The Muslim Student Association @ UConn

I was honored to give a talk on "Misconceptions about Islam" at the Muslim Student Association's Ramadan Awareness Dinner and Fast-a-Thon at UCONN. Many Professors and students expressed to me their appreciation for both the topics covered in my lecture and my manner of delivery. But of course one can not please them all. So I am replying to one Ms. Cayla Smith who misunderstood one of the topics, was offended, did not ask me any questions then voiced her protest or disapproval via the The Daily Campus.

U.S. officials are being advised in internal government documents to avoid referring publicly to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups as Islamic or Muslim, and not to use terms like jihad or mujahedin, which "unintentionally legitimize" terrorism.

Growing list of companies reject host's rhetoric

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 2/15/08) - The Hate Hurts America Community and Interfaith Coalition (HHA) today announced that Sam's Club, a division of Wal-Mart and one of the nation's largest warehouse clubs, has joined a growing list of companies that have stopped advertising or refuse to place their ads on Michael Savage's "Savage Nation" radio program.

Source: The Day
By: Rev. Bruce M. Shipman, Groton CT.

During a lunch party in London, the woman on my right remarked that she was Islamophobic. I let the remark drop, but afterwards resolved never to do so again. I do not let anti-Semitic remarks pass unchallenged, and I know half truths told in a climate of fear can allow hatred to grow. Neither anti-Semitism nor Islamophobia is OK.

How a Three-Word Mantra Has Undermined America

By Zbigniew Brzezinski*, Washington Post, Sunday, March 25, 2007; Page B01

Source: AOL, By Bernd Debusmann, Reuters

The first caller to the station in Washington said that Klein must be "off his rocker." The second congratulated him and added: "Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country ... they are here to kill us."

"We may wish to think of the Arab -Israeli conflict as just one regional conflict among many. But it is not," said Annan. (Reuters)

IslamOnline.net— The yawning divide between Islam and the West does not have its roots in religious differences but rather political conflicts, particularly the continued Israel occupation of Palestine, a galaxy of world-renowned scholars, politicians and religious leaders said in a report presented to the UN Monday, November 13.

"Neither ancient history nor religious differences are responsible for present tensions between Western and Muslim populations," concludes the High-level Group of the Alliance of Civilizations.

"The Israeli-Palestinian issue has become a key symbol of the rift between Western and Muslim societies and remains one of the gravest threats to international stability," it stressed.

UN Secretary-General who received the report at a ceremony in Istanbul on Monday.

"We may wish to think of the Arab -Israeli conflict as just one regional conflict among many. But it is not," he said.

"As long as the Palestinians live under occupation, exposed to daily frustration and humiliation, and as long as Israelis are blown up in buses and in dances halls, so long will passions everywhere be inflamed."

"The key is, if it does not hamper our primary obligation to deliver the news and information to our viewers and listeners then we would be respectful of that," said Byford.

Islamonline.net — Amid a heated anti-hijab debate in the West, the BBC, the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, said it does not object to have news presenters wearing head covers, refuting accusations of being too sensitive to the feelings of Muslims viewers.

"The key is, if it does not hamper our primary obligation to deliver the news and information to our viewers and listeners then we would be respectful of that," Mark Byford, the BBC Deputy Director-General told The Daily Telegraph on Sunday, October 29.

Byford, who has overall responsibility for the corporation's news division, said their job is to effectively communicate to the audience the information they are delivering.

Uri Avnery is a journalist, peace activist, former member of the Knesset, and leader of Gush Shalom.

By Uri Avnery

"The story about "spreading the faith by the sword" is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims - the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna. I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions."

Source: ANTIWAR.COM, by Patrick J. Buchanan

In 1938, the year of Anschluss and Munich, a perceptive British Catholic looked beyond the continent over which war clouds hung and saw another cloud forming.

"It has always seemed to me … probable," wrote Hilaire Belloc, "that there would be a resurrection of Islam and that our sons or our grandsons would see the renewal of that tremendous struggle between the Christian culture and what has been for more than a thousand years its greatest opponent."

Belloc was prophetic. Even as Christianity seems to be dying in Europe, Islam is rising to shake the 21st century as it did so many previous centuries.