Across the country, Muslim Student Associations (MSAs) are facing a coordinated wave of harassment.

Non-student provocateurs are showing up unannounced to campus events, filming students while they pray, mocking their faith, and disrupting peaceful gatherings. In some cases, these incidents have escalated into violence and desecration of a copy of the Qur’an.

CAIR has received reports of individuals deliberately tracking MSA events online and appearing in person to provoke fear.

This is not spontaneous; it’s organized. Their tactics – cameras, confrontation, heckling – are designed to pressure Muslim students into retreating from campus life.

These agitators’ goal is to provoke and intimidate young Muslims and make them feel vulnerable in their own academic spaces.

But here’s the reality: Muslim students are not helpless; they are not alone; and they will not be intimidated.

Resilience is in our DNA.

American Muslims have endured hostility before in the form of social and political pressure, discrimination, and exclusion. History shows a consistent trend that efforts to silence us only strengthen our resolve.

As Muslim students stand up for their safety and rights with the support of MSA National and national organizations, including CAIR, universities also have an important responsibility to protect them from harassment, safeguard religious freedom, and ensure that campuses remain spaces for learning, not intimidation.

This moment requires action. That’s why CAIR issued a letter recently to over 2,000 colleges and universities across America to take concrete steps to protect Muslim students.

In addition to action, Muslims rely on our faith in these times. It teaches patience under pressure, dignity in the face of mockery, and perseverance when others attempt to undermine our confidence.

Throughout Islamic history, many Muslim leaders and scholars have faced ridicule and harassment, yet remained steadfast and principled. No example is more evident of this than the example of our beloved Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.

The trials we face today cannot compare to the hardships he ﷺ endured. In the darkest moments, he ﷺ was strengthened through divine guidance and unwavering purpose.

And Palestinians have reminded the world during every day of Israel’s genocide, that this spirit of resilience lives on in today’s generation of Muslims.

The fact is that these coordinated disruptions aren’t targeting weakness – they’re targeting strength. Detractors fear a generation of American Muslims who are confident in their identity, visible in public spaces, and active in civic life.

Muslim candidates successfully sweeping races to serve in public office have predictably unleashed a new tide of Islamophobia, and the coordinated campaign of harassment on campuses is one symptom of this wave of hate bias.

To Muslim students, these agitators fear your conviction. Your power. Your unity. They fear the past that doesn’t define your ambitions, and the future leadership you promise.

That fear says more about them than it ever will about you.

Your choices are not theirs to make.

Your education is not theirs to exploit.

And your faith is not a liability for them to pry away from you.

You have every right to gather, organize, pray, and lead. Ignorance, hate, and bigotry will not win.

Your presence – both on campus, and here in America – is not an intrusion. It is a gift, a promise, and a contribution to a brighter future for our country.

Our hardships don’t define us; how we rise through them is what shapes the core of our identity.

Don’t cancel your activities. Take precautions, be vigilant, but stay active and keep organizing.

Support and uplift one another. Build and strengthen alliances with other student groups and interfaith organizations.

Document and report incidents, notify your campus administrators, and contact your local CAIR office.

CAIR will continue to hold institutions accountable to adopt clear anti-harassment policies that address religious intimidation, provide security, enforce consequences for disruptions, and publicly affirm your rights.

This is also a call to action for the broader Muslim community:

We cannot stay on the sidelines while students face these battles. Let’s attend and support MSA activities and programs. Let’s publicly condemn harassment and amplify student voices. Let’s invest in on-campus Muslim chaplaincy programs and student leadership initiatives to mentor, fund, and empower our future generations

Let these coordinated attacks have the opposite effect of what was intended. Let them ignite a movement of confident, connected, courageous young Muslims across our country.

Muslims know that, with Allah by our side, we never stand alone. Let’s assure students that their community stands with them too.

 

Related:

– [Podcast] How to Fight Islamophobia | Monia Mazigh

– Islamophobia In American Public Schools

The post Op-Ed – When Islamophobes Try To Intimidate Us, They Underestimate Our Resolve: A Call to Stand With America’s Muslim Students appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

UN report finds torture “de facto” Israeli state policy.

The civil liberties group argues the Texas governor’s proclamation exceeds his authority and deepens fears

Islamophobia is on the rise in the US, with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), a civil liberties group, reporting sharp increases in anti-Muslim violence and rhetoric over the last two years.

In Texas, the issue has come to the fore in high-profile incidents, including the case of a Euless woman who was initially released on a $40,000 bail after attempting to drown two Palestinian American children.

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Arrested in 2013 on India’s Himalayan border after fleeing Beijing’s ‘genocide’ against Muslims in Xinjiang, the siblings have been imprisoned indefinitely ever since then

On the evening of 12 June 2013, according to court documents, three “Chinese intruders” were arrested by the Indian army in Sultan Chusku, a remote and uninhabited desert area in the mountainous northern region of Ladakh.

The three Thursun brothers – Adil, 23, Abdul Khaliq, 22 and Salamu, 20 – had found themselves in an area of unmarked and disputed borders after a 13-day journey by bus and foot over the rugged Himalayan terrain through China’s Xinjiang province, which borders Ladakh.

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My brothers were detained from a checkpoint and subjected to months of torture and ill-treatment without ever being classified as prisoners.

There are occasions when state power reveals its insecurities with embarrassing transparency. The United States’ revocation of Dr. Naledi Pandor’s visa — executed without reason, without process, and without even the courtesy of bureaucratic finesse — is one such moment. It is not a matter of administrative procedure. It is a symptom. A tremor of anxiety running through a violent Zionist project confronted by a woman whose authority is rooted not in might but in moral clarity.

Pandor, a former Minister of International Relations, a distinguished academic, and one of the most respected voices in the global struggle for Palestinian liberation, is hardly the kind of figure whose movements need to be policed. She commands no militias, stirs no insurrections, and threatens no borders. Her influence derives from something far more subversive: coherence, principle, and the audacity to insist that international law should apply universally rather than selectively.

Her central “offense,” of course, was South Africa’s decision — under her stewardship — to bring a genocide case against Israel before the International Court of Justice. It was a move that shook the architecture of impunity, interrupting a decades-long assumption that Western-backed states remain immune to the world’s highest judicial mechanisms. The ICJ case galvanized the Global South and infuriated those invested in shielding Israel from accountability. Once South Africa shattered the taboo, global dialogue shifted, and Pandor became both symbol and strategist of this recalibration.

Against this background, the visa revocation appears not as an isolated gesture but as part of a broader retaliatory pattern. From Trump’s bizarre political fantasies of a “white genocide” in South Africa, to the discourteous treatment of South Africa’s president during an official visit, to the refusal to receive its ambassador — each episode signals a punitive attitude toward a country that dared to challenge Zionist prerogatives.

Hence, the targeting of Dr. Pandor is not merely administrative mischief. It is a deliberate effort to punish a Global South diplomat who refused to genuflect before power.

The Threat Dr. Pamdor Represents

What, then, makes Pandor such a threat to Zionist power and imperial elites?

It is not merely her criticism of Israel. That alone, while provocative to some, would not have triggered such a response. The deeper threat lies in her refusal to compartmentalize global injustices, and her ability to narrate oppression as a structural, interconnected phenomenon rather than a series of discrete events.

During her recent engagements in the US, in city after city, Pandor spoke with piercing clarity about how the logic of domination in Gaza mirrors forms of dominance elsewhere. Her critique was global, mapping relationships of power that stretch from the Middle East to Africa to South Asia. This is where imperial elites feel uneasy: when the oppressed begin to see their struggles as shared, and when voices like Dr. Pandor help articulate the architecture of empire.

Her comments on Pakistan — careful and measured — highlighted the country’s political pliancy to imperial and Zionist interests. Pakistani-American audiences understood these references immediately, given the widespread repression of dissent in their homeland.

Without naming individuals, she alluded to a political figure widely admired and widely punished, whose pursuit of justice has made him intolerable to Pakistan’s power elite. The audience required no elaboration. The injustice is too stark.

Her comments struck a deep chord because they reflected a broader truth: that oppression does not respect borders, and that regimes aligned with empire frequently adopt the methods of empire. Pandor’s critique was not aimed at personalities but at structures — at the machinery of domination that sacrifices justice to the appetites of global power.

Dr. Pandor’s American hosts — Muslim communities, activists, human rights organizations — deserve credit for extending her platforms across the country, often to overflowing crowds. Their instinct to invite her, to engage with her, and to honor her moral leadership reflects a recognition of her stature in the global struggle for justice. The fact that these communities saw in her a defender of humanity and a champion of Palestine speaks well of their political sensibilities.

Zionist Panic and the Visa That Exposed It

This is what Zionist and Western supremacists cannot tolerate: clarity of analysis, breadth of moral vision, and the ability to illuminate connections across continents. A figure like Pandor cannot be allowed to circulate too freely within the public square because her presence has catalytic potential. She reframes debates. She humanizes victims. She speaks in the language of law rather than the language of propaganda. And she exposes the hypocrisy of invoking human rights selectively while violating them systematically.

