The following originally aired on KCBS.

By Fareeza Ali

I’ve tried teaching my friends about Islam, but it seems like even though they accept me, they’re unwilling to accept my religion.

Recently, a guy from my school started an Islamic Club and asked people what they’d be interested in learning about. I heard one girl tell him she wanted to learn how to make bombs.

WHAT!? The thing that killed me is that I think she was actually serious. It made me think different about my peer’s jokes. Jokes, I admit, I used to make sometimes. But they seemed more hurtful after I heard this. The fact that she felt this way about Muslims made me question what she thinks about me.

The way I see it, Islam is not just a faith, it’s away of life because devout Muslims are dedicated to living a life incompliance to their religion.

It seems like because I don’t fit the stereotypes of the violent Muslim, my peers accept me, but not my religion. What they don’t get is that because it’s such a big part of the way I live my life, the religion is me.

The following originally aired on KCBS.

By Fareeza Ali

“Merry Christmas!” Merry Christmas? I think you meant Happy Birthday.

I was born on Christmas. That might sound like something special, but since I’m Muslim, it’s just another day. My family doesn’t celebrate the holiday. Well, technically we don’t.

Every year, we put up lights and place presents under a tree. We don’t go to church in the morning, but we do reserve the day for family.

According to my mother, we still don’t celebrate Christmas She says the decorations are meant to celebrate my birthday, not Jesus’.

But, what do Christmas trees and festive lights have to do with a birthday? We don’t go Easter egg hunting or trick-or-treating because my mother says it’s meaningless. But something about Christmas makes her want to celebrate. Because we’re Muslim, sometimes feels like it’s us against everyone else. like everyone expects we’re un-American. I think Christmas is my mother’s opportunity to be Muslim AND American, to feel like she belongs. On Christmas, my birthday, we celebrate by having a holiday meal with family, taking a trip to San Francisco, and sharing presents before bed.

Yup, Christian or not, Christmas can be a very special day.

Previously:

• Being A Foster Kid Can Be Tough
• Half Way Out
• Learning From Teaching

School calendars are slowly changing. Across the country, communities are debating which holidays should be honored with a day off.

USA Today mentions three schools: one that voted to include a Muslim holiday on its academic calendar, another that gives students days off for Christian and Jewish holidays, and another that voted to get rid of religious holidays entirely.

The article summarizes the debate going on in the country, “Across America, public school districts are wrestling with whether the First Amendment requires inclusion or exclusion when it comes to recognizing religious holy days.Should school districts reflect the growing diversity of their student bodies by including more religions' holy days? Or does the Constitution demand that public schools exclude days off for religion altogether?”

A major argument for making certain religious holidays coincide with school holidays is logistics: if a large number of students are absent visiting family, then classroom lessons are disrupted anyway.

Far outside the glamour of Paris lights, the French suburbs, called the “banlieues,” are struggling to get noticed. These racially divided areas are most often  referred to in terms of fighting crime and increasing law enforcement.  According to the New York Times, France has Europe's largest Muslim population and many are living in the suburbs. "The banlieues have long been considered potential incubators for religious extremism," according to the Times article.  The United States is taking action to reach out to these communities.

The banlieues are well-known for the violent youth riots that happened in 2005 and 2006.  In November, 2005, two French youths were killed by police. Over 2,900 youth rioters, consisting of mostly second generation immigrants living in housing projects, were arrested for burning schools, cars, and daycare centers, according to the Social Science Research Council.  Nicolas Sarkozy called a state of emergency and eventually the rioting ended after three weeks.  

In January of 2006, another violent youth riot broke out in the banlieues, this time consisting of mostly white youth, because of a proposed youth employment law that would lower wages and change workers’ rights. The SSRC referred to these events as evidence of a “growing crisis of social exclusion and racism affecting the French suburbs.”  

Since then, the banlieues have been stuck with the stigma of violence and racial tension.  Recently, there have been efforts by the United States as well as the French government to change the atmosphere. According to the New York Times, the United States Embassy in Paris is reaching out to local organizations, students, and politicians in an effort to change the culture of the banlieues as well as bolster the image of the United States in Muslim communities around the world after the events of September 11.

The United States began a visiting leadership program for French teenagers to come to the United States, and brought celebrities like Samuel L. Jackson over to speak to French students.  

NEW YORK, NY -- While many California schools opened their doors in mid-August, schools in New York City just recently rang their first bell.  In fact, schools here did not start until after Sept. 9 - 10, because of the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah.  New York schools get two days off for this major Jewish holiday, unrecognized in districts around the country, including Oakland Unified School District in California.

Muslims in New York want their holidays excused from school as well. Last year, the New York City Council passed a resolution in favor of taking off school for two major Muslim holidays: Eid al-Fitr (the end of Ramadan), and Eid al-Adha (the end of the annual pilgrimage).  However, Mayor Bloomberg has yet to approve the resolution. He told Public Radio International's The World program that kids need more educational time, not less.

