Several days following the presentation, as the debate continued to rage, Trish Hanks, the Friendswood ISD superintendent, sent students’ parents a letter stating that she had authorized the presentation for administrative staff but not for students. She claimed that school principal Robin Lowe had acted “hastily” and without authorization. Ultimately Lowe was “reassigned” from her position as principal. (Interestingly, Ms. Hanks’ letter closes with this statement: “Friendswood is a faith-based community and founded on these principles. The school district has always and will continue to honor that heritage.” Friendswood, like Philadelphia, was founded by Quakers, but I doubt that is what Ms. Hanks was referring to.)

Some people claim outrage because the presentation was made without parental “consent.” Some claim outrage over inequity they perceive between the rights of Muslims and other faith practitioners to discuss their faith in publicly-funded schools, as demonstrated by the comment of a reader on my Chronicle blog:

The problem is no other religions are allowed to make “presentations” in public schools, but at risk of offending Muslims, we give them a pass. Everyone else gets the “separation of church and state” speech, but we all know that only applies to the Christian religion now. You can make such presentations anywhere. If the school wants to have some after school thing where students and parents alike are invited to attend, great, but the same opportunity better be given to all faiths.

In my opinion, both arguments fail to address the key issue - context. The uproar occurred because the presentation was about Islam and prompted by an incident involving a Muslim student. There is a big difference between being a member of a minority religion and a follower of the majority religion or no religion at all. In this country, and especially in Houston, there is a big difference between the personal experience of a Christian and the personal experience of a Muslim. When Christian students are on no-fly lists, when Christianity is reviled as a scourge of evil on the planet, and when the number of hate crimes against Christians is on the rise, an assembly about the basics of Christianity may well be in order. In the meantime I think the citizens of Friendswood need to accept that the Muslim population in this country is growing and they are going to have to get used to us one way or another. Allowing their children the opportunity to learn about us is just a first step.

Action alert: Tarek Hussein, president of CAIR-Houston, is encouraging Muslims to write to the editorial staff of the Houston Chronicle praising this fair and balanced column by Rick Casey which ran in Saturday’s edition. Letters to the editor can go to viewpoints@chron.com and per the Chronicle’s instructions should include name, address and day and evening phone numbers for verification purposes only. Rick Casey’s e-mail is rick.casey@chron.com .

The response so far has been amazing. But now I feel somewhat overwhelmed… I didn’t realise this Kaffiyeh Day thing was going to be noticed by this many people! All good and success comes from God. But even with all the positive comments, I still wonder whether I did the right thing? Is this just a huge waste of time? Are things really going to change after Friday? Will the press even give two hoots about a bunch of Facebookers wearing kaffiyeh?

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Here’s the video on LiveLeak.

Network Solutions pulled the site that was supposed to be hosting the film. Techcrunch is worried that Google might experience a “Muslim backlash”. Live Leak, who originally hosted the film, have now pulled it down because of “credible threats”. The Singaporean government has condemned it. The UAE government has condemned it. The Council of Europe has spoken out against it. Afghanistan has expressed concern. Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir has said Malay Muslims are annoyed by it and is calling for a worldwide boycott of Dutch products. Indonesia has condemned it. The OIC naturally condemns it too.

That’s a lot of government and official condemnation for a 17 minute film on Youtube. However, rather than the riots and rivers of blood that the pre-release marketing led us to believe would be the natural consequence of Wilder’s little film, the response from actual Muslims has been, well, not much of a response at all.

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The following is an extended version of the program. I found it very moving. It highlights both deep prejudice as well as a deep sense of justice that everyday Americans possess. The challenge for Muslims is to increase the ratio of informed to the misinformed, by being good Muslims, interacting within our social and work circles, educating non-Muslims about what we believe and what we don’t, and so on and so forth.

YouTube Direktvideo link

I don’t know how these Muslims: Mubin Shaikh, alt. Sheikh, (the main mole), Wajid Khan (the politician) or Mr. X (the Agricultural engineer) can sleep at night, knowing that they set up their own brothers and led them into jails, away from their families and lives. Apparently though, Mubin is having some second-thoughts (perhaps with the cocaine effect wearing off), and he is reported, in the documentary, to be backing off some of his earlier claims. I hope Mubin, Wajid and Mr. X repent and ask forgiveness from Allah for hat they have brought unto others, undeservedly [Revised -MM Editor]. The documentary speaks for itself.

YouTube Direktvideo link

Remaining videos below the sleeve (more…)

The basic one is the disturbing sine qua non of the current times that the term Muslim is only to be equated with scare tactics. To be equated with the Muslims or the Muslim cause is seen as nothing less than an abomination. Support for Israel and the US ‘invasions’ (more…)

Assalamu Alaikum,

I had the opportunity to meet some French sisters who are now here with me in Cairo, and we got to talking about the issue of Islam in Europe.

It was actually really sad, hard to hold the tears as one sister (from Holland, convert to Islam) told her own story of how she would remove her scarf everyday when she entered work, so she would be left to wear only an allowed small headband just covering the front of her hair, until one day she broke down crying, and kept it on. A few days later, her boss asked her to sign some papers. She asked why, and he said “You’re fired.” She replied, “Allahu Akbar” and signed the papers. “Some scholars said it’s ok, I can take it off if it’s a neccessity, but I just couldn’t take it off another time! I just couldn’t!” she said.

Another sister studied and finished law school before the ban happened. (more…)

On the Tuesday night (2/26/08), ABC aired its primetime series entitled What Would You Do? (video below sleeve), in which a controversial scenario is staged with hidden cameras to see how the public would react to such a situation. Last Tuesday’s episode included a scenario in a popular bakery with one actor playing a female Muslim customer wearing hijab and another playing a bigoted store clerk who refused to serve her based on her being Muslim and insulted her with all kinds of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab discriminatory remarks.

The reaction of the public was disturbing to say the least, but unfortunately, not surprising. According to ABC News, the majority of bystanders witnessed the incident yet chose not to get involved, largely due to approval of the clerk’s actions. A minority did speak up… some in defense of the Muslim customer (expressing their disgust to the clerk and threatening to boycott the bakery). While others, unfortunately, actually spoke up in support of the bigoted clerk’s actions. The ABC News article states: (more…)

So, let’s introduce our first bigot: Louis Farrakhan.

Mr. Farrakhan says that Obama represents: “hope of the entire world”. Note that Farrakhan never endorsed Obama; he merely praised him.

Let’s introduce our second bigot: John Hagee.

Mr. Hagee enthusiastically endorsed McCain: “Victory is within our grasp because John McCain knows it’s never wrong to do the right thing,”

And how did the candidates respond and what was the consequence?

Let’s start with Bigot#1, Farrakhan, who makes no secret of his dislike for whites and Jews? (more…)