By revoking her visa, fanatical Zionists attempted to place a boundary around her influence. Yet the attempt has only drawn more attention to her work and to the anxieties that drove this petty act of reprisal.

The message is unmistakable: the world’s most powerful elites are afraid of a woman whose only weapons are truth and integrity.

And that fear, ironically, magnifies her authority.

The Moment and the Movement

Dr. Pandor does not require rescuing. Her legitimacy rests on foundations far sturdier than any visa stamp. Whether she sets foot in the United States again is immaterial to her global stature. Her influence is already transnational, already expansive, already woven into the moral fabric of contemporary struggles for liberation.

But her treatment by American rulers matters for a different reason: it reveals the boundaries that Zionism attempts to impose on dissent, and the lengths to which it will go to punish those who challenge its preferred narrative. In this sense, defending Pandor is not a personal obligation; it is a political one. It is a refusal to normalize retaliation disguised as procedure.

Let us therefore take three truths forward:

First, Dr. Naledi Pandor remains one of the clearest moral compasses in global politics.

Second, her analysis of oppression — whether in Gaza or the Congo – remains indispensable.

Third, her visa revocation is not a reflection of her weakness, but of Zionist fear and panic.

The real question now is not who fears Dr. Pandor.
We know that answer.

The real question — the one that determines the future of solidarity — is: Who among us is prepared to stop fearing the Zionists that fear her?

 

Related:

– Prominent Journalist And Analyst Sami Hamdi Abducted By American State

– The Witkoff Massacre: Slaughter Of Starving Palestinians Undercuts Trump Pretensions

 

The post Who’s Afraid Of Dr. Naledi Pandor? – Zionist Panic and a Visa Revoked appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Bahjat Tantish was a pillar of Palestine’s sports community, an inspiring karate coach, a policeman and a farmer.

“People out here have to be their voices,” says sister.

Firm set up by Elbit veteran gets $3 million grant.

My operation was routine, but the crowds, the constant danger and the lack of medicine and food made every day a test.

UN endorsement of Trump plan a “colonial outrage” that will ultimately implode.

sistIn the hospital and at home, Deek can’t shake the deep chill of the river.

Previous Chapters: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13| Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28| Part 29 | Part 30

* * *

“Your Lord has not forsaken you… and the future will be better for you than the past.”

— Surah Ad-Duha, 93:3–4

“In the heart of every winter is a trembling spring.” – Khalil Gibran

Stranger Every Day

The first morning after the harrowing experience at the river, Deek lay in the hospital bed, still deeply tired, barely able to keep his eyes open. He was covered in layers of blankets, though the nurse assured him his core temperature was normal. Rania sat on the bed beside him, her head bandaged from the blow she’d taken, and the girls in chairs by the wall. Dr. Ali, the tall British-Pakistani doctor who had previously treated his gunshot wound, studied Deek critically.

“You do live a strange life, Mister Saghir,” she said.

“Stranger every day,” he agreed.

Deek knew that he should be grateful and happy that he had survived that terrible ordeal, and he was indeed grateful, yet the terror clung to him like a layer of mud he could not wash off. A part of him was still in the roiling river, fighting for his life, not knowing whether he was himself or his uncle.

“You suffered something terrible,” Rania said, rubbing his hand between hers. “Give yourself time. You’ll be back to your normal, crazy self in no time, inshaAllah.”

The constant visitors did not help. Deek didn’t know how word of his hospitalization had gotten out, but the stream of people wanting to visit him was unending. They brought flowers and gifts, asked for loans, grants or investments, or simply wished him well. Some he knew – including some of the same wealthy physicians from Masjid Umar who used to ignore him in the past – and some he did not.

Deek had no patience for this nonsense, nor for these fair-weather friends and bloodsuckers. At his request, the hospital installed a security guard outside his room, and admitted no one without his permission. They billed him for this service, of course.

Many of the visitors, though, were welcome. Dr. Rana, his wife and their daughter Maryam were at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, but Dr. Rana’s sister in law brought spicy Pakistani food, which Deek loved.

Rania was there most of the time of course, while the girls came and went.

Mac N’ Cheese

At one point the security guard informed him that a man named Tariq was there. “Short black guy in a colorful shirt,” the guard said. Deek’s mood immediately brightened. Tariq was a recent convert, an elementary school teacher who had only been Muslim for a year. The day he took his shahadah Deek gave him his own musalla that he had with him, and ever since then, whenever they saw each other they always talked. Occasionally they played chess on a table in the masjid’s yard. Tariq was a defensive player, the kind that built up ranks of connecting pawns that were like a fortress. Sometimes Deek won, sometimes Tariq.

“Wonderful,” he said. “Send him in.”

“As-salamu alaykum.” Tariq had a quiet, soft voice. Today he wore a colorful daishiki over jeans, and an embroidered green kufi. Tariq presented a casserole dish, and Rania took it from him.

“What is it?” Deek asked.

“Southern style mac n’cheese. I don’t know if ya’ll Arabs eat that, but it’s pretty good, I have to say.”

“I want to try!”

Tariq laughed. Rania fed Deek a large spoonful. It was dense and rich, with a creamy, almost custard-like texture, and a deep cheese flavor.

“Oh my goodness, subhanAllah. This is so good.” He licked his lips. “You’re not related to Queen Latifah by any chance, are you?”

“Matter of fact, my cousin’s wife is one of her personal trainers. But we ain’t related, nah. Why?”

“Brother, you can come visit anytime.”

What School?

Lubna and her husband came, though without the kids, as children were not permitted. The husband spent most of the visit out in the hallway on his cellphone, and Deek found himself missing Hammurabi, oddly enough.

There was something different about Lubna that Deek could not put his finger on. She wore a beautiful cream-colored pantsuit and a double-breasted white coat that made her look like a fashion model, and her face seemed… what? Relaxed, Deek realized. The worry and frown lines that often creased her visage were gone. She looked happy, and this happiness gave her a radiance that he had not seen shining from her since they were children. This made him very happy, and he found himself beaming as she reported the progress on the school.

“I’m missing something,” Rania interrupted. “What school?”

Lubna looked surprised. “Well… Your husband is founding an Islamic school. It’s called Renaissance Islamic Academy, and will combine traditional learning with progressive teaching methods.”

“Oh.” Rania looked back and forth between Deek and his sister. In her eyes he saw hurt, then bewilderment, then a brief flicker of disappointment she didn’t quite hide. A lot had happened during their time apart, and he hadn’t had a chance to fill her in.

“We have a property,” Deek announced. Which was true. Marcela Gómez, the feisty Colombian who was now his family office real estate director, had texted him just an hour ago. She’d found a large church complex in a great neighborhood in north Fresno. It had classrooms, a cafeteria, a football field, basketball courts… Church membership was declining and they couldn’t afford to keep the property. It was valued at $10 million but Marcela thought the owners would go as low as 7.

“Do it,” Deek texted her. “Negotiate the best price you can and start the process.” Then he texted Zakariyya Abdul-Ghani, the young financial advisor – who was now CFO of Deek’s family office – to approve the purchase.

He informed Lubna of this now.

“You bought a church for ten million dollars?” Rania exclaimed. She seemed shocked by the idea.

“No,” Deek said defensively. “For seven million. If Marcela says she can get it down to seven, she can.” He reached out and took Rania’s hand. “Our reality is different now, honey. When we get home we’ll sit down and talk.”

Rania said nothing.

“Fantastic.” Lubna shook her head in amazement. “It’s really coming together. Part of me believed it was all a fantasy. You should also know, by the way, that I interviewed your friend Marco and checked out his references, and found him to be highly qualified and generally a cool guy. I have hired him to teach science. He wants to revamp the curriculum slightly to include the contributions of Muslim scientists. I’ll be paying him well. He asked me for a small advance, by the way. I’m not too crazy about that. But I know he’s poor, so I gave it to him.”

“Marco Tirado?” Rania said incredulously. “You’re hiring Marco? Wouldn’t you want a Muslim instead? And someone… well… reliable?”

Deek gave Rania a sharp glance. Her comment reminded him of the Rania of the last few years: sharp tongued, judgmental and critical of Deek and everything around him, including his friends.

“That’s not very nice,” Deek said, “Marco’s a good man. And he is Muslim now. You should hear him recite the Quran. His voice is as beautiful as a bird on the wind.”

Rania said, “Allah Akbar,” and sat back in her chair, looking dazed.

A Terrible Story

“Lubna,” Deek said. “I want to tell you something.”

She sensed the change in his tone. “Uh-oh. What is it?”

“Pull up a chair.” When she did, he continued. “Do you know why we left Iraq?”

Lubna frowned. “I was very small obviously, but I remember Mama saying that Iraq was a poor country, and that we would have a better life in America. It surprised me, because I never thought we were poor.”

