“We are perhaps living in times when living for Islam is more difficult than dying for it.”

[Abdul Malik Mujahid]

One of the things that is often overlooked by non-Muslims, and this I do not blame them for, is the importance that Islam puts on LIVING its message. Yes, there is great honor in dying for what you believe in, under the right circumstances. But Islamically, LIVING Islam in every aspect of your life, that is the GREATEST honor...To do this, one has to be a good neighbor, a good spouse, a hard worker, a good parent, a good child...aspirations that would be admired by any culture or faith. Those who choose to misconstrue these Islamic ideals have forever tarnished a faith and people that in the end have common aspirations as the rest of humanity, only they are veiled by the misconceptions of their faith, Islam.

MSA (Muslim Student Association) Elects First Woman President

Within the Muslim community I have often found something that disturbed me, the discouragement of women being in leadership roles. This disturbed me because from what I have studied of the Prophet(AS) is that his wifes had huge roles in the establishment and implementation of Islam at its beginnings. Never have I read or come across anything where he discouraged their roles. I strongly feel that Muslim women should be choosing more active roles in their communities. I still have reservations with a woman leading an army, I think that job is better suited for a man. But there are numerous other positions within the Muslim community that women are not doing simply because they feel they shouldn't be,

because the "Muslim" cultures they grew up in frown down upon it.

This needs to be changed.

And as an American-Muslim, I am glad that change is happening here.

Excerpt from Islamic Horizons September/October 2004 issue...

For the first time since its establishment in 1963, the MSA National has elected a woman president, Hadia Mubarak, a native of Florida. The election results were announced June 25, 2004.

The outcome of this election is representative of a growing trend within the more than 500 MSA chapters in the U.S. and Canada, in which an unprecedented number of recent chapter presidents have been women. MSA welcomes the election of its first woman president on a national level as a significant step toward the greater participation of women in leadership positions across the continent.

With the coming of age of a second generation of Muslims in the 1990's, the membership has shifted from predominantly international students to second generation Muslims, a majority of whom are born and raised in the U.S. and Canada. MSA National has always been diverse and even today boasts a membership that is rich in racial, ethnic, cultural, socioececonomic and gender-based diversity.

"As an organization built on grassroots support, it was only a matter of time before the National MSA elected its first female president," said past President Altaf Hussein (1997-2003). "In the past three terms, starting in 1999, Muslim women have been elected to at least half of the positions on the national executive committee."

"The election of a female president is a positive step toward reviving the egalitarian principles of Islam, such as gender equity and merit-based leadership," said outgoing President Tarek Elgawhary (2003-2004).

As a former Female MSA chapter co-president at Tennessee State University, it does my heart good to see this huge step in Muslim women taking on more leadership positions.

In Hamza Yusuf's new book, Purification of the Heart...

"If we examine the trials and tribulations all over earth, we’ll find they are rooted in human hearts. Covetousness, the desire to aggress and exploit, the longing to pilfer natural resources, the inordinate love of wealth, and other maladies are manifestations of diseases found nowhere but in the heart. Every criminal, miser, abuser, scoffer, embezzler, and hateful person does what he or she does because of a diseased heart. So if you want to change our world, do not begin by rectifying the outward. Instead, change the condition of the inward. It is from the unseen world that the phenomenal world emerges, and it is from the unseen realm of our hearts that all actions spring. . . . We of the modern world are reluctant to ask ourselves—when we look at the terrible things happening—“Why do they occur?” And if we ask that with sincerity, the answer will come back in no uncertain terms: all of this is from our own selves. In so many ways, we have brought this upon ourselves. This is the only empowering position that we can take." — Excerpted from the Introduction

Women's Rights in the Mosque

By Asra Q. Nomani

Islam is at a crossroads, much like the place where the Prophet Muhammad found himself when he was on the cusp of a new dawn with his migration to Medina from Mecca. Medina became “the City of Enlightenment” because of the wisdom with which the Prophet nurtured his community, or ummah.
In much the same way, the Muslim world has the opportunity to rise to a place of deep and sincere enlightenment, inspired by the greatest teachings of Islam. It is our choice which path we take. It is our mandate to take action to insure that we define our communities as tolerant, inclusive, and compassionate places that value and inspire all within our fold.

Read more...

Russian Hostage Crisis Should be Unnacceptable to All Muslims

I horrifyingly read and watched reports about the hostage crisis in Chechnya yesterday and today. I wonder, as many others do, why these extemists resort to violence to make their points? Being a Muslim, I can perhaps relate and understand the roots of these extremists desperation better than most. Yet, I will never be convinced of the justification of their actions.

If you were to look at this crisis and the Palestinian/Isreali conflict from an outsiders perspective you would see that this violence is not solving anything.

In the time of the Prophet (AS), he convinced many of the ethical and moral goodness of Islam by the wisdom of his speech, his patience in times of adversity, and his honorable character which unwavered even in times when his enemy were persecuting him and those with him.

If these extremists want to truly follow Muhammad's example, they need to fight with the pen and not with weapons which only incite more hatred toward their cause and their religion.

In the coming week, on Thursday, the new French Law banning religious parafanalia in schools specifically will go into effect. These are my feelings on the issue...

