Islamic Horizons May/June 2023

RAISING OUR RANKS — ENRICHING STUDENTS’ LIVES

DESIGN & LAYOUT BY:

Gamal Abdelaziz COPYEDITOR: Jay Willoughby. The views expressed in Islamic Horizons are not necessarily the views of its editors nor of the Islamic Society of North America. Islamic Horizons does not accept unsolicitated articles or submissions. All references to the Quran made are from The Holy Quran: Text, Translation and Commentary, Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Amana, Brentwood, MD.

Time to Rethink and Rebuild

By the time this issue reaches our readers, many of us will have started preparing for the our most cherished journey — hajj — an undertaking that requires spiritual, physical and spiritual preparation, as well as devotion, gratefulness, and learning how to exercise tremendous patience when confronted with the unexpected.

Once again, we reprint the handy “Hajj at a Glance” chart, which Maryland architect Ansar Hasan Burney developed in 1983 to share his experience. We have been republishing it in our pre-hajj issue since 1995.

This year, ISNA is hosting its 24th annual Education Forum, an event that has established itself as a much-valued convention for Islamic educators, administrators and school boards members nationwide. Magda Elkadi Saleh and Abir Catovic, members of the ISNA Education Forum Planning Committee, offer us a glimpse into this year’s offerings.

Educating and helping our children develop into the leaders of tomorrow is no easy feat, and educators take their responsibility in this regard seriously. As this is a collaborative effort, many of the decisions taken are based on the feedback that ISNA receives from the attendees’ session surveys.

Two years ago, the Islamic Schools League of America conducted research with Islamic school alumni. One key finding stood out: Their knowledge of African and African-American history was sorely lacking. African American alumni “cited common racist actions and micro-aggressions from fellow students, staff and administrators” (IH, September/ October 2022).

In the fall of 2021, executive director Shaza Khan, Ph.D., along with the board, reviewed the research data and decided to address this inequity with a student-centered contest. The resulting “Celebrating African and African American Muslim History Contest” has become a springboard for introducing Muslim 6th-8th grade students to their fellow Muslims’ amazing contributions and achievements.

The intention is to include families, teachers and community members, as well to further amplify awareness and knowledge of African Muslims’ crucial contributions throughout history

In this issue, we delve into a muchneeded area of focus — mental health. Dr. Basheer Ahmed, a former professor of psychiatry at Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, points out that an estimated 5% of the world’s adult population suffers from depression. Yet, despite the growth of this country’s Muslim population, no reliable data indicates how many of them suffer from this mental health issue. Muslim organizations need to take the initiative by launching a project that meets the discipline’s standards.

Rasheed Rabbi, who serves as a khateeb and Friday prayer leader in three Northern Virginia correction centers, invites Muslim Americans to become more involved with a much-overlooked segment of their growing community — those who are blessed with faith while incarcerated. Notably, he points out that Muslims make up about 9% of state prisoners, despite making up only about 1% of this country’s population — not because more Muslims are committing crimes, but because inmates easily find guidance and a strong sense of justice in Islam. He laments that nothing could be sadder than American prisons, where opportunities of da‘wa are so rife, remain a taboo subject.

Isn’t it time to deploy out resources where they benefit us most — da‘wa by whatever name you want to call it. As he correctly notes, we’re ignoring or at best relegating da‘wa to the sidelines, while a growing number of Muslims are engaging in interfaith discussions and ready to take on the burden of learning and discussing intricate theological points. While interfaith engagements are unavoidable, prisons are more fertile fields for Islam’s faster and easier expansion.

May Allah accept our striving and provide ease to everyone facing hardship. And may we, in turn, be merciful to others. Ameen. ih

PUBLISHER

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)

PRESIDENT Safaa Zarzour

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Basharat Saleem

EDITOR

Omer Bin Abdullah

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Iqbal Unus, Chair: M. Ahmadullah Siddiqi, Saba Ali

ISLAMIC HORIZONS

is a bimonthly publication of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) P.O. Box 38 Plainfield, IN 46168‑0038

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ISNA’s Ongoing Quest to Serve Muslim Americans

Identifying and dealing with the causes of our community’s problems

BY SYED IMTIAZ AHMAD

On Sept. 28, 2022, ISNA’s management board established a Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) to formulate a plan for serving the Muslim American community over the next 5-7 years. The committee comprises Dr. Syed Imtiaz Ahmad (chair), Azhar Azeez (treasurer, ISNA), Basharat Saleem (ISNA, executive director), Salwa Syed (president, MYNA) and Malika Khan and Magda Elkadi Saleh (board members).

Strategic planning is a process that determines where the organization is now, where it wants to be in the future and how it intends to get there. This undertaking involves

constructing goals and services based on community inputs and gathering data from the stakeholders — members, management boards, staff and field experts involved in delivering services — via opinion surveys, interviews and publications.

Seeking guidance from contributors to earlier strategic planning rounds, we contacted Rafik Beekun (professor, University of Nevada) and Dr. Ihsan Bagby (professor, University of Kentucky), both of whom provided helpful advice and offered to assist the SPC in the current round.

A cursory environmental scan revealed the following problems facing Muslims in the

U.S.: Mental health issues related to Muslim family problems • Ideological, social, religious and political forces shaping the Muslim family structure and function; lack of awareness about Islam as a way of life • Muslim family identity, values and practices; moral and psychological decay • Pornography, extramarital affairs and prostitution; teenage pregnancy • Rising rates of divorce, separation, single parent families and common-law relationships • Same-sex couples, childless couples, both parents working outside the home • Increasing rates of depression, suicide and homicide; clinical anxiety disorder • Domestic violence, child abuse, elder abuse and intergenerational conflict.

Considering the widespread public discourse about mental health, we contacted Dr. Saadia Ahmad (clinical neuropsychologist, Toronto) and Dr. Sameera Ahmed (clinical psychologist; executive director, Family and Youth Institute, Michigan). Both provided valuable insight into the significant presence of mental health problems among Muslim families and stated that its level is similar to or even higher than that of the general population.

Ahmed has fond memories of MYNA and ISNA vibrance. Salma Abugideiri, a licensed professional counselor, feels likewise. More than their professional advice, I sensed in them the longing that ISNA could realize their higher expectations.

A great American historian Dr. Patrick Fagan wrote on May 15, 1997, that “[o]ur future as a country depends on the strength of our families. Such strength is waning, which should give every American pause for concern and motivation for action.”

Starting with a cursory environmental scan, we contacted several organizations and institutes doing work of interest to ISNA. The Institute of Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) was most welcoming. Petra Alsoofy (outreach & partnerships manager, ISPU) provided valuable input to prevent mental health problems based on ISPU’s survey of Muslim community issues, among them the following: Helping parents nurture their children

• Protecting children from trauma

• Educating young people to understand and manage their emotions

• Supporting people under a lot of stress at work and

• Reducing loneliness for older people.

ISPU also provided a link (https:// www.ispu.org/10-needs-2) identifying ten areas of need: Remedying Islamophobia

• Creating a supporting environment for

Convention Highlights

➤ Renowned Speakers

➤ Inspiring Sessions

➤ Grand Bazaar with 500+ Booths

➤ Youth Programs

➤ Matrimonial Banquets

➤ Entertainment Sessions

➤ Film Festival

➤ Chaplaincy Conference

➤ Interfaith Banquet

➤ CSRL and President’s Award

➤ Children’s Program

➤ And much more

Muslim youth • Creating awareness regarding substance abuse and addiction and de-stigmatizing seeking help • Creating a standardized introductory curriculum for new converts • Creating educational and support programs related to marriage and family matters in Muslim spaces and addressing issues related to divorce and racism • Establishing community-driven measures for alleviating poverty • Creating

as well as developing God consciousness through the teachings of Islam, the Quran and the Sunna. Munoz mentioned the need to offer welcome bags and Islam 101 classes to converts. Salhab pointed out the need for supporting voter registration and political/ civic engagement.

The University of Miami’s Muslim American Project (MAP), which has conducted surveys on Muslim mental

The completed strategic planning document consists of, among other things, a set of goals or targets to be achieved. Each stated goal is described in terms of the identified objectives, as are the specific steps that will lead to its realization. Each step is expected to be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.

more inclusive mosques and welcoming spaces for young adults, women and new converts • Gathering demographic data about weekend Islamic schools, sharing best practices, and making improvements in the curriculum • Making Muslim spaces more welcoming and inclusive for Black Muslims and addressing intra-Muslim racism and • Increasing Muslim voter registration, voting and increasing Muslim representation in higher levels of government.

Magda Elkadi Saleh (administrator, Florida Islamic Schools) helped make some valuable contacts: Imam Hassan Sultan (The Muslim Connection), Mahmoud Hassan (licensed mental health counselor, Tampa Bay), Necva Ozgur (head, Weekend Islamic Schools Educational Resources [WISER]), Rose Munoz (community advocate and cofounder, Muslim Volunteer Program) and Samer Salhab (head, Muslims for Democracy and Fairness).

Imam Hassan identified various needs for Muslims, such as making copies of the Quran and learning materials on Islam more widely available, creating mentor/mentee contacts and facilitating mental health assistance. Mahmoud Hassan pointed out the need to deal with family problems ranging from pornography to alcohol and drug addiction. Ozgur cited the need to nurture spiritual growth and a Muslim American identity,

health, helps some Muslim communities deliver mental health services to Muslims. Amy Weisman de Mamani (professor, University of Miami; licensed clinical psychologist) heads this project. We also talked with Salman Shaheen Ahmad and Merranda McLaughlin, members of the MAP team and University of Miami doctoral candidates. Their fieldwork experiences will provide insight on how ISNA could respond to the community’s needs. Salman also offered to help process data from ISNA’s surveys.

Rania Awaad (professor of psychiatry, Stanford University School of Medicine), a frequent speaker at ISNA events, has shown an interest in working with us. In addition to her academic affiliation, she is director of the Stanford Muslim Mental Health & Islamic Psychology Lab and its community nonprofit.

ISNA’s SPC reviewed all the input it received through cursory environmental scans during its meeting in December. Keeping in mind the strategic planning process’ national scope and the processing of all ISNA stakeholders’ data collected from surveys, the SPC recommended and received approval to engage data science specialist Dr. Besheer Mohamed as a consultant. On his request, ISNA assigned Haroon Imtiaz (director of communications, ISNA) to coordinate with him on design, its launching

and subsequent processing of the data from the national opinion survey. This survey is accessible at https://www.surveymonkey. com/r/ISNA2023. People say your vote counts. ISNA says your opinion matters. Weigh in. It will only take a few minutes of your time.

A strategic plan for ISNA will produce outcomes to guide it on changes in its vision, mission, desired objectives and services, which are responsive to and effective in serving the community’s needs.

In 1849, French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose — the more things change, the more they stay the same. In other words, all organizations possess a basic and empowering essence — a “soul” — that continues to exist throughout the changes, although outwardly they may look different. This fact makes change a complex endeavor. Sarah Deady, director of Australia’s specialist advisory and restructuring company McGrathNicol, provides valuable advice on managing change, namely, that positive human dynamics are crucial to success in this endeavor.

The completed strategic planning document consists of, among other things, a set of goals or targets to be achieved. Each stated goal is described in terms of the identified objectives, as are the specific steps that will lead to its realization. Each step is expected to be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound (https://www. samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/nc-smartgoals-fact-sheet.pdf).

Strategy is a plan for achieving a goal. While its objectives remain the same, the strategy adopted depends on the target audience. Tactics are the methods used to achieve results in a particular situation. The overall framework for description is the GOST model: Goals, Objectives, Strategy and Tactics (https://oyster.team/sorting-out-goals-objectives-strategy-and-tactics).

Using both strategic as well as operational planning keeps an organization on track. Success doesn’t happen by accident. Adopting the right plan allows one to measure the progress made and introduce changes, when necessary, both of which help the organization stay competitive and effective. ih

Dr. Syed Imtiaz Ahmad, emeritus professor at Eastern Michigan University, has served as both ISNA’s vice president and president and ISNA Canada’s vice president and president, as well as president of the Computer Science Association of Canada, the Association of Pakistani Scientists and Engineers of North America, the Pakistan Canada Association of the Windsor Islamic Association, and chair of ISNA Canada’s School Board.

COMMUNITY MATTERS

The Peel District School Board, a regional municipality in t he Greater Toronto Area, voted unanimously on Jan. 25 to adopt the 31-page anti-Islamophobia strategy, co-developed by board staff and community partners, to create a detailed plan to affirm Muslim identities and dismantle Islamophobia – the first such move for a Canadian school board.

“It feels like a huge win, a historic moment and, really, like a turning point in our fight against Islamophobia, specifically within educational spaces,” Aasiyah Khan of the National Council of Canadian Muslims told The Toronto Star. The newspaper was part of the consultation process. “We’re really hoping that other [school] boards take note.”

She added, “Everyone is very excited, but we’re also mindful that we need to continue to work to ensure that this does come to fruition.”

In September 2021, the board passed a motion, introduced by then-trustee Nokha Dakroub, committing itself to developing an anti-Islamophobia strategy. Consultations were held with staff, students, families and community partners, including the Urban Alliance on Race Relations and the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians.

At its last meeting of 2022, the Warren (N.J.) Township Board of Education approved the 2023-24 calendar that, for the first time, includes a day off for Eid al-Fitr.

Warren and neighboring community members attended the meeting to express their gratitude to board members after passing this resolution.

In a statement, Watchung Hills Regional High School (WHRHS) student Noora Kuran said, “The win in Watchung and Warren is one small step for Watchung Hills and one giant leap for minorities nationwide. I hope that what we’ve accomplished inspires others to do the same. It is beautiful to see our hard work for the last few years pay off.”

WHRHS students and parents are still entangled in an 18-month struggle to have the two Eid recognized as a holiday.

Beachwood City (Ohio) Schools officials have added both Eid holidays to their academic calendar, as part of their “commitment to creating an inclusive and responsive

Khair Community Center, a new mosque and community center in Phoenixville, Penn., hosted its opening on March 26. The new center, located at Upper Providence Township, recently completed construction of its first phase.

Bilal Baqai (president, KCC) said, “We are excited to open our center that will be a resource not only for our growing Muslim community, but also our broader community. It’s truly inspiring to see the support of our community and allies. At a time when many note religion is dying, we are seeking to showcase the dynamic and youthful community that has made this project a reality.”

Akbar Hossain (Pennsylvania secretary of policy and planning), Robyn Hannigan (president, Ursinus College), Pennsylvania State Rep. Tarik Khan, Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu, PhD (executive director, CAIR-Philadelphia), among

learning community.”

Starting in the 2023-24 school year, Eid al-Fitr will be recognized as a day off for students when they fall on a weekday.

“By providing these days on the calendars, families can celebrate without having to choose between sending their child to school or participating in a family event,” stated Assistant Superintendent Ken Veon.

Starting next year, Moorestown (N.J.) Township Public Schools will take the day off for Eid al-Fitr. Moorestown Board of Education voted unanimously on Feb. 21 to approve the 2023-24 school calendar.

Moorestown, the first town in Burlington County to recognize the holiday, joins a growing trend of New Jersey school systems that give Muslim students the day off. Eid al-Fitr, which will fall on April 10-11 this year, marks the end of Ramadan.

Moorestown schools will have April 10 off.

This marks the first Muslim holiday recognized on the Moorestown school calendar, a town in which Muslims represent a growing population. ih

ACHIEVERS

Asma Naeem (B.A., Johns Hopkins University; M.A., American University, J.D., Temple University, Ph.D. [art history], The University of Maryland) is the new director of The Baltimore Museum of Art. She is the first person

other political, civic and interfaith leaders, attended the opening ceremony.

The second phase includes a full-sized gym, a co-working space, a cafe, additional classroom space, a youth center and more. It will also house IQRA Institute, the sisters’ organization. The 3.5-acre site, purchased for $1.35 million, has 140 parking spaces and an additional overflow of 100 that could be utilized. ih

of color to lead this 109-year institution. The museum, which charges no entrance free, holds a collection of more than 97,000 historical and cultural objects.

Since joining the museum in 2018 as its chief curator, Pakistan-born Naeem, who grew up in Baltimore, has organized several shows including last year’s Salman Toor survey. She is currently curating “The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century,” which will open in April. Other positions on her resumé include working at Washington, D.C.’s National Portrait Gallery, as well as a practicing lawyer in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office as a criminal prosecutor and at the Office of Bar Counsel in Washington, D.C.

Rizwan Siddiqi, PE (president and CEO, EBA Engineering, Inc.), received the American Council of Engineering Companies/ Maryland (ACEC/ MD) 2023 Community Service Award.

Siddiqi (B.S., University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore; M.S., Virginia Tech) is currently serving a three-year term on the Maryland Transportation Commission. An inaugural member of DC Water’s Business Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council, he’s also an advisory board member for the University of the District of Columbia’s civil engineering department.

On March 18, Georgetown University officially opened the Yarrow Mamout Masjid, the first mosque with ablution stations, a spirituality and formation hall and halal kitchen on a U.S. university or college campus. It was also the first U.S. university to hire a full-time Muslim chaplain — Director for Muslim Life Imam Yahya Hendi — 24 years ago.

Georgetown formally dedicated the space to Mamout (b.1736), kidnapped from West Africa by slave traders when he was 16 and sent to Maryland. A skilled brickand basket-maker, he worked hard to save money and buy his freedom. After facing many obstacles and losing his money three times, he finally achieved his goal in 1796.

Four years later, he bought land in Georgetown and worked to purchase his son and partner’s freedom and helped others purchase theirs. Throughout his life, despite racism and religious persecution, Mamout remained committed to his faith. He wrote and spoke in Arabic. When he died, his obituary appeared in 38 East Coast newspapers.

In addition to being past president and current chair of the United Maryland Muslim Council, Siddiqi has served as president of the American Council of Engineering Companies/Metro Washington (2019); commissioner for the Maryland Higher Education Commission (2011-18); Maryland Commission to Modernize State Procurement (2016); Howard County (Md.) Environmental Sustainability Board (2013); the Howard County Energy Task Force (2015); board member Howard EcoWorks; president, Tehzibul Akhlaq Trust USA; and the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Task Force (2008).

In 2012, Maryland Governor O’Malley presented him with the Community Service Award.

Sarah Shamsuddin was elected to the Westborough, Massachusetts School Committee for a threeyear-term. Shamsuddin was the top v ote-getter in the three-way race for two School Committee seats at the annual Town Election on Tuesday, March 14.

During the campaign, she stated: “I am running for School Committee because I would like to give back to the town I grew up in and the town that my children are now growing up in. When I was attending West-

John J. DeGioia (president, Georgetown University) stated, “We recognize, in naming our masjid for Yarrow Mamout, a man of great strength, faith and perseverance. A person who fought against the racism and discrimination of his time, whose life was animated by his Muslim faith, a man who was integral to the foundation of this neighborhood and this city.”

The event was attended by students, alumni, Georgetown community members, Muslim leaders in Washington, D.C. a representative of the Washington, D.C. Council, along with diplomats from Turkey, Qatar and Indonesia.

The mosque, which opened its doors in the fall of 2019 and completed its construction and design this year, provides a space for reflection, prayer, community and interfaith dialogue for Georgetown students. The Yarrow Mamout Masjid is one of seven sacred spaces on Georgetown’s main campus, and one of three spaces for Muslim students to pray across Georgetown schools, including Muslim prayer rooms located in Georgetown Law School and the School of Medicine. ih

borough schools, I was one of a very small number of minority children. I believe there should be minority representation on the School Committee as we know this to be a growing population. My background in legal studies gives me a valuable skill set for the committee in negotiating contracts and analyzing applicability of state law as it relates to our schools and town charter. Equally is important. I would like to set an example for my children as well as other children so they know that the way to make an impact in our society is to engage.”

Blue Valley High School (Stillewell, Kan.) junior Noor Haideri won the first place in a global competition aimed at inspiring youth to think creatively about science. She garnered $400,000 in prizes.

By winning the eighth annual Breakthrough Junior Challenge, a science video competition sponsored by Khan Academy and National Geographic, she wins a $250,000 college scholarship. Her submission beat out those submitted by 2,400 students aged 13 to 18 from 100+ countries.

Haideri’s 90-second video focuses on melanopsin, a protein in the eye that gets stimulated when exposed to the blue light emitted by electronics and explains why

looking at our phones in bed may make it harder to fall asleep.

Her first submission in 2020 made it to the top 10% out of 5,600 applicants. Her 2021 submission reached the top 5% out of about 3,400 applicants.

In addition to her own $250,000 scholarship, Haideri will select a teacher who inspired her to receive a $50,000 prize. The prize also includes the installation of a $100,000 new science lab at her high school.

She says she has her eyes set on a Harvard M.A./Ph.D. program after she graduates from high school in 2024.

The University of Massachusetts’ Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy honored Tahirah Amatul-Wadud (executive director, CAIR-Massachusetts chapter) as a Distinguished Public Service Fellow at the center.

Launched in 2016, the program seeks to build bridges among generations of women in public leadership and prepare the next generation of leaders, with a particular emphasis on advancing the leadership of women of color.

Amatul-Wadud (Elms College cum laude, 1998; Western New England University School of Law 2005) has 16+ years of experience in corporate, family and civil

rights law. She served as a commissioner with the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women (2014-20), was named a Top Woman of Law by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly and, in 2021, received the prestigious Massachusetts Bar Association Community Service Award.

At her law practice in Haledon, Kahf specializes in family law and immigration. Since 2003, she has sat on the board of CAIR's’ New Jersey chapter; she now serves as its chairwoman. In addition, she’s the legal adviser to Wafa House, a nonprofit domestic violence and social services agency based in Clifton, and chairwoman of the Islamic Center of Passaic County.

Two other Muslimas, Sharifa Salaam and Kalimah Ahmad, serve as Superior Court judges in Essex and Hudson counties, respectively.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Iread with interest the articles on Islamophobia in March/ April issue. I was also intrigued by the top ten list of Islamophobia. While I agree with the items 2 through 10, I vehemently disagree with the first one: “FIFA World Cup.”

New

Eric Adams appointed Muhammad U. Faridi (John Jay College of Criminal Justice ‘04) on Feb. 21 as the independent civilian representative to the New York City Police Department’s Handschu Committee. The Handschu Guidelines, set forth under a 1985 consent decree, regulate the NYPD’s policies and practices regarding investigations of political activity. The committee plays a critical oversight role in ensuring compliance with the agreement’s terms, including when the NYPD opens or extends such investigations.

Faridi, the first Muslim American appointed to the role, has served as the chair of the New York City Bar Association’s executive committee and on the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary.

“The independent civilian representative on the Handschu Committee plays an important role in ensuring that Americans from all backgrounds are treated fairly and equally under our nation’s laws. The representative is charged with monitoring police investigations relating to sensitive matters (including those relating to political activity and terrorism) and reporting any abuse of civil liberties to the NYPD commissioner and the federal judge assigned to the Handschu case,” stated Faridi.

On Feb. 27, the New Jersey Senate appointed Nadia Kahf, a family law attorney from Wayne, N.J., as a state Superior Court judge. Gov. Phil Murphy nominated her a year ago. The first hijabi judge to on the bench, she will serve in Passaic County.

Sidra Mahmood has become the first full-time Muslim chaplain in Williams College’s 230-year history. The college is located in Williamstown, Mass.

Mahmood, who graduated from Mount Holyoke College intending to pursue a Ph.D. in biology, turned to chaplaincy after feeling isolated while working and living alone in Boston.

She succeeds Aseel Abulhab (‘15), who functioned as the interim Muslim program coordinator through the end of the last academic year.

Mahmood, who hopes to inspire other Muslims, will seek to help dining services provide halal foods. She worked with the dining services to ensure that adequate food will be available during Ramadan.

She also liaises with the Office of Campus Life to help Muslim students secure housing, including facilities for wudu’.