What about our uncles, Khalid and Tarek?

Lubna squinted quizzically. “Ammu Khalid died in a car accident, and Ammu Tarek moved to England to open a bakery.”

“None of that is true.”

Lubna sat up straight. “Why are you telling me this? Is this something I need to know?”

“Maybe not. But it’s about me too. If you don’t want to know, it’s okay.”

Lubna made a displeased clucking sound with her tongue – a very Arab gesture – and shook her head. Then she rubbed her face with both hands.

“SubhanAllah,” she said. “Go ahead and tell me.”

Deek proceeded to relate the whole story: Tarek’s political activities, the arguments in the house, Tarek’s arrest, and the rescue, where young Deek himself helped to pull his father and a wounded Ammu Tarek out of the river. As he told the story he saw his wife leaning forward, listening intently. He had never narrated these events to her.

“The dissident movement smuggled Ammu Tarek out of Iraq to Turkey. He spent a year there, and made his way to England. We fled Iraq in the back of a panel truck with a false wall. You were allowed to take only one suitcase with you. You cried because you had to leave most of your dolls behind. I held you and told you that you’d find better dolls in America.”

Lubna sat back. She had tears in her eyes, and her hands were shaking slightly. Rania had come to sit beside Deek during the story, and massaged his shoulder with one hand.

“I remember that trip in the truck,” Lubna breathed. “I thought it was a bad dream I’d had.” She looked at Deek sharply. “And Ammu Khalid? You said that was not true either.”

“He committed suicide. He didn’t leave a note, but I heard Baba and Mama talking about it one time. Baba believed Khalid had been involved in political killings, and that the experience forced him to confront his own history. Mama thought it was probably the guilt over killing his fellow soldiers.”

Lubna stood up and walked to the far wall of the small hospital room. “This is all horrible. Why did you tell me this?”

“Those events traumatized me. I became withdrawn and moody. I blamed Baba, because there was no one else to blame. Tarek stood up for what he believed in, and Khalid at least was a strong man of action, but who was Baba? A quiet Quran teacher with no convictions. I know it’s ridiculous. But it’s why I changed. I became unkind to you too, and I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t seem to help it.”

Lubna nodded slowly. “I remember that you changed after we came to America. I used to think that America made you bad. I’m sorry you went through that.”

“I’m not asking for sympathy. It’s your forgiveness that I need. I told you these things so you would understand that I never hated you. You’re my little sister. I always loved you. I was just messed up by the weight of the past.”

Lubna came to the bedside and patted Deek’s hand. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

After she left, Deek spoke to Rania. “She wasn’t happy that I told her that story. Notice she didn’t say that she forgives me?”

Rania massaged his shoulder. “Give her time. It’s a lot to take in. And on anyone and everyone’s behalf, I forgive you.”

Allah Saved You

Zaid Karim and Safaa came to visit. Unlike the strangers and halfway acquaintances who only wanted to take, Zaid always made life easier. He and his assistant, Jalal, had retrieved Deek’s and Sanaya’s cars from the riverside, and had arranged a tow to take Rania’s mini-SUV to the shop. Zaid apologized that he had not been able to help when Rania called.

“Your dua was help enough,” Rania said. “For when Allah wishes a thing, he only says to it, “Be!” and it is.”

Zaid, tanned and with his beard growing out, told them about his trip to Jordan, Baby Munir’s funeral, and his visit to the Palestinian refugee camp. “Imam Saleh gave me $100,000 to donate to the camp, and he didn’t say so, but I know that money came from you, Deek. So you are helping people without even knowing it, mashaAllah.” He came close to Deek and spoke in a low voice. There was no one in the room at that moment except for Zaid, Deek, Rania and Safaa. “This is why Allah saved you twice, brother. He has a mission for you, and don’t you ever forget it. Don’t get comfortable, don’t get lazy. Ask Allah what He wants you to do, and do it.”

Deek swallowed and nodded. Zaid was right, of course. He should have been dead at least twice, or five times if you wanted to count the encounter at the riverside when he was young, the very risky escape from Iraq, and the gunshot graze to the head he’d received recently, which Zaid did not know about.

He gripped Zaid’s arm and nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

Not Over

Two days after Deek’s brush with death, Dr. Ali entered his room.

“Do you want to give me the information I asked for?”

She meant the identity and contact information of the Namer, Deek knew. He smiled and gave a slight shake of the head. A secret was only a secret if you didn’t tell anyone.

The doctor harrumphed. “In any case, your tests are good. I wanted to make sure there was no water remaining in your lungs, or you could become very ill. But you’re all clear. You can go home.”

Rania drove Deek’s Kia. It was a warm morning, but it had rained briefly, and a rainbow hung in the sky like a giant welcome home sign. The girls chattered in the backseat about mutual friends and their doings. Amira in particular seemed giddy with happiness, and often laughed. Rania was reserved, keeping her eyes on the road.

“I’m sorry,” Deek said quietly. “I shouldn’t have left home. You just pushed me too far. And by the way, I didn’t care for your comments about Marco. He’s been a good friend to me, and he saved my life recently.”

Rania shot him a hard glance. “So did I, remember? Anyway I apologize for my comment. But you’re right that you shouldn’t have left, and certainly not for so long. It’s been a bad time for me, and you weren’t there to help. And you’ve made a lot of major moves without me. You bought a house and a church!”

“I’ve been calling you and texting you, but you don’t answer. You shut me out completely. I had to go ahead and make choices on my own. But habibti, when I was drowning in the river, all I wanted was an opportunity to make things right with you. Allah granted me that.”

Rania glanced at him. “How do I know this won’t happen again?”

Deek smiled. “We made it through twenty years before this blowup. Let’s agree not to do it again for another twenty years.”

Rania snorted. “Not funny.” A few minutes later, she added, “This isn’t over. We have a lot more to talk about, and a lot more work to do. I need to know that you’re with me for real, for good.”

Deek nodded. “I know. And I am.”

Weariness overcame him, and he fell asleep. He dreamed that he had a highly intelligent pet monkey that could talk, and was also very good at predicting the weather. An all around genius, like Marco. They had such fun together, playing chess blindfolded and throwing peanuts at passers-by. But the government kidnapped the monkey, taking him away in a bus with dark windows. Deek followed the bus on his motorcycle, looking for an opportunity to rescue the monkey. A truck passed between them, and when it was gone, the bus had vanished. He was angry and sad.

Rania touched his shoulder. “We’re home, habibi.”

Deek rubbed his eyes sullenly. “It’s not nice to steal anyone’s monkey.”

The girls laughed, but Rania only patted his cheek and said, “You’re right. It’s not nice.”

Welcome Home

 

Exiting the car, they all stopped in their tracks. In the front yard, floating calmly above the grass, was a crescent moon. Not a lawn decoration. Not an inflatable. A hovering crescent moon — silver, smooth, and suspended four feet above the ground with no wires or platform visible. In front of it stood a small handwritten sign that read:

WELCOME HOME SAGHIR FAMILY

(It won’t explode).

Sanaya and Amira ran forward, Rania close behind them.

“Careful,” she warned, though her voice carried more awe than caution.

The girls circled the sculpture, inspecting it from every angle. Amira crouched low, squinting beneath it.

“There’s nothing under it,” she exclaimed. “It’s actually floating.”

Sanaya pointed. “Wait… look here.” Along the inner arc, a faint thread of something transparent ran upward to a slim rod staked into the ground behind a bush. “This is a tensegrity structure!”

“A what?” Rania asked.

“It’s a physics thing,” Sanaya said, voice rising with excitement. “Floating structures that stay up because tension forces cancel gravity in just the right places. You have to calculate every vector perfectly or it collapses.”

Amira tugged gently on the thin lower wire. “This one’s not holding it up… it’s holding it down.”

Sanaya nodded. “Yeah. It’s balanced. Suspended by tension. Whoever built this did serious math.”

Deek stared at the glimmering crescent, its shadow faint on the wet morning grass. Balanced perfectly, precise to the millimeter, playful yet genius-level engineering.

He let out a soft laugh.

Rania raised an eyebrow. “You know who did this?”

“Of course,” Deek said. “Only one person we know would greet me with a floating moon, use enough physics to launch a satellite, and make it look effortless.”

The girls turned to him.

“Well?” Amira asked. “Who?”

Deek smiled. “The only man who thinks love should be explained with equations. This is what he spent his advance on.”

“Marco,” Rania said.

“Indeed.”

“Well. It’s beautiful. But he stole my thunder.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come.”

Rania took his arm and gently tugged. Deek resisted for a moment, eyes still on the floating crescent moon. “Can we keep it?” he asked, aware that he sounded like a child begging to adopt a pet.

“Of course. But ask Marco to move it to the backyard, so no one steals it. Speaking of which, come on.”

