Islamic religion

It’s certainly not unusual to spot billboards in Silicon Valley urging you to step into Fry’s Electronics, shop at the Great Mall or buy a new Halloween costume.

But for the first time, billboards asking “Why Islam?” have sprouted up in San Jose, Santa Clara and Concord, along with a blitz of posters on buses and bus stops â€” a campaign to educate people about the religion and fight negative stereotypes. The ads offer free Korans and a toll-free number people can call to seek answers about the oft-misunderstood religion.

“The best-case scenario of this campaign would be to show the public that Muslims are hardworking, peace-loving family contributors,” said Ahmed Khaleel, 30, of Santa Clara, the outreach coordinator for the Bay Area Chapter of the Islamic Circle of North America, which is sponsoring the “Why Islam” project. “Since Sept. 11, Islam has stood at the focus of negativism. Islam is not synonymous with terrorism.”

The billboard campaign began in New York almost a year before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Ironically, one of the campaign founders, Tariq Amanullah, died in the World Trade Center that day.

But as the nation mourns the eighth anniversary of the attacks today, the dual events of the tragedy and Ramadan make the timing of the billboard campaign especially poignant. Ramadan, a month of sunrise-to-sundown fasting, ends Sept. 19.

The message of the campaign is simply to show that Islam is quitesimilar to other religions. (more…)

Arrested In Pakistan

by Asad on Dec 16, 2009 Islam, Muslims, North America, Pakistan, Terrorism, World News • Comments Closed • Islam, Muslims, North America, Pakistan, Terrorism

Ramy Zamzam

Ramy Zamzam, 22, one of a group of young men arrested by Pakistani intelligence officials, graduated from West Potomac High School in 2005.
Zamzam, of Egyptian family background, was a senior dental school student at Howard University in Washington, D.C. at the time of his arrest in Sargodha, Pakistan.
The other men, all Americans, are now being held in Lahore: Ahmad A. Minni, 20; Umar Chaudhry, 24; Waqar Khan, 22, and Aman Hassan Yamer, 18. Chaudry’s father, Khalid, was also arrested in Pakistan. All five of the young Americans worshipped at a local mosque off Route 1 on Woodlawn Trail — the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). Two of the men live on the same street as the mosque.
Their arrest by Pakistani police is based on allegations that they have been working with extremist Pakistani recruiters to join a training camp run by the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Nina Ginsberg, a Washington criminal defense lawyer and spokesman for the young men’s families, has refused to comment on the case or the views of the families beyond that the families are concerned about their safe return to the U.S., and do not believe they were involved in extremist activities as reported by the Pakistan government.
The families reported the men missing in late November, and released a farewell tape in an effort to assist authorities in locating the men. Shortly thereafter Pakistani officials announced their arrest in Pakistan. They have been held in custody since.
At the present time the FBI and the Pakistan intelligence service are investigating the men’s activities. The effort by the U.S. Department of State and the FBI’s effort to secure their release and deportation to the U.S. to face possible criminal charges has been held up by a recent court decision in Lahore to temporarily block the handover of the men to the U.S. government until the Pakistani government submits a detailed report on Thursday, Dec. 17. (more…)

Between revivalism and hybridism

by Abdurrahman on Sep 18, 2009 Knowledge, North America, World News • Comments Closed • Knowledge, North America, world

revivalism and hybridism

This is an answer to Hilman Latief’s “Cosmopolitan Muslims: urban vs rural phenomenon” (The Jakarta Post, Aug. 8, 2009), a response to my previous opinion on “Thick Islam and deep Islam” (the Post, July 16).

Since back in the colonial period, rural areas have been central to the life of Muslims in Indonesia. Most pesantren, the center of Islamic learning and religious authority, are located in rural areas. Most santri, live in rural area. Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the largest Muslim organization in the country, is also based mainly in the rural areas.

While staying away from colonial government and then from Soeharto’s unfriendly politics towards Islam during his first two decades of power, Islam had more freedom to deeply and massively influence people’s life in the rural areas.

Consequently although politically and economically poor, Muslim life in the rural areas is rich with Islamic culture.

Through a long and sometimes uneasy process of give and take, in the rural areas Islamic values have been subtly intertwined with local traditions, norms and customs. As an expression of identity, as reflected in kenduri (ritual feasts) sarongs or qasidah songs, Islam looks more relaxed and comfortable both with itself and with others.

This is what I call “deep Islam”, an Islam that is deeply internalized and maturely externalized by its people, the santri.

Deep Islam is a rural phenomenon in the sense that it has fruitfully developed and has stronger influence in rural areas. Its home is there. Certainly this doesn’t necessarily mean that every rural Muslim is part of deep Islam or that deep Islam is found only in rural area. (more…)

Canadian Muslims erect first minaret in Arctic

by Abdullah on Nov 7, 2010 Canada, Islam, Minaret, Muslims • Comments Closed • Canada, Islam, minaret, Muslims, North America

Canadian Muslims have erected the Arctic’s first minaret, atop a little yellow mosque which serves as spiritual home to the area’s fledgling Islamic community.

The prefabricated mosque arrived in Inuvik last month to serve a growing Muslim population in Canada’s far north, after traveling 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles) over land and water.

The minaret — built locally and installed this week — has four levels and stands 30 feet (10 meters) off the ground.

“It’s really beautiful when we turn on the lights in the dark,” Amier Suliman, a mosque committee member, told AFP on Wednesday.

Only finishing touches — applying a second coat of paint inside, and hooking up bathroom plumbing — remain before the mosque’s grand opening next week.

“This is the first minaret to be erected in the Arctic,” Suliman said gleefully by telephone.

“Some will say it’s a new frontier for Islam,” he commented. “But for me what is significant is that Muslims here who once prayed on Fridays at a local Catholic church or in a trailer now have a proper place to worship, with a proper minaret.”

“Now we have a home to worship in our own hometown. That’s the most important for me.”

The number of Muslims in Inuvik, a town of 4,000 inhabitants in Canada’s Northwest Territories, has grown steadily in recent years to about 80 and they no longer fit in an old three-by-seven-meter (10-by-23-foot) caravan used until now for prayers.

The congregation could not afford to build a new mosque in the town, where prices for labor and materials are substantially higher than in southern parts of Canada, project coordinator Ahmad Alkhalaf said previously.

But they found a supplier of prefabricated buildings in Manitoba that said it could ship a structure to Inuvik for half the price of building a mosque from scratch on site.

A local Muslim charity — the Zubaidah Tallab Foundation of Thompson, Manitoba — also offered to pick up the costs for the 140-square meter (1,500-square foot) facility, Alkhalaf said.

And so, at the end of August the tiny yellow mosque’s voyage began on the back of truck, winding through the vast prairies and woods of Western Canada toward Hay River on the shores of Great Slave Lake, Northwest Territories.

From there it was transferred onto a barge and floated down the McKenzie River to Inuvik, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of the Arctic Circle.

The worshippers — largely Sunni Muslim immigrants from Sudan, Lebanon and Egypt who moved to Canada’s far north in search of jobs and economic opportunities — are to hold an open house on November 5.

The facility will also double as a Muslim community center.

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