Dr. Farha Abbasi, assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Michigan State University and a core faculty member of the Muslim Studies Program, was recognized by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on March 30 at “Women on the Frontlines: Celebrating Women Faith Leaders,” which was hosted by Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra to honor 15 women faith leaders for their work and leadership qualities in the service of humanity.

In 2009, she received the American Psychiatric Association’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration minority fellowship and used the grant

It is no secret that Qatar bribed FIFA officials to land the rights to hold the World Cup. And they went berserk in giving promises that they knew they would not be able to fulfill, like making alcohol available to the spectators. They also agreed that there would be no discrimination against people who have different sexual orientations, and that foreign workers would be treated with compassion and dignity.

Qatar went back on its commitments on the eve of the World Cup. It is ironic that while touting their Islamic credentials in public, they reportedly made alcohol available to private groups as well as to the foreign guests of the state.

Criticism of the State of Qatar for its hypocrisy does not rise to the level of Islamophobia.

S. Amjad Hussain Emeritus Professor of Humanities Emeritus Professor of Cardiovascular Surgery University of Toledo

money to create awareness about cultural competency, to redefine it as not just tolerance but acceptance.

Abbasi is the founding director of the Annual Muslim Mental Health Conference which was attended by experts from 30 countries. She also launched a Global Muslim Mental Health Conference in Malaysia and Jordan.

Lori Saroya, the first Muslima woman of color elected to Blaine City’s (Minn.) council, was sworn into office on Jan. 4. In the special election race for Blaine’s City Council Ward 1, she won 3,801 votes and defeated former longtime Blaine City council member Dick Swanson (3,727 votes). ih

York City Mayor

RAISING OUR RANKS — ENRICHING STUDENTS’ LIVES

ISNA’s 24th Education Forum provides educators opportunities

BY MAGDA ELKADI SALEH AND ABIR CATOVIC

responsibility in this regard seriously. As a collaborative effort, many decisions are based on the feedback ISNA receives from the attendees’ session surveys.

THIS YEAR’S THEME: RAISING OUR RANKS — ENRICHING STUDENTS’ LIVES

All planning committee members were asked for their input. The original seven themes were narrowed down to three, and then to one. The selected theme resonated with all of us, and we hope it will resonate with this year’s attendees.

As I write this article, my mind goes back to two Education Forums: The first one I attended (2000) and the first one at which I presented (2001). Both were memorable events, and the knowledge gained and shared at both remain relevant and useful.

In 2000, I was a new principal trying to learn the ropes and lead my school to success. I vividly remember attending Safaa Zarzour’s session, “A Day in the Life of a Principal.” I took copious notes and referred to them and the handouts for many years. Two great takeaways kept my mind focused on the tasks at hand and helped me prioritize my days.

First, the realm of knowledge vs the realm of influence, especially when working with the board. This concept helped me relieve my frustrations about things over which I had no control or authority and focus on the things that were my responsibility: What I needed to know but really wasn’t responsible for, what I was responsible for and needed to keep others informed about, and what I was jointly responsible for with the board and needed to communicate to others.

Second, the priorities quadrants, namely,

Important & Urgent, Important but NOT Urgent, NOT Important but Urgent, and NOT Important & NOT Urgent.

I couldn’t have imagined then that years later I’d be a co-presenter during the annual Principals’ Pre-Conference.

In 2001, I took a group of my teachers and my vice principal to the Education Forum. I remember looking out at them as I prepared to present for the first time: “Effective Communication.”

I spent a lot of time on my first-ever presentation and have recycled and reused it many times during the past 22 years. Its lessons and takeaways come from Islam and our beloved Prophet’s (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) example, and thus hold timeless and beneficial lessons for all of us.

Since I began sitting on the Education Forum Planning Committee 12+ years ago, I’ve had the honor and pleasure of serving with a team of Islamic school educators and leaders who call for, review and select those proposals that we feel will best benefit our professional peers. Educating and helping our children develop into the leaders of tomorrow is no easy feat, and we take our

We often get bogged down with the weight of our jobs. However, we need to remind ourselves of our crucial roles as educators and leaders — not a self-imposed importance, but one decided upon by God. All of us must remain cognizant of the fact that God elevates the ranks of those who seek knowledge and then pass it on to others.

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT AT THIS YEAR’S EVENT

We have a great lineup of speakers from Islamic schools, universities and educational organizations on a wide array of topics in addition to the regular sessions and the four pre-conferences.

This year’s pre-conferences — Weekend Schools, Arabic, Quran, and Leadership — run from Friday morning to late afternoon with breaks for lunch and Jumuah. We hope that the speakers, all of whom are leaders in their fields, will delve deeply into these topics that are so important for our schools and communities.

The Arabic, Quran, and Leadership pre-conferences have been constants for years; the highly successful Weekend Schools pre-conference was added last year. While the forum’s primary sessions are geared mainly toward full-time Islamic schools, we know that 90% of Muslim students attend public schools and receive most of their Islamic education at weekend schools. Therefore, as our weekend schools must

receive the same attention and support as our full-time schools do, this pre-conference is designed for them.

Starting after Friday’s dinner and keynote address, the forum’s four tracks will be led by the invited educators, leaders and field experts. The tracks are:

➤ Arabic & Quran. Sessions will focus on best practices with practical applications for teaching and assessing students at different levels using various strategies and methods.

attendees leave feeling refreshed, recharged, inspired and ready to move their classrooms and schools to the next level.

BENEFITTING FROM PREVIOUS EDUCATION FORUMS

I was happily surprised when, one day in 2013, a mother of one of my school’s students asked me to present my 2001 “Effective Communication” to our parents. So many presentations from the early forums are

The Education Forum begins with a call for papers. Due to the multitude of Muslim educational professionals, many proposals were submitted. The forum’s planning committee reviews the submissions and selects those presentations that provide the most up-to-date information and practical strategies. This is a difficult process, for the submissions tend to be excellent — however, only a limited number of presentations can be made.

The Peer-to-Peer teaching model encourages connectivity and collaboration within classrooms and boosts morale and well-being. This also holds true for the Education Forum. Participants like myself have developed long-time friendships with colleagues who they can reach out to for help and support. Such contacts would never have been made if this forum didn’t exist. In addition, learning how peers overcome some of the obstacles that they face on a daily basis helps one develop the courage to experiment with the shared strategies. Finally, the forum allows us to see that the struggles within an Islamic school are common to schools in general and that good intentions and collaboration, along with divine help, can overcome all obstacles. ih

➤ Curriculum & Instruction. Topics will range from the more traditional to the latest developments in curriculum and instruction from Chat GPT to Brain-Based Learning, to Identifying & Teaching Students with Exceptionalities, and so much more.

➤ Islamic Education. Resources and strategies will be shared to guide and assist educators to develop Prophetic characters in their students. The film and media resources used to reinforce Islamic education and project-based projects are designed to make Islamic education more engaging and relevant for our students.

➤ Leadership. Leaders from our schools will share their tried-and-true strategies in effective leadership from leading with compassion to writing a great handbook, becoming a reflective practitioner and embedding culturally responsive leadership in our schools.

The planning committee thoroughly reviews all submitted proposals to ensure that the presentations are relevant, practical and engaging. All attendees are expected to actively participate in the presentations and workshops and share their personal experiences while learning from those of others.

The full program, as well as registration information, can be found at https://isna. net/education-forums/. We pray that all

online and can be found with a simple search.

During the years of Covid-19, the Education Forums were virtual. All presentations are available on ISNA’s YouTube channel. In addition, there’s a wealth of knowledge online from the Education Forums held in Chicago and Los Angeles.

PEER-TO-PEER LEARNING AT THE EDUCATION FORUM

Every professional, K-12 educators included, knows the importance of ongoing development in his/her expertise. Education is ever evolving, and the students change from year to year. Therefore, educators and administrators are always looking for the latest educational theories and strategies. For 23 years, ISNA has provided just such an event: the Education Forum. The 24th Education Forum will be no different.

The Education Forum utilizes the Peerto-Peer teaching model. Educators who work at Islamic schools, which have been operating in the U.S. for 30+ years, have been training their students for success and have a wealth of information to share with others. In addition, professionals involved in educational research and youth-related fields can provide valuable information to our schools’ teachers and leader.

Magda Elkadi Saleh is head of school, Bayaan Academy Tampa and member, ISNA Education Forum Planning Committee. Abir Catovic is a board member of WISER (Weekend Islamic Schools Educational Resources).

While the forum’s primary sessions are geared mainly toward full-time Islamic schools, we know that 90% of Muslim students attend public schools and receive most of their Islamic education at weekend schools. Therefore, as our weekend schools must receive the same attention and support as our full-time schools do, this pre-conference is designed for them.

THREE PERSPECTIVES ON ISLAMIC EDUCATION

Three experienced educators share their perspectives

BY NORA ZAKI MANTAS

Many Muslims hold strong opinions about Islamic schooling. Unfortunately, many parents often feel they must choose between a public or private school’s rigorous academics and an Islamic school whose secular curriculum may require some strengthening. I asked three experienced Muslim educators what they believe is the best option for our youth.

Susan Labadi is an experienced middle and high school instructor, administrator, consultant and founder of Genius School, Inc., which provides thought leadership through writing, editing and social media promotions for clients. A Waldorf educator for over 20 years, Anjum Mir’s reflections focus on the Waldorf school’s spiritual component of education, what it means for Muslim students and applying the Waldorf experience in Islamic education. Habeeb Quadri is superintendent of the Muslim Community Center Academy (MCC) Academy in Skokie, Ill.

During her internship, her supervising instructor wondered if she would want to stay there, although a public-school teaching career offered much more in salary, ease and benefits. Labadi recalls telling her that she felt loyalty toward and love for her school, for it had become her “village” in which others could find support and continue to grow their faith in Islam and benefit from its wisdom. In short, she wanted to contribute to this cause.

Labadi has noted various challenges during her career, among them uncertainty about the quality of Islamic education, overwork of staff and the lack of pension or retirement plans.

Going into more detail, she pointed out that although her school had consistently high scores on national standardized exams and acceptances to Ivy League institutions, there was always pressure to prove their worth in secular versus sacred subjects.

As regards overwork, she stated, “Especially in the early years of our school, some teachers had teaching assignments with five different preps a day among multiple subjects and grade levels. Administrators worked seven days a week between teaching, serving as liaisons to the board and parents, committee assignments, handling disciplinary responsibilities, human resources functions, being test administrators, evaluating and training staff and drafting policies.”

to best manage the resources and are most aware of trends in education. This oversight must be changed.

Labadi believes that the availability of the Council of Islamic Schools in North American (CISNA) and the Islamic Schools League of North America’s (ISLA), in addition to the Islamic Education Communities Network (IECN) listservs’ unique networking and resource-sharing opportunities, is extremely important for Islamic schools, as is the presence of caring people who can adapt to change quickly. Principals should become more proactive in seeking out community stakeholders’ potential contributions.

Students also benefit. They develop lifelong friendships, foundational knowledge and habits, and a positive Muslim identity; can discuss sensitive topics with adults who share Islam’s guidelines; and can personally experience diversity in their school, learn about the world’s Muslim cultures and nourish their hope for solidarity within the umma.

SUSAN LABADI

Labadi fell into Islamic education accidently. While living in Palestine with her family, her children’s school principal asked her to teach social studies and Islamic studies. When she and her family returned to the U.S., Labadi volunteered to be a substitute teacher at her children’s Islamic school. After earning her certification as well as a master’s degree, she taught several social studies and psychology classes for students in the sixth through twelfth grades.

Understandably, the failure to provide future financial security resulted in high level of administrator and teacher turnover. Some excellent talent was lost, and those who stayed remain undercapitalized. Many Islamic school teachers are still paid less than their public-school counterparts.

Other challenges exist, among them the following: building facilities are at full capacity in many schools and raising funds for adding a building or making improvements takes a very long time. Surprisingly, principals aren’t always involved in the board’s budgetary decisions or privy to the budget, although they’re the ones who know how

When asked about her role model(s), Labadi mentioned Abd al-Fateh al-Ghuddah’s “Prophet Muhammad: The Teacher” (2018), which summarizes the Prophet’s (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) practices, Abu Zayd al-Balkhi’s “Sustenance of the Soul: The Cognitive Behavior Therapy of a Ninth Century Physician” (2013) and the scholars al-Ghazali, Ibn Ata Allah al-Iskandari and Hamza Yusuf. In the secular realm, she has always aligned intuitively with William Glasser’s Choice Theory. Labadi’s sister gifted her Matthew Kelly’s “Holy Moments” (2022), which explains how doing good deeds can have a ripple effect for our world and salvation. She tries to read a few pages of Hamza Yusuf’s “Purification of the Heart” (2017) each night and is looking forward to reading Shirzad Chamine’s “Positive Intelligence” (2012).

In conclusion, Labadi shared that she’s excited to see so many young people trying to improve their Islamic scholarship and Arabic. She hopes that all Islamic educators will hone their Islamic scholarship to both

guide themselves and help our struggling society; emulate the Prophet’s manner when interfacing with people to foster a better understanding of Islam; and maintain a sense of awe and enthusiasm for sharing that with youth as the curriculum is traversed with an Islamic reverence.

three R’s are introduced only in the first grade. Anjum’s parents instilled in her a love of Islam. Her father told her that although she was born and raised Muslim, she had to make the intentional choice to continue to practice the faith by recommitting to her shahada, the testament that there is no God but God and that Muhammad is God’s messenger. She is inspired by Prophet Muhammad’s life and appreciates al-Ghazali’s works, especially his focus on the inner dimension of one’s spiritual life. Mir believes that the internal dimensions of belief, rather than an outward, identity need to be emphasized to the youth.

goals were to implement MCC’s seven principles and add a few of his own: establishing a strong school governance, climate, culture, community relationships and religious programs with an emphasis on faith in action; supporting the development of teachers; building a sense of belonging, accountability, experiential learning, God-conscious students and staff; and fiscal responsibility, evaluating, reflecting and strategizing.

Quadri says there’s no greater person than the Prophet as a role model of tarbiya (spiritual and moral development), faith and character. He was also influenced

ANJUM MIR

Mir, a former journalist, became involved with Islamic schooling by teaching at the high school level. While at California Islamic school she noted that the curriculum was neither integrated — Quran and Arabic classes were separate subjects — nor interwove spirituality and spiritual foundations.

When asked if this country’s Islamic schools could be improved, she stated that because many schools only want to reinforce an Islamic identity, “Islamic subjects” were just other subjects. She and her husband were even hesitant about enrolling their children in Islamic schools.

Anjum first visited a Waldorf school in Texas and liked its atmosphere — the process of growing up as a human being with an overtly fundamental recognition that every child is a spiritual being growing toward something greater. Inspired by a Christian cosmology coming out of the early 1900s, the Waldorf schools’ founder Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) developed and implemented such a curriculum. Anjum used the term “anthroposophy” (using a human being’s wisdom), which was important for Steiner. Despite his negative opinion of Islam and Muslims, he drew from Islam.

Waldorf teachers view his idea of “the Christ impulse” as the fitra (one’s innate connection to God) and therefore seek to help students reach back to their spiritual light through nurturing and keeping their connection to God clear. During early childhood, teachers focus on helping them adjust and grow into their bodies as instruments for learning: fine motor skills, integrating reflexes and the body’s various planes. The

HABEEB QUADRI

Quadri says he owes his interest to his parents, who were Sunday school teachers. After he graduated from Sunday school, his father asked 14-year-old Quadri to join him in teaching, become a youth volunteer and help improve the classes. This experience inspired him to become an educator. His parents fully supported his decision to join this field of education.

Quadri defines Islamic education as giving students the tools in a holistic approach so they can become God-conscious individuals who are lifelong learners and productive citizens. The goal is to be successful in this world and in the hereafter with Prophet Muhammad as the guide.

During his 14-year career as MCC’s principal — he is now its superintendent — his

by Mr. Earl (his eighth-grade social studies teacher), Kim Marshall (an educator/ author), William Glasser (a psychologist), Dr. Tasneema Ghazi (an author/educator), Imam Siraj Wahhaj and his high school coaches Carter and Ray Whitson.

When asked what he wants to see more of from Islamic educators, he mentioned the following: a growth mindset (words and actions), always reflecting on your “Why?” and renewing your intentions; ongoing development (continually improving); building a sense of belonging and positive culture; and focusing on the importance of character in our faith, and love for God, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and all human beings.

In terms of a teacher’s personal qualities, Quadri is looking for faith in action, gratefulness, building empathy, a strong sense of self identity, as well as social, emotional and mental concerns. ih

Nora Zaki Mantas is founder of MyMuslimChaplain.com, a consultation company which offers workshops and services to institutions of higher education, prisons, hospitals, and other places where Muslims are a substantial population but do not have proper representation of their needs. She is also a student at Chicago Theological Seminary studying with Bayan Islamic Graduate School pursuing an MA in Islamic Theology. Nora can be found on Instagram @ mymuslimchaplain.

[Author’s note: These interviews were conducted December 2022]

Surprisingly, principals are not always involved in the school board’s budgetary decisions or privy to the budget, although they are the ones who know how to best manage the resources and are most aware of trends in education. This oversight must be changed.

HEALING AN ISLAMIC SCHOOL STARTS WITH HEALING ITS CULTURE

The link between school culture and student achievement

BY SAMAR AL-MAJAIDEH

camaraderie among teacher workgroups. Strong school cultures are characterized by deeply held and widely shared core values. In general, those who contribute to it are more likely to commit to its core values if they share a common understanding of them. This builds unity of purpose, organizational commitment, loyalty and cohesiveness. On the other hand, if academic achievement is not highly valued in low-performing schools, students and teachers will lack the motivation to improve.

EVALUATE YOUR SCHOOL CULTURE: TWO ASSESSMENT TOOLS

As technology helped educational practices evolve, researchers have developed a variety of school cultures and climate instruments to gain insight into what needs to be improved to affect student outcomes positively. Such instruments include the organizational health inventory and the school culture triage survey.

The term “school culture” can be used to explain how a school forms norms and values and how they impact teachers and students. Culture influences every part of the school day, from what faculty members talk about during their breaktime to the instruction strategies promoted.

Schools are complex and diverse systems, partly because they’re made up of interconnected components. In other words, change in one component will cause changes in other areas (L. S. Kaplan & W. A. Owing, “Reinvigorating School Culture to Improve Student Outcomes,” 2013). Among the many factors contributing to school culture are the dynamic interactions among students, faculty, administrators and parents. In addition, the dynamics can be seen in both public and private schools.

Islamic school leaders must gain a deeper insight into this culture if they want to effectively manage and impact it. For example, researchers Mukhtar and Ali’s study at the State Islamic Senior High School in

Indonesia’s Jambi province found that school leaders and culture were important factors for teacher satisfaction (scholarsmepub. com/sjhss-25/).

There are two types of school cultures: healthy and unhealthy. Educational leaders should seek ways to heal the latter, and those who understand school culture (e.g., its values, expectations, assumptions and vision) to bring about cultural changes that increase teachers’ retention, job satisfaction and attendance.

A school’s main responsibility is to foster a learning environment for its students. Developing a strong culture, one that promotes rigorous academic standards, competent leadership and cooperative teacher–staff relationships, are key factors that contribute to student outcomes. When students and teachers work in a healthy and positive environment, classrooms can be transformed into places where students are naturally motivated to learn.

Healthy schools accomplish their objectives and instill shared principles and

Developed by Dr. Wayne K. Hoy, the Organizational Health Inventory has 37 questions for the elementary survey and 44 questions for the secondary survey. The five dimensions of school health for elementary schools are academic emphasis, collegial leadership, institutional integrity, resource influence and teacher affiliation. The seven aspects of school health for secondary schools are academic emphasis, consideration, institutional integrity, initiating structure, staff morale, principal influence and resource support (W. Hoy, J. C. Tarter & B. Kottkamp, “Open School/Healthy Schools,” 1991).

The School Culture Triage Survey assessment tool, created by C. R. Wagner (“The School Leader’s Tool for Assessing and Improving School Culture,” 2006), measures the degree to which the following three cultural characteristics are present: (1) professional collaboration (whether teachers and staff collaborate to find solutions that will improve organizational and instructional issues), (2) affiliative and collegial

leadership and cooperative

relationships, are key factors that contribute to student outcomes. When students and teachers work in a healthy and positive environment, classrooms can be transformed into places where students are naturally motivated to

relationships (how well staff and teachers support one another and enjoy working together) and (3) efficacy or self-determination (examines the school members’ motivation to grow and improve their professional skills).

Good school cultures are created by maintaining the community’s commitment,

Healthy School Culture Characteristics

teacher effectiveness and parental and student support. Muslim educators especially are responsible for trying to foster a positive culture so that students, faculty and other stakeholders can work together to accomplish shared goals. Building healthy cultures requires infusing Islamic manners and morals into daily practices and

➊ Faculty and staff feel valued and esteemed by the principal, students, parents, and central office administrators.

➋ Faculty and staff have a shared sense of meaningful purpose, what is important, an ethos of caring and concern, and a genuine commitment to helping students learn.

➌ Underlying norms are collegiality, collaboration, continuous learning, openness to new ideas, problem-solving, improvement, and hard work.

➍ There is a strong sense of responsibility among faculty and staff members to ensure that students are learning at the highest level possible.

➎ Everyone values professional development and reflection, sharing, and professional practice, so all can improve their skills in teaching and leading.

➏ Data, problem-solving, and decision-making are shared with faculty, staff, students, and parents.

➐ Rituals and Traditions celebrate student accomplishment, teacher innovation, and parental commitment.

➑ Faculty and staff feel motivated, productive, successful, and mutually supportive.

➒ Informal network of storytellers, heroes, and heroines provides a social web of information, support, and history.

building positive relationships among school members.

Healing the school culture is important, for our community faces numerous challenges, and educational reform is an essential part of communal responsibility. To expand, healthy school cultures can drive educational reform initiatives and connect educators with the community, which can provide access to much-needed support and resources. Numerous studies have confirmed that the school culture must support educational reform at struggling schools so that change can happen (T. E. Deal & K. D. Peterson, “Shaping School Culture,” 1999). Our schools’ cultures can be healed by examining the relationships among students, parents and the community. Students’ achievement will only improve when our schools have positive and supportive cultures.

The table below displays the characteristics of healthy and unhealthy school cultures. ih

Unhealthy School Culture Characteristics

➊ Staff feel as if they are treated poorly, disrespected, and as if they were part of the furniture.

➋ Faculty and staff lack a shared sense of meaningful purpose; norms reinforce inertia. Employees want to do their jobs and leave. Faculty believe that it is their job to teach and the student’s job to learn.

➌ A dministrators and faculty are unwilling to change. Interpersonal tone is oppositional and prickly. Collaboration is discouraged.

➍ There is a tendency for faculty and staff to blame students and/or parents for their lack of progress and achievement.

➎ Professional development and staff reflection are viewed as a waste of time: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and “this too shall pass” are the ethos.

➏ Principals see all data and make all decisions.

➐ Innovations and achievements by individuals and groups go unnoticed.

➑ Faculty and staff feel exhausted, unproductive, frustrated, unhappy, and unsupportive of colleagues, with occasional hostility among staff.

➒ No school traditions or heroes exemplify the school’s purpose or values.

Source: L&W (2013). “Reinvigorating School Culture to Improve Student Outcomes”.

Dr. Samar Al-Majaideh is research project manager, Islamic Schools League of America.

Resources

Wagner, C. R. (2006). The School Leader’s Tool for Assessing and Improving School Culture.

Developing a strong culture, one that promotes rigorous academic standards, competent

teacher–staff

learn.

