{"id":331,"date":"2012-11-04T15:14:02","date_gmt":"2012-11-04T20:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/commonwordcommonlord\/?p=331"},"modified":"2012-11-04T15:14:02","modified_gmt":"2012-11-04T20:14:02","slug":"go-out-and-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/go-out-and-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Go Out And Vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Name of God, the Compassionate and Infinitely Merciful\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I am tired of the election season. As I write this, a political campaign ad is playing on the TV. It is the same one I have seen time, after time, after time, after time, after time. I think half of our recycling bin is political campaign flyers. I don’t think I can take much more of this…<\/p>\n

Still, despite my weary fatigue of politics, I voted early last Thursday. I took my daughter with me as well. There was no way I could not vote. In fact, I believe it is my sacred, religious duty to vote.<\/p>\n

Islam demands excellence of me in every aspect of my life: excellence in my spiritual life; excellence in my social life; excellence in my family life; and excellence in my civic life. The Quran tells me that: “You are indeed the best community brought forth for [the good] of humanity: you enjoin the doing of good, forbid the doing of evil, and you believe in God.” (3:110)<\/p>\n

That means that I must do as much as I can to promote the common good, and this has to include voting in every single election. Ideally, I should hold public office to try to help promote the common good myself. But, I am not cut out for politics; I am not cut out for a life in public service; I love being a doctor too much to leave it aside for a political career.<\/p>\n

But I can vote, and thus I must do so in each and every election. It is the very least I can do for my country. My faith demands nothing less of me.<\/p>\n

So, go out on November 6 and vote. Make your voice be heard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Name of God, the Compassionate and Infinitely Merciful\u00a0 I am tired of the election season. As I write this, a political campaign ad is playing on the TV. It is the same one I have seen time, after time, after time, after time, after time. I think half of our recycling bin is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":175,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,93],"tags":[437,439,434,438,98,124,197,436,435],"class_list":["post-331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-islam","category-politics","tag-citizen","tag-common-good","tag-election","tag-inolvement","tag-politics-2","tag-religion","tag-sacred","tag-voice","tag-voting"],"yoast_head":"\nGo Out And Vote - Common Word, Common Lord<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/go-out-and-vote\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Go Out And Vote - Common Word, Common Lord\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the Name of God, the Compassionate and Infinitely Merciful\u00a0 I am tired of the election season. As I write this, a political campaign ad is playing on the TV. It is the same one I have seen time, after time, after time, after time, after time. I think half of our recycling bin is…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/go-out-and-vote\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Common Word, Common Lord\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-11-04T20:14:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Hesham A. Hassaballa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@GodFaithPen\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Go Out And Vote - Common Word, Common Lord","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/go-out-and-vote\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Go Out And Vote - Common Word, Common Lord","og_description":"In the Name of God, the Compassionate and Infinitely Merciful\u00a0 I am tired of the election season. As I write this, a political campaign ad is playing on the TV. It is the same one I have seen time, after time, after time, after time, after time. I think half of our recycling bin is…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/go-out-and-vote\/","og_site_name":"Common Word, Common Lord","article_published_time":"2012-11-04T20:14:02+00:00","author":"Hesham A. Hassaballa","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@GodFaithPen","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/go-out-and-vote\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/go-out-and-vote\/","name":"Go Out And Vote - Common Word, Common Lord","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-11-04T20:14:02+00:00","dateModified":"2012-11-04T20:14:02+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/#\/schema\/person\/c2d50a46198edad19abb055001c4cd21"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/go-out-and-vote\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/go-out-and-vote\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/go-out-and-vote\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Go Out And Vote"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/","name":"Common Word, Common Lord","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Hesham Hassaballa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/#\/schema\/person\/c2d50a46198edad19abb055001c4cd21","name":"Hesham A. Hassaballa","description":"Hesham A. Hassaballa is a Chicago doctor and writer. He has written extensively on a freelance basis, being published in newspapers across the country and around the world. He has been a Beliefnet columnist since 2001, and has written for the Religion News Service. He is also a columnist for Patheos. His articles have been distributed worldwide by Agence Global, and he was also a guest blogger for The Chicago Tribune and has blogged on ChicagoNow\" . In addition, Dr. Hassaballa has appeared as a guest on WTTW (Channel 11) in Chicago, CNN, Fox News, BBC, and National Public Radio. Dr. Hassaballa is co-author of The Beliefnet Guide to Islam (Doubleday), and his essay, \u201cWhy I Love the Ten Commandments,\u201d was published in the award-winning book Taking Back Islam (Rodale). His latest book, Noble Brother, is the story of the Prophet Muhammad told entirely in poetry, and it is now published in its second edition. In 2007, his blog \"God, Faith, and a Pen\" was nominated for a Brass Crescent Award for a blog that is \u201cthe most stimulating, insightful, and philosophical, providing the best rebuttals to extremist ideology and making an impact whenever they post.\u201d \"God, Faith, and a Pen\" has also received an award for being one of the \"Top Muslim Blogs for 2010\" by Awarding The Web. In addition to writing, Dr. Hassaballa helped found the Chicago Chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations and currently serves on their board of directors. He also co-founded the Bayan H. Hassaballa Charitable Foundation and now serves as its Treasurer.","sameAs":["https:\/\/x.com\/GodFaithPen"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/author\/hhassaballa\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":334,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions\/334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}