Deek’s Office

This time. Deek let himself be led toward the side gate. To his surprise, Deek saw that the side gate and fence were gone, and the ground bore tracks of heavy vehicles.

He stopped. “What is this? What happened?”

The girls giggled.

“You’ll see.” Rania tugged on this arm, leading him to the backyard.

When Rania stopped and pointed, he followed her gaze—and stared.

A wide rectangle of earth had been cleared and leveled, the grass and brush stripped away down to clean, fresh soil. Wooden cement forms framed the outline of what would become the foundation, neat and sharp-edged. Bright metal rebar lay inside in a tight grid, bound and ready for the concrete pour. Orange construction flags fluttered in the breeze, marking the corners like a surveyor’s promise.

But what struck him hardest wasn’t the work that had been done. It was the sign.

Just a plank of wood mounted on two posts and hammered into the soil at the near corner. The lettering painted on in Rania’s elegant, looping handwriting:

DEEK’S OFFICE

Bismillah.

His breath hitched in surprise, and his knees nearly gave out. “You’re building me an office?”

Rania slipped an arm around his waist. “Quite a nice one. I didn’t know how long it would take you to come home,” she said softly. “But I knew you’d need a place of your own to land when you did. Now come inside, there’s something else.”

Inside the house, he saw that the living room had been transformed. The sofas, love seat, coffee table and end tables were gone. Instead, the room was dominated by a gorgeous L-shaped wooden desk that would have been at home in a CEO’s office. A large black office chair stood behind it, with two blonde chairs in front of the desk, facing it. On the desk stood a framed photo of the entire family together. Deek recognized it from a trip they’d taken to San Francisco a few years back.

Behind the desk, a huge hutch dominated the wall, with spaces for books and computer equipment. On one wall hung one of Rania’s quilts, and on the other wall was a large, Mondrianesque painting, consisting of blue, red, yellow and black squares.

Deek’s mouth hung open. “This is amazing,” he said. “It’s a beautiful office. But where will guests sit?”

“I don’t care about guests,” Rania replied. “I only care about you.”

A Monumental Force

That night, Deek and Rania prayed Ishaa together. The girls had gone to a youth lecture at Masjid Madinah. When they were done with the salat, Deek turned to face Rania and sat cross legged, saying his dhikr. After a few minutes, Rania crawled to him and sat facing him, knees to knees. She reached for one of his hands and held it between hers.

“Habibi,” she said. “Why did you go in the river?”

Deek’s eyes moved from side to side. He didn’t want to talk about this. “I was checking out the new property. I wanted to see the riverside access.”

Rania shook her head. “That doesn’t explain why you would physically step into the river at night, alone. Sanaya said she thought she heard shouting. It’s why she turned the car around.”

“Does it matter?”

She nodded solemnly. “Very much.”

Deek’s hand, still held between his wife’s, was sweating. He wanted to pull it away but did not. “I was angry and lonely. Everyone abandoned me. Sometimes I think of a river as a purifying force. I imagine that it will wash out all the ugliness and pain.”

“But that’s not your history,” Rania pointed out. “I heard the story you told Lubna. Rivers to you are not purification, but death. Or perhaps the purification of death. When you feel rage toward someone, you talk about drowning them in the river. I think you had another reason for going into the river.”

Now Deek did withdraw his hand. His jaw clenched. “What are you saying?”

He fidgeted as Rania watched him silently for a long time. Then, to his surprise, she said, “I was impressed at the hospital. Astounded, even.”

“What do you mean?”

“You helped a lot of people in ways I didn’t know about. You saved Maryam Rana’s life, you’re starting a school with Lubna as principal, you got Marco a good job, you’re helping Palestinian refugees, you gave money to Masjid Madinah, and probably others I don’t know about. And you didn’t tell me about any of it, because it’s not about fame or praise for you. You are a monumental force for good in this world. People adore you. You are a hero to them. And I realized that people don’t really fundamentally change. You have always been a force for good. People have always loved you. You have always been a hero. I knew that, but I forgot it for a while.”

“And the one who loves you most,” Rania went on, “aside from Allah, who is Al-Wadud – is me. And then your daughters. We adore you too. You are a hero to us too.”

Deek’s face turned hot and he felt tears behind his eyes. He didn’t know what to say, but he realized that the chill he had felt ever since the near-drowning was lessening. He’d thought that upon returning, he would feel like an outsider in his own home, but Rania had done and said everything possible to make sure that wasn’t the case. She’d done more than he could have imagined.

Rania rose onto her knees, leaned forward and gripped his thobe in two hands, bringing her face close to his. He found himself looking into her eyes, as dark as the depths of the river, yet at the same time as bright as the sun breaking fiercely through the clouds on a winter afternoon.

“Listen to me,” she said intensely. “You are not nine years old anymore, dragging your father and uncle out of the Euphrates. You are not alone, abandoned or forgotten. Leave your ghosts behind. Wake up to the world in front of you. Death will come for you at the time appointed, not a moment sooner or later. Until then embrace every moment of your life as if it is the last bite of food you’ll ever eat. And don’t you ever do anything like that again. Promise me.”

Hypnotized by his wife’s mile-deep eyes and pressing tone, Deek nodded slowly. “I promise.”

Rania gripped even tighter, and came so close that her nose touched his. “Because if you ever do something like that again, I will drown you in the river myself.” She kissed him hard, leaning all her weight on him. He fell back onto the musalla, laughing, then pulled her to him.

“Forget the river,” he said. “I’m already drowning in your love.”

***

Author’s Note: I thought this would get the last chapter, but there’s actually one more. So come back next week for Part 32  – the REALLY FINAL chapter of Moonshot! In which a decision is made about where to live, Rania makes a career move, Deek’s surprise for Faraz is revealed, and Deek hosts a party for his friends.

 

Reader comments and constructive criticism are important to me, so please comment!

See the Story Index for Wael Abdelgawad’s other stories on this website.

Wael Abdelgawad’s novels – including Pieces of a Dream, The Repeaters and Zaid Karim Private Investigator – are available in ebook and print form on his author page at Amazon.com.

Related:

Asha and the Washerwoman’s Baby: A Short Story

The Deal : Part #1 The Run

 

The post Moonshot [Part 31] – Stranger By The Day appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

From October 1, 2025, to November 12, 2025, the United States government was “shut down” due to legislative disputes over the contents of a spending bill. This shutdown meant that thousands of non-essential federal employees were furloughed, and thousands more were required to work without knowing when their next paycheck would come.

Government shutdowns, while uncommon, have occurred numerous times in the past.1 However, not only was this most recent 43-day shutdown the longest in American history, but it was also the first time the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was suspended over a lack of allotted funding. SNAP benefits provide monthly food assistance to roughly 42 million Americans, or 12% of the population; 70% of SNAP recipients are children, seniors, and people with disabilities.2 What people expected, and feared, became true once the shutdown dragged into November: people would not be receiving their SNAP benefits, it was unclear when (or if) they would receive them again, and they were now left scrambling to find food assistance elsewhere. Some states pledged to cover people’s SNAP benefits for the month of November, but this was only meant to be a temporary, partial fix.

With the end of the government shutdown, SNAP benefits have been restored, and SNAP will be funded through the end of the fiscal year in September 2026.3 While the immediate crisis has subsided, a greater, longer-term crisis still looms. Food continues to grow more expensive, while wages remain stagnant. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act that was signed into law in July 2025 will cut the SNAP budget by 20% over the next ten years, in addition to placing stricter work requirements on recipients.4 A vicious cycle is thus created where more people will end up needing help affording food, while access to help is made increasingly difficult for fewer benefits. Compounding this crisis, and one of the primary reasons for the shutdown, is the astronomical cost of healthcare in this country that regularly forces people to choose between seeking medical care and paying for other basic living expenses. 

I do not want to mince words or downplay this plight: I believe this is a moral failing of our government leaders. In a nation as wealthy and full of resources as the United States, there is no acceptable justification for why food insecurity is so widespread. Our government spends billions of our tax dollars each year on military operations around the world that cause, at minimum, societal and economic destabilization, and, at worst, genocide. Corporations and the richest Americans get tax breaks, while millions more must scrape by on their minimum wage paycheck or meager social security/disability payments. The scale of injustice being seen here is massive and dire, and it should disturb anyone who is paying attention and has a conscience.