FINDING AND RETAINING TALENT Islamic schools in a low-unemployment environment

BY LISA KAHLER

If you’re short-staffed going into 2023, you’re not alone. According to Comeet Resources (https://www.comeet. com), 52% of U.S. companies report that overcoming staffing shortages is harder than just one year ago, especially for schools and nonprofits, as wages and benefits tend to be less than those offered by private employers. For example, 69% of K-12 public schools reported their primary challenge for the 202223 school year was the lack of candidates — 53% of public schools started the school year understaffed (National Center for Education Statistics, Sept. 7, 2022, News Release).

In its “COVID-19 & Islamic Schools: 2020-2021 Year in Review,” the Islamic Schools League of America (ISLA) stated that 52% of Islamic school principals indicated that “hiring and retaining highly qualified staff” is a major concern. A quick search on Indeed revealed that Islamic school employees in California are paid $15-22/hour — the state’s minimum wage is $15. The same search revealed that Arabic teacher positions at public schools nationwide pay $22-29/hour.

With the national unemployment rate at 3.5% (December 2022), few out-of-work people are looking for jobs. In March 2022, 44% of current employees reported looking for a new job, and 50% of them said they were looking for higher pay (CNBC.com). Given these realities, how do Islamic schools, already operating on a shoestring budget, find employees?

The hiring and retention process, along with its associated activities, can be loosely grouped into five categories: planning for future hires, the pre-hire application process, hiring and on-boarding, retention and recognition, and off-boarding. Putting sustained time and effort into the “planning” stage results in long-term dividends.

PLANNING FOR FUTURE HIRES

According to Felixglobal, “Talent pools are a database of people who could effectively fill the boots of any of your current employees should they decide that it’s time to move on. It’s your contingency plan and an essential method of reducing the cost and time to hire

and ensuring your businesses productivity is not affected too much by resource and skill shortages.”

One way to establish this resource is to get to know your current and former parttime (as well as current full-time) employees, parent volunteers and alumni by entering the following data into a spreadsheet: names, contact information, education level, skills, employment status, references, supervisor feedback and interests. Ask current employees for referrals, as they’ll only vouch for qualified individuals, and keep the list’s members in the loop by signing them up for the school newsletter and other forms of communication.

Individuals who want to develop their skills can be encouraged through professional development opportunities and/or stipends. Such programs encourage employee engagement and provide the school with more qualified employees and/or individuals to meet its long-term needs.

When positions become available, you can quickly identify potential candidates who are already engaged with your organization and inquire if they would be interested. This has the advantages of keeping them in the talent pool if they aren’t interested, and also reduces the “time to hire” process.

Referrals, internal hires, training from within and hiring from an existing talent pool speed up the hiring process, shorten onboarding, reduce costs and increase retention and employee morale. Hiring known talent also reduces the new employee’s overall anxiety, as he/she already knows others in the workspace.

Real Life Example 1. On average, school X has 30 full- and part-time staff. Annually, one or two individuals resign at the end of each school year. With the onset of Covid, coupled with increased student growth, additional paraprofessionals, substitutes, afterschool Quran teachers and teachers, were needed.

In response, the administration team created an informal list of all involved parents and part-time employees and, over the school year, reached out to the most promising of them to “volunteer” in classrooms to do arts-and-crafts activities. After each “volunteer” session, the supervising teachers and designated administrator reviewed this individual’s performance.

Based on this initial analysis, the school admin team identified two individuals with excellent classroom skills and a professional demeanor. We offered them substitute teacher positions for the remainder of the school year and, when openings emerged,

full-time positions for the up-coming school year. At the end of the school year, three second-tier candidates who had been asked to volunteer multiple times during the second semester were offered part-time positions for the next school year.

This approach enabled the admin team to spend the summer focusing on curriculum development. While it took time to develop and monitor the potential talent pool, it provided immediate dividends and provided a potential pool of candidates before the school year began.

Real Life Example 2. In its regular employee review sessions, school Y noted that one paraprofessional and one full-time teacher were being underused and therefore looking for other jobs. Learning that the paraprofessional was interested in working with an older student, they increased her job satisfaction by reassigning her to a higher grade level the following year.

The middle school teacher, who needed a challenge, was encouraged to obtain her school admin credential. Her classwork required the analysis of student data that the school had to provide as part of its accreditation process. The school provided a stipend and upgraded her job title, thereby obtaining a trained assistant administrator who is now more engaged and can substitute for admin team members. A win-win situation for all.

ADDITIONAL OPTIONS

Another option is to work with the local community college to develop an internship program. By partnering with a teacher training program, students may perform their mandatory service hours at your schools as tutors or classroom volunteers assisting the lead teacher. A supervised intern program can educate interns about your community’s religious norms and expectations.

Although a less direct way of expanding the talent pool and obtaining possible employees, it does provide awareness within the community, positive engagement with Muslim organizations and interacting with qualified individuals who may have otherwise never heard of your institution.

JOB DESCRIPTIONS

Part of this process consists of developing accurate job descriptions that clearly state the position’s title, primary responsibilities, required and recommended qualifications, as well as salary range. Not all states require the final item.

A bank of concise job descriptions allows the school admin team and/or HR lead to quickly and efficiently advertise, both internally and externally, for available positions. This can also be done to the school community through social media, school newsletters, mosque bulletins and websites that have free and adaptable templates.

When screening initial applicants, an accurate job description allows the hiring team to easily identify those candidates who meet the minimum standards and to ensure that all applications are reviewed with the same criteria.

tests, role-playing and demos so he/she can demonstrate his/her skills and capabilities; arrange one or more sessions using standardized questions and role-play scenarios; and verify the candidate’s information and rank him/her via a set process.

◆ When contacting a potential employee, send him/her a written document clearly stating all of the position’s relevant aspects and state the date on which all statutory forms, identification verification and other organizational paperwork must be completed and received.

◆ Introduce the new employee to the

KEY STEPS IN THE OVERALL HIRING AND RETENTION PROCESS

Developing a robust talent pool is a cost- and time-effective approach to meet a school’s unexpected future needs. According to Talentguard, “Talent pools are crucial to organizations who are prioritizing strategic workforce planning, succession planning or long-term recruitment. They are also a marker of top performing organizations.” Accurate job descriptions, internship programs and professional development for current employees are other key methods that bolster the hiring process’ planning stage.

Achieving success in this undertaking is the result of several steps, such as the following.

◆ Maintain an up-to-date talent pool database on individuals already connected to the organization and referrals, and identify and clearly list the available position’s scope and requirements.

◆ Post it internally and externally, request referrals from external stakeholders and hiring organizations, and identify those applicants who meet the position’s minimum qualifications.

◆ Before hiring an applicant, administer

company’s staff and protocols, arrange for a seasoned veteran to help him/her transition and provide workplace advice, determine the length of his/her probation period and provide extra support.

◆ Gauging the new employee’s job performance is crucial. This necessitates supervisors’ holding regular meetings during which the employee’s progress, areas of concern and future goals will be discussed. At a minimum, formal and informal evaluations must be conducted once a year.

◆ Managerial staff at all levels must also pay attention to ongoing relationship-building among employees and team members, as well as foster employee engagement and recognize individual or team contributions if they want to achieve lower turnover rates.

◆ Have a clear departure process in place that covers both firing an unsuitable employee as well as one who is leaving voluntarily. This includes an exit interview, the return of company materials (physical and digital), recognition for long-term employees and offering ongoing engagement opportunities. ih

Lisa Kahler is educational program manager, MuslimKidsTV.

The hiring and retention process, along with its associated activities, can be loosely grouped into five categories: planning for future hires, the prehire application process, hiring and on-boarding, retention and recognition, and off-boarding. Putting sustained time and effort into the “planning” stage results in long-term dividends.

A CANADIAN ISLAMIC SCHOOL AND COVID-19 CHALLENGES

Schools across Canada, mandated to prepare for in-person classes in September 2020, were provided with firm government-regulated mandates

BY MONA HENNAWI

students receive a well-rounded education that emphasizes character development and offers numerous opportunities to develop their leadership skills. The school’s mission — to provide an education of the highest quality embedded in Islam’s values — is to enable its students to become respectful, responsible and successful leaders and contributors to society.

Islamic schools in Canada have evolved over the years and are now at the forefront of education for Muslim students. Overall, their provision of a balanced education that incorporates both Islamic studies and a high-quality education have made them well-respected for their academic standards and for instilling in their students a strong sense of Islamic values and morals.

The Edmonton Islamic Academy (EIA; Edmonton, Alberta), one of the country’s leading and largest Islamic schools, was established in 1987. Originally located in Al-Rashid Mosque’s basement with 21 students, it now enrolls more than 1,700 students from preschool to Grade 12.

The academy strives to show students their world from an Islamic perspective in order to preserve the religious and cultural identities reflected in their Islamic beliefs and values. Taking this responsibility seriously, its staff seeks to create an atmosphere in which students feel loved, safe, nurtured and encouraged to excel academically. As a result, their high school is considered the city’s second best.

The staff’s attention to academic success is always within the context of Islam

and toward a way of life taught by Prophet Muhammad ( salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam). Students take part in schoolwide prayers, adhere to the appropriate Islamic dress code and respect the guidelines of a proper Islamic social life. The academy aims to establish an environment free from distractions and negative pressure so that its students can focus on their academic success.

The EIA follows the province’s Alberta Programs of Study in all its core subjects: language arts, mathematics, science, social studies and early literacy. Students are also taught Islamic, Quranic and Arabic studies. Representing over 45 nationalities,

Like many other schools, Canada’s Islamic schools were impacted by the Covid19 pandemic. Teachers and students had to adapt to online learning overnight from March to June 2020. This quick, unexpected transition to online learning was not easy for the EIA community as a whole, as it involved adapting the curriculum to a digital format and ensuring that all students had access to the necessary technology.

Schools across Canada, mandated to prepare for in-person classes in September 2020, were provided with firm government-regulated mandates. The EIA’s board of trustees and leadership team worked diligently to ensure that the mandated protocols were prepared and ready for implementation on the first day of the school year. Faced with the dynamic and complex challenges of Covid-19, the EIA’s administration did its best to mitigate risks and offer the best

The academy strives to show students their world from an Islamic perspective in order to preserve the religious and cultural identities reflected in their Islamic beliefs and values. Taking this responsibility seriously, its staff seeks to create an atmosphere in which students feel loved, safe, nurtured and encouraged to excel academically.

quality Islamic education possible. A reentry handbook was drafted to provide their stakeholders with the information, protocols and recommendations pursuant to the province’s K-12 School Reentry Plan.

Following the Ministry of Education and Alberta Health Services’ guidance, their planning gave direction to in-class learning as outlined in the government’s reentry scenarios in such areas as risk mitigation, teaching and learning, as well as divisional support for their school. To prevent Covid-19’s spread, strict policies — face masks, social distancing, staggered prayers and staggered dismissals, along with regular sanitization processes in the classrooms and the building — were implemented and adhered to without compromising the EIA’s pre-pandemic high-quality standard of education.

The EIA invested in technology to support online learning, offered additional support to families who needed it and found new ways to foster community via virtual and other events and activities. Nevertheless, even with the best measures in place, replacing a student’s normal and natural way of learning with distance learning and lockdowns negatively impacted their academic and social development. Teachers observed gaps in learning development in young students’ fine and gross motor skills, literacy and numeracy skills, socializing skills and struggles to transition from off-screen to in-person learning.

Helping some students and parents deal with mental health issues developed during the pandemic was another aspect facing the administration. In addition, some students, parents and teachers struggled with severe anxiety upon returning to the school and being part of a public setting.

The Academy also had to find new ways to maintain the strong sense of a close-knit community it had cultivated over the years and to keep students and families connected in the absence of physical gatherings. Once the EIA transitioned to online learning, its teachers continued to provide a high-quality education.

The future of Canada’s Islamic schools looks bright! “The Future of The Global Muslim Population,” a 2011 Pew Research Center report, estimates that 6.6% of all Canadians — approximately 2.7 million people — will be Muslim by 2030. Currently, Muslims make up about 2.8% of the country’s population. Given Islam’s status as Canada’s fastest-growing religion, and as its communities continue to grow, Islamic schools will be in high demand.

Islamic schools, an important part of Canada’s education landscape, provide a unique learning experience that incorporates both Islamic studies and secular education. They are preparing young Muslims to become well-rounded individuals who will contribute to Canada’s society and economy. ih

Mona Hennawi is marketing and communications coordinator at Edmonton Islamic Academy, Canada.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT COLLEGE Transitioning from Youth to Adulthood

BY LISA KAHLER

How do you choose the right college and pay for it? Many Muslim families face these and similar dilemmas every year.

In a recent webinar entitled “Choosing the Right College,” The Islamic Schools League of America (ISLA) tried to provide insight via panelists representing different viewpoints on higher education: Habeeb Quadri (superintendent, MCC), Dr. Nisa Muhammad (chaplain, Howard University), Salman Khan (founder, Muslim Campus Life & Hidayah Services) and Abdullah Syed (executive director, A Continuous Charity).

This choice will have lifelong consequences and affect the entire Muslim community because relationships, debt, income, career choice and family life interconnect us all. The speakers stated the importance of choosing a college that fits into a family’s budget while providing their teenager(s) with the spiritual, emotional and academic support during his/her crucial formative years as a young adult. One of them noted that “the number one school may not be the number one school for you.”

In an interview after the webinar, Salman Khan stated, “As a community we need to recognize that the college experience is transformational, not transactional. We have to ensure that Muslim students have access to the resources that will make this transformation a positive experience personally, professionally and spiritually.”

The speakers expanded upon Quadri’s “7 Tips to Choose a College.” While all points are valid, they emphasized that students must rank the items in order of importance for their own lives: faith (campus life, Muslim support groups, nearness to a mosque etc.)

• academics (alignment with interests and career goals)

• family (nearness to family and relatives)

• social & emotional • well-being (on-campus support services)

• budget (family and student finances)

• campus culture (organizations, clubs and other students who look like you)

• career support (internships, mentors, networking and job opportunities)

• Muslim chaplain (provides student support, organized activities and

connection with school administration) and

• food options (halal).

Based on his experience, Quardri counsels students and families to focus on their top five and then create a checklist. For each point, students should note questions or items of importance.

For example: Do I want to pray at a mosque, an on-campus Muslim chapel, an on-campus designated room or in my room? Are my key interests represented? What is my religious and/or ethnic identity? Who am I? These key points indicate if a student fits in and can envision staying there for four years. People on campus who look like me is perhaps one of the most important criteria in choosing a college.

provide thoughtful feedback on the student’s strengths and weaknesses. The support of family and friends for a young person transitioning to adulthood is critical as well, for many students find it hard to live on their own in a distant city. Being close to a family support network is important for many of them, as is the need to develop one’s strength and resilience by experiencing personal independence and the real world.

Abdullah Syed shared his own college backstory. Dreaming of becoming an astronaut, he attended the far away, well-regarded, and expensive Purdue University. While the school community was very supportive, he didn’t do well and returned home after two years with a high student debt. He trans-

WHO AM I?

Dr. Nisa Muhammad noted that students must be honest and self-reflective, as well as spend time listing goals and aspirations, during the application process. She advises them to “find their mission” in life, choose the appropriate major and mentor to ensure long-term personal growth and help them achieve their mission and, when visiting the college, ask about the availability of appropriate mentors.

During this journey, parents need to be supportive and have honest conversations with their child(ren) on their likes/dislikes. A respected third party, such as a particular relative or teacher, may be included to

ferred to a local community college, changed his major, regained his focus and improved his grades. Syed noted that only 27% of college graduates end up in their original field of study. It’s more important for students to hold on to the ultimate “vision” for their future than any specific degree or major.

FINANCES

Salman Khan advises students and their parents, “In terms of financing college, read the Muslim College Guide’s ‘Financial Fit’ (Muslim Campus Life) section and understand your financial options before you even apply to a college.” Parents must review their financial situation carefully and be realistic

In an interview after the webinar, Salman Khan stated, “As a community we need to recognize that the college experience is transformational, not transactional. We have to ensure that Muslim students have access to the resources that will make this transformation a positive experience personally, professionally and spiritually.”

as to how much financial support they can provide their student(s) annually without endangering the family’s financial stability.

College-related costs include not only tuition and fees, but also books, travel, food, snacks, household supplies and transportation. While many sources of financial aid are available, a student may still have to take out a student loan. “The Muslim College Guide” suggests not borrowing more than $7,000/ year, unless it’s very likely that the student will secure a high-paying job upon graduation — a possibility for certain high-demand majors.

Student loans are not only hard to pay back, but also involve interest — a concern for many Muslims. Currently, about $1.635 trillion in total student loans is owed by 43.5 million borrowers in the U.S., with an average of $31,410 borrowed by a public university student to receive a bachelor’s degree (Education Data, Student Loan Statistics).

Here is a brief description of the types of financial aid available (adapted from the 2021-22 “The Muslim College Guide”):

The nonprofit A Continuous Charity (ACC) provides interest-free loans to select Muslim students every year. As these are paid back over time, new loans are provided to incoming college students. Currently, student need far exceeds the nonprofit’s resources. In the previous application cycle, only 89 of the 250 applicants received loans. Applicants are encouraged to apply early, and note the following key points:

◆ Merit (academic, social, religious or other). Note accomplishments.

◆ Financial Need. Loans depend solely upon the student’s financial situation, as they are meant to fill the gap between his/her and family resources, scholarships and the college’s financial assistance.

◆ Community Service. Preference for students who are giving back to their community (Muslim community service not required).

◆ Islamic Education. Students studying Islam, Arabic and the Quran are given preference, as they will need interest-free loans.

◆ Location. Students involved in active Muslim communities will help make fundraising for a community charity easier. While this charity is expanding, lending focuses on those regions with high Muslim populations. However, loans are provided to students nationwide.

TESTING

More colleges are now “test-optional,” meaning that it isn’t always necessary to submit the scores of college placement exams. Although such assessments are just one piece of the pie, if they aren’t submitted then the other pieces become more important.

DEADLINES

Application deadlines vary, and scholarship deadlines vary depending on the provider. The FAFSA application (https://studentaid. gov/h/apply-for-aid/fafsa) opens on October 1 for the following school year.

With many decisions to make as students and families begin to think about college, it’s always a good reminder to make dua and pray istikhara for divine guidance. We look forward to our youth transiting from a student to a community leader without debt and in a good mental and emotional state. As a final comment, Khan advises parents to “stay engaged with your child[ren] as they navigate the college process. Learn with them, guide them and don’t allow yourself to sit in the backseat or the driver’s seat. Stay in the passenger seat.”

To learn more, consult the following sites:

◆ Interest-Free Student Loans for Muslims: https://acceducate.org/apply

◆ Islamic Scholarship Fund: https:// islamicscholarshipfund.org/

◆ 7 Tips from Habeeb Quadri: https:// youtube.com/playlist?list=PLn8rXi9Hi7uIuzS5qpzHjhnlOAiUGT1ey

◆ The College Scorecard: https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/data/

◆ CAIR Campus Climate Report: https:// static.ca.cair.com/reports/

◆ Muslim College Guide: https://muslimcampuslife.com/resources

◆ Muslim Campus Index: https://muslimcampuslife.com/resources

◆ College Admissions Guidance: www. hidayahservices.com

◆ A Continuous Charity: A Continuous Charity ih

Lisa Kahler is educational program manager, MuslimKidsTV.

Tackling the Taboo Against Incarcerated Muslims

All prisoners must develop a tough exterior to survive in a harsh environment that contains no exits

BY RASHEED RABBI

It was the last Friday of Ramadan

2019, and Interstate I-495 South was backed up. The scorching sun had barely moved from its zenith, and its fiery heat waves were palpable inside my air-conditioned car. However, more than the heat or the resulting fatigue, I was fraught with worry about missing today’s 90 minutes slot, allocated to me about three months ago, to lead the Jumma prayer with male inmates at the Alexandria Trousdale Detention Center, Va. Being stuck in traffic soon gave rise to cynicism and frustration. Many intrusive thoughts questioned head-on my endeavor’s utility: Is 90 minutes worthwhile for these inmates? Around 20 to 25 minutes is allocated to the security protocol of escorting inmates to the prayer area, leaving barely an hour for the service. And even that one hour occasionally needs to be split in two because maximum-security and lowest-security inmates aren’t allowed to mix.

For typical U.S. mosques with an array of daily and weekly spiritual programs, an hour is more than enough. However, in prison there are rarely any programs for Muslims, mostly new converts and Muslims long detached from Islam. They have so radically diverse spiritual needs that it’s often hard to decide where to start any spiritual discussion. More difficult is to notice the lack of any apparent outward change in these intimidating-looking captives, covered in tough tattoos, having short cropped hair and mean expressions. Most of them cast a cold stare, manifesting an utterly ambivalent face, as if they could really care less or are too carefree.

Anxiously waiting in traffic made me question the utility of my time. Was it wise to opt out of leading Jumma service for local mosques and commit to doing so in a prison? Any neighborhood mosque would contain at least 250-300 adherents with outwardly visible signs of spirituality. In contrast, in the

detention center I had at most 25-30 inmates, reserved and “emotionally numb.” In my other service location, the Loudoun Adult Detention Center, most often fewer than a dozen individuals attend. Moreover, all prison programs and services are subject to abrupt cancellation, as inmates can be locked down for unforeseen daily predicaments.

By the time I reached the center, I was debating whether to continue or quit this position. Putting those inner debates off momentarily, I rushed in. Luckily, the prayer service hadn’t been canceled and I had around 40 minutes left. Slowly, the inmates from different designated areas started arriving.

As I was getting ready, an inmate whispered that his friend wanted to take shahada This was completely unexpected, and my very first such encounter. I was speechless! In Islam, conversion means born anew. Abu Hurayra narrated a hadith that states: “If a servant accepts Islam and completes his Islam, God will record for him every good deed that he performed before and erase for him every evil deed that he did before. Then everything after that will be according to a retribution. For every good deed, he will be recorded ten-fold up to 700-fold. And for every evil deed he will be recorded similarly [one] for it, unless God overlooks that for him” (Tirmidhi and others).

Feeling humble, I recalled “And who is better in speech than one who invites to God and does righteousness and says, ‘Indeed, I am of the Muslims’ (41:33) and considered myself among the chosen. But inwardly, I was battling with cynicism. So, I sought to determine his original motive. Was it simply to receive special treatment during Ramadan, which isn’t unusual in correctional facilities, or a purely religious and spiritual urge?

He replied that he’d started to find answers for some of his inner questions. I made sure

that it wasn’t something instantaneous. We talked for a while, and he explained that he had observed his cellmate for a couple of months and continued his exploration since then. Satisfied that he was sincere, I had him go through the ceremony associated with uttering the shahada in front of several witnesses As I was uttering those most familiar words, they suddenly appeared anew to me. I also felt a reorientation toward the religion I’ve been practicing my whole life.

become hypervigilant and ever-alert. They adopt a tough veneer to keep others at a distance. Researchers have shown that prisons are full of men who espouse toughness and aggression and where those who don’t conform to these ideals are punished and forced to renegotiate their understanding of what being a “real man” means in this particular environment.

In other words, such behaviors as receiving support or demonstrating spirituality in

Muslims are engaging in interfaith discussions, and ready to take on the burden of learning and discussing intricate theological subjects. While interfaith engagements are unavoidable in America, prisons are more fertile fields for Islam’s faster and easier expansion. Prison chaplains/volunteers are primarily seeking recognition of basic dietary requirements and fighting for the prisoners’ rights to meet with representatives of their faith, receive religious literature and gather regularly for prayer and Jumma. All these efforts are increasing prison officials’ awareness of their Muslim inmates and the latter’s growing visibility.

Whether they are new converts or born Muslims, most of the inmates’ religious knowledge is very limited. They struggle to learn how to perform ablution, pray five times every day, fast and give charity. Therefore, any practicing Muslim with only a minimal amount of training can serve this largely abandoned population, earn endless reward and make a visible impact on inmates and the wider society. In fact, volunteering in prisons will privilege lay Muslims to give da‘wah and increase their own knowledge and confidence to practice Islam unapologetically in the West.