The report on The World points out that schools with large Muslim populations won’t be able to carry on a regular school day if a significant percentage of students are absent, and the current calendar just forces Muslim families to choose what is more important: celebrating a religious holiday, or attending school.  

By: Danial Shahbaz

The Muslim community center being built in New York has sparked debate around the world, including within my own home.

I first learned of the controversial plan just before my mother traveled to Pakistan to visit our extended family. While I was there, I lightweight started discussing the issue of the community center with my mom. When I first heard about Park51, I thought it was supposed to be a mosque, which I fully supported because Islam promotes peace. But later I when I discovered it was planned as an entire community center where Muslims and non-Muslims could gather, my support went rock solid.

It basically sounded like a YMCA and a church built together, which was very appealing to me because a rec center implies a da’wa - an invitation for non-Muslims to attend as well. We need community centers like this all over the country, where people can talk together about their issues, their fears, and what problems they’re having. And if this community center is built in New York, I believe you’ll see a push for similar projects in many cities across the US.

When I brought the Park51 issue up with my mom, she came right out and said it was a bad idea. She said it gives the non-Muslims whose families had died on 9/11 another reason to be enraged. She said they may believe that the Muslims are trying to say, “Look, we attacked your land, and now we are building upon it.”

She argued that Ground Zero is sacred land for Americans, where those so-called Muslims had attacked. But my parents have always taught us that we’re American first, and then Pakistani. So I found my mom’s statement hypocritical. They’ve always told me I’m American, but when it comes to this issue, their treating me as if I’m not an American?

She thinks the center being built will give the people more justification to criticize Muslims. Jalti pay tayal dalna. In Urdu, that basically means, adding fuel to the fire. That pretty much sums up my mom’s agreement with people who oppose Park51.

When I got involved with the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and started teaching at Islamic school, my mom was always supportive. She was very pro-activism. But this issue is too touchy for her. My generation has grown up here with the ideas of freedom of speech, and freedom to practice our religion. In Pakistan, where my mom spent her youth, they haven’t grown up with equality, especially for women, and that’s probably why our parents and elders disagree with us on some political issues like Park 51.

For now, within my household, I will have to disagree with my mother. But Inshallah when this project gets pushed through, I hope people like her may realize that every single right granted to individuals in America is granted to Muslim’s too.

Danial Shahbaz is the Muslim Student Association President at San Francisco State as well as the MSA West events co-coordinator. Read more...

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) sent out an official statement regarding the Fort Hood shooting. CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. They want the media and the general public not to hold this one incident as precedent for all Muslim Americans. While investigators are searching for a motive, CAIR does not want the fact Major Nidal Malik Hasan was a Muslim to take precedence over any other evidence. CAIR’s Executive Director Nihad Awad says,

“We reiterate the American Muslim community’s condemnation of this cowardly attack. Right now, we call on all Americans to assist those who are responding to this atrocity…The motive of the attacker is not yet known. We urge all Americans to remain calm in reaction to this tragic event and to demonstrate once again what is best about America – our nation’s ability to remain unified even in times of crisis. We urge national political and religious leaders and media professionals to set a tone of calm and unity.”

CAIR doesn’t want investigators and the media to pin the Fort Hood shooting on the Islam religion and continue the “Muslim terrorist” stereotype.” This may create Muslim backlash leading to harm of innocent Muslim Americans. CAIR urges American Muslims, and those who may be perceived to be Muslim, to take appropriate precautions to protect themselves, their families and their religious institutions from possible backlash.

Islam Today, a new UC Berkeley based program that looks at how Muslim youth are "using new media, politics and popular culture" to reshape their self-image, holds a forum tonight on Politics & New Media in the Muslim World at the David Borwer Center in Berkeley, CA :

This forum brings together a unique group of experts to discuss the transformations that have occurred following the rapid expansion in the use of technology and new media in talking about political issues and political change in the Muslim world.

EVENT DETAILS:

Thursday, October 15, 2009
5:00 pm ~ 7:30 pm
David Brower Center
2150 Allston St., Berkeley CA

The stress and complexities that celebrity life in the music industry, and specifically the hip-hop portion of it, are enough to drive a sane man mad. Artists who once starred in music videos surrounded by scantily dressed women and expensive cars, have turned to religion to help keep some sort of balance and self-understanding in their hectic and at times, superficial lives. Imagine the pressure of living up to an image that was created and molded like a gob of clay. Read more...

By Zaba Rashan

With the results of the Iranian election between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his opponent, former Prime Minister Mirhossein Mousavi, still up in the air it remains to be seen what role that country will play on the world stage and in U.S. foreign policy. Commenting on the election President Barack Obama cited his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo as sending a "clear message" about the "possibility of change" in the Middle East, and lauded what he described as a "robust debate" between opposing parties in Iran. Speaking in terms of potential relations between the U.S. and Iran, Obama stressed that such conversations would "help advance our ability to engage them in new ways." Zaba Rashan reflects on what Obama's speech in Cairo meant to her, a Muslim-American woman of Afghani origin.