As I spend time reflecting on this as a Muslim, I remember the many times in the Qur’an where Allah has urged the believers to feed those who are hungry. The two passages that have always stood out to me most regarding our duties to give come from Surah al-Balad and Surah al-Ma’un:

“If only they had attempted the challenging path! And what will make you realize what the challenging path is? It is to free a slave, or to give food in times of famine to an orphaned relative or to a poor person in distress, and–above all–to be one of those who have faith and urge each other to perseverance and urge each other to compassion. These are the people of the right.” [Surah al-Balad, 90; 10-18]

“Have you seen the one who denies the (final) Judgment? That is the one who repulses the orphan, and does not encourage the feeding of the poor. So woe to those (hypocrites) who pray yet are unmindful of their prayers; those who (only) show off, and refuse to give (even the simplest) aid.” [Surah al-Ma’un, 107; 1-7]

The message Allah shows us here is very clear: giving food to needy people is morally good, even in times of difficulty, and denying food to needy people is morally wrong. The verses of al-Ma’un in particular illustrate the hypocrisy of those who may follow the “letter of the law” (through outward acts of piety like salah) but disregard the “spirit of the law” by ignoring Allah’s Command to care for those who are vulnerable. Throughout the Qur’an, Allah frequently pairs “belief” together with “righteous deeds,” illustrating that our deen requires both from us in order to have sound faith. With these imperatives, it is our Islamic duty to address these issues to the best of our ability.

There is an oft-cited hadith from Sahih Muslim where our Prophet ﷺ says,

“Whoever among you sees an evil action, let him change it with his hand [by taking action]; if he cannot, then with his tongue [by speaking out]; and if he cannot, then with his heart [by at least hating it and believing that it is wrong], and that is the weakest of faith.”

This is frequently used as a rallying call to action amongst Muslims, especially in situations where people may feel that there is little that they personally can do due to a lack of power or physical distance (for example, the genocides in Gaza and Sudan). In the case of the American hunger crisis, however, we are in a position to counter these evil actions (purposeful, artificial shortages of food resources) with our hands, tongues, and hearts. 

 – With our hands: The most direct way we can help our neighbors who are hungry is, unsurprisingly, to provide them with food or money for food. There are many ways this can be done, and some ways may be more beneficial to certain people than others. For example, in my local Buy Nothing group on Facebook, people regularly request and offer groceries and meals. Because this group has a large user base, requests for food are generally met quickly and abundantly.

“The most direct way we can help our neighbors who are hungry is, unsurprisingly, to provide them with food or money for food.” [PC: Nico Smit (unsplash)]

Local mutual aid groups are also a direct, effective way to give assistance. We can donate shelf-stable foods to food pantries, either official ones or informal grassroots ones like Little Free Pantries or community refrigerators. Food banks are able to purchase food in bulk at much lower prices than at retail stores, so monetary donations can be stretched further. Some people may not have the time or ability to cook, so for them, prepared meals or ready-to-eat foods will be the most helpful. Others may not have a car or reliable transportation, so we can offer rides to food pantries or the grocery store. Even people facing food insecurity themselves can help others, perhaps by offering to cook for those who can’t, or by passing along foods that they won’t use to others who will, so it won’t go to waste. If your masjid or Islamic school doesn’t have a food pantry or offer financial assistance to hungry community members through zakat or sadaqah funds, work with them to make this a reality.  

Alhamdulillah, Muslims have already been demonstrating a commitment to serve our neighbors. At the small Islamic school my daughter attends, one parent’s suggestion to provide food assistance to students and their families led to a fundraising campaign that has collected $1,300 for groceries. In a now viral TikTok series, a woman named Nikalie Monroe filmed herself cold-calling dozens of houses of worship requesting baby formula. She did not need the formula, but she wanted to conduct a “social experiment” to see how receptive religious institutions would be to people directly asking for assistance. Most of the churches she contacted either denied the request or directed her to different organizations, but a few places, including The Islamic Center of Charlotte in Charlotte, North Carolina, offered to help her get formula with no questions asked. Touched by this masjid’s generosity and quick response, donations have been pouring in, which the masjid says it will use to fund a food drive. These are beautiful examples of Allah’s Words being put into action, and illustrate how one kind act can birth even more goodness. Allah says in Surah al-Baqarah: “The example of those who spend their wealth in the cause of Allah is that of a grain that sprouts into seven ears, each bearing one hundred grains. And Allah multiplies to whoever He wills. For Allah is All-Bountiful, All-Knowing.” [2;261]

 – With our tongues: This is where our recent experience with Palestine/Sudan activism will be useful. Get involved with advocacy groups that work towards policies that fight hunger and systemically address poverty and the massive income inequality in the United States. This can be on a national, state, or local level. For example, you could start or join a campaign for your local school district to provide universal free breakfast and lunch for its students, so no child will ever have to worry about skipping meals at school or having lunch debt.

Write and deliver a khutbah or bayan/khatirah about what the Qur’an and sunnah say about helping our hungry neighbors. If you’re a parent, talk with your children about hunger and how widespread it is, as well as what Allah has asked us to do to address it.

 – With our hearts: Du’a and taqwa are our greatest tools. Make heartfelt du’a asking Ar-Razzaq, the Provider, to bless us all with His Rizq (provisions). Ask Allah to help us in helping others, and that we may be agents for what is right. Remember how Allah has warned us against oppressing others, and ask Him to keep us from being among the wrongdoers and those who cause harm.

Pray that the hearts of those in power are opened and guided to the Truth, and that they use their power to enjoin goodness and justice for people, especially those who are vulnerable and marginalized. 

We may not be able to solve problems like hunger alone, but inshaAllah each step we take to help our neighbors means one less person goes to bed hungry. May Allah bless and help those who are struggling in body, mind, and spirit, and guide us to always do what is pleasing to Him. Ameen!

 

Related:

– When The Powerful Eat Full And The Poor Go Hungry

– The Architecture of Withholding: When Charity Becomes Control

1    “Funding Gaps and Shutdowns in the Federal Government”. https://history.house.gov/Institution/Shutdown/Government-Shutdowns/2    “Explainer: Understanding the SNAP program–and what cuts to these benefits may mean”. https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policy-topics/social-policy/explainer-understanding-snap-program-and-what-cuts3    Desilver, Drew. “What the data says about food stamps in the U.S.” https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/11/14/what-the-data-says-about-food-stamps-in-the-us/4    Explainer: Understanding the SNAP program–and what cuts to these benefits may mean”. https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policy-topics/social-policy/explainer-understanding-snap-program-and-what-cuts

The post The Hunger Crisis: Reflections Of An American Muslim appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Latino Muslims have often been spoken about, but rarely heard on their own terms. Their stories are too frequently marginalized, misrepresented, or ignored altogether. This is why narrative ownership matters. Without it, the richness of Latino Muslim identity risks being flattened into stereotypes or erased from broader religious and cultural histories.

As someone who has spent more than two decades researching, writing, and advocating for the visibility of Latino Muslims, I have witnessed both the challenges and the power of reclaiming our narratives. The struggle to be recognized as authorities in telling our own stories is ongoing, particularly in spaces that remain patriarchal and dominated by outsiders. Yet it is precisely because of this marginalization that it becomes all the more urgent to affirm the voices and contributions of Latino Muslims in the United States and beyond.

My exploration of Latino Muslim identity began during my undergraduate years at the University of Maryland, where I majored in modern languages and linguistics, specializing in Spanish and education. Having embraced Islam only five years earlier, I was still learning to navigate the intersection of cultural heritage and faith. Through coursework, I became fascinated by how Islam had shaped Spanish and Portuguese culture, and, by extension, the Americas. Linguistic, culinary, and traditional threads revealed connections between my ancestry and my faith, highlighting how deeply entwined Islam has long been with Latino identity. These discoveries reinforced the importance of telling stories that illuminate our history, assert our belonging, and resist erasure.

“Our goal was simple: to make knowledge about Islam accessible to our families and to other Spanish-speaking families. At that time, resources about Islam in Spanish or within a Latino context were scarce.” (PC: Stepping Stone Charity)

This academic curiosity soon evolved into a personal mission as I began volunteering at my local mosque to assist Spanish-speaking visitors and newcomers to the faith. After marrying my husband, another Latino convert whose family hails from Ecuador, we founded the PrimeXample Company in 2005, and it later evolved into Hablamos Islam. Our goal was simple: to make knowledge about Islam accessible to our families and to other Spanish-speaking families. At that time, resources about Islam in Spanish or within a Latino context were scarce. We began translating articles, fatwas, and educational materials, building a website, and offering our services as interpreters and translators at local mosques and community events. Our work was born out of the necessity for resources to explain our decision to embrace Islam in a way that resonated with our families’ cultural backgrounds and values. However, as we expanded, we discovered a broader community of Latino Muslims who shared our experiences and aspirations. Our work transformed from serving our own families to supporting a growing network of Spanish-speaking Muslims nationwide and even beyond US borders.