Such an event is very common in prison settings. Chaplain Hasan Saha, serving at Maryland’s Hartford Detention Center since 2015, confirmed this. Sharing his experience, he said that every Friday when adhan is called, he would invite inmates to pray the sunna prayer. He would then open a trust space and dialogue with the non-Muslim inmates present if any of them were ready to convert.

Other Muslim chaplains substantiate the claim of regular conversion in prisons. This explains why Muslims make up about 9% of state prisoners, despite making up only about 1% of this country’s population. This relatively high number of Muslim inmates is due to the fact that non-Muslim inmates easily find guidance and a strong sense of justice in Islam while serving time in correctional facilities, where justice seems to be more elusive and ambivalent. The normativity that Islam’s lifestyle restrictions bring to their lives encourages them to adhere to it firmly.

I soon discovered that their outward expression of aggression is very decisive and, in fact, needed to survive. Without any exit or escape, prisons are dangerous places where the weak are taken advantage of and the careless or inattentive are exploited. So, prisoners smell distrust and suspicion, and

the form of correctional programming aren’t considered overtly masculine. A “real man” doesn’t show any weakness by acknowledging such needs. That’s why inmates hide their hunger for guidance. Being bereft of many choices, they are more sincere than many of those who appear at the mosque only to attend Jumma, the two Eid prayers or an occasional religious gathering. Inmates conceal their desperation for a disciplined life in the light of Islam and are more committed to applying day-to-day Islamic lessons literally.

Instead of judging them superficially, it’s time to overcome our community’s taboos around prisons, which remain a frightening or an out-of-reach realm to many religious individuals — even professionals. However, correctional facilities are run by our tax money, and it’s our responsibility to learn if due probation and rehabilitation services are offered to our fellow Muslims. The number of Muslim inmates stood at 11,073 in the U.S. Federal Prisons in 2020; however, according to https://www.fd.org (July 15, 2021), there are only 13 chaplains to minister to them. This staggering ratio is far more dramatic in the local detention centers, which depend solely on volunteers.

Interestingly, a growing number of

Finally, nothing could be sadder if American prisons, where opportunities of da‘wah are so rife, still remain a taboo in our community. We shouldn’t let any pandemic or preconditioned statistics downplay the urgency of serving our incarcerated fellow Muslims. It’s true that by the summer of 2020, a 15% decrease had been noted in the prison population, and a 25% decrease in the U.S. inmates (https://www.prisonpolicy.org/ reports/pie2023.html). However, those dramatic population drops were the immediate result of pandemic-related slowdowns in the criminal legal system, as opposed to any permanent policy changes. As the criminal legal system has returned to business as usual, prison and jail populations have started to rebound to their pre-pandemic levels. Given this reality, it’s imperative to make Muslim services in prison increasingly available to prevent us from becoming a prisoner of inner conscience as a Muslim. ih

Rasheed Rabbi, an IT professional who earned an MA in religious studies (2016) from Hartford Seminary and is pursuing a Doctor of Ministry from Boston University, is also founder of e-Dawah (www. edawah.net) and secretary of the Association of Muslim Scientists, Engineers & Technology Professionals. He serves as a khateeb and Friday prayer leader at the ADAMS Center and a certified Muslim chaplain at iNova Fairfax, iNovaLoudoun and Virginia’s Alexandria and Loudoun Adult Detention Centers.

Instead of judging them superficially, it’s time to overcome our community’s taboos around prisons, which remain a frightening or an out-ofreach realm to many religious individuals — even professionals. However, correctional facilities are run by our tax money, and it’s our responsibility to learn if due probation and rehabilitation services are offered to our fellow Muslims.

Yes, There is a Hygienic Hijab

Muslima health care workers now have access to PPE hijabs

BY RABIYAH SYED

About three years ago, the outbreak of Covid-19 inaugurated a massive global undertaking to find a prevention and a cure. As researchers sought answers, frontline workers were doing their best to help the stricken. As the number of cases grew, the safety of health care workers depended on using reliable personal protective equipment (PPE). Muslimas wearing the hijab had to find a way to balance their faith with their safety, as well as that of their patients and families, due to lack of suitable PPE.

Respiratory therapists Firaoli Adam and Yasmin Samatar, working in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, understood the importance of adhering to Islam’s principles and PPE for Muslima hi jab-wearing health care workers. This inspired them to create Mawadda (https://www. usmawadda.com/), a medical equipment business whose disposable hijabs meet both Islamic and FDA standards.

All medical personnel have access to the basic items needed to protect themselves from exposure to hazardous materials or infectious illnesses. However, Adam and Samatar discovered that they couldn’t prevent their hijabs from becoming contaminated. Their solution — a wasteful and disheartening temporary one — was to throw their hijabs away after their shifts. Clearly, a more creative approach was necessary.

Adam and Samatar came up with the idea of making medically sound disposable hijabs, also known as hygienic hijabs. This first-of-its-kind item comes in both a slip-on and a tie-on version and is designed to promote Muslima medical workers’ safety, help them embrace their Muslim identity and encourage help health care organizations to continue becoming more culturally aware, inclusive and welcoming.

The idea behind Mawadda — to create and offer more inclusive products — arose in January 2021. Around March, the two entrepreneurs began working with a Muslim designer to make prototypes, as well as talking with other Muslimas in the medical field. After collecting their stories and opinions, Adam and Samatar embarked on creating several prototypes.

“The designing part was the easy part. What took more time was finding the right material,” Samatar said. She went on to outline how they found the right material by listening to respiratory therapists, nurses, pharmacists, surgeons and doctors’ opinions on what features a safe, practical and satisfactory product had to include.

As being able to offer a disposable hijab that was up to medical standards was essential, they focus-group tested their prototypes and received feedback from those who wore them to learn which ones were the most appropriate.

Seeking a manufacturer to bring their envisaged product to life, they found a manufacturer in New York. The next challenge was to familiarize themselves with FDA terminology and regulations and obtain FDAcertification for, according to Adam, “We were trying to produce something that’s FDA compliant and is also comfortable to wear.”

They set about learning the relevant information. Adam stated that, “For us, [we just needed] level one [certification] so we [had] to find something to compare it to… we [compared] it to hairnets.”

As respiratory therapists working in the medical field, they had a lot to learn about starting a business. But they persevered, knowing how important it is for Muslimas to feel safe and valued while observing their religion on the job.

“We’re trying to push for cultural inclusivity and awareness [and having] a safe space for Muslim women to feel like their presence

As being able to offer a disposable hijab that was up to medical standards was essential, they focusgroup tested their prototypes and received feedback from those who wore them to learn which ones were the most appropriate.

is valued in the system, as well as promoting infection prevention and patient satisfaction by having more projects that are more centered for diversity inclusion,” explained Adam.

“It was hard, but what pushed us is knowing how much we needed this in [a health care setting],” Samatar admits.

Finally, after multiple redesigns and obtaining the necessary FDA approvals, they officially launched Mawadda last November.

In their quest for promoting cultural awareness, Mawadda makes PPE for Muslimas to help them strengthen and embrace their Muslim identity. Health care institutions buy PPE products for their medical workers but may be unaware of their Muslima medical staff’s specific needs. Samatar and Adam hope that these organizations will buy their products to create a more culturally sensitive and inclusive environment.

As Muslima entrepreneurs, they hope to inspire other community members to address similar needs and initiate change for themselves and the community. As Samatar remarks, “If you see a problem that you or somebody else is facing, then you can come up with solutions because there’s a lot of stuff that needs to be fixed in this world.”

They urge young Muslimas to be proud of their identity and to act upon it, to embrace rather than hide it, for a strong identity enables one to remedy that which hinders them, solve problems and inspire change. The changes that they will bring about by their combined identity and passion will impact the world.

Mawadda is currently looking for more new products to create. “We are a Muslim medical clothing company, so we have more things that we will launch, like skirts and [other highly requested] modest wear,” Adam states.

The “Hygienic Hijab” became a reality thanks to these two Muslimas who fulfilled an unmet on-the-job need while preserving their modesty and adhering to their religious values. As time goes on, Adam and Samatar plan to continue promoting safety, cultural awareness and inclusivity, and inspire other Muslims to make lasting change through Mawadda. ih

Rabiyah Syed, a student at Naperville Central (Ill.), loves photography and aspires to be a speech pathologist.

Moujahed M. Bakhach

The imam who became a reluctant ambassador

BY ABDOOL RAZACK

In 2008, Imam Moujahed M. Bakhach was at home in Ft. Worth, Texas, when the phone rang. A voice stated that the U.S. Department of State was calling. The surprised imam asked, “Is this a joke… a crank call?” “No sir,” replied the caller, “this is the Department of State.”

They wanted to send him to Norway, Belgium and Ireland to talk about Islam in the U.S. Flabbergasted, he wondered how they knew about him. The answer turned out to be his reputation. An al-Azhar University graduate who did postgraduate studies at AinShams University in Cairo, the Lebanese-born imam is fluent in Arabic and French. Arriving

in Texas during 1982, he quickly became fluent in English as imam of Fort Worth’s Islamic Association of Tarrant County (1982-2005).

Over the years, he became involved in civic and interfaith relations, working tirelessly with various Christian denominations, as well as Hindu and Jewish groups, and serving on the mayor’s Faith Based Committee. In addition to serving as director of the Mediation Institute of North Texas, this certified conflict mediator, marriage counselor, and advisory member of the County Sheriff Chaplain office who works closely with the city police is currently a member of the Clergy and Peace Alliance.

In Europe, he stressed ecumenism and that Islam is coexisting peacefully with Christianity and Judaism in the U.S. There are bound to be problems when different people are living in the same space, he told them, but they’re not insurmountable. Moreover, we can all coexist amicably and peacefully if we’re willing to try.

Handwritten Quran from Niger

ISLAM IN AMERICA

Given his involvement in many other projects and the accolades he has received from the city, county and state, there was no question that he would have come to the State Department’s attention as the ideal candidate for this undertaking.

I’ve greatly admired him as a person ever since he first came to our community and gradually became a guiding force in our and other communities’ projects. He was the first imam to give the benediction at the legislature’s opening at the state capitol in Austin.

In 2008 the State Department, on behalf of the U.S. International Speaker’s Bureau, sent Imam Bakhach to Ireland, Belgium and Norway to give lectures on the radio and at public halls and meet with city and state officials.

In Ireland, he met with the mayor and the police department and spoke at a university. In Belgium, he interacted with various Christian denominations and spoke at a synagogue. Oslo mayor Per Ditlev-Simonsen was especially interested in the interfaith activities being held in the U.S. He hoped to get the Norwegian police involved in a similar fashion, for both wanted to make Muslims feel more welcome.

During this tour, the imam noticed that the U.S. was more advanced in ecumenical outreach.

Imam Bakhach received such favorable responses from his visits that the next year he was sent to Francophone Niger, Benin, Senegal and Burkina Faso. Being fluent in French enabled him to communicate easily with his intended audiences. He gradually acquired the feeling that the African nations

had a less favorable opinion of the U.S. than did the European nations.

In Benin, the then-U.S. ambassador assigned a public affairs officer to accompany the imam for his entire West African tour. In Burkina Faso, he spoke with local dignitaries and was presented with an elaborate ceremonial textile ornament.

While visiting and lecturing in Niger, the imam recalls feeling like a “king” in each city. In Niamey, the capital city, local television personality Imam Musa Abu Bakr Hashem gave him an extraordinary gift: a century-old handwritten Quran encased in an aged leather case. Considering its age, the looseleafed Quran was in excellent condition. It

was a sheer delight to see it and handle it with gloves, of course. In Niamey, he also visited the Jordanian and Egyptian embassies and met with the ambassadors and staff.

Imam Bakhach felt that he had accomplished his mission in Europe and especially in West Africa.

In Europe, he stressed ecumenism and that Islam is coexisting peacefully with Christianity and Judaism in the U.S. There are bound to be problems when different people are living in the same space, he told them, but they’re not insurmountable. Moreover, we can all coexist amicably and peacefully if we’re willing to try. The U.S., he reminded his audiences, is an experiment that is working despite all the barriers.

The imam felt that he had dispelled most of the West Africans’ misconceptions about the U.S. He engaged with the U.S. embassy staff in each country and did his best to interact with the locals.

Listening to him talk about this mission and seeing all his awards, local and foreign, I was left with the distinct impression that he was fully committed to promoting Islam and the U.S. in a positive manner and committed to ecumenism. In Africa especially, he promoted the U.S., with all its imperfections, as a nation always striving to improve itself in all spheres.

Given his background, education, personality and commitment, Imam Bakhach was the right man for this formidable task. Both of his tours were overwhelming successes. ih

Imam Bakhach with Ceremonial Neckwear

Abdool Razack, M.D. is a retired physician based in Fort Worth, Texas.

Muslim Students Mark African American Achievement

Expanding the canvas for students to recognize heroes

BY LISA KAHLER

Two years ago, the Islamic Schools League of America (ISLA) conducted research with Islamic school alumni (Students’ Sense of Belonging, JEMS, Vol 2, Nov 2022). One key finding stood out: Their knowledge of African and African-American history was sorely lacking. African American alumni “cited common racist actions and micro-aggressions from fellow students, staff and administrators” (https://islamichorizons. net/?s=alumni+voices).

In the fall of 2021, ISLA executive director Shaza Khan, Ph.D., along with the board, reviewed the research data and decided to address this inequity with a student-centered contest. The resulting “Celebrating African and African American Muslim History Contest (AAAMH),” born from this context, is a springboard for introducing Muslim 6th-8th grade students to their fellow Muslims’ amazing contributions and achievements. The intention is to include families, teachers and community members as well to further amplify awareness and knowledge of African Muslims’ crucial contributions throughout history.

ISLA board member and AAAMH contest chair Qur’an Shakir says, “[T]his contest

offers intentional works to make sure that the habit of overlooking, disregarding and not acknowledging the works and contributions of Muslims of color is addressed. ISLA’s research documents that, sadly, many alumni of Islamic schools said they did not learn about Muslims of color while attending Islamic schools. Important history was overlooked.”

The contest was launched in Dec. 2021, under the direction of Shaza Khan, Qur’an Shakir (chair, The Clara Mohammed School Network), Salahuddeen Kareem (founder, former principal and now teacher, Muslim Community School, Alim Academy, Potomac, Md.); president and executive

director, Kindness and Care Beyond Borders) and Lisa Kahler (educator and ISLA volunteer). ISLA created developmentally appropriate and educationally sound rubrics and metrics to guide students and their teachers with clear grade-level appropriate expectations and standards.

With minimal advertisement on the IECN listserv, the 2022 contest elicited 120 student projects. Several community members assisted with judging, and each of the 16 winners received an e-certificate and a cash prize in a virtual award ceremony held on Feb. 28, 2022. Promos were provided by community heroes Maryum Ali (Muhammad Ali’s daughter), Dr. Yusef Salaam (member of the Exonerated Five, activist, scholar and motivational speaker) and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (former NBA star, activist and motivational speaker). Contest support was provided by sponsors MyDeen and Kindness and Care Beyond Borders.

Based on the 2022 contest feedback, ISLA created a seven-member advisory committee to oversee the 2023 contest: Qur’an Shakir (chair), Lisa Kahler (co-chair), Salahuddeen Kareem, Dr. Patricia Salahuddin (ISLA and CISNA board member and chair, Sister Clara Mohammed School board), Nura Elmagbari (former principal, Islamic School of Portland), Fitrah Muhammad (executive producer, Study Al-Islam) and Imam Talib Shareef (president, Masjid Muhammad, The Nation’s Mosque).

Under the committee’s direction, the rubric was refined, a FAQ page was added and a dedicated webpage was launched to reach out to this country’s 300+ full-time Islamic schools. Nine corporate sponsors, including major sponsors MuslimKidsTV, MuslimARC and Banneker Ventures, covered the contest expenses, student prizes and further expanded the contest’s reach through their social media.

Some 400 student submissions were

To further awareness of these Muslims’ vital contributions within the Muslim community, MuslimKidsTV offered to animate the winners’ projects animated and e-publish them on the MuslimKidsTV platform or to join the staff as an unpaid intern and work on a new e-book focusing on a pivotal African or African-American Muslim.

Lisa Kahler, Mumin Abdul Qadeer – 8th Grader, Nadia Kashuka – Principal, Shazia –Social Studies Teacher, Quba Islami

Lisa Kahler, Azeeza Hirji student winner, Sumiaya Dewji, Middle School Social Studies Teacher

received by the February 8 deadline — a 300% increase from 2022. Judges screened all projects to ensure adherence to the guidelines as well as for plagiarism. The 320 qualified projects came from 40 different schools in 19 states. Students chose to research individuals from professional sports, the Sahaba, Qur’an reciters, civil rights activists, politicians, models and more! The top six individuals researched were Ibtihaj Muhammad, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X), Muhammad Ali, Halima Aden, Bilal ibn Rabah (radi Allahu ‘anh) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).

WHAT DID STUDENTS LEARN?

Sixth Graders. “Something that was unexpected that I learned was the details of my African American life. • “That Ilhan Omar is a refugee and also, and even when you are trying to do the right thing there will be a lot of opposition and you need to prepare yourself to face that.”

Seventh Graders. “How much black Muslims alive [today] have contributed [to] our society. There are hundreds if not thousands of African American Muslims that made a change • “I learned that being different doesn’t always mean bad and being different is what makes us unique.” • “About how people unite in Islam and a singular person can inspire so many.”

8th Graders. “After reading about Halima [Aden]’s life, even my perspective on the world changed. I don’t have to be like everyone else to succeed in this world. I just have to be myself, and that is 100% enough.” • “I

learned about the life of Yusuf Salam and his amazing accomplishments. I did not expect to hear about a Muslim who successfully managed to get him[self] and his friends out of jail after being put there accused of a crime they did not commit because of racism.”

During the first week of February, each of the 40 judges spent an average of 6-7 hours reviewing a batch of 20 submissions. Each project was evaluated based on the rubric provided to students and judges. After all scores were received, the Advisory Committee averaged them and reviewed the top projects in each category to determine the winners. An honorable mention was added for the sixth-grade students due to the high caliber of the entries received.

WHAT DID THE JUDGES LEARN?

“I learned about Muslim trailblazers that I had not heard of and was educated with more hindsight of some of our great heroes in Islam. I am very proud of the participants!”

• “I learned that young Muslims from all backgrounds are being inspired by a wide range of Black Muslims. This shouldn’t be surprising, but for me it was a pleasant surprise.” • “I didn’t know that Summayah, the first martyr in Islam, was Abyssinian or that Muhammad Ali refused to have a Hollywood star because he didn’t want anyone stepping on our Messenger’s name — Subhan Allah).”

DRUMROLL…

The contest’s winners were announced on February 25 in a virtual contest hosted by ISLA and emceed by Qur’an Shakir. The ceremony

included promos from community heroes who thanked ISLA for their support in encouraging awareness of African and African American Muslim contributions to the world. Guests encouraged students to “cultivate their genius” and continue to study and learn to “combat the racism within the Muslim community.”

Community heroes/sheroes and corporate sponsors who spoke included Ayesha K. Mustafa (editor-in-chief, Muslim Journal), Michael Milo (co-founder and CEO, MuslimKidsTV), Dr. Gholnesar “Gholdy” Muhammad (educator and award-winning author, “Cultivating Genius” [2019] and an Islamic school alumni); Margari Hill (executive director, MuslimARC), Imam Q. Amin Nathari (activist, an Islamic school alumni and author of “Islam in Black America”).

To further awareness of these Muslims’ vital contributions within the Muslim community, MuslimKidsTV offered to animate the winners’ projects and e-publish them on the MuslimKidsTV platform or to join the staff as an unpaid intern and work on a new e-book focusing on a pivotal African or African-American Muslim.

Student winners in California, along with their principals and social studies teachers, were treated to an in-person congratulatory visit from committee co-chair and California resident Lisa Kahler. The other winners’ certificates and prizes were mailed to their respective principals and were presented in-person during the award ceremony held at their schools.

THE WINNERS?

WHAT’S NEXT?

Surveys conducted for students and judges, and the feedback from the survey results, will inform the 2024 contest, to be held during February 2024. ISLA and the AAAMH advisory committee look forward to increased

participation and perhaps regional as well as national competitions.

Do you have a middle schooler in your household or teach at an Islamic school? Make sure to keep an eye on social media come this December, so you too can help

a youth go “Beyond Bilal” and learn about the millions of African and African-Muslims who have and continue to make vital contributions to Islam and the world. ih

Lisa Kahler is educational program manager, MuslimKidsTV.

The Shahadah Sisterhood Group

ISLAMIC HORIZONS STAFF

According to Besheer Mohamed and Elizabeth Podrebarac Sciupac, writing for the Pew Research Center on Jan. 26, 2018, “In recent years, the number of American Muslims has been growing steadily, by around 100,000 annually” (https://www. pewresearch.org/search/leave+islam). This is rather surprising, considering Islam’s negative reputation in this land. Moreover, as the article’s title indicate, about the same number of born Muslims, and no doubt some converts, also leave Islam each year. Thus, when Islamic Horizons came across the Shahadah Sisterhood Group, we were very eager to learn and spoke to Sharria Abdul-Hakeem how its members deal with converts and keep them in Islam.

IH: Please tell us something about the Shahadah Sisterhood Group.

SAH: In the name of Allah (Subhana wa Ta‘ala). Al hamdu lillah. Indeed, all praise is due to Allah (Subhana wa Ta‘ala), whom we praise and whose help, forgiveness, refuge and guidance we seek. I bear witness that He alone is worthy of worship and that Prophet Muhammad (salla ‘alayhi wa sallam) is His servant and messenger.

The group was formed on July 9, 2016, to assist new Muslimas. It is a beautiful moment when a sister takes her shahada and is welcomed into Islam and receives warm hugs. However, after that moment she is often left standing alone, especially if she is an introvert. We saw the need for someone to grab the new sister’s hand as she begins to tread her new way of life. There are sisters taking their shahada daily and weekly, and not just in the DMV [Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia] metropolitan area, but across the country. We must be available to them, for Islam is not a deen of isolation. Therefore, our objective is to provide and build a bond among sisters.

IH: Is your group affiliated with a specific mosque?

SAH: No. All of us attend the various masjids in the region. We find that having

an intimate group makes our new sisters feel more at ease when asking personal questions. Given that we are not scholars, we all study our deen with someone who is more knowledgeable than us. There are similar groups in the area; however, their priorities are different. Our priority is specifically to assist the sister in developing her foundation.

IH: How have you laid this foundation?

SAH: After establishing our group, we formed an Ansar–Muhajireen bond, just as Prophet Muhammad (salla ‘alayhi wa sallam) did after emigrating from Makka to Madina.

As mentors, we require each mentee to agree to our creed, which includes taking the time to understand and adapt to her new way of life. First, we require and help her learn how to pray. After that, she should communicate with her mentor concerning Islamic issues upon which she needs clarification, participate in conference calls and attend halaqas given by her mentors as often as possible.

We also ask our mentees to participate in activities within the community and try to keep them abreast of what is happening in the

DMV metropolitan area. As a group, we encourage them to volunteer with an organization each year and give their collective sadaqa to various organizations, al hamdu lillah.

IH: What are some of the Sisterhood’s other activities?

SAH: The Shahadah Sisterhood Group encourages sisters to find areas that they enjoy and give sadaqa, whether it is with her time or money. We make ourselves available to answer questions outside of group meetings. As you can see, both the mentor and mentee have a responsibility to fulfill. We emphasize Islam’s pillars and principles, as well as the Quran, Hadith literature and the sunna of Prophet Muhammad (salla ‘alayhi wa sallam).

