Terror Claims Against Muslim Leader Rejected by Court

clipped from www.baynews9.com Thursday, September 4, 2008 An influential New Jersey Muslim leader accused by some federal officials of having terrorist ties but praised by others as being an important ally won his fight to gain permanent U.S. residency Thursday. A federal immigration judge in Newark ruled that Mohammad Qatanani, the spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, can remain in the U.S. Qatanani was active in interfaith activities in his region; Jewish and Christian leaders testified on his behalf at his trial. Among those who testified was a Conservative Rabbi, David Senter. Rabbi Senter wrote: "If I did not know the imam as a person, I would not be willing to support him publicly. I believe in this man. He is a man dedicated to human rights and the pursuit of peace.Do we disagree on some major issues regarding the State of Israel? You bet we do. My hands are those of an individual who volunteered to till Israeli soil in Ofra, Harai Bet El (known as the west bank). My action is part of what the imam might perceive as an "occupation." That reality does not change the fact that I have a deep respect for this man and what he stands for — human rights and respect among all people." In support of ‘a consistent voice for moderation’ By Rabbi David Senter The Jewish Standard Published May 2, 2008 The fruits of grassroots interfatih action at work!

Muslim Girl

I have not found this magazine at my local newstand yet, but I am intrigued by the mention of interreligious dialogue on the cover(see the upper right corner), the non-hijabi cover model and just about everything else about the existence of this magazine.

Aliens in America: A New Sitcom this Fall

Here is something to keep your eye on! Canadian Broadcasting Company has had a comedy running this year, Little Mosque on the Prairie, with great success. Let's see what American T.V. has come up with and how Americans react.


July 1, 2007
Television
Did You Order a Muslim? (Yuk Yuk)
By EDWARD WYATT
THE NEW YORK TIMES

THERE are countless ways for a new television comedy to fail: The pilot bombs with focus groups, the series is shoved into an undesirable time slot, an actor begs off at the last minute. “Aliens in America,” a new sitcom scheduled to have its premiere on the CW network in the fall, has dodged most of these bullets.

The series, about an all-American family in Wisconsin that takes in a foreign exchange student as a way to bolster their geeky son’s popularity, has gone through two networks, two production studios and a pilot episode that sat on the shelf for a year.

Now it is one of the more anticipated new shows of the coming season. During the networks’ recent presentations to advertisers of the new fall line-ups, a promotional clip of “Aliens in America” received a better reception than nearly all of the comedies screened by NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox.

While the show could still fail, that it is around at all can be credited to the persistence of its creators, David Guarascio and Moses Port, and the faith of Dawn Ostroff, the president for entertainment at the CW.

“We needed people who totally believed in it to give it a chance,” Mr. Guarascio said recently. “When you shoot a show that you really love, and it comes out the way you wanted it to, and a network wants to put it on the air, to have it put on the shelf for a year can lead to an existential crisis.”

The story began in fall 2005 when Mr. Guarascio and Mr. Port first pitched the idea to NBC. The premise certainly had comic potential and was topical: The family, the Tolchuks, are surprised to find their exchange student arriving from London is Raja, a Pakistani Muslim who changed planes in Britain. On his first day at school the teacher asks the class how many of them are mad at Raja because, as one student puts it, “his people flew the planes into the buildings in New York.”...

The new series has not met with universal acclaim. The previews being shown on the CW Web site, cwtv.com, have drawn criticism on the Internet saying the program perpetuates negative stereotypes of Muslims — not to mention of the clueless American Midwesterners — and that it conflates numerous, distinct Middle Eastern and South Asian cultures. But its creators say the subjects touched on by “Aliens in America” are ones that are familiar to the CW’s target audience.

“So often people feel alienated in their own community, in their school, or in their family or culture,” he said. “But we wanted to show something positive about that, where if you can just push past the differences on the surface of two people, you can find that there is so much that is similar going on with you.”

Muslim Americans: An Important New Study

Last month the Pew Research Center issued a survey report entitled, Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream." This is an important new resource

The first-ever, nationwide, random sample survey of Muslim Americans finds them to be largely assimilated, happy with their lives, and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the world.

The Pew Research Center conducted more than 55,000 interviews to obtain a national sample of 1,050 Muslims living in the United States. Interviews were conducted in English, Arabic, Farsi and Urdu. The resulting study, which draws on Pew's survey research among Muslims around the world, finds that Muslim Americans are a highly diverse population, one largely composed of immigrants. Nonetheless, they are decidedly American in their outlook, values and attitudes. This belief is reflected in Muslim American income and education levels, which generally mirror those of the public.

Key findings include:


Overall, Muslim Americans have a generally positive view of the larger society. Most say their communities are excellent or good places to live.

A large majority of Muslim Americans believe that hard work pays off in this society. Fully 71% agree that most people who want to get ahead in the U.S. can make it if they are willing to work hard.

The survey shows that although many Muslims are relative newcomers to the U.S., they are highly assimilated into American society. On balance, they believe that Muslims coming to the U.S. should try and adopt American customs, rather than trying to remain distinct from the larger society. And by nearly two-to-one (63%-32%) Muslim Americans do not see a conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society.

Roughly two-thirds (65%) of adult Muslims in the U.S. were born elsewhere. A relatively large proportion of Muslim immigrants are from Arab countries, but many also come from Pakistan and other South Asian countries. Among native-born Muslims, roughly half are African American (20% of U.S. Muslims overall), many of whom are converts to Islam.


Based on data from this survey, along with available Census Bureau data on immigrants' nativity and nationality, the Pew Research Center estimates the total population of Muslims in the United States at 2.35 million.

Muslim Americans reject Islamic extremism by larger margins than do Muslim minorities in Western European countries. However, there is somewhat more acceptance of Islamic extremism in some segments of the U.S. Muslim public than others. Fewer native-born African American Muslims than others completely condemn al Qaeda. In addition, younger Muslims in the U.S. are much more likely than older Muslim Americans to say that suicide bombing in the defense of Islam can be at least sometimes justified. Nonetheless, absolute levels of support for Islamic extremism among Muslim Americans are quite low, especially when compared with Muslims around the world.

A majority of Muslim Americans (53%) say it has become more difficult to be a Muslim in the U.S. since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Most also believe that the government "singles out" Muslims for increased surveillance and monitoring.

Relatively few Muslim Americans believe the U.S.-led war on terror is a sincere effort to reduce terrorism, and many doubt that Arabs were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Just 40% of Muslim Americans say groups of Arabs carried out those attacks.

To read the whole document, go to http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=329