Even though the new French law that states "The wearing of symbols or articles of clothing by which students ostensibly display religious affiliations is forbidden in public schools through high school", is disconcerting due to its attack on individual freedoms, the infractions being waged against personal freedoms in other countries is much more alarming.
Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan which go to the other extreme of saying what one should wear, rather than what one can’t wear are just as, if not more so wrong in their oppression of one’s personal freedoms.
Even in Islam, choosing to dress modestly, although an article of faith, is a personal decision by the individual. If they choose not to wear it, they will live with the consequences of that action.
It is not the obligation of society to dictate what a person should or should not wear. That decision should be left up to each individual.
It is for these reasons that I stand opposed to all societies and countries that would like to make it their business to say what is appropriate and not appropriate to wear. This is an attack on a person’s freedom of choice and that is what is not right. Sad to say, the French are not the only ones to be guilty of this. If Muslims want to oppose the oppressors, they need to oppose all of them, not just the non-Muslim ones.

2 Sides of HIJAB: EXTREMISM AND RESTRICTION

Islam views Hijab as a voluntary act of faith. Neither should it be forced, nor should it be restricted.

The following article depicts two wrong ideas of how Hijab is viewed. Neither is the correct view. I start here, on my quest to give Islam back its voice, because as a Muslim Woman I cannot be silent about the injustices being waged against my fellow sisters by Muslim Countries and Non-Muslim Countries alike. Although I myself wear the Hijab, I strongly oppose anyone forcing this obligatory act on a Muslim woman, nor restricting her right to wear it.

French Not Only Offenders on Hijab
By Tarek Fatah

The proposed French law banning the hijab in that country’s
public school system has outraged Canada’s Muslim community
and many civil liberty activists. Considering that
France has been vocal in its support of the Muslim world in international
affairs, many Muslims are bewildered by President Jacques
Chirac’s ill-advised initiative.

Recently, anger against the French proposal brought about a
hundred Toronto Muslims to the streets. In freezing temperatures,
they stood outside the French consulate waving placards and raising
slogans to register their protest.

However, as I marched in solidarity with my fellow Muslims, I
couldn’t help but realise that our reaction to the French initiative
was not based on universal principles.

The French law may be foolish - if not outright racist - but our
outrage against it leaves the door open for others to accuse us of dou-ble
standards.

If Muslims feel governments have no business dictating what
their citizens should, or should not wear, then we need to apply this
principle to all governments, not just the French.

If we consider the French law against the hijab offensive, then
the Saudi and Iranian laws enforcing compulsory wearing of the
hijab should also be condemned because they take away a woman’s
right to choose. While the proposed French law would ban Muslim
women from wearing the hijab in school, the Saudi and Iranian laws
ban women from appearing in public without the hijab.

In the worst application of the Saudi law, 15 schoolgirls perished
in March, 2002, when they were not permitted to flee their burning
school in Mecca because they were not "wearing correct Islamic
dress."

Why then are we not questioning the hijab laws of Saudi Arabia
and Iran? Why is our anger directed against the French alone? Is it
because Saudi Arabia and Iran are Muslim countries?

I asked a number of people at Saturday’s demonstration whether
they were willing to stage a similar protest against Saudi Arabia and
Iran. While some agreed with my rationale, many more answered
my questions with empty stares or a flat refusal to even entertain
such a discussion.

Considering the fact that the situation of Muslim women in
Saudi Arabia far outweighs the problems facing them in France, the
inability of the young Muslim protesters to see the obvious parallels,
was disappointing.Mouna Naim, a respected journalist with the
French newspaper Le Monde, in a report from Saudi Arabia wrote
of a 13-year-old Saudi girl who asked, "Why was I born a girl? This
is a country of men, and I wish I was one."

The Le Monde correspondent wrote that while many Saudi
women voluntarily wear the head cover, many others "find the
wearing of the garment intolerable because they see it as embodying
the raft of restrictions they have to endure, which include the
requirement that the slightest patch of flesh must remain covered,
reducing women to formless, uniform shadows."

In the days leading up to the demonstration outside the French
consulate, there was considerable debate on the Internet on whether
the French and Saudi laws were flip sides of the same argument, that
is, state enforcement of citizen’s dress codes.

Judy Rebick, former head of the National Action Committee on
the Status of Women, and currently a professor at Ryerson, while
supporting the protest outside the French consulate, addressed the
concerns that demonstrating only against France without at the
same time criticizing Saudi Arabia would send the wrong message.

She wrote: "I have heard similar concerns expressed by women’s
groups from the Middle East. If we lived in France it would be a dif-ferent
story but since we are protesting the action of a foreign gov-ernment,
I think we should protest both sides of the problem.

"I think if we are going to protest against a state forcing women
not to wear the hijab we should also protest forcing women to wear
the hijab."

Rebick went on to say, "In France, it is racism and
Islamophobia. In Saudi Arabia, it is fundamentalism and sexism. I
think it is a good time to make the point that we are for freedom
from oppression everywhere."

Muslims will be well served if they took Rebick’s suggestion to
heart. Failure to apply the principle of universality, and refusal to
double-critique our positions, could seriously hurt our credibility.

When we Muslims demand that others respect our human
rights, we need to be courageous and honest enough to recognize the
oppression within our own community and speak out against it.

Assalm ale kum Muslims and Non-Muslims alike:

I wanted to establish a site where Muslims could voice a defense for Islam and Muslims worldwide. Our voice is not being heard, our religion and people of this faith misunderstood, and Islam is getting misrepresented. Enough is Enough. The time has come for us to stand up and speak up, not whine mind you, about the injustices being brought upon the Muslims, the slander being brought against Islam and Prophet Muhammad (AS). Insh'Allah I hope to voice my opinion about current events that I hear about in an effort to start a movement to defend Islam and Muslims worldwide. It is time that people really understood what we are about and what we stand for.

It is time that we take back our religion from those who pervert and abuse it.

LET'S TAKE BACK ISLAM!