The sisters are assigned one of our approximately five mentors to help them adjust as a Muslima. Sisters in other states join classes via Zoom or teleconference. Each year we consult one another about the books we will study for the coming year. Some of the books we’ve read in the past are “The Ideal Muslimah,” “Dua, the Weapon of the Believer,” and “Seerah of the Prophet.” In sha’Allah this year we will start with “The Magnificence of the Quran.” All these books help us in this deen and enable all of us to have beneficial conversation at our bi-monthly face-to-face halaqas, during which we discuss Islam’s pillars and principals. We like to call these events our socials. Our goal here is to offer all sisters the chance to enjoy and meet sisters from other groups.

IH: What kind of sisters join the Sisterhood?

SAH: Along with the new Muslimas, we have mentees who simply want to strengthen their knowledge and bond of sisterhood. Sisters are from all ages and ethnicities. Each mentor has a weekly halaqa with her mentees to provide them with personal support. Our strong mentor–mentee bond enables us to reach out to one another for assistance without feeling any hesitancy to do so.

Some of those who have entered the deen have been ostracized by their families. We remind them that Allah (Subhana

wa Ta‘ala) commands us not to sever the ties of kinship while also helping them continue making progress on their new spiritual journey. There is always a continuous reminder to all of us that Allah (Subhana wa Ta‘ala) has told us that we will be tested.

In the interim, the Shahadah Sisterhood Group is here to guide our sisters in the deen. We make sure that everyone is bonded and being helped to adjust along the path of Islam.

IH: Do you consider conversion just another trend or something more permanent?

SAH: Many think or believe that Islam is a trend, or the “up and coming” religion. This is far from the truth. Islam is not a trend, but something very stable. For years sisters and brothers have flocked to it through da’ees or self-study. Many sisters revert because they’ve been searching for the true Creator; others come through the introduction of family and friends. Once a sister or anyone is serious about who her Creator is, she will naturally submit to her Lord, Al hamdu lillah.

The Shahadah Sisterhood Group is committed to helping the new sisters strengthen their iman. To this end, we expect our mentees and mentors to follow our creed. The mentors take on the responsibility of both welcoming and communicating with the new sisters. We answer their questions, provide material that helps them as Muslimas, advise them how to form a network within their communities and do our best to show them that Islam is not just a religion, but a way of life. As mentors we make ourselves available to answer any questions or concerns that may arise.

Al hamdu lillah, we are following the commandment of Allah, the Most High, and His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). Islam is not a trend, but a perfection of one’s way of life that we are trying to exemplify in our own lives. We strive to keep our members engaged in the Muslim community. Many of us were calling to Islam before the Sisterhood was formally established. We ask Allah (Subhana wa Ta‘ala) to keep our intentions pure and bless everyone who participates in this effort.

For further information or to join us, please contact Sharria Abdul-Hakeem at Sharria.makeda@gmail.com. ih

Protests Matter

A prophetic legacy that must be kept alive

BY SHAKEEL SYED

Protesting is a prophetic legacy and innately human. God has bestowed upon humans the gift of discernment and the ability to protest a wrong to right it. History invites us to celebrate earlier protests and learn from them. Here are some inspiring examples.

Prophet Ibrahim (‘alayhi as salam) challenged his people’s polytheism, Prophet Musa

(‘alayhi as salam) contested Pharaoh’s arrogance, and Prophet ‘Isa (‘alayhi as salam) drove the moneychangers from the sacred grounds of the Temple. Prophet Muhammad (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) protested against slavery, demanded equal dignity and rights for all people, and demolished the 360 idols desecrating the Ka‘bah. His goal? To establish the sovereignty of the one God, who

The author courts arrest, protesting at the ICE Detention Center in Los Angeles, to stop the deportation of children during the Trump Administration

created all that exists, and that He alone is worthy of worship.

Protests matter.

People of conscience embrace this legacy knowing that it will be a vocation of agony. For example, protesting requires a spirit of sacrifice. Unlike past prophets, we no longer have to risk our lives. However, we must be willing to give up some comforts and accept a few losses, for we “shall certainly be tried and tested” (3:186).

the U.S. merely to earn a better living. It is important for us to remember Daifallah’s story and his impact on Americans’ and immigrants’ rights. His legacy of social justice lives on among Arab Americans, members of the United Farm Workers and activists for workers’ rights.

We remember them today because of their commitment to making the world a better place. Examples abound. A few are cited here.

Since its inception, the Associated Press

afraid to call out our nation’s hypocritical support of an apartheid state and its opposition to the Palestinians’ legitimate struggle. Protests matter. If it was not for the Black Lives Matter protests, George Floyd’s murderers would still be walking free. If it was not for the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, former President Barrack Obama may or may not have said on Mar. 18, 2008, “What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part — through protests and struggles, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience, and always at great risk — to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time” (https:// www.latimes.com/nation/la-nacampaign19mar19-speech-story.htmlv).

According to the Washington Times (Sept. 27, 2014), at the annual Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner Obama stated that Brown’s death “‘awakened our nation,’ to a reality that black citizens already understood.”

We may not know basketball great Shaquille O’Neal’s commitment to his faith, but he seems to have gotten his essence right. When challenged by an ordinary working mother, he dismissed the $40 million Reebok endorsement that he had signed to help the create its $200 shoes. Instead, he arranged for his signature shoes to be available for $20 to her children and to many others like them. That’s a person of conscience who has a spirit of sacrifice. Similarly, we may agree or disagree with model Bella Hadid’s profession, but we nevertheless salute her. She chose to stand up for the oppressed Palestinians and against the oppressive apartheid state of Israel. Consequently, she lost lucrative modeling contracts. Conscientiousness does not come free. In her, we see a person of conscience who has a spirit of sacrifice.

Not all protests yield the desired results. In fact, they sometimes yield the very opposite. For example, El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz was killed while protesting the country’s racial and economic inequalities. Similarly, the local police killed Yemeni American Nagi Mohsen Daifullah, who was protesting the abuse of farmworkers alongside Cesar Chavez, on Aug. 15, 1973.

In 1975, two years after his killing, the State of California passed the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, in which farm workers finally obtained collective bargaining rights. The California Democratic Party of Orange County’s 72nd Assembly Democratic Alliance created the Nagi Daifallah Social Justice Award to remember his sacrifice in the name of justice. Note, this man came to

(AP) Stylebook, considered the gold standard for news writing, had used “Moslem” instead of “Muslim.” They had assumed that it was the best way to differentiate between (the now former) Black Muslims and mainstream Islam. A Muslim American journalist’s persistence eventually paid off when AP agreed to implement his suggested change.

Some two decades ago, a Muslim freshman protested being charged for meals even though he couldn’t eat the food being served. Initially, the highly respected more than a century-old university resisted on the grounds that he could eat salads and that no Muslim student had ever raised this issue. Finally, the university relented and set up a halal kitchen from scratch — a decision that continues benefits all of its Muslim students.

A Muslim employee of a major American establishment protested her retirement funds being invested in bonds. Again, persistence paid off and the employer not only moved her funds to an Islamic fund, but also made the facility available to all of its present and future Muslim employees.

Examples of successful protests abound, from being allowed to wear the hijab while playing sports to having beards while working in certain jobs.

We all admire Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) today. But not all of us may remember that her path to success was full of protests and sacrifices. Before many of us started protesting Donald Trump, she confronted him at one of his campaign rallies and got thrown out. Her persistence has inspired many others who, like her, aren’t

We cannot forget those from the Global South who protested the European colonizers and their colonizing projects to free their lands and their people. Protests matter.

To protest is a prophetic legacy. Pursuing it is just as relevant today as it was during their times. We have more options and less risks than them. What are we waiting for? ih

Shakeel Syed is executive director of the South Asian Network.

We cannot forget those from the Global South who protested the European colonizers and their colonizing projects to free their lands and their people. Protests matter.

We Try to Help Each Other

Endure, my friends, for this too shall pass

BY A. RAHMAN CHAMPA

In the beginning, Covid-19 struck many countries very hard — but, surprisingly, not Vietnam. According to Huong Le Thu’s blog post of April 30, 2020, the nation adopted a “unite to fight, talking about COVID-19 like a battle. Within Vietnam, it has become a matter of patriotism to wash one’s hands and stay home” (https://www.cfr.org/). Moreover Vietnam, having learned from the 2003 SARS outbreak, quickly imposed travel restrictions, lockdowns, testing and tracing. According to Max Walden, writing for www.abc.net.au/ on Sept. 22, 2020, Vietnam stopped the virus in its tracks — for a second time!

The pandemic has left many Cham and Vietnamese people in a difficult situation. In Tay Ninh province, one of Vietnam’s four major Cham Muslim populations, a Cham friend remembers walking through the streets of his neighborhood and seeing the signs of funerals everywhere — Vietnamese hold funerals at home, instead of trying to conceal death. Vietnamese friends who live in the same area told me that the vaccine was available — for US$800! When people lose their jobs because the government closes their places of employment for weeks, who has such a vast sum? When they are ordered to stay home or face arrest by patrolling soldiers, who can get vaccinated? When one family member is infected, the entire family and sometimes even the nearby neighbors were removed to an isolated quarantine camp. People died.

Today we can look back and remember the images of ambulances coming to take people to quarantine centers, seeing the sorrow and pain of these who weren’t allowed to comfort their dying loved ones or even say “Goodbye, my beloved” for the final time. Everything was heartbreaking, an individual and family tragedy.

Many Cham families who were already struggling lost their savings and other things that they will never be able to recover. Thus, they are forced to rely on the government

and the kindness of strangers. But the government, as seems to be the case in so many lands, may have other priorities.

I used to receive their pleas for help, “Baby, please help me, brother help me, uncle

help me. Just save me this one time, uncle, son. Uncle, I’ll be grateful to you, grateful to you, grateful to you until I die.” This is what they texted to me, pleading for help to survive their personal ordeals.

Surely, none of us can turn away from such distress, even if it’s someone we’re not very close to. Most people are proud of being able to take of their family. Imagine their shame at being forced to beg. My three friends in Tay Ninh province told me so many times, “Please don’t look down on us because we are poor. Please don’t tell your friends about us. Please don’t forget us.”

I can stop drinking coffee for a month during Ramadan. I can give up a meal so I can share a meal with people who are hungry, no matter who they are. After all, the Quran reminds us that all of us are brothers and sisters, all human beings made of flesh and blood.

As for me, I can only do so much to help. I can only contribute a very small amount of money, equal to no more than a grain of sand, along with other people to help them. I called on my brothers and sisters three times in 2021 to help our hometown’s Cham community.

This year we collected enough money to feed 150 families of our Cham relatives and friends during Ramadan. We sent them rice, sauce, instant noodles and a little money to meet their needs. As a Vietnamese proverb states, “One piece when hungry is equal to one pack when full.” We can have a meal, a morning coffee or a small snack for suhur to get us through the day, never realizing how many days our fellow Cham can stretch that which we take for granted during Ramadan.

I have tried to do what I can to help my people. I pray for this accursed Covid-19 to end so they can resume their normal lives, their health and their jobs. I look forward to the day when they will no longer have to bow their heads in shame and beg.

I wish everyone good health. I wish that Muslims could actually put their differences aside and help their fellow brothers and sisters get through these difficult times. I wish that we would remember that a charity lunch box in difficult times is worth more than a million dollars.

I cannot say anything more. I can only share these few words with you. As another Vietnamese proverb says, “Hearing a hundred times is not equal to seeing once.” ih

A. Rahman Champa lives in the U.S.

I used to receive their pleas for help, “Baby, please help me, brother help me, uncle help me. Just save me this one time, uncle, son. Uncle, I’ll be grateful to you, grateful to you, grateful to you until I die.” This is what they texted to me, pleading for help to survive their personal ordeals.

An Islamic Perspective on Depression

Muslim organizations are involved in developing mosque-based mental health networks

BY BASHEER AHMED

Depression is a common mental disorder from which an estimated 5% of the world’s adult population suffers. Yet, despite the growth of this country’s Muslim population, no reliable data indicates how many of them suffer from depression. Mental health statistics are generally difficult to track due to underreporting, stigma and the varying definitions of mental illness.

The U.S. government’s post-9/11 response has caused Muslims psychological distress. Farhana Khera wrote that according to one former senior FBI counterterrorism official, the FBI conducted nearly 500,000 interviews of Muslim and Arab men from 2001-05 (CNN, Oct. 26, 2011). Nationwide, mosques have been checked for, among things, nuclear devices, and tens of thousands have been detained or deported. In the Greater Detroit area, 25% of Arab adults reported enduring abuse after 9/11 (Asim Padela, M.D. and Michele Heisler, M.D., American Journal of Public Health, Dec. 17, 2009).

A Yale University study conducted by Dr. Mona Amer noted that 50% of all ArabAmericans surveyed had clinical signs of depression. Muslim youth aged 18 to 28 are the least happy and the angriest compared to non-Muslim youth (Soc. Psychiatry Psychatiar, 2012, 47:409-18).

Almost everybody experiences depression, a general term used for a negative emotional experience (e.g., the loss of loved ones, income, property, divorce and personal trauma). Usually, these episodes last for a few weeks to several months and, in due course, are overcome.

Sometimes, if there are no discernable underlying causes or only minimum precipitating factors, this depression lasts longer and creates disturbances in the family. They cannot hide its symptoms — a loss of interest in work, studies, and relationships, irritability, difficulty in making decisions, extreme

difficulty coping with minor stresses and showing severe guilt and self-blame. There are also physical symptoms, such as a lack of energy, poor concentration and loss of sleep, appetite and weight. Some may feel suicidal but keep their feelings to themselves.

Usually, family members or coworkers recognize what’s going on, although most sufferers remain in denial. If the symptoms are visible, then they must be convinced to seek help. It’s difficult for family and friends to do this. Asking someone about suicide won’t put the idea into his/her head. In fact, such people often feel relieved when someone asks.

A common feeling among the depressed is that their lives don’t matter and no one would care if they were gone. The longer the treatment is delayed, the longer it takes to get better. I have seen people lose their job and even their family members (separation and divorce), which may lead to even more severe consequences.

Causes. It’s more common in individuals with close relatives who have experienced depression. Deficiency of neurotransmitters, such as norepinephrine and serotonin, may also cause it. While this mental illness appears to have biological components, psychological and social factors also play a vital role. Treatments. Friends and family may be of help in mild cases. Having someone who is willing to listen and ask serious questions can make all the difference.

Some moderate and most severe cases respond to antidepressant medications and counselors who can provide practical advice and emotional care. Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) helps a person respond to challenges more positively. In cases of severe depression, electro-conversion therapy has been proven to be beneficial. ih

INCORPORATE RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY

Islam provides behavioral codes and values that give its adherents’ life meaning and purpose. As a strong faith gives people hope, survival skills and ways to deal with stressful events, we must somehow incorporate Islamic values and ethics into psychotherapy. This approach reinforces one’s sense of belonging, provides one with a larger support group when confronting despair and loneliness, and helps one deal with stress and depression. The strength of spiritual feelings also gives a sense of divine support, self-respect and self-confidence.

Many psychiatrists and psychotherapists in the West discourage the use of religious concepts to treat emotional disorders. As a result, many Muslims are reluctant to seek help from non-Muslim therapists due to cultural, religious and language issues, and their concern that these professionals may not understand the dynamics and stresses they are experiencing. Muslims hesitate to seek mental health services if they fear that their religious identity might be threatened. For example, a hijabi doesn’t want to hear, “You just need to take off your hijab and assimilate.”

During a traumatic event or difficult times, Muslims often contact imams. Unfortunately, many of them are unaware of the available resources due to their being born abroad and struggling with their new language and culture. Thus, most of them can

only address the issues related to stress and depression. Although most of them have no formal training in counseling intervention and therefore offer unstructured counseling based on Islamic knowledge, they are often the first responders for those experiencing psychological trauma and depression.

Imams also have difficulty differentiating between the symptoms of various mental illnesses and lack familiarity with guidelines for psychological triage, which prevent them from referring to the appropriate agencies. Fortunately, many imams are eager to acquire such knowledge and training in crisis counseling.

Those afflicted may first contact imams with primary complaints of physical symptoms and family issues to avoid being stigmatized. Therefore, imams must be trained to ask questions that can reveal any underlying depression and/or anxiety, as well as suicidal feelings (https://psycnet.apa.org/ record/2012-19690-004).

In the last two decades, I have seen steady progress in Muslim organizations and mosques offering mental health services — most probably in Texas. MCC for Human Services, which I founded in 1995, was the first Muslim organization to provide medical and mental health services to indigent Muslims. Over the last 25 years, two or three Dallas-area clinics affiliated with Islamic centers have been active in this regard.

Post-9/11, the U.S. has seen a substantial increase in healthcare professionals

specializing in treating mental problems. There is a growing awareness among Muslim religious leaders and imams that many Muslims in their congregation were approaching them with mental problems, especially depression. Imams began turning to mental health professionals for help.

As a first step, they set up sessions to familiarize imams with various mental health problems afflicting Muslims. There has also been some recognition of the need to incorporate faith and spirituality in treatment programs. Doing so both help improve the current condition and prevents subsequent episodes of depression.

licensed therapists at mosques and community centers. The Khalil Center, established in 2017 in Chicago, offers faith-based mental health services to alleviate psychological distress and dysfunction. Its staff has adapted mainstream psychological interventions to an Islamic framework. It now has offices in California and New York. ICNA provides mental health services through ACCESS Mental Health & Family Counseling in Dearborn, Mich., and Muslim Family Services in Detroit.

Some mosques have even set up a 24-hour mental health hotline, which has been extremely helpful.

EDUCATING, TRAINING AND MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

Mental health first aid training program for imams. This is the most widely used program in the U.S. The initial focus was on training them to identify symptoms of various mental disorders, making a basic assessment, and then deciding which people to refer to a specialist. Imams are trained to recognize stress-related disorders and counsel people to build coping mechanisms based on Islam, strengthening their faith, and receiving help when necessary.

They go through a comprehensive program to learn about mental illness, crisis intervention techniques, faith-based supportive therapy, and referring patients with serious depression.

Imams play an integral role, for Muslim Americans may be more willing to seek help from religious leaders.

Other organizations have become involved, among them SEEMA (Support Embrace Empower Mental Health Advocacy), which offers counseling for emotional problems. Officially launched in January 2018, it now has chapters in Chicago and Atlanta that host support groups with

Unfortunately, some of the curable mental health cases go undetected because of certain well-known misconceptions: People with true mental health issues are violent and that such disorders are signs of weakness and personality flaws. If depression goes undetected, the consequences can reach all the way to suicide.

Although significant progress has been made in the last 20 years, it is not enough. Many of those afflicted remain unidentified or have no access to treatment. Too many Muslims are committing suicide.

We need to increase the number of community mental health awareness campaigns that focus on recognizing mental health issues and why doing so is important. Emphasis should be placed on seeking professional help for problems like stress and depression. Muslim schools (weekend schools too) must engage professional counselors to train teachers to recognize the signs of mental health challenges in their students. ih

Dr. Basheer Ahmed, a former professor of psychiatry at Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, is chairman emeritus at the Muslim Community Center for Human Services, Dallas.

A common feeling among the depressed is that their lives don’t matter, and no one would care if they were gone. The longer the treatment is delayed, the longer it takes to get better. I have seen people lose their job and even their family members (separation and divorce), which may lead to even more severe consequences.

Mental Illness Can Strike Anyone — Even Muslims

Depression turned me into another person

BY KHALID IQBAL

Afew weeks ago, I woke up in a daze realizing that I had just fainted. According to my doctors, my neck muscles were too stiff to protect my head and neck. I couldn’t move, turn or rest.

During my first night home, I realized that I’d have to sleep while sitting in a chair. As this was a recipe for sleeplessness, I soon became lost in my thoughts and allowed depression to take control of my mind — thinking negatively about my past and my future, lost opportunities, my health and life after death.

Time passed very slowly. I was anxiously waiting for fajr and then sunrise. But it was only 2:15 a.m. — more than three hours until fajr. The night crawled by so slowly, and the sound of the clock’s second hand grew louder as everyone else fell asleep.

Sometimes I dosed off, but as my neck tilted sideways I woke up crying with pain. The neck brace didn’t help, for the pain was so severe. The doctors gave me strong pain relievers and muscle relaxants, but it seemed that every medication had more adverse side effects. Thinking that it has to be divine punishment for my sins, I tried to remember them and ask for His mercy and blessings.

I noticed that as time passed, I began to be changing. For example, I didn’t have the energy to do anything and was always thinking negatively about myself, the future, life and others. I didn’t enjoy anything anymore, even when my wife made my favorite dishes — I took a few bites and then stopped eating. I felt tired all the time, took a long time to decide what to wear or make simple

decisions. I felt worthless and guilty for my non-participation at home and in the masjid, angry and agitated. Every night I thought about death, despite my fear of it, and how my being gone would affect my family.

Only after I told my doctor did I learn that these are signs of depression and that I needed to see a specialist. By this time, my family had realized what was happening to me. They would listen to me non-judgmentally, even for long periods of time so I could get all my thoughts and concerns off my chest, trying to reassure me and get me to have a positive outlook. This was when my wife pushed me to find a mental health professional and get proper treatment. I’m lucky that my family was always there, engaging me in positive activities.

The World Health Organization defines mental health as a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his/her ability to cope with stress, can work productively and contribute positively to his/her community

Although Muslims get a lot of solace from praying and connecting with God to seek His guidance and mercy, our community isn’t immune to mental health issues. Family and marriage issues top the list, along with the death of a loved one, financial difficulties,

when they had last visited her, she couldn’t remember. She showed the date in her diary — they had visited two years ago.

The second lady wanted me to take some money she had saved and put it in the mosque’s zakat box. She had put the money in a pile of plastic shopping bags, along with other stuff, so no one could break in and take it while she was sleeping or when she was out. Being over 80, it took her 5 to 15 minutes to open each bag, most of which only had $5 inside; the rest was trash.

together or talk about family or other matters. They were supportive and gave me hope, recognized and highlighted my strengths, encouraged me to use them to think positively from a strength-based perspective and helped me develop my self-esteem and coping skills.

The peer support they provided was the best aspect of my recovery. Instead of thinking negatively each night, I started to sleep most of the night and began thinking about positive things. I’d look forward to getting up for tahajjud and ask God for His blessing and mercy. My wife, my brother and his wife would get up and pray together with me. That was such a serene and beautiful environment.

loneliness, old age and materialism. Our youth are subjected to pressure through social media, Islamophobia, peer pressure, parental divorce, social pressure to excel in their studies, wear fashion and designer clothing and so on.

Unfortunately, most curable mental health cases go undetected because of certain ill-formed myths and misconceptions, such as people with real mental health issues are violent. Research, however, shows that these people are no more violent than the general public. Another myth is that mental health disorders are signs of weakness and personality flaws

Labeling people with a mental health issue only causes them to hide it and allow it to worsen. I remember a 15-year-old boy with severe undetected — and therefore unaddressed — depression. His parents only realized its severity after he committed suicide.

I went to a Virginia senior home to do some political campaigning for a candidate. I met two female residents. The first one, an Indian in her 80s who sews clothes for others to make some extra money, was extremely happy to see me. She asked me to stay a bit longer so we could converse in Punjabi. She told me that she was waiting for her son and grandchildren to visit. When I asked

My wife and I visited these ladies several times. They are getting frail and losing their vision and memory. Now they no longer recognize me. One of them passed away recently. I saw her son and grandchildren at the funeral. I hope they had visited her during her lifetime.

I related my struggle and recovery to a friend, who referred me to a course on “Mental Health First Aid” offered by Loudoun County. While attending it, I recalled my emotional struggle and negative thoughts. Every bit was true — severe anxiety and depression while struggling to sleep sitting on that chair night after night.

My family, although not trained in mental health first aid, helped me every step of the way. My wife, especially, spent so much time talking with me about positive things, giving me hope and encouraging me to talk to my primary physician. We met, and right away he referred me to a specialist.