The Raíces Run Deep

When we moved to New Jersey, my husband and I became active in the North Hudson Islamic Education Center (NHIEC), where we helped their outreach committee and organized events for the predominantly Latino community in Union City. In a city where over 80% of the population is Latino, Spanish was the language of daily life. Take, for example, my husband’s grandmother; she migrated from Ecuador to New Jersey in the mid-to-late 1970s and did not speak a word of English despite living in Union City for decades. His parents learned broken English, but Spanish remains their dominant language.  Even in the mosque, the Friday sermon was simultaneously translated to Spanish on headsets for those who could not understand the usual Arabic. The outreach committee planned open houses and street parties, held regular classes for new converts, translated materials, and created spaces where Latino Muslims could connect, learn, and share their stories. However, the gathering they are most widely known for is the annual Hispanic Muslim Day, held every Fall, typically around Hispanic Heritage Month. A young Puerto Rican convert, Daniel Hernández (now Imam Daniel Hernández), conceived the idea for this celebration with the former Imam of NHIEC, Mohammad Alhayek. This year (2025) was the event’s 23rd anniversary.

Through our outreach work, we learned that Latino Muslims had been building communities long before us. From the inner-city Bani Saqr movement in Newark, New Jersey, and the Spanish-speaking mosque in New York, Alianza Islamica, to the Latino American Dawa Association (LADO), we connected with individuals and organizations dedicated to supporting Latino Muslims. In the days before social media, we networked through Yahoo groups, AOL chats, and email threads, forging bonds that transcended geography. We often reminisce about how we were connected even before social media. There is an untold history that is deeply personal, rooted in the desire to reconcile our heritage with our faith and to make sense of our identities in a society that failed so many times to recognize our existence beyond our conversion stories.

Despite our longstanding presence and contributions, Latino Muslims have often been sidelined in mainstream narratives. Too frequently, nuestras historias – our history and our stories – are told by outsiders like non-Muslim academics, journalists, or other opportunists, who lack the lived experience to truly understand our journeys. I have witnessed, time and again, how the phenomenon of Latino Muslim conversion is reduced to a headline, a curiosity, or a trend, rather than a testament to the resilience and diversity of our communities. The latest tendency seems to be checking off Latino Muslim characters on a diversity list to fulfill equity requirements without offering an authentic voice. I have personally received messages from people outside our community, who have never even met a Latino Muslim, yet want to add such a character to their books or illustrations simply because it is now considered “the thing to do.” Often, this is at the suggestion of an editor or professor eager to feature this so-called “new, up-and-coming” group, even though we are not new at all but have been an integral part of the dawah in the United States since the earliest documented conversions.

What’s Old is New Again?

This observation led me to dedicate my master’s thesis to researching Gen X and early millennial (Xennial) Latino Muslim converts and their contributions to American Muslim communities as I pursued graduate studies at Chicago Theological Seminary. I wanted to shift the focus from conversion to continuity, to examine what happens after the shahada, when the initial excitement passes and a lifetime of living Islam begins. As part of my research, I conducted in-depth interviews with Latino Muslims who have practiced Islam for twenty to thirty years. These individuals have raised families in the faith, established organizations, translated Islamic knowledge into Spanish, and built the institutions that others are now benefiting from. Their stories prove what the literature has missed for decades: that Latino Muslims are not the “new kids on the block” or the latest slot on the diversity checkbox.

“The work of Latino Muslims is not motivated by a desire for recognition, and so many of us are content to stay under the radar. But there is power in preserving history in our own words.” [PC: Social Cut (unsplash)]

Incidentally, marginalization of Latino Muslims, as well as other minority groups like African American and Native American Muslims, is not just external. It is compounded when individuals, sometimes even those with Muslim names, usurp our stories for personal gain. I recently encountered a book, cleverly titled “Latin Islámica,” which purported to explore the history of Latino Muslims. I ordered it on Amazon despite my better judgment, and upon receiving it, I was disappointed to discover that it was little more than a hastily assembled, AI-generated text, no more than sixty pages long, masquerading as scholarship, devoid of depth, authenticity, or respect for the lived experiences of Latino Muslims.

As someone who has spent years writing, translating, and advocating for my community, I find the trend of thoughtless reporting on Latino Muslims deeply insulting.

Our stories are not commodities to be packaged and sold for profit. They are the lifeblood of our communities, shaped by struggle, sacrifice, and unwavering faith. To see them reduced to superficial summaries or exploited for fame is a painful reminder of the ongoing battle for narrative ownership.

Additionally, Latino Muslims are not a monolith; our journeys to Islam are as diverse as our backgrounds. Even terms like Hispanic and Latino do not fully encompass our diversity. Some of us are converts, others were born into the faith, and many have family histories that span continents and generations. We are from several Caribbean islands and from every nation in North, Central, and South America. We are professionals, educators, community organizers, and scholars. Our contributions to our families, communities, and the broader Muslim ummah are vast and varied.

Historically, Latin America has embraced immigrants from every Muslim-majority country, including our brothers and sisters from Palestine, who could not find refuge in the US. They have been able to settle there, establish successful businesses, and reach some of the highest political positions. Yet, despite our shared history, our stories are overlooked, misunderstood, and/or misrepresented. The mainstream narrative tends to focus on the novelty of Latino Muslim conversion, ignoring the rich histories and ongoing work of those who have been Muslim for decades, or even generations. It fails to recognize how we have navigated cultural, linguistic, and religious boundaries to build vibrant, resilient communities.

Uplifting Latino Muslim Voices

The work of Latino Muslims is not motivated by a desire for recognition, and so many of us are content to stay under the radar. But there is power in preserving history in our own words. If we do not take ownership of nuestra historia, others will do it for us. The time has come for Latino Muslims to reclaim our heritage and assert our rightful place in the tapestry of American Islam. To do so means writing, speaking, and sharing our truth so that future generations, searching for guidance, inspiration, and reassurance, can benefit from it. We must also hold accountable those who seek to appropriate or misrepresent our experiences. Outsiders can research, conduct studies, perform surveys, and even sit at our tables, but they will never fully understand what it is like to live in our shoes, to walk our path, and to experience Islam as we do. It is even more frustrating when someone creates an AI-generated text, slaps a Latino title on it, and claims to have researched Latino Muslims. That is just pure laziness and a disrespect to all of us.

I have been raising my voice since at least 2005. And as time passes and I grow older, perhaps becoming less patient, my voice will become louder and more direct, because it is imperative to recognize those who have been working tirelessly to bring visibility to the Latino Muslim community in the US. I do not claim this work as mine. Many others deserve recognition, including Benjamin Perez, Khadija Rivera, Ibrahim González (may Allah have mercy on them), Juan Galvan, the creators of Banu Saqr, and the founders of Alianza Islámica. Dr. Juan Suquillo, Sheikh Isa Garcia, the Dawah committee at the North Hudson Islamic Education Center, the people at Islam in Spanish, and my contemporaries at the Ojala Foundation, LADO, LALMA, Latina Muslim Foundation, ILMM, and so many more have all contributed to our community’s growth and visibility. We must also remember the countless Latino Muslims who converted in the 1920s and 30s, and those who came before them.

We have to be respectful and mindful of our history. Just because we live in the age of social media and AI does not mean we are the first to do this or that, nor does it make us experts on others’ lived experiences. Our stories are not marketing tools or diversity props. They are sacred narratives shaped by struggle, faith, and resilience, and they deserve to be handled with integrity. As Latino Muslims, we will continue to speak for ourselves and preserve our own history, but we cannot do this work alone. I call on the wider Muslim community to uplift authentic voices, to seek out and cite the work of those who live these realities, and to support initiatives that support and empower our Latino brothers and sisters. Most of all, we must ensure our stories are told accurately and respectfully.

 

Related:

– The Fast and the ¡Fiesta!: How Latino Muslims Celebrate Ramadan

– 25 Things Latino Muslims Want You To Know

 

The post Owning Our Stories: The Importance Of Latino Muslim Narratives appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

At the tail end of the last millennium, before blogs and definitely before social media, there was a book published called Web Pages That Suck, a guide to badly-designed web pages aimed at people who want to design good websites. The author, Vincent Flanders, turned the concept into a website which he continued updating until 2015; the site now has clearly been abandoned, with lots of missing image markers and ads in every in-between space. Bad web pages were often full of animations and other material which distracted from the actual content, or the product someone was trying to sell. One website that really did suck was MySpace, an early social media contender, principally aimed at musicians (it allowed people to upload music for download) but used by lots of others as a networking site. It allowed users to make their pages as over-the-top as they liked and pages often had animations that made the text illegible and which took several minutes to load. It was taken over by Microsoft, which didn’t improve those matters until it was too late, and made it unfashionable in the era of the infamous bug-ridden Windows XP and processor-hogging Vista. It was crying out to be replaced and when Facebook came along, it was swiftly abandoned.

