Defending Religious Freedom Understanding SHARIAH

9/12/2012

By Sumbul Ali-Karamali

I am an American Muslim, and like every other American Muslim I know, I am horrified and disgusted by the recent attacks on U.S. Embassies in Libya and Egypt. I stand with President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and numerous American Muslim organizations in unconditionally condemning these attacks. And I extend my utmost sympathy to the victims and their families.

The violence was incited by an anti-Islam amateur film that gained prominence when  Read more

9/10/2012

By Niraj Warikoo

Speaking to an overflow crowd at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, noted Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan criticized extreme Islamists known as Salafis, saying that the Arab world needs to develop political systems that reject both theocracies and dictatorships.

But he added that Arab countries should develop their societies in ways that are unique to their own cultures.

“Every single country should find its own way,” Ramadan ...  Read more

9/06/2012

By JEFF KAROUB

WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. — On a prime piece of real estate in suburban Detroit stands a large, vacant elementary school with no vestiges of life – save for a tiny sign that identifies the building as the “future home” of the Islamic Cultural Association.

But the proposal to establish a new mosque and community center has thrust this quiet site into the center of a battle between a prosperous Muslim community and a Christian legal ...  Read more

8/21/2012

By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, August 21, 9:00 AM NEW YORK — In more than six years of spying on Muslim neighborhoods, eavesdropping on conversations and cataloguing mosques, the New York Police Department’s secret Demographics Unit never generated a lead or triggered a terrorism investigation, the department acknowledged in court testimony unsealed late Monday.

The Demographics Unit is at the heart of a police spying program, built with help from the CIA, ...  Read more

8/21/2012

By Alex Seitz-Wald

While leaders like Speaker Boehner and Sen. John McCain were rightly praised for taking a strong stand against Rep. Michele Bachmann’s witch hunt against Muslims in the U.S. government, don’t give the party of Lincoln a pass on Islamophobia just yet. In Tampa this week, GOP leaders adopted a plank to their platform supporting a ban on foreign law and aimed at Shariah, the Islamic religious law that many conservatives insist is secretly insinuating ...  Read more