My recovery taught me that dealing with a mental health issue is a deeply personal process of regaining physical, spiritual, mental and emotional balance. My brother and his wife came from Pakistan to visit me. Their presence had a very positive effect on my health, especially my thinking. Our ensuing discussions inspired me to learn how to cope with my situation. We would exercise

After the mental health first aid course, I realized that it’s important to become familiar with and how to cope with the various aspects of mental health. We need to learn how to recognize if someone has an issue and talk with them about it in a non-judgmental way, to encourage them to seek professional help and to be there for them throughout their ordeal. This is especially important for parents of young children who sometimes have mood swings, anxiety or depression. Parents must be there for them, to talk with them nicely with love and mercy, to understand their mood(s).

Just like knowing first aid, mental health first aid will also help support and save lives, especially of those who are depressed and commit suicide or hurt themselves. Our centers and mosques should begin conducting this type of training. ih

Khalid Iqbal is founder of Rahmaa Institute, which focuses on issues related to marriage, conflict resolution, divorce, domestic violence and anger prevention. He is an author (“Anger and Domestic Violence Prevention Guide for the Muslim Community”) and speaker who has developed and teaches a comprehensive eight-hour premarital counseling course. He has been married for 50 years and has three wonderful children and ten grandchildren.

Although Muslims get a lot of solace from praying and connecting with God to seek His guidance and mercy, our community isn’t immune to mental health issues. Family and marriage issues top the list, along with the death of a loved one, financial difficulties, loneliness, old age and materialism.

Mental Health in the Muslim Community

Why do we continue to stigmatize people with mental illnesses?

BY SUHEIR KAFRI

When I first started my job at the ADAMS (All-Dulles Area Muslim Society) mosque, I was very elated that I would be working with my own beloved community in Islam.

I had recently graduated with a degree in social work. However, in between graduating and getting a job, I went through an immense bout of depression, anxiety and grief. In May 2013, I sat among my fellow George Mason University graduates, waiting for my moment to walk across the stage and receive my diploma. Although I had waited for this pivotal and important moment for six years, another parallel moment held even more significance in my heart — my mother and children were in the stands, cheering me on as I started walking. She proudly held up a sign that said, “That’s my daughter!”

I had married young and had my children. After my youngest got on the school

bus, I enrolled in college. By the time I was a senior, my eldest daughter was freshman at the same college. It was a time of joy and accomplishment. My support system included my mother, my biggest cheerleader. I would call her before every exam and ask her to pray for me.

A dialysis patient for 13 years, my mother went to her treatment center four times a week. I watched her endure her own depression after realizing what the future held for her as she waited for a kidney donor to match. Unfortunately, she never received a transplant. The doctors initially told us that without a donated kidney, she would live only another year because of other preexisting conditions. By the grace of God, she survived for longer than that.

The summer after graduation, I traveled. I made umra, visited my home country to see family and, three months later, in August

2013, came back to the U.S. to begin job hunting. Six days after arriving, my mother went into cardiac arrest and returned to her Creator. I’ll never forget the grief that overtook me and the collapse of everything that was light in life. It felt as if someone had turned the lights off and I was in bleak darkness, unable to see forward or to process and function. If I didn’t have my children to care for, I think I would’ve been in a state of nonexistence and trying to hide from the world, for grief and depression had set in.

After six months, I woke up and prayed that God would remove me from this darkness. I looked for a job. The first one I saw was for a social worker at a mosque. After a few interviews, I was hired and told myself that day, “This will be my turning point! I’ll begin to utilize my skills to empower and enhance the lives of others.”

On my first day, I was instructed that some

people would be asking for zakat assistance. But to my surprise, my first phone call was from a woman seeking help in reaching out to the community to get a donated kidney for her father, who had gone into kidney failure. I was immediately triggered and taken aback, because now I would have to re-enter the despair I had just recovered from. I took it as a sign that I was where God intended me to be. I promised to hold this community close to my heart, as my own pain was speaking to me through this woman.

holistic wellness approach, they’d reply, “No, I’m not sick, I don’t need a therapist” or “No, I can’t see a therapist because people will say that I’m crazy.” One of the most heartbreaking comments came from a woman who’d endured depression for an extended period of time. When I suggested therapy, she said, “No, I cannot go see a therapist, although I want to, because my husband will divorce me and tell his family. They’ll think I’m crazy.”

I had to think of other ways to convince them to get the help they needed. I advised

mental health professionals treat them for depression and other mental health issues, but they also treated victims of domestic violence and various traumas.

As the number of professionals grew, our work continued with specialists who could shed light on those adverse childhood experiences that lead to mental health illnesses. We continued to educate the community through seminars and workshops on such topics as depression and PTSD, especially in terms of refugees, addiction and domestic violence. Our imams played a most supportive role by speaking about mental health in their Friday sermons and expressing the importance of seeking treatment for all such ailments while utilizing spirituality and the help of mental health clinicians.

Seeking to improve our model even more, in 2018 our mosque opened its first counseling office utilizing the living room model, an approach that makes clients feel like they’re sitting in their own living room. We have coffee, tea and snacks, and they can come to the mosque and see an onsite therapist.

Determined to look deeper into my community’s issues, I greeted each client and listened to their stories. I helped them complete their applications for assistance and reveal how their hardships had begun. Knowing that I’d have to advocate for them, I began writing down my assessments of what resources they would need.

Some of them were caretakers of their family, so earning a living and having a regular job everyday was nearly impossible. Others said they were taking care of family members with various mental health illnesses — schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and suicidal ideation — and that leaving their loved ones without daily supervision posed a safety risk. I’d hear them clients say, “If I leave my loved one alone for the day, I’m afraid of what will happen to them while I’m working.”

Many said they had tried to work; however, they’d lose their jobs because they had to take so much time off. This scenario was very present in the community. I’d listen to the families and caregivers saying that they felt so helpless that they’d started developing anxiety and depression. After expressing my concern about their own well-being and suggesting therapy so they’d have a safe space to process what they were experiencing, I was often surprised by their replies.

After suggesting therapy as part of a

them to share the symptoms — all mental health related — they were experiencing with their primary care doctor. I thought perhaps this would lead them to seek help. But many refused this option as well.

I felt helpless. How could I help my community beat the stigma associated with mental health?

I began thinking about how I could convince them to see mental health care in a new light. One evening as I reviewed the events of my workday, it came to me. I would bring the needed care to them. I’d enable them to seek help within a familiar sanctuary: their mosque. I created a Mosque Mental Health Model and, together with the imams, collaborated on ensuring that it would incorporate spirituality and the clinical aspect of care.

Once the model was satisfactory, I asked the local Muslim mental health professionals to contract with the mosque and take the referrals I would send. I was so humbled by all of the therapists, professional counselors, social workers, psychiatrists and psychologists who agreed to help me destigmatize mental illness and treat the community, many of whom had been struggling alone for years.

As this model went into effect in 2015, the community slowly became more comfortable with this arrangement. I watched as client after client said “Yes.” Not only did

By 2020, as Covid took a toll on the world, our dedicated team of mental health professionals addressed the rise in depression and isolation by switching over to a telehealth model of therapy via face-to-face Zoom meetings or phone calls. Many clients told me that this continuation of service was lifesaving, as the initial pre-therapy problem was their inability to seek support within their homes.

Although the effects of Covid linger on and many families have lost loved ones, their ensuing grief and depression would have become unbearable without the mosque’s mental health professionals who reached out and kept their clients on the path to healing.

Combining spirituality and mental health treatment provides hope, and this invaluable resource should be available for every Muslim struggling with mental illness. When you enter the mosque to speak with your imam about your troubles, you should be able to walk into the next office and receive mental health care. I would say that we, as Muslims, are getting stronger in this cause. We will continue striving to destigmatize mental illness and create a better quality of life for those who reach out.

In my mosque, mental health is as important as physical and spiritual health. There is no wellness without mental wellness. “Verily, with hardship comes ease” (94:5). ih

Suheir Kafri, BSW, QMHP-T, is social worker at the All-Dulles Area Muslim Society, Sterling, Va.

Combining spirituality and mental health treatment provides hope, and this invaluable resource should be available for every Muslim struggling with mental illness. When you enter the mosque to speak with your imam about your troubles, you should be able to walk into the next office and receive mental health care.

The Native Pilgrimage

Hajj experienced by a Native Muslim American

BY KARIM HAKIM

Karim Hakim talked with Jamila Southwind, a Native Band Member of The Keeseekoose First Nations Tribe in Canada, on behalf of Islamic Horizons.

You will be hard pressed to find a lot of Native Muslim accounts of the hajj experience.

As the years have gone on, Muslims of all backgrounds have found that hajj, and umra for that matter, has become increasingly difficult to perform. Challenges such as spiraling costs, visa issues and required vacation time make it difficult for Native Muslims to attend.

Those whom Allah blesses to perform to hajj should jump at the opportunity. And for those who can help a fellow Muslin make the journey, they should consider sponsoring an Indigenous Muslim who may not have the opportunity otherwise. Once back home, the new hajji and can use the experience to benefit his/her fellow community and have an eternal ripple effect of goodness.

Southwind related: Every day of my life, the fact that I’m an Indigenous person has mattered. I’ve been harassed, appreciated, ignored and even interviewed on TV. Sometimes it’s positive, sometimes it’s negative. Other times I’m not sure what to feel. Even on my own Native Reservation I stick out because of being Muslim. It’s been a life of standing out. And it can wear a person down.

But when I stepped foot in Makka, for the first time in my life I shared a single identity with everyone around me. Over a million of them! Being

in Makka felt like I was home — a place I had never been to before, and yet it felt so familiar. Everyone came with the same purpose, so focused that nothing else mattered.

Maybe people did express racism toward me. Maybe I did get dirty looks like back home. But I can’t tell you for sure, because I was too focused on doing my pilgrimage for Allah. It was like a dream come true. Sometimes we’d be walking without shoes, other times falling asleep beside a mosque pillar after completing many beautiful rituals. There was something so simple but deep in everything we did.

It would be dishonest to say every experience I had during my pilgrimage was positive, because there were some experiences that required patience and were negative. But I was so happy to be answering the divine call that such things didn’t matter. Normally being in a giant crowd of people can be annoying and hard to get around. But during hajj it was like a giant family. So even if it seemed overcrowded, it was still a good feeling.

In fact, the first time I went to hajj was before the infrastructure was updated. I really recommend people look at the infrastructural changes done throughout the years. You can feel more of the different pilgrims’ experience throughout the years and the history of our umma.

One thing I can never forget is how powerful the feeling was when I arrived at the Haram. Even before entering I felt such a strong feeling inside me as I

To be treated with dignity and have our culture appreciated changed for me in Makka. Islam and hajj showed me how we should really be treated. To this day I am so grateful to The Creator for blessing me with this journey.

prayed to Allah. Even though that was just the beginning of the hajj, I was already changing as a person and feeling an inner strength I’d never had before.

That feeling is so amazing and so great that I can’t even describe it in words. It was my life’s most beautiful and wonderful experience. And you really do realize that out of so many people in this world, God chose you for this.

It was also a test of patience at times if people pushed you during tawaaf, walking around the Kaaba. But I convinced myself that I didn’t want to get angry. I was there for God, and I wanted to behave myself and be respectful. I think this is the part of hajj that we don’t realize is for our improvement — to be patient and well behaved for His sake even when others are pushing you or not being as respectful.

Drinking Zamzam water was another beautiful experience. I’ve never drunk something so delicious and so fulfilling. I’ve tried so many things from nature because of my Indigenous background. Alhamdulillah, I spent much of my life learning how to live off the land and take food and drink from nature and the great outdoors. I’ve had many beautiful experiences like this in my life and have shared and taught them to others as a Native.

But this didn’t compare to my experience at hajj with the Well of Zamzam and its blessed water! I experienced this from my own special lens because of my own background, and I think everyone has their own special ways of seeing this journey and finding their favorite parts of it.

On hajj, I never had to go buy food. My hosts would just set it out for us. It was very delicious, too. And I saw Muslims from all over the world. I remember thinking, “I wish I could see another Native! That would be so amazing!” I kept thinking about that. I had to explain my background to so many people and especially

take time explaining it. I remember many of them didn’t get it at first, but after I explained they would say, “Ooh you are Ahmar Hind” (“Red Indian” in Arabic).

After learning my background, people were very respectful and told me they really respected my people, knew about Natives and that we were strong and warriors. They appreciated our background and said they really feel bad about what had happened to us and that they have a high respect for us for we kept fighting even after our land was stolen.

After hajj I met more people who, when they found out that I was a Native, showered me with so many beautiful gifts. It was like the opposite of so many of the experiences I’ve had my entire life. Many of us Natives are treated like we are second class or trash in our own lands. We struggle and are looked down upon by many. We have struggled against this our entire lives. To be treated with dignity and have our culture appreciated changed for me in Makka. Islam and hajj showed me how we should really be treated. To this day I am so grateful to The Creator for blessing me with this journey.

I really hope more of my Native brothers and sisters can make this amazing journey. Hajj changes your life no matter where you are from. As Natives we are used to traveling. We can be barefoot, sleep out in nature, walk longer distances, climb. We have prepared our whole lives for journeys like hajj. When I arrived in Makka, I can certainly tell you that your heart and body feel like they are home. And you never want to leave. It’s like deep in your heart. You become so peaceful and happy. And after you complete hajj, you become a new person like a newborn baby and are ready to start your life off in a better way. ih

The Compact Hajj Companion

The “Hajj at a Glance” chart was first developed in 1983 by Maryland architect Ansar Hasan Burney, who decided to share his experience.

This chart may be the first comprehensive onepage graphic display of all three variations of the hajj and their sequential rituals.

The rare experience of performing hajj, coupled with the short time and the large crowds, can make for a confusing trip if one is not properly prepared.

Therefore, the hajj chart (Hajjataglance.com) was created to help the intending pilgrims, or even those who are already hajjis, to learn its rituals and how to perform them.

This chart details the minor and major differences among the three variations. After reviewing it, readers should be able to easily understand the information provided and know what to expect.

Over the years, Burney’s updates have made his chart a very convenient document, one that guides the pilgrims throughout their hajj or umra from the first day of ihram to standing in Arafat.

This chart is also a great help for performing umra, the “lesser hajj,” a less structured and more flexible ritual. It provides valuable tips about roaming around in Makka and Madina as a regular tourist, exploring historic landmarks and architectural sites, as well as where to find good restaurants and souvenir shops.

The website is rich with links that help intending pilgrims plan for their journey, and its informational resources help ensure that the pilgrims are fully prepared for one of life’s greatest experiences.

To ensure its compliance with the credible religious authorities, the chart was translated into Arabic in 1984 and presented to Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Hajj and Awqaf. The final version incorporated the ministry’s comments.

The chart was published, with Burney’s permission, in The Arab News (1984), two weeks before the hajj. The resulting outpouring of praise led to it being published a second time a week later.

The Arab News published the chart until 1987. The UAE’s Khaleej Times published it from 198587, Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper published it in 1985 and India’s Munsif newspaper published it in 1990.

Islamic Horizon first published it in 1995 and has continued doing so in its pre-hajj issues ever since. ih

Karim Hakim, a Los Angeles native, has contributed to Muslim Vibe, OnEarth Magazine, SalaamCal, The Highlander, Fight! Magazine and more. In addition to being Southern California’s Helping Hand for Relief and Development representative, he is co-founder of Bros and Arrows and a performer of #SpokenFlows.

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The Clean Air We All Deserve

Our access to clean air depends on where we live and work

BY THE ISNA GREEN INITIATIVE TEAM

We all deserve to breathe clean air, for it’s one of life’s basic needs.

Few things are more frightening than being unable to get enough air. However, because of persistent indoor and outdoor air pollution, people all over the world suffer daily from acute respiratory health problems.

This May, we celebrate Clean Air Month. Clean air is critical to human and ecosystem health. Poor air quality affects people of all ages, especially those who have asthma or heart conditions, work and exercise outdoors, as well as elders and children.

Clean Air Month started as a week-long event in 1972 and evolved into a monthlong one in 1994. Its awareness campaigns seek to educate everyone about the impact of air pollutants and encourage people to take steps to improve air quality, both locally and globally.

We can’t always see or smell toxic air pollutants, but their health impacts are very real. Air pollution is responsible for over 100,000 deaths in the U.S. each year and leads to heart disease, lung cancer, asthma, stroke, low birth weight, premature birth and other problems.

The Clean Air Act (CAA), passed in 1970, was the first comprehensive federal law designed to crack down on polluting air emissions from stationary and mobile sources. Among other things, it authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) to protect public health and welfare and to regulate other hazardous air pollutants.

AIR POLLUTION DOES DISCRIMINATE

According to a 2021 EPA study, people of color are more exposed to harmful particulate air pollution than white people, with racial disparities persisting regardless of income. Much of this is related to where people live and which communities bear the brunt of air pollution. People of color are more likely to live near power plants, major roadways and

manufacturing plants and thus face a higher risk of premature death from air pollution.

Truck pollution is another huge problem that harms everyone, especially those who live closes to highways, ports, freight hubs and other high-traffic areas. Toxic diesel truck fumes contribute to lethal particulate and ozone pollution, thereby threatening the health of millions. Heavy-duty vehicles also spew dangerous nitrogen oxides and other pollution, harming respiratory health, especially in marginalized communities located near freight routes.

Toxic soot hurts millions and puts predominately black and brown communities at a greater health risk than any other population. It’s time to fight back against big

polluters who want a free pass to release toxic soot pollution from dirty fossil fuel-fired power plants and other industrial sources.

➤ Soot pollution, also known as particulate matter or PM2.5, poses a special danger for children, seniors and people with chronic illnesses.

➤ These particles, about 1/36th the size of a grain of sand, can be inhaled and delivered directly to our bloodstream. Exposure to soot has been linked to asthma, heart disease, COPD, Parkinson’s, dementia, low birth weight, greater risk of preterm birth and higher rates of infant mortality health risks and chronic conditions.

➤ According to the American Lung Association, 63 million Americans are

Biden promised to address the climate crisis by cutting climate pollution in half by 2030 and delivering strong public health protections for all communities. Even with the historic investments in climate and clean energy, the Inflation Reduction Act doesn’t get us all the way to this goal.

exposed to repeated short-term spikes in soot pollution each year, and many, including more than 20 million Americans suffer dangerous levels of soot pollution on a yearround basis.

The current standards for soot pollution, which haven’t been updated since 2012, are insufficient to protect our health or the environment. Stronger updated limits (i.e., no higher than 8 mcg/m3 annual and 25 mcg/m3 daily) can save nearly 20,000 lives each year. An even stronger soot standard is expected in black and brown communities, which are often overburdened by pollution, to at least partially end some of the well-known racial disparities in health outcomes. Finally, tightening soot protections will also reduce other dangerous pollution from these sources. The EPA must take bold action if we are to meet President Biden’s stated commitments to cut dangerous pollution and protect our health and environment.

Biden promised to address the climate crisis by cutting climate pollution in half by 2030 and delivering strong public health protections for all communities. Even with the historic investments in climate and clean energy, the Inflation Reduction Act doesn’t get us all the way to this goal.

The ISNA Green Initiative Team calls on the Biden administration to carry out its responsibilities under our nation’s bedrock environmental laws, like the Clean Air Act, by advancing protections across federal agencies that will help the president to keep his promise.

We need him to use every authority he has to meet this commitment. That means that the EPA, the Department of Energy and other federal agencies must set strong standards to clean up power plants, transportation and other sources of pollution. Implementing strong solutions will protect our health and environment, advance environmental justice and promote clean energy sources like wind and solar to power the U.S. into the future.

These solutions to pollution will help advance the president’s public health and environmental justice goals, accelerate the transition to clean energy and create new economic opportunities for all. That’s why we call out to President Biden and EPA Administrator Michael Regan, “Please don’t leave our communities behind. Let us breathe clean air.” ih

The Feather: My Experiences with First Nations

BY SUHAIL HASHIM

The dawn of Covid-19 vaccines opened new challenges. Countries had to decide how to distribute it equitably among their various populations. The need to recruit more skilled health care workers became more relevant than ever, as they were needed to administer the vaccines.

Canada swiftly prioritized its vulnerable populations — the elderly and health care workers. There was also a push to prioritize First Nations communities.

For one who has always been inquisitive about the diverse communities of places where I have lived and visited, as well as their histories and cultures, being a health care professional enabled me to learn so much about them from my clients and patients.

During summer 2022, I worked with the Covid-19 Vaccine Resource Team of Weeneebayko Area Health Authority (WAHA), which provides health care services to remote communities in northern Ontario living along the eastern James Bay and Hudson Bay coasts. Most of these regions’ residents share the Cree lineage.

The “First Nations,” which is preferred over “Indian” in Canada, is used interchangeably with “Aboriginal,” “Indigenous” and “Native.” Prior to contact with Europeans, estimates suggest that North America contained 1.2 to 2.6 million First Nations’ people. The Europeans not only reaped riches by establishing trading posts like the Hudson Bay Company, but also by stealing tribal lands via deceptive treaties. They also tried to erase Indigenous traditions and cultures by coercing Indigenous children to become Catholics by setting

up brutal residential schools and other systems. Regardless of this dark history, I was excited about my upcoming firsthand experience with the First Nations.

My first stop from Toronto Airport is in Timmins, a city that meets nature. Like all small Ontario cities, it has a proper infrastructure, roads and other amenities. Multiple Indigenous reserves are located around Timmins, and some notice boards are in their native language — Cree.

From Timmins, the first stop made by aircraft is Moosonee. Small airports in these remote towns just have the essentials like a runway, a check-in counter and a toilet. There are no security checks to board flights, and sometimes no boarding passes are given to passengers. Adjacent to Moosonee, across the Moose River, is a tiny island called Moose Factory. These are

The ISNA Green Initiative Team comprises Huda Alkaff, Saffet Catovic, Nana Firman, Uzma Mirza and Saiyid Masroor Shah (chair)

Do outsiders realize that Canada’s remote Indigenous communities are weighed down with a lot of public health crises and other challenges?

the last towns where one can still connect via the mobile networks available to us in Southern Ontario. To access networks in remote northern towns, one has to purchase a SIM card from the local operators, which are usually hard to find and expensive.

There are daily weekday flights from Moosonee Airport to even remoter towns along the James Bay coast: Fort Albany First Nation, Kashechewan First Nation, Attawapiskat First Nation and Peawanuck

also see how less healthy options like chips and cookies are priced lower than natural produce. Surprisingly, alcoholic beverages at Moosonee’s government-run Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) outlet are more affordable than fresh produce.

A resident of a senior living home told me of how before the colonizers came, the Indigenous tradition was to help those in need. “One has to share what they have with others and that’s how you keep yourself men-

10 minutes, for the water was contaminated with harmful chemicals like trihalomethanes (THMs). The town had only two water plants, from which we were expected to collect water for drinking and cooking.

In 2007, the young local activist Shannen Koostachin launched an “Education is a Human Right” campaign to lobby the government for better educational facilities for First Nation youth. Shannen died in a car accident in 2010, but her dream lives on — in 2014 a new elementary school opened.

To the north of Attawapiskat, close to Polar Bear Provincial Park, is the Peawanuck First Nation; the northernmost town served by WAHA. With a population of close to 300, it doesn’t have a hospital, only a nursing station/health center run by two community nurses who can arrange teleconferencing with doctors or airlifting if needed.

First Nation. One flight usually takes passengers to all these locations and returns the same day.

The Indigenous reserves in these remote parts have no roads, which means that only trucks, vans, SUVs and similar heavy vehicles are found there. Some of the residents use buggies. Most of them speak English, but there are elders who only understand Cree. The Northern College has branches in each town. I visited and spent some time at the branch in Moosonee, whose college magazine is appropriately titled “The Feather.” This prominent symbol in Indigenous culture represents power, wisdom, high honor, trust, strength and freedom. It’s often seen in this region’s administrative offices and people’s houses, as well as on bracelets and other art forms.