Last year a book was published by Cory Doctorow, former co-editor of Boing Boing and long-time advocate for online freedom as part of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Open Rights Group, titled Enshittification (edited extract here; you can order the book from their bookshop). This book was a thesis about how online services that were (or appeared) good to begin with go bad as their owners try to monetise them. In the early days, the owners portray themselves as freedom-loving in contrast to their competitors (like Microsoft and MySpace) and offer exceptionally good deals to consumers by undercutting existing companies using their venture capital, but then betray their users by selling their data to commercial customers, then betray the latter by making it more and more difficult to sell their products and publications, imposing onerous fees, limiting the reach of content and punishing them if they link to their own websites. The good deals end, the prices go up, the customer service and quality go down. Ultimately, you end up with a platform offering little other than garbage, surviving only because it is difficult for people to move as all their friends are on the site, or because they have bought a lot of music, video or literature which is locked to the apps, or because the competitors have been put out of business. He contends that “ultimately, they die”, but the principal enshittified web services have survived a lot longer than the sites, which included a fair few stinkers like MySpace, that they replaced. (Amazon does provide some value; its Prime membership offers include some films and music, and its returns system is better than a lot of the competition, but the deterioration of the goods on offer is undeniable.)

I’ve been online since 1995, when public access to the net was quite new, and I’ve been blogging since 2004, so I’ve seen how the Internet has developed. Search has changed from a number of competing engines like Infoseek, Excite, Yahoo and others to just Google and the privacy-oriented DuckDuckGo, neither of which existed in 1995. Early Google, in the late 90s, was just so good that it rapidly put most of the early contenders out of business; Yahoo survived because it took over a number of other services, although some have since been sold, such as Flickr; in the drive to monetise the services, paid content comes first after a useless AI-based summary. Social networking and interaction were provided by email lists and the Usenet newsgroup system; in the early 2000s, and particularly following 9/11, blogs grew more prominent. Finally, in the late 2000s, social media and what was then called ‘microblogging’ exploded, including Twitter and Facebook. Other sites existed back then; the Twitter protocol was used by rivals StatusNet and Identi.ca, neither of which still exist, while Facebook had competitors like Bebo, which was sold to AOL in a much-derided $850 million deal that cost the latter’s CEO his job and is now defunct, although it has been relaunched and then closed down again since 2013. Google made several attempts to launch microblogging and social media apps, none of which still operate. I wrote about Google Plus when it first launched, but Google strangled it at birth by not including functionality which Facebook had, or which Facebook had removed and which users might like. It had no group functionality, apart from anything else.

The thing is, Facebook was always horrible. It both sucked as a service, and was evil. It grew because of the disadvantages of the existing social media options: it wasn’t MySpace with its slow animations and legibility-destroying backdrops, it made it easy to share personal content without having to set up a blog, and it has mostly been free of spam, which was the bane of anyone who ran a blog which allowed user comments before 2007. The downsides were that features changed all the time, with valued functionality removed (such as the discussion forums within the group system) or senselessly changed (such as merging mail with chat), as I mentioned in that article on G+. Worse, earlier versions of FB had a ‘ticker’ feature which told all your friends if you made a comment on any post or group which was not private. I used to call this feature Snitchbooking. This was a large part of what makes Facebook actually evil rather than just bad: old social media consisted of email groups and forums about specific subjects, and if you posted on one, it didn’t appear on any other. Here, all your friends were on the same platform and you couldn’t keep groups of friends separate anymore. On most of the old sites, you could use a handle or pseudonym; Facebook demands that you use your real name.

Back in 2008 when Facebook was in its infancy and blogs were still popular, I spoke at a Muslim community event called “Wired Warriors” in London and put my view forward that there was going to be a “blog crunch”: that the blogosphere was heavily dependent on corporate off-cuts and long-shot business models, such things as offering the principal service for free while charging for support that a lot of users would not need, and that this situation would not last very long as blog hosts would need to pay bills. In the event, some blogging sites have not succumbed to this; WordPress still offers a functional free version of their hosted blogging platform and Blogger is still going, though TypePad has closed, LiveJournal was sold to a Russian company and Movable Type, a popular choice to run a blog in the 2000s with free and cheap personal plans, is now an expensive corporate product. However, a number of blogs disappeared in the move to social media and microblogging, as did a number of privately-hosted forums, and it’s those sites that have fallen victim to the crunch I predicted back in 2008: Twitter got markedly less useful as first Jack Dorsey and then Elon Musk sought to monetise it, restricting then blocking third-party clients and making ‘curated’ feeds the standard, while Facebook has undergone hyperenshittification — a shitty site getting even shittier — with friend and chosen-content feeds very difficult to find and the home feed being filled with promoted, often auto-generated slop, clickbait and churnalism. Meanwhile, Twitter (now branded X) has a default feed increasingly filled with racist and politically extremist content, driving a number of long-standing users to decamp to new, but underused, competitors such as BlueSky and Mastodon. On both sites, it has become difficult to promote blog articles, while many of the forums and email lists that previously allowed their promotion have closed.

Cory Doctorow gives some ideas as to how to de-enshittify the online world; these include unionising tech workers and strengthening anti-trust (competition regulation) laws so that one company cannot force competitors out of the market with subsidised undercutting or monopolise the supply chain. Sadly, the political climate right now is very much against any such legislative changes in many countries. Another legislative trend that makes resisting enshittification more difficult is the wave of online safety laws, requiring web service operators to impose age verification or police their services to ensure children are not exposed to ‘adult’ content. The motive is quite understandable, but it is precisely the large, established, enshittified service operators which have the resources to access this kind of technology, not those seeking to re-establish private forums or indeed new, open social media platforms, and this has led to some sites run on a shoestring to close, or to block users identifiable as being in the UK, Australia or other countries where such laws exist. One important way of reclaiming the online space is for a fund to be built up to buy out Twitter, either by an offer to its current owner or in the event of a distress sale. This would secure Twitter as a community resource and restore it to what it was before so much of its functionality was stripped away.

Is there a way back to what we had before social media swept it all away? Do we want those days back? Blogging was a lot more fun when people responded and there were lively discussions in the comment sections, but I also remember dealing with floods of spam and with Islamophobic comments; I don’t think I’ve had a single blog comment in a few years and I haven’t seen a lot of my old regulars for years now. For a while the discussion moved onto Facebook and Twitter and then it stopped altogether. Maybe people don’t read blogs anymore, but there are things you can’t say in a Twitter thread and we don’t want our writings to be stored on a social media site that might just choose to exclude us from it. When bloggers started shutting their sites down and moving onto Facebook around 2007, I had a sense that it wouldn’t end well and my fears were largely confirmed.

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By Ibrahim Moiz

Tributes And A Legacy of Defiance

Imam Jamil in his youth, known then as H. Rap Brown

The death in a high-security prison of veteran civil rights activist and community imam Jamil “Rap Brown” Amin has brought forth a tide of grief and tributes from throughout the United States and beyond. A pioneering and influential figure in the 1960s civil rights movement, imam Jamil’s life ended in a quarter-century of imprisonment under hotly contested charges and repeated refusals of appeal that could not staunch his influence as a groundbreaking activist and community leader within and beyond the Muslim and black communities.

Tributes have poured in for an aged activist long seen within his communities as a political prisoner falsely accused of crime and vindictively imprisoned despite a terminal illness. “Unsurprisingly,” remarked activist Zoharah Simmons, “the carceral system was unwilling to show any mercy for Brother Jamil…refusing a compassionate release! They made sure he would spend his last days under federal lock and key. But the State didn’t have the last word. Brother Jamil was bloody but unbowed.”

Outrage, Love, and Community Grief

Kalonji Changa mourned the imam, who “was not only my spiritual leader, he was one of my movement leaders, so I take his death personal. They allowed him to go blind and suffer the ravages of cancer while denying him the basic, life-saving medical care owed to any human being, let alone a political prisoner!”

The imam Omar Suleiman wrote, “For years we fought to free him. Today he is free. From prison to paradise God willing. He never lost his dignity, his voice never shook. His innocence was proven, but the system didn’t care. We cared. We loved. And InshaAllah, we will continue to move forward with his legacy.”

Who was this community leader that has attracted such fierce loyalty and affectionate solidarity? We will proceed to recount the remarkable life of Jamil Hubert Abdullah Amin Brown, who played a notable but largely overlooked role in the history of the United States, its civil rights and minority rights, decolonial struggle, and Western Islam.

Rap Brown

Nicknamed “Rap Brown” for the razor-sharp wit that he frequently used to cutting effect in firestarting condemnations of the American status quo, Jamil Abdullah Amin was born as Hubert Gerold Brown at Baton Rouge in 1943, growing up in Louisiana during the “Jim Crow” heyday. He and his elder brother Ed Brown were involved in activism for the rights of the widely downtrodden black community, reading widely and plunging into student politics.

Brown joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which began sit-ins and protests against racial segregation and discrimination in southern universities. In summer 1963 he witnessed its protests at the Maryland town Cambridge, led by Gloria Richardson, and was convinced that black activists needed to retain the right to fight back against violent intimidation.

Under Surveillance and Pressure

Though Richardson reached an accord to end Cambridge’s official discrimination with attorney-general Robert Kennedy, the brother of American president John Kennedy, civil-rights activism would repeatedly find itself in the cross-hairs of both racial prejudices as well as Cold War paranoia.

