City of Brass

It needs to be said – that Trump is a symptom, not a disease. There has been a GOP War on Muslims for years, and despite heroic efforts by Republican Muslim Americans to sway opinion, the bottom line is that Muslim hatred is a prerequisite for the GOP nomination. Just as incendiary rhetoric by radical…

In just the past few weeks – the Laquan McDonald video in Chicago. The Jamar Clark shooting in Minneapolis. The attack on Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs. The Paris attacks. and now, the San Bernadino massacre. One thing that the #BlackLivesMatter movement teaches us is that the police are rarely held accountable. The firing of…

This is a guest post by Yusuf Zakir. My religion–Islam–is discussed and portrayed in the media quite a lot these days, much to my chagrin. The American public is, generally, fearful of Muslims. Anti-Islamic sentiment is at an all-time high (I refuse, by the way, to use the word “Islamophobia” because you should not be…

This weekend, there is a planned, armed protest “in every country, at every mosque” by a group called the “Global Rally for Humanity”. So far, the protests are falling short of global, but they do have 21 mosques, community centers and government offices nationwide targeted for the protests, including the famous Mufreesboro mosque in Tennessee.…

Ever since 9-11, and well before it, this is the litany of accusation that ordinary Muslim Americans have had to endure: Muslims do not condemn – there is no million Muslim march against terrorism. Islam is an inherently violent religion. There are no moderate Muslims – only potential terrorists. The Qur’an promotes violence. Muslims need…

Umar Lee is many things – a native son of Saint Louis, a veteran of the Ferguson street protests, a white man who embraces populist politics, and a convert to Islam with a penchant for political activism. His memoir on The Rise and Fall of the Salafi Dawah in America is a must-read. His eponymous…

This week is a truly portentous one for Muslims, Jews, and Catholics. In one week, we have Yom Kippur, the Day of Arafat and Eid ul Adha, and Pope Francis’ first visit to the United States. I like the term “Abrahamic Convergence” for this sort of thing – it emphasizes the commonality of themes in…

This is a guest post by Durriya Badani. “Ek Husain na gam si va, koi gam na dikhave.” (“May you know no other grief than the grief of Husain.”) An exquisitely simple, yet deeply profound prayer for mumineen by Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin TUS, the same wish uttered by his father, Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin RA and…

It’s that time of the year again! What are the Brass Crescent Awards? Created in 2004 by Shahed Amanullah and Aziz Poonawalla, they are named for the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights. Today, the Brass Crescent – bloggers, artists, writers – is the modern equivalent of 1001 Tales…

This is something that is so obvious, it is in danger of never being said, in which case those who led us into war will try to pretend it isn’t true as they argue the case for the next one. Simply put – the Iraq War (a war of choice, irrelevant to 9-11, sold to…

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