For Indigenous communities, land and animals are very important. There are land-based healing programs like walking together — a symbol of the holistic approach to healing in Cree culture. Otherwise known as “Pimi Pici Wak,” this 10-day program seeks to help those with substance abuse and other mental health challenges by encouraging them to find power in the sense of community and connect with nature’s resources.

One main grocery store, Northern, serves as these towns’ main market. Prices are at least two or three times higher than they are in the Greater Toronto Area. One can

tally sane. When the settlers came to this land, they not only stole our resources, but took away more priced traditions like these,” he said. There are stories of continuing drug abuse and addictions, and parents of children who complain about the individuals who supply illegal drugs, but no respite has been provided.

The Nishnawbe Aski Police Service (NAPS), which serves this region’s First Nation communities, cannot act against such drug offenders due to the bureaucracy’s politics and lack of strong evidence.

The roughly 2,000-member Attawapiskat First Nation has recently been in the news for their mountain of troubles. In 2016, the Attawapiskat Council declared a state of emergency due to the increase in suicides attempts. In 2012, then-chief Theresa Spence went on a six-week-long hunger strike to call attention to Canada’s treatment of the First Nations.

Attawapiskat is also known for its housing and water crises and the government’s ongoing neglect of establishing safe educational facilities for its students. A house contains up to 10 family members. After Covid hit, it became extremely difficult for the public health team to ask residents to self-isolate when an individual showed symptoms or tested positive.

When my team visited in July 2022, we were asked not to drink tap water (even after boiling) or to bathe or shower for more than

This community had to relocate due to a flood. There is a sense of pride and determination among its residents — which I felt was missing in the other communities. Also, relative to other remote communities, addictions and substance abuse are significantly lower. The distant northern location and sense of determination might have contributed to this.

While flying between Indigenous reserves, usually at a lower altitude than commercial planes, I pondered on these small communities living among the wildlife and wilderness, on the river meeting the sea or the lake meeting the river. I thought about how they thrived and are still thriving with their attachment to the nature and animals of these lands.

Every time my flight prepares to land in Toronto and I see how blessed we are with well-developed roads, tall structures and other amenities, I am reminded of these remote Indigenous communities weighed down with a lot of public health crises and other challenges. There is a heightened need to teach our younger generations to learn and connect with this land’s First Nations. Mere recognition of the Indigenous communities and land acknowledgments before an official program is nothing but a meager effort. ih

[Editor’s note: A longer version was originally published at: https://mmacemagazine.wixsite.com/mindspark/ post/the-feather-my-experiences-with-first-nations]

There is a heightened need to teach our younger generations to learn and connect with this land’s First Nations. Mere recognition of the Indigenous communities and land acknowledgments before an official program is nothing but a meager effort.

Suhail Hashim, a registered nurse currently working at Toronto Western Hospital, is also a public health professional. He has worked with various public health projects in Ontario, Canada and Southern California.

Why Decanonize (St.) King Louis IX?

Do Muslims and the world know that cities of St. Louis are named for a wastrel monarch?

BY MISBAHUDDIN MIRZA

In June 2020 a large group of people gathered at the statue of King Louis IX atop Art Hill in Forest Park, St. Louis, Mo., demanding its removal. The Associated Press reported, “‘The lines are clear,’” said Umar Lee, one of the protest leaders, who converted to Islam at 17. ‘We have one side calling for the removal of this hateful man to create a city of love.’ Lee said he started a petition drive to remove the statue and rename the city. Meanwhile, Catholics have been praying at the park every night this week, hoping the statue stays put.”

Why the demand for its removal?

King Louis IX of France (r. 1226-70) was canonized for leading the seventh (1248-54) and eighth crusades (1270-91) — the only French monarch to enjoy such status. This veneration also led to the naming of several cities in lands then under French rule after him, including St. Louis.

One Vatican criteria that must be satisfied before a deceased person can be placed on the path to sainthood is the verification of two miracles performed by the individual. Louis IX didn’t meet these criteria, yet in 1297 Pope Boniface VIII canonized him for leading these two failed crusades. Why did this Pope bend canonic law for someone one who led his armies into wholesale slaughter, got captured, had a hole cut in his breeches and marched in the rear of the army because of his own dysentery — an illness that killed him when he landed on the African coast?

Awarding Catholicism’s highest honor to a person who learned nothing from the Fifth Crusade, which resulted in the massacre of his own armies, makes no sense. To fully understand the disaster this “saint” brought upon France, we need to revisit the Seventh Crusade.

At that time, Louis IX was the only European monarch eager to embark upon a new crusade. This, along with the efforts of the papal legate Odo of Chateauroux, caused

a massive enrollment in his army. His three brothers — Robert of Artois, Alphonse of Poitiers and Charles of Anjou — all joined. Selecting Cyprus as his staging base, Louis spent two years stockpiling so much food and wine that these vast storage piles looked like hills from far off. Aigues-Mortes, located on France’s south coast, was the expedition’s European base of operations.

France’s annual revenue was less than 250,000 livres tournois (weight of the gold “pounds” used in Tours). During the preparation’s first two years, Louis spent 2 million livres tournois and the Pope granted him one-tenth of all ecclesial revenues in France for three years. Other crusaders were also encouraged to raise their own funds.

On June 12, 1248, Louis set off from Aigues-Mortes with an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 men, including 2,800 knights, 5,600 mounted sergeants and 10,000 infantries. An additional 5,000 crossbowmen, using

technologically advanced and accurate bows, signed up, as did the Knights Templar, the Knights Hospitaller, the Teutonic Knights and the Kingdom of Navarre.

After a few months in Cyprus, Louis’ armies set sail to attack Egypt with a mighty fleet of around 120 large galleys and about 1,000 smaller vessels. Joinville described this as “it seemed as if all the sea, as far as the eye could behold, was covered with the canvas of the ships’ sails” (Thomas Asbridge; “The Crusades,” 2010, p.585).

In his letter to al-Salih Ayyub (r.1240 and 1245-49), the sultan of Egypt, Louis confidently expresses his intention to both take back Jerusalem and conquer Egypt and the Levant. “I will assault your territory, and even were you to swear allegiance to the cross, my mind would not be changed. The armies that obey me cover mountains and plains, they are as numerous as the pebbles of the earth, and they march upon you grasping the swords of fate” (Maalouf, p.227; worldhistory.org).

Once Louis’ forces landed on the beach, the Egyptian garrison vacated Damietta, a decision that caused the sultan to have them swiftly executed. A few months later, Louis moved south toward Mansourah, the sultan’s city. The vanguard, led by his brother Robert of Artois, stormed into the city. The legendary Mamluk soldiers of the ferocious Kipchak Turkic group, known then as Dawlat al-Turk and led by the celebrated general and future sultan Baibars, closed the city gates behind the Crusaders’ vanguard and set about killing Artois and the entire vanguard of Louis’ army.

Louis could have fallen back across the Tanis River with his remaining army — tantamount to admitting defeat and returning home with the bulk of his army intact. Instead, he decided to stay put. The Mamluks then initiated massive and sustained dawn-to-dusk onslaughts on his forces, the ferocity and persistence of which terrified the Crusaders. He later wrote that the Mamluks’ attacked “so persistently, horribly, and dreadfully” and they had never seen such a bold and violent assault (Asbridge, p.600).

Muaazzam Turanshah, the heir apparent of Egypt, arrived from Syria and blocked Louis’ food supplies from Damietta. A Latin observer described the situation of Louis’ army in the following terms, “Everyone expected to die, no one supposed he could escape. It would have been hard to find

St. Louis statue fronts the St. Louis Museum

one man in all that great host who was not mourning a dead friend, or a single tent or shelter without its sick or dead” (Asbridge, p.601).

Finally, on April 4, 1250, the Crusaders were ordered to retreat under cover of darkness. However, the Mamluks, in no mood to show clemency, learned about it. King Louis, the mighty king of France, got separated from most of his army and was so ill with dysentery that he had to have a hole cut in his breeches and hide in a small village. He was captured while hiding inside a filthy hut, cowering in fear.

idea that Saracens will barge into her room and capture her and the infant. To protect herself from this horror she convinces an old knight to ‘lie down beside her bed and hold her by the hand.’ She also requests that he swear that ‘if the Saracens take this city, you will cut off my head before they can also take me.’ Joinville does not see her as a lifeless political symbol, but rather as a frightened young woman, thrust by circumstances into an unfamiliar land when she is in a fragile and vulnerable state.”

A Muslim witness wrote, “A tally was made of the number of captives, and there

of affairs. In mid-February, he had failed to make a realistic strategic assessment of the risks and possible rewards involved in maintaining the crusaders’ southern camp, holding on to the forlorn hope of Ayyubid disintegration. He also grossly underestimated the vulnerability of his Nile supply line and the number of troops needed to overcome the Egyptian army at Mansourah. Some of these errors might have been mitigated had the king now acted with decisive resolution -- recognizing that his position was utterly untenable” (Asbridge, pp. 602).

Megan Cassidy-Welsh, writing on Louis IX’s imprisonment during the Seventh Crusade, quotes partially from a 13th-century text, “Who can tell this story or recall it without tears, when such noble, such elegant, such prominent Franks were massacred, trodden down, or like thieves seized by base men and dragged off to imprisonment, subjected to the judgment and the grinning mockery of God’s enemies? Here the oriflamme was torn to pieces, the beauséant trampled underfoot, a sight nobody remembers having ever beheld. Over there the standards of magnates, since ancient times an object of dread to the infidel, were bespattered with the blood of men and horses and, spurned under the heels of a triumphant enemy who blasphemed against Christ and ridiculed our men, were most vilely destroyed and treated with contempt” (A Templar, c. 1250, in Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, vol.6, Additamenta, pp.191-97, in Peter Jackson, ed., The Seventh Crusade, 1244–1254: Sources and Documents (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007, p.102).

In her “Jean De Joinville and his Biography of Saint Louis on the Seventh Crusade,” Katherine Blakeney writes, “Interestingly, his compassionate descriptions are not confined to commoners and soldiers only. He gives a moving and very human account of the pregnant queen’s fear and suffering at Damietta. Three days before the child’s birth, she develops an obsession with the

were more than 20,000; those who had drowned or been killed numbered 7,000. I saw the dead, and they covered the face of the earth in their profusion … It was a day of the kind the Muslims had never seen; nor had they heard of its like” (Asbridge, p.605).

Asbridge, who teaches history at the Queen Mary University of London, holds Louis IX responsible for this disaster. “Louis was largely responsible for this ruinous state

To date, the Vatican has removed 93 saints from its list. Louis IX doesn’t meet the requirement for a verifiable miracle for canonization. In fact, he couldn’t even cure his own recurring dysentery, which eventually claimed his life. In addition to emptying French coffers to pay his astronomical ransom, Louis brought indescribable pain, suffering, illness and death to thousands of Christians. Bending the canonic law to make embarking on two violent crusades to kill Muslims a criterion for attaining sainthood is a great affront to the world’s 2 billion Muslims. It’s time for the Vatican to correct its mistake by decanonizing Louis IX. ih

the iBook Illustrated “Muslim Travel Guide to Jerusalem.” He has written for major US and Indian publications.

Fajr in Cyberspace

For those who cannot perform Fajr in the masjid, this program offers Fajr in cyberspace.

At a predetermined time, program participants and the Imam enter cyberspace. The participants perform fajr following the Imam’s voice commands. The entire process takes less than 10 minutes. That’s it!

This process, developed in Pittsburgh, Pa., is being offered to people living in the Eastern Standard Time zone.

• This is a voluntary program with no admission fee, and no charges of any kind. Enrollment will be decided after reviewing the application.

If you are interested in participating, please send a stamped selfaddressed envelope to:

P.O. Box 553, Bridgeville, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15017.

Misbahuddin Mirza, M.S., P.E., is a licensed professional engineer, registered in the States of New York and New Jersey. He served as the regional quality control engineer for the New York State Department of Transportation’s New York City Region. He is the author of

To date, the Vatican has removed 93 saints from its list. Louis IX doesn’t meet the requirement for a verifiable miracle for canonization.

Tunisia Continues on the Brink

A case study for young democracies

BY MONIA MAZIGH

On March 13, the new Tunisian Parliament (The Assembly of the People’s Representatives — Majlis Nuwwab ash-Sha‘b) was opened with foreign and independent journalists barred from observing the session.

Calling it a “Parliament” and the new elected members MPs would be equivalent to accepting the coup, or the autogolpe (selfcoup) as some qualify it, that President Kais Saied carried out on July 25, 2021, and the subsequent forced closure of the previously elected Parliament, the dismissal of Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi, the suspension of the former MPs and the replacement of the 2014 Constitution by one drafted by Saied.

Despite the very low voter turnout during the two rounds of the legislative elections, last December and January, respectively reaching about 11%, the president moved ahead with his autocratic adventure.

It is irrelevant who was elected to this “assembly of the representative of the people,” for they will have no real power in governance. President Saied made sure to suppress any check and balance powers that would, in normal circumstances, ensure the division and balance among the legislative, executive and judicial branches.

Saied’s appointed prime minister, Najla Bouden, who is hardly seen in public, is always shown nodding in agreement with his talk and directives. With an assembly that has no official political parties and with the judicial power, like the judicial council dissolved and its members demonized by the media and the President with several judges dismissed, imprisoned and intimidated to follow Saied’s directives, little if not none, is left to make up a democracy.

Even the elected municipal councils, once considered a great symbolic milestone in implementing democracy from the bottom up, were recently dissolved by presidential decree.

Several weeks before the assembly’s

official opening, several prominent political leaders spoke against the coup and formed the National Salvation Front; they were arrested and accused of conspiring against national security. Some of their lawyers spoke about a witch hunt to silence and intimidate these lonely voices who continued to criticize Saied. Along with these arbitrary arrests, some prominent judges were also arrested in circumstances that resemble James Bond movies: something between kidnapping and public humiliation.

The timing of these arrests was a strategic move to “clean” the way from any noise and hurdles, little as they may be, to “sanitize” the political environment and give a false sense of serenity and popular acquiescence.

Immediately after these political arrests, Saied spoke on TV in the presence of his national security advisors and made very controversial and frankly racist remarks about the sub-Saharan migrants living in Tunisia, calling them part of a wider campaign to change the country’s demographic makeup and make it “purely African.” The next day, videos started circulating on social media showing street attacks on black people. Several black Tunisians were shown with their national ID cards stuck on their head, a symbolic way to show their citizenship and avoid being attacked or assaulted. It was reported that the homes of several families were attacked and their belongings burned in the streets. Saied’s racist words revealed the ugly racism espoused by some and fuelled by some media that were trying to “defend” Tunisians as being tolerant and welcoming.

Tunisia, as do several other Muslim-Arab countries, has a long history of anti-black racism. It is a taboo topic and quicky dismissed when documented and confronted. There are no formal educational programs in the school to tackle and eliminate racism.

Ironically, the former Parliament had passed laws to combat anti-black racism. For instance, the 2018 “Elimination of All

Forms of Racial Discrimination” act, which defined and criminalized racial discrimination, was considered an important step forward in defending the rights of the 10-15% of Tunisians who identify as black as well as members of the Sub-Saharan population who are living more and more in Tunisian cities, studying in universities, looking for better economic opportunities and ultimately hoping to reach Europe.

A believer in French philosopher Renaud Camus’ (b.1946) dangerous “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, Saeid has given a de facto green light to hordes of violent Tunisian men to “defend” their demographics from black people who are constantly described as threats and criminals stealing their jobs and food. Unfortunately, racism is a global phenomenon, and Muslim countries aren’t immune to having a president who incites the population to hate and violence against marginalized and vulnerable groups. This is a new low for post-coup Tunisia.

Meanwhile, the economic situation is deteriorating very rapidly. Debt is reaching unprecedented levels. Years of drought, the pandemic, political instability and of course the war in Ukraine remain ongoing and the increasing inflation makes it hard to put food on the table. The president and his circle do nothing but blame the “speculators,” “thieves” and “traitors,” as if tiny

Tunsia Parliament, Kasbah Square, Tunis Town Hall

Tunisia’s economic situation isn’t part of a global system. The country’s only option is to pay the high costs associated with these geopolitical and economic changes.

In the past decades, Tunisia always managed to build good diplomatic relationship with countries like the U.S., France or Germany who would send aid or invest so the economic situation would not become dire. Organizations like the IMF, the World Bank or the African Development Bank were always solid partners in perpetuating this economic stability. However, Saied’s racist speech, along with his nationalism and chauvinism mixed with autocratic manners, have created a vacuum around him that is more and more filled with false information, conspiracy theories and lies.

One wonders how Tunisia, praised for its successful Arab Spring revolt and relatively peaceful and smooth democratic transition, could reach such lows and be ruled by a president who is accountable to no one and still naively and simplistically praised and described by a large portion of the population as “M. Clean” or “God-fearing.”

Today’s bleak reality can be attributed to three major factors.

The media and its funding sources. During the Bourguiba and Ben Ali regimes, the government-controlled media constantly praised the president and the country’s governments. Only rare dissenting voices openly criticized the autocrats and their socioeconomic politics.

After 2011 and the emergence of democratic institutions, many old media outlets became mouthpieces of “democratic transition,” but never made any mea culpas or expressed any regret for their previous

The non-reform of the country’s education system. After independence, Tunisia’s strong public education system brought successive waves of relatively competent men and women to the marketplace who could run the government’s institutions. However, this same system remained old, sclerotic and in serious need of reform. The strong French influence remaining in the system made it, by today international standards, underdeveloped and unable to embrace the world’s rapid changes. Skills like critical thinking, historical and political knowledge, and media analysis aren’t taught, for the emphasis remains on filling students’ brains with boring knowledge they can regurgitate to pass their exams. Seeing Tunisians questioning neither the media nor the president and his allies and just accepting their conspiracy theories is a blatant failure of the education system in the past decades.

pro-dictatorship stances and complicity. Later when the Islamist party Ennahda came to power and formed a government, many of these media outlets became “the opposition,” criticizing and opposing every policy advanced by the successive Ennahdaformed governments and automatically demonizing institutions (e.g., Parliament, political parties and city councils). These institutions made many mistakes, but they also did good work — all of which this “opposition” denied.

Today the same media is mostly pro-dictator, except for a few journalists who are criticizing the president and his politics. As there is no strong independent media, such individuals are branded as “traitors” and “foreign agents.”

Various seriously wrong decisions. While it had a parliamentary majority or was in coalition with other parties, Ennahda paved the road for revenge. During the last decades, Ennahda and some of its influential leaders constantly sought to avoid real accountability. Worse, they even signed an agreement with the late former president Beji Caid Essebssi (d. 2019) to extend political immunity to those past government members who had implemented and practiced the politics of fear and torture. Basically, all such people were given a free pass, except for some of the family members associated with the corrupt Ben Ali, his in-laws and close circle. Democracy isn’t about free elections; it’s about personal accountability and the rule of law. Today, Ennahda is paying the price for trying to play it “safe” and “nice” with the former agents of the dictatorship — a naive approach and one full of political miscalculations.

The Tunisian revolution has been lost. Let’s hope this is only a temporary setback. Tunisia is lost from the radar of countries like the U.S. or France, who are concerned with the rising powers of Russia and China. Their silence signifies that dictatorship can pay off, especially when it keeps migrants away from Europe and Islamists out of the democratic arena. ih

Monia Mazigh, PhD, an academic, author and human rights activist, is an adjunct professor at Carleton University (Ontario). She has published “Hope and Despair: My Struggle to Free My Husband, Maher Arar” (2008) and three novels, “Mirrors and Mirages” (2015), “Hope Has Two Daughters” (2017) and “Farida” (2020), which won the 2021 Ottawa Book Award prize for French-language fiction. She is currently working on a collection of essays about gendered Islamophobia.

The Tunisian revolution has been lost. Let’s hope this is only a temporary setback. Tunisia is lost from the radar of countries like the U.S. or France, who are concerned with the rising powers of Russia and China. Their silence signifies that dictatorship can pay off, especially when it keeps migrants away from Europe and Islamists out of the democratic arena.

©WIKIMEDIA SAMI MLOUHI

Mass Protests Pierce Israeli Delusions of Democracy

The Zionist settler-colonial venture takes a more sinister turn

BY LUKE PETERSON

During the last week of March, widespread public demonstrations coupled with a general labor strike brought Israel to a grinding halt. Schools, universities and banks were closed, along with two major ports and Tel AvivJaffa’s Ben Gurion International Airport. Roads and bridges were blocked in dozens of areas, and public transportation was brought to a standstill. Hospitals across the country even began canceling non-urgent procedures.

The total number of protestors is difficult to pinpoint, but witnesses say that hundreds of thousands took to the streets in one form or another in what has been called the nation’s largest-ever collective demonstration. Given that Israel has a population of 9 million, these demonstrations should be considered a mass movement, the collective

will of the people rising up in one voice in protest of their government’s policies.

The catalyst for this unprecedented collective action was a move by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a longtime hawk and fixture of the militant Israeli right, to establish a naked dictatorship. Netanyahu, who was sworn in for his most recent term as prime minister last December, heads a vocal ethno-nationalist and conservative Jewish political coalition. At the start of his term and with his coalition’s support, he moved quickly to strip the judiciary of its responsibilities to conduct executive oversight. If this move had succeeded, the ruling party (his rightist Likud, as it happens), would be legally entitled to ignore Supreme Court rulings.

The inevitable consequence of this new policy would be a dictatorship of the right.

It seems that Netanyahu wants to head an ethno-state in which Judaism and Zionism coalesce to dominate Israel’s neo-Spartan society even more thoroughly than his party does now. The ongoing protests, public demonstrations and labor strikes are an attempt to stop this party putsch.

So far, these wide-ranging demonstrations appear to have been successful. On March 27, Netanyahu backed down while reserving the right to reintroduce the policy in a later session of the Knesset. This half-measure was enough to end the general strike, although protests and clashes between demonstrators and police continued through March 28 and show no sign of abating at the time of this writing.

One reason the protests continue is Netanyahu’s new concession to his party’s extreme right. In a speech responding to

the protests on March 26, he agreed to place his proposed erasure of judicial oversight on the backburner, thereby tabling it for future discussion. In the same speech, he also announced the creation of a new wing of the Israeli National Guard to be placed under the control of Itamar Ben Gvir for reasons of “national security.” Ben Gvir, a public darling of the right, has been convicted for racist incitement and his public support of Jewish terrorist groups among the “settler” (read colonist) community.

He’s also fond of publicly praising Baruch Goldstein, the American Israeli settler who massacred 29 Palestinians at prayer in Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque on February 4, 1994. [Editor’s note: Wikipedia states, “Goldstein’s gravesite became a pilgrimage site for Jewish extremists. The following words are inscribed on the tomb: “He gave his life for the people of Israel, its Torah and land.”] Such a macabre resume would condemn a public figure to the absolute fringe of political participation in all functioning democracies. But not in Israel. In fact, it won Ben Gvir the post of minister of national security. And now it has garnered him a private militia.

These facets of the Israeli political system point to the obvious conclusion that, despite repeated assertions from protesters who claim to be fighting for their country’s lifeblood of democracy, Israel is no democracy at all. It was built on top of and against the express wishes of the land’s indigenous people through an organized ethnic cleansing that denuded the land of more than half of its indigenous population while destroying 400+ Palestinian towns and villages.

Today, the descendants of those Palestinians who resisted and remained between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea live as second-class citizens, either segregated within Israel as the nation’s largest minority (around 1.5 million of the total population) or subjected to cruel and capricious military rule in Gaza or the occupied West Bank. Palestinian citizens can vote in Israeli elections and hold office but are, nevertheless, an oppressed minority seen as a fifth-column element by average Israelis.