Even conciliatory variations of minority activism, such as the trend led by the preacher Martin Luther King, were routinely vilified as communist subversion not only by reactionary bigots but by many politicians and by officials as senior as Edgar Hoover, the sinister doyen of American security who directed his Federal Bureau of Investigation to use what can only be described as secret-police tactics against civil rights leaders. Unapologetically outspoken activists such as “Rap Brown” were a prime target of Hoover’s “Counterintelligence Program”, often called Cointelpro.

This drew a correspondingly sharp response from activists such as Brown; though he had been involved in legal civil-rights actions, such as the registration of black voters, he increasingly reserved the right to respond to violent provocation. Activists such as Brown, Malcolm Little, and Stokely Carmichael were also influenced by the decolonization of Africa and coordinated with liberation movements in African, Muslim, and decolonized, often leftist, countries, whose struggle they saw as linked to their own: in a reflection of this influence, the trio would change their names to, respectively, Jamil Abdullah Amin, Malik Shabazz “X”, and Kwame Ture.

Cold War and Confinement

After Malcolm’s murder, Ture, who led the Nonviolent Committee with Jamil as a major lieutenant, set up the Black Panthers movement, whose grassroots organization and “shadow governmental” structure immediately attracted subversion by Hoover’s agency. Jamil, who succeeded Ture as leader of the Nonviolent Committee, changed its name to “Student National Coordinating Committee” because, he quipped, “violence is as American as cherry pie.”

Indeed, the 1960s were a violent period, with assassinations claiming the lives of not only Malcolm but the Kennedy brothers and King. In this context and against significant intimidation, Jamil saw little need to adopt nonviolence as an inflexible principle. “Black folks built America, and if America don’t come around, we’re going to burn America down.”

This attracted caricatures of firebrand trouble-making; in fact, Jamil proved a thoughtful, disciplined organizer who would nonetheless hold his ground under fire with an often blisteringly sharp tongue. Though open to negotiations, he refused terms set by what he saw as a plainly unjust status quo.

In spring 1965 he joined a delegation that met Kennedy’s successor in the presidency, Lyndon Johnson, and was alarmed at the level of deference shown in what was effectively a negotiation. When Johnson complained that the activists’ nightly demonstrations had disturbed his children’s sleep, Jamil gave his condolences for the inconvenience but added that “Black people in the South had been unable to sleep in peace and security for a hundred years.”

Escalation, Resistance, and the Road to Arrest

Johnson did introduce civil-rights protections, but only at the cost of a militaristic foreign policy whose cauldron was the Vietnam war. For Jamil, who linked the struggle for civil rights to international solidarity against colonial supremacism, this was an unacceptable compromise.

In typically cutting parlance he called Johnson the“the greatest outlaw going” for his militarism abroad: “He fights an illegal war with our brothers and our sons. He sends them to fight against other colored people who are also fighting for their freedom.” This matched the views of the Black Panthers, who attempted to merge organizations and promoted Jamil to their honorary “justice minister”.

Jamil’s call, influenced by decolonial struggles abroad, for urban insurgency against oppression put him on thin ice, and the security establishment soon swooped. In summer 1967 he revisited Cambridge, which had dishonored its end of the 1963 agreement; he was promptly arrested in hotly disputed circumstances for supposedly inciting a riot; police chief Brice Kinnamon claimed to have staunched a “well-planned communist attempt to overthrow the government”, and governor Spiro Agnew alienated most black voters with his insistence that Jamil had been responsible. The case attracted widespread attention and was interrupted when the courthouse was bombed; Jamil went underground for eighteen months before he was sentenced to a five-year imprisonment.

Revolution by the Book

During his five-year imprisonment, Jamil converted to Islam. When he emerged, still only in his mid-thirties, and moved to Atlanta he led a life that belied the propaganda that had depicted him as a reckless troublemaker. In fact, he focused on quiet community building, beginning at the mosque and spreading out through the community, both Muslims and otherwise.

In one of his last interviews, delivered from prison, he quoted the Muslim caliph Umar Farouq ibn Khattab’s statement that Islam depended on community, which depended on leadership, which depended on allegiance and commitment to the roles and guidelines outlined by Allah. Thus a community, the incarcerated and ailing imam took pains to emphasize, depended on commitment to the path set by the Creator.

Jamil lived by his words, and set by personal example a thriving community of black Muslims grew in west Atlanta; Masood Abdul-Haqq, who moved there in autumn 1992, saw “the West End Muslim scene [unfold] like some sort of Black Muslim Utopia. A soulful adhan was the soundtrack to Black children of all ages in kufis and khimars playing with each other on either side of the street. The intersecting streets near the masjid gave way to a large covered basketball court, on which the game in progress had come to a halt due to the number of players who chose to answer the melodic call to prayer.

Overlooking this scene from the bench in front of his convenience store, like a shepherd admiring his flock, was a denim overall and crocheted kufi-clad Imam Jamil. Before I heard him utter a single word, it was obvious to me that I was in the presence of a transcendent leader.”

Building a Model Community and a Revolutionary Ethic

Khalil Abdur-Rashid, who grew up in the same community, noted that Jamil “would retain his devotion to changing the prevailing system and worked to teach his community to cultivate an alternative way of living that is not indicative of token social justice programs. He taught the importance of the five pillars of Islam and revolutionary ‘technologies of the self’ that, when actualized at the communal level, transform the society into a better one.”

Remarkably in a period where neoliberal economics and a burgeoning drug epidemic had ravaged much of the urban United States, the imam took pains to combat such social evils, which he linked to spiritual and material impoverishment. Man was not, he would emphasize, an animal consigned to give in to its appetites, and to surrender to such social evils was both personal and communal harm.

Though privately regretting certain “unseemly” language in earlier work, Jamil never compromised on his belief in communal liberation and emphasized the role of spiritual and personal development in his later writings, tying together personal and political progress for the community in his Revolution by the Book.

He visited these themes again at the funeral of his longstanding comrade Kwame Ture, and influenced his elder brother and longstanding influence Ed to embrace Islam as well. Though he maintained a low profile, he played a major role in leading what was by all accounts a dynamic and profound society; Atlanta mayor John Johnson gave the imam with an honorary police badge as a token of appreciation for his social work.

Confinement in the age of “War on Terror”

Yet with the end of the Cold War and the replacement of communism as a major irritant with “radical Islam”, Jamil once more found himself in the crosshairs of state paranoia. As a well-known Muslim who had collided with the state a quarter-century earlier, he was sporadically questioned whenever an incident of “Muslim terrorism” came up during the 1990s. In spring 1999 he was pulled up for allegedly imprisoning a policeman, simply because he had kept the badge given him by the mayor.

The following spring, two policemen tried to bring him in, did not find him at home, and after leaving were shot, one fatally. The survivor accused Jamil, even though his description of the suspect was wildly different and another individual later confessed. In any case, the accusation was enough to bring Jamil into custody. Capitalizing in large part on the anti-Islamic paranoia that took hold after 2001, the prosecution managed to convict him in spring 2002 and he was put in a high-security prison.

We need not recount at length the story of Jamil’s trial beyond the curiosity that key pieces of evidence were pointedly ignored, as was the confession of another man, and that the authorities, eventually as high as the Supreme Court, refused appeals and even clemency in light of the elderly prisoner’s failing health. The case bore similarities with his imprisonment in the late 1960s: contrived charges that ran rougshod over contrary evidence, coupled with paranoia relating to the alleged threat of the day: communism in the 1960s, “radical Islam” now.

A Passing That Echoes Through History

It is small wonder that supporters considered Jamil a political prisoner deliberately left to perish in a high-security confinement absurd for a sick, dying old man. Changa, who had been introduced to both Islam and revolutionary activism by the imam, was unequivocal: “This was a cold, calculated, STATE-SPONSORED EXECUTION designed in the high offices of the colonial apparatus!” He referred to it as “the assassination of an aging prisoner, carried out not with a noose, but with a waiting list and a bureaucratic denial slip!”, and “the refinement of the colonial terror—using the prison hospital as the final torture chamber for those deemed too dangerous to live in freedom, and too old to survive neglect!”

But he ended on a calmer note: “Imam Jamil al-Amin was a prisoner of conscience until his very last breath. Now, by the mercy of Allah, he is truly free of their chains…Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un. To Allah we belong, and to Him we shall return.”

Editors note: MuslimMatters offers our condolences to the Amin family and those who loved Imam Jamil Al-Amin, to his followers in the Dar movement. We learn from his life and commitment to Al Haq. We encourage people to attend his Janazah bi Gha’ib that is being held in several locations.

إِنَّا لِلَّٰهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ

Related:

Book Review of Revolution by the Book by Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (Formerly known As H Rap Brown)

What Does the Civil Rights Movement Mean For Muslims?

 

The post A Remarkable Life Unbowed: Jamil “Rap Brown” Amin appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.