So, while hundreds of thousands protested the blurring of checks and balances within their political system, few of them carried signs expressly condemning Ben Gvir, Ayelet Shaked (Zionist Spirit Party), Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionist Party) or other Israeli officials for their continued

advocacy of the ongoing settler-colonial project in Palestine. Fewer still were prepared to acknowledge the patent hypocrisy inherent in protests to support an Israeli democracy.

One wonders if they ever question why their country continues to occupy and sequester 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and deny them the legal right to participate in its political system. And during the last week of March 2023, even fewer Israelis protested the crimes of

equality before the law and equal rights within electoral politics should be received, both regionally and abroad, with only the most intense skepticism.

In reality, Israel has never practiced electoral equality or political transparency because such ideals — paramount for a functioning democracy — are in absolute conflict with the ongoing occupation and deliberate confiscation of the land of Palestine.

Given this reality, Israel refuses to adopt an official state constitution, wherein the

ethnic cleansing and forced removal carried out during 1948-49, when at least 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes.

While Palestinian citizens of Israel can at least vote, residents of Gaza and the occupied West Bank are allowed to vote only in elections held for the Palestinian Authority, an increasingly desiccated and toothless political body that primarily facilitates Israel’s full civil and military control of the region. As such, the regulation of border crossings, air space, all water resources and even the remodeling of homes in Palestinian neighborhoods — all elements of life and society in Palestine — are exclusively controlled by Tel Aviv.

No Palestinian West Bank or Gaza resident, a mixed Muslim and Christian population, can vote in Israel, hold office inside its political system, or participate in national politics in any way. Israeli democracy, indeed!

Israel, a nuclear power that will celebrate its 75th year of existence this May, reserves its unapologetic identity as a Jewish democratic state. Then as now, there appears to be no semblance of awareness, either officially or publicly, of the obvious incompatibility of democracy and ethno/religio-nationalism. As such, claims from the droves of Israeli protesters this week paying lip service to internationally cherished concepts like

rights of citizens under its charge are articulated and guaranteed, and official borders identifying its territorial claims in the region. This convenient loophole allows figures like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to give speeches in front of homespun maps that, in addition to Israel and all of the Palestinian territories, include the sovereign nation of Jordan, as he did on March 19 of this year.

Further, because it has no constitution, Israel has no official mechanisms in place to prevent power grabs like Netanyahu’s latest maneuver. In the absence of official state channels, the vox populi has flooded the gap, rising to the fore to express its disapproval of the corrupt Netanyahu’s more sinister machinations. While meddling with the political system, let’s not forget that the Israeli prime minister was under indictment by the courts in November 2019 for breach of public trust and accepting bribes, likely another reason why he’s taking aim at the judiciary. This active and animated Israeli mass movement has had a tangible impact upon the progress of Israeli politics.

But where is this mass movement and historic public demonstration when it comes to the rights that Israel has denied most of the Palestinians ever since its founding as a “democratic” state? ih

Luke Peterson (PhD, Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge) is author of the forthcoming “The U.S. Military in the Print News Media: Service and Sacrifice in Contemporary Discourse.”

These facets of the Israeli political system point to the obvious conclusion that, despite repeated assertions from protesters who claim to be fighting for their country’s lifeblood of democracy, Israel is no democracy at all.

Read the Labels Carefully Before You Eat

Food labeling conundrums often do not serve all consumers

BY MOHAMMAD ABDULLAH

As of last Jan. 1, “GMO” labels on grocery store food and beverage products were replaced with round green USDA-created label saying “bioengineered” or “derived from bioengineering” or providing a phone number to call, text for more information or a QR code that takes you to an online disclosure. These changes are part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s new rules on controversial genetically modified organisms (GMOs), crops and ingredients. The National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard (NBFDS), published by the Federal Registered (December 2018), requires that products containing GMOs be labeled by 2022 (www.foodbusinessnews.net).

Currently 65 or so countries, including the U.S., require labeling of genetically modified foods, although the laws may vary widely (www.justlabelit.org). This new law, directed at grocery products, requires food manufacturers, including manufactures of dietary supplements, importers and retailers, to disclose whether foods are bioengineered or contain bioengineered ingredients.

However, it only requires labeling bioengineered foods intended for human consumption that contain more than 5% of GMO ingredients. Under the new rule, a food does not contain genetic material if it cannot be detected. If one or more ingredients come from a modified plant, but the ingredients themselves contain that plant’s DNA, a voluntary label may carry a “derived from bioengineering” disclosure. The problem here is that starches, oils and sweeteners made from bioengineered plants are so highly processed that no DNA remains. Therefore, they aren’t likely to be labeled.

Another loophole — the new disclosure rules don’t cover products that list meat, poultry or eggs as their first or second ingredient after water, stock or broth. Thus, meat lasagna, chicken burritos and many other prepared foods may contain modified

ingredients without disclosure. The milk from a cow that ate bioengineered alfalfa isn’t considered a bioengineered food. Moreover, according to The Washington Post (Jan. 1, 2022), it ignores more than 100 million Americans who have no access to smartphones or cell service, because companies are allowed to rely on smartphone-based scannable QR codes to share information with consumers.

The USDA’s Organic and Non-GMO Project Verified labeling will be allowed. Food sold by restaurants, food trucks and delicatessens or served by airlines aren’t required to carry bioengineered food labels even if they are produced with GMOs. This is true for companies whose annual sales are less than $2.5 million (www.specialityfood.com).

The Center for Food Safety Consumer and other advocacy groups say that there are too many loopholes and that the rules will leave most genetically modified foods unlabeled. They maintain that all genetically engineered foods should be labeled, regardless of whether the GMO material is detectable, and that disclosure statements should be made through labels with clear understandable terms (www.ota.com).

WHAT IS A BIOENGINEERED FOOD?

A bioengineered plant or animal has a new gene inserted into it to give it a useful trait, such as making it resistant to a pest or disease or enhancing its nutritional value. Many GMO crops are used to make ingredients found in cornstarch, corn syrup, corn oil, soybean oil, canola oil and granulated sugar. Few fresh fruits and vegetables in GMO varieties include potatoes, summer squash, apples and papayas (www.fda.gov).

A host of animals are being researched for genetic modification. Researchers behind many of the projects want to breed more efficient, nutritious animals for human consumption, such as goats whose milk can prevent children from contracting diarrhea, a potentially deadly disease in some parts of the world (www. medicalnewstoday.com).

Researchers are also using gene-editing technology to create pigs that could provide organs to save human lives. Early this year, history was made when a team that included Dr. Mohammad Mohiuddin, a graduate

Food producers can use these two logos approved by the USDA

The USDA needs to understand that enforcing the new rules requires that consumers understand them well enough to be able to ask relevant questions. Meanwhile, consumers should read labels and become knowledgeable so they can choose the best product for themselves.

from the Dow Medical College, Karachi (now a U.S. citizen) transplanted a pig’s heart into a human. It demonstrated for the first time the feasibility of a pig-to-human heart transplant, a field made possible by new gene editing tools (www.nytimes.com).

GENETIC ENGINEERING

The use of microorganisms to make cheese, yogurt, bread, beer and wine, as well as selective breeding and crossbreeding to breed plants and animals with more desirable traits, has been ongoing for centuries. Early farmers developed crossbreeding methods to grow corn with a range of colors and sizes. But changing plants and animals through traditional breeding can take a long time, and it’s difficult to make specific changes. By developing genetic engineering in the 1970s, scientists could make similar changes in a more specific way and in a shorter amount of time by inserting DNA from one organism into another. The first genetically engineered product for human use was insulin, which the FDA approved in 1982. However, genetically modified food only received FDA approval in 1994, when a GMO tomato became the first to go commercial.

According to World Health Organization (WHO), “GMO” (genetically modified organism) has become the common term for foods created through genetic engineering, such as corn and soybeans. Genetically modified (GM) foods are derived from organisms whose genetic material (DNA) has been modified in a way that does not

occur naturally (e.g., by introducing a gene from another organism). The technology is called “gene technology,” “recombinant DNA technology” or “genetic engineering” (www.who.int).

The processes for creating a GMO plant, animal or microorganism may be different. For example, to create a GMO plant scientists must first identify the desired trait (e.g., resistance to drought), find an organism (e.g., plant, animal or microorganism) whose genes contain that trait and copy it and then use tools to insert the gene into the plant’s DNA. Scientists are developing new varieties of crops and animals via “genome editing,” which can make it easier and quicker to make changes that were previously done through traditional breeding (www.fda.gov).

It’s quite likely that you’ve eaten GMO food recently without even knowing it. GMO-derived ingredients are prevalent in processed foods, such as lecithin and emulsifiers from soybeans and high-fructose corn syrup, which is found in everything from soft drinks to bread, cereal, frozen meals and sweetened yogurt. GMO soy can be found in infant formula, protein drinks, tofu, canned tuna and salad dressing. GMO grains, especially corn, soybeans and alfalfa, are fed to most of the livestock used in the meat and dairy industries.

GMO foods are also marketed as healthy vegan alternatives to meat, such as the popular brand of Impossible Burgers. These plantbased burgers contain GMO soy protein and heme, the molecule responsible for replicating the beef-like taste and appearance. This molecule is genetically engineered by combining soybean DNA with yeast. It’s said that unless an item is sold under an organic label or considered a whole food, it likely contains GMOs (www.ecowatch. com). Also, consumers are being blindsided by the pricing mantra that because they can save on resources, food producers can also charge lower prices for GMO foods. In some cases, the costs of foods like corn, beets, and soybeans may be cut by 15% to 30%.

WHAT ARE GMOs?

WHO, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and several other major science organizations across the globe that reviewed available data on GE foods found no evidence that they are harmful. A NAS report says there is no difference in potential or adverse health effects in GMO crops

compared to non-GMOs, which means that GMO crops are just as safe to eat as their non-GMO counterparts (medlineplus.gov).

However, according to another report, some consumers feel that GM foods are unnatural, immoral and unsafe, which is ironic because some 70% of processed foods in the U.S. already contain GMOs (www. ama.org).

CONCERNS ABOUT GE FOODS

According to one report, GMO is a concern because it could escape and introduce engineered genes into wild populations, the gene’s persistence after the GMO has been harvested and the susceptibility of non-target organisms (e.g., insects that aren’t pests) to the gene product (www.who. int). Another report says consumers are mainly concerned about the biotech-crops’ long-term human health effects (e.g., antibiotic resistance, allergenicity, unnatural nutritional changes and toxicity) (www. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov).

In short, biotechnology offers potentially enormous benefits but also risks. It utilizes living cells and cellular materials to create pharmaceuticals, vaccines, diagnostic, agricultural, environmental and other beneficial products. Genetic engineering can create pest-resistant crops that can fight drought, improve yield and help fight world hunger. While not the only answer for food security, GMOs can play an important role in this regard because the global population is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050.

However, although the FDA considers GMOs safe, their long-term effects are still being studied — but only on animals. This may be why several countries ban them either partially or completely. Given that many questions remain unanswered, biotech companies must proceed cautiously and avoid causing unintended harm to human health and the environment.

The USDA needs to understand that enforcing the new rules requires that consumers understand them well enough to be able to ask relevant questions. Meanwhile, consumers should read labels and become knowledgeable so they can choose the best product for themselves. They can also choose organic food by buying from local farmers. ih

USDA to label bioengineered food

Dr. Mohammad Abdullah, who retired after serving 29 years with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, the agency that regulates the meat industry, is the author of “A Closer Look at Halal Meat from Farm to Fork” (2016).

A Questionable Claim

Muslim Americans do NOT have a higher suicide rate than other Americans

BY AHMED SHAIKH

In 2021, the Khalil Center, Maristan Muslim and other mental health organizations publicized a statement in the Journal of the American Medical Association Psychiatry (JAMA; 2021 Sep; 78(9): 1041–1044.) that Muslims are far more suicidal than non-Muslims or atheists. They then spread this claim throughout much of the media to raise money, especially zakat.

Upon closer inspection, this deeply unethical claim came about due to conflicts of interest and cooking numbers to get a contrived result, followed by outright fraud.

AN OPINION POLL

The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding’s (ISPU) annual “American Muslim Poll” selects a small sample to arrive at generalized conclusions. As with all polls, there is a margin of error.

In 2019, part of the process involved the Institute of Muslim Mental Health (Dr. Hamada Altalib), the Stanford Muslim Mental Health & Islamic Psychology Lab (Dr. Rania Awaad) and the Khalil Center (Dr. Hooman Keshavarzi), who purchased questions on suicide from ISPU to be included in the survey, which focuses on Jews, Muslims and the “general population.”

They found that 7.9% of Muslims, 5.1% of Protestants, 6.1% of Catholics and 3.6% of Jews reported trying to kill themselves at some point. While this is not twice as many Muslims attempting suicide as others, it does look like Muslims in the sample attempted suicide at a higher rate. However, according to ISPU, these numbers are meaningless because the margins of error were quite large. So, comparing the groups with the largest gaps, Jews and Muslims, is actually something not worth discussing. The margin of error for the Muslim survey was ±4.9%, while for Jews it was a whopping ±7.6%.

Indeed, when ISPU first announced the results of their 2019 Muslim poll, they did

not mention suicide at all, as doing so would have been pointless.

The authors of the JAMA article used another method to compare religion and suicide attempts. They compared a reference group — Protestants — to Muslims, calculating an “odds ratio.” The authors found that the numbers had a statistically insignificant p-value of 0.1. So, unless they had another way to calculate the rate of suicide among members of different religions, they were out of luck. As it happens, though, they devised a way to adjust the numbers and get headline-grabbing results.

ADJUSTING FOR UNKNOWN DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS

The claim that Muslims were twice as likely as others to attempt suicide was the result of “adjusting for demographic factors” for which the authors had no data. They used “regression analysis” — a technique to adjust for race. This technique found that Muslims are twice as likely to attempt suicide as are non-Muslims.

In a comment and a long-form analysis, Dr. Osman Umarji (statistician and scholar, the Yaqeen Institute) made two important criticisms: (1) Since the authors started with nothing, it was inappropriate for them to perform a “regression analysis” and (2) they were doing regression analysis for non-existent variables. One of the biggest problems here was considering “Arab” as a race — a race assumed to be exclusively Muslim, which is not the case. The ISPU data

that the authors worked with contained no non-Muslim Arabs, which caused a “co-relation” between the groups “Muslim” and “Arab” (Dr. Umarji’s full reanalysis can be found at tinyurl.com/4n2j6buk).

Regression analysis isn’t designed to work with data that is incomplete in a way that causes a co-relation. Statisticians call this effect, which is a little bit like stacking the deck, a “suppressor effect.”

ATTACK IN PUBLIC, AGREE IN PRIVATE

Umarji was attacked vigorously online by the study’s authors — Awaad accused him of peddling “disinformation” and Altalib accused him of lying. The authors claimed they had three unnamed statisticians from top institutions look at the numbers, all of whom reportedly deemed the “suppressor effect” found by Umarji “baseless.”

The problem was that before the authors accused Umarji, they had privately written a response to JAMA and conceded that he did have a point about the suppressor effect: “In this sample, being Arab may be a confounder and serve as a suppressor variable. However, as we argue above, it is critical to include race in the model so that readers can see the potential effect. Our intent of publishing this Research Letter is to draw attention to an under-recognized issue and promote further discourse on suicide across communities” (emphasis added).

Elsewhere, the authors claim that a “suppressor” may be a good thing for reasons that appear hypothetical and not grounded in fact. So, they contrived a “fact” that Muslims were twice as likely as others to attempt suicide to “promote further discourse.” One would hope that the envisioned discourse would be based on facts and not fiction.

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING P-VALUE

One area where the authors did push back both privately and publicly (in a public comment to the JAMA article) was the notion that it was improper for them to do a regression analysis in the first place when they started with nothing.

They claimed that they had in fact started with something — the odds ratios I told you about earlier. The odds ratios had a p-value (for probability) of 0.1 with the reference group, Protestants. Thus, the authors had only statistical noise. However, apparently to bolster their argument while attacking

Umarji, they brazenly changed the p-value to 0.05 with no explanation for why an already published number was changed. In other words, they were defending their work with a fake number.

From the JAMA article with the “unadjusted odds ratio.” I point to the critical p-value, which shows no statistical significance.

“Changing the ‘p-value’ here appears to be an attempt to defend doing ‘regression anal-

— the organizations headed by the authors themselves — of the study had no role in the “design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review or approval of the manuscript; and the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.”

Here is the claim (from the JAMA article) that funders had no role:

“Funding/Support: The Stanford Muslim Mental Health & Islamic Psychology Lab,

The authors of the JAMA article used another method to compare religion and suicide attempts. They compared a reference group — Protestants — to Muslims, calculating an “odds ratio.” The authors found that the numbers had a statistically insignificant p-value of 0.1. So, unless they had another way to calculate the rate of suicide among members of different religions, they were out of luck. As it happens, though, they devised a way to adjust the numbers and get headline-grabbing results.

ysis.’ Without the numbers needed to create something that could be published in a medical journal, they ‘tortured’ the data to make it happen. If you torture the data enough, it’ll tell you whatever you want to hear.”

DRIVEN BY CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Dr. Keshavarzi and Dr. Awaad failed to disclose the obvious conflicts of interest (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/ fullarticle/2712191). Both belong to organizations that stood to benefit from their claims.

If you run an organization that advocates for the view that Muslim mental health is in horrible shape and your organization happens to offer a solution — if we send you more money — that may very well color what your research results will look like. A Muslim mental health advocacy group is unlikely to herald a study finding that Muslims attempt suicide at the same rates as everyone else or that they ran the numbers and have no idea about anything either way (leaving aside the question of who would publish such a thing).

The authors also claimed that the funders

the Khalil Center, and the Institute for Muslim Mental Health contributed funding to include mental health-related questions in the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding national survey. Role of the Funder/Sponsor: The funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study: collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Additional Contributions: We would like to thank the support of the Institute of Muslim Mental Health, the Stanford Muslim Mental Health & Islamic Psychology Lab, and the Khalil Center.”

All three funding organizations were headed by article’s authors. In the same article, it’s clear that the authors were involved with all aspects of the study:

“Author Contributions: Dr Awaad had full access to all of the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

Concept and design: Awaad, Keshavarzi, Mogahed, Altalib. Acquisition, analysis, or

interpretation of data: Awaad, El-Gabalawy, Jackson-Shaheed, Zia, Altalib. Drafting of the manuscript: Awaad, El-Gabalawy, Jackson-Shaheed, Zia, Keshavarzi. Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: Awaad, El-Gabalawy, Zia, Mogahed, Altalib. Statistical analysis: El-Gabalawy, Jackson-Shaheed, Z ia. Obtained funding: Awaad, Altalib. Administrative, technical, or material support: Awaad, El-Gabalawy, Keshavarzi, Mogahed. Supervision: Awaad, Altalib.”

Virtually nothing about this study looks right. The claim was contrived, and much of the Muslim mental health sector comes out looking bad here.

WHAT ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH?

Awaad and the other JAMA Psychiatry paper authors produced a conclusion about Muslim Americans they could not legitimately support and then lied to support it. There should be no confusion about this.

The authors hyped this in the media and raised money, including zakat. They took full advantage of their obvious conflicts of interest, which they did not bother to disclose, slandered a Muslim scholar when they knew he was telling the truth and privately admitted as much. They then doctored the results of a p-value to make themselves look good. Our community needs to know about this, even if it means that the public will have less confidence in Muslim mental health professionals.

When we discuss the stigma surrounding mental health, it doesn’t mean that Muslims fail to seek mental health because they are ignorant. Rather, it’s because of a long history of mental health professionals using mental health as a cover for nefarious purposes, including episodes in recent history like torturing Muslims (www.nytimes. com, May 1, 2015) and Countering Violent Extremism (https://muslimjusticeleague. org/for-health-care-professionals/). Stigma comes from dishonest efforts like the Muslim suicide study.

Unfortunately, too many Muslim donors, especially zakat donors, as well as imams have been taken in by this sham.

Muslim mental health professionals can be a benefit to society. This is more likely to happen without lying and cheating. ih

Ahmed Shaikh is an estate planning attorney in Southern California and the co-author of “Estate Planning for the Muslim Client” (ABA Publishing, 2019). This article is adapted from his newsletter on Muslim nonprofits and leadership, which is available at ehsan.substack.com.

Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel

Azad Essa

2023. Pp. 240. PB $22.95.

Kindle $14.99

Pluto Press, London, U.K.

Essa argues that the India-Israel alliance has significant consequences for democracy, the rule of law and justice worldwide.

The author contends that Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) and Zionism share a common ambition: building supremacist democratic states with a single culture, a single race and a single nation. Essa places this relationship in its historical context by looking at these two ideologies, India’s changing position on Palestine and both countries’ growing military-industrial relationship from the 1990s.

Our Fatima of Liverpool: The Story of Fatima Cates, the Victorian woman who helped found British Islam

Hamid Mahmood and Yahya Birt 2023. Pp. 128. HB $20.95.

PB $11.95

Beacon Books, Oldham, U.K.

Fatima (Francess) Elizabeth Cates (1865‒1900), a founding figure and leader of Britain’s first mosque community as well as its first treasurer, was one of England’s first female converts. She converted in 1887, under the guidance of Abdullah Quilliam. She showed great courage and fortitude in overcoming opposition from society and her own family to call people to Islam by word and example. She died of pneumonia four days after giving birth to her first child.

Yemen in the Shadow of Transition: Pursuing Justice Amid War

Stacey Philbrick Yadav 2023. Pp. 288. HB $55.46

Kindle $19.24

Oxford University Press, U.K.

Drawing on 17 years of field research and interviews with civil actors, Yadav positions Yemen’s non-combatants not — or not only — as victims of the 2011 uprising and its aftermath, but as political agents imagining and enacting the justice they wish to see. She focuses on Yemen’s civil actors who, responding to a diplomatic stalemate and a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, work every day to build peace in their fragmented land by meeting longstanding justice demands. In addition, she details three decades of alternating elite indifference toward, or strategic engagement with, questions of justice.

Public Freedoms in the Islamic State

Rached Ghannouchi, David L. Johnston (trans.)

2022. Pp. 576. HB $85.00

Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn.

Ghannouchi argues that Muslims should accept the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in its broad outlines, under the correct interpretation of Islamic law and theology. Under his theory of the Sharia’s objectives, justice and human welfare are not exclusive to Islamic governance and can be advanced in multiple ways. Published in English for the first time, this book is a major statement by one of the modern Middle East’s most important political theorists.

Broken Camel Bells: Somalia: Age of Terrorism 2006-2022

Abukar Abdo Arman

2023. Pp. 166. PB $20.00

Independently published

In oral societies such as Somalia, the more dramatic a narrative is, the less scrutiny it faces. Sadly we are lulled into a deep sleep with fantastic fairytales. This book is written to unveil the domestic and foreign truths surrounding the Somali conundrum, to awaken the conscience of a suicidal nation and to inspire a new generation of transformative leaders.

Turkey 1923-2023: From Ataturk To Erdogan

Marios Adamides

2023. Pp. 85. PB $50.00

Independently published

Adamides discusses Kemalist Turkey (1923-2002), Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (the AK Party, 2002-12) the Gulen-Erdogan confrontation (2012-16), Erdogan’s authoritarian turn after 2013, the coup d’état of July 15, 2016 and its aftermath, the “Blue Homeland” doctrine, the Erdogan and AK Party 20-year reign and others matters of interest.

From Darkness into Light

A. Helwa

2022. Pp. 199. PB $14.79 HB $19.99. Kindle $4.99

Naulit Publishing House, Nanunet, N.Y.

Acollection of devotional poetry about mercy, guidance, timeless wisdom, prayer, self-love, faith and the soul’s ultimate journey of healing, connection and unity with the One.

Helwa shows how to turn worries into worship and how to walk the path to God with all of one’s insecurities and doubts. This book, the author says, is for people trying to approach God with sincerity and honesty. ih