Editors: Mohamed & Rashida Ziauddin
In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent and the Most Merciful
EDITORIAL:
Muslim Students Bring Food, Conversation to Florida Homeless
A Member of Project Downtown Talks to a Homeless Man in Tampa, Florida
Like just about any major city in the United States, the city of Tampa has its share of homeless people. But it also has people who are reaching out to help Tampa's homeless. "We are here because, in Islam, we are supposed to feed the hungry," said one of the students. "So that's our purpose here. That's all." The students belong to Project Downtown, an organization that started about two years ago in Miami and now has branches other U.S. cities.
The Tampa members of Project Downtown say what motivated them was seeing people in need. "Project Downtown was started by a couple of groups and a couple of university students back in Miami, and people have been gathering money after seeing a problem in the community, went out and bought sandwiches," said another student. "They went to the local city hall and started feeding." The city of Tampa has almost 350,000 people. It is estimated that about 11,000 of these are homeless. That's about three percent of the population.
For the students of Project Downtown, the religion of the people they are helping does not matter. What matters is that they are in need. Jill Moreida is a member of Project Downturn. "We come up to them," said Jill Moreida. "We don't just give them food and walk away.
We don't feed them like they're at the zoo. We make friends with them; we talk with them. We interact with them. Week after week after week. And we know stories about their family. We know when they're sick. We get to develop relationships with them." "Oh, we wait for them! We wait! You see, we waited in the rain," said a homeless man. "We got caught in the rain! We feel beautiful with them coming." As the relationships develop, Jill says, the homeless gain a new understanding of Islam.
"They say they cannot believe how amazing the Muslims are," said Moreida. "And it's acts like that, that not only are we serving...we do it for the sake of Allah, when we're feeding them. But there's a bigger message being brought, and it's exposing a whole new realm of people to Islam. Teaching them to not be afraid of us, to not have that stereotype that we're going to hurt them or anything."
Project Downtown is one of several outreach efforts sponsored by the Muslim community of Florida. Its funding comes from other Muslim groups in the State, including the Tampa Bay Muslim Alliance. Dr. Hussein Nagamiya, a cardiologist, is head of the alliance. "Our main idea is to feed the hungry, to clothe the poor, to address their needs, because these are homeless people, and they don't have anywhere to go," said Hussein Nagamiya. "So, we give them conveyances such as bicycles that were given away. We conduct their [medical] tests. Some of them may never have a test in the entire year. We detect diseases for them and send them on to free clinics, etc."
In addition to helping the poor and teaching people about Islam, organizations like Project Downtown and the Tampa Bay Muslim Alliance hope to achieve another goal:
"Showing their fellow Americans that, in the words of Dr. Nagamiya, the vast majority of American Muslims are good citizens who make positive contributions to the United States".
European Muslims Reconcile Cultures through Fashion
(voanews.com)
(condensed version)
Lisa Bryant
PARIS:
European critics deride the Islamic veil as a mark of female oppression. But for a new generation of young Muslim women, it is part of an emerging fashion that seeks to integrate European and Muslim identities.
(hijabandthecity.com)
On a cold evening, the Starbucks coffee shop in the Paris-area business district of La Defense, offers a welcome refuge. Twenty-nine-year-old Saadia Boussana is cradling a warm drink. Tall and striking, with a black and gold embroidered shirt and a glittering brown bonnet, she blends in easily with the trendy, after-work crowd.
In fact, it's hard to associate her stylish bonnet with a headscarf or hijab, the head coverings worn by devout Muslim women that are highly controversial in Europe.
But for young women like Boussana, communications director for a new Muslim Women's Magazine called MWM, or My Woman Magazine, the head covering is part of her fashion look.
Increasingly, Boussana says, observant Muslim women want to dress stylishly while remaining modest. Many like her head to mainstream department stories like Zara and H&M to create their outfits - partly for lack of fashionable Muslim shops.
Boussana is part of a new generation of educated, vocal and socially active women who are beginning to brand their European and Muslim identities through style. They layer dresses over pants, wrap headscarves into bandanas, match hooded kaftans with high-heeled boots.
They are turning their backs on fashions worn by their mothers - often first-generation immigrants from Pakistan, Turkey or North Africa. And they are showing that Islamic dress codes - which generally stipulate covering most of the body except for the face, hands and feet - do not have to be boring.
Mariame Tighanime co-founded the Hijab and the City webzine for Muslim women in Paris. RNS photo by Elizabeth Bryant. |
Emma Tarlo is a British social anthropologist and author of a new book, "Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith". She points to the hijab, or headscarf, as the most obvious manifestation of this fashion revolution.
"In a sense they're using fashion to try to contradict the idea of the hijab being just about politics, traditionalism or piety even. They are still associating it with modesty and the idea that a woman keeps part of her body private. But they're active in the public sphere and they're modern - and they want to be seen as modern."
Much of the fashion action is taking place in Britain, where cultural diversity is more tolerated than elsewhere in Europe.
Up-and-coming designers like Sarah Elenany and Sophia Kara are even attracting a non-Muslim clientele with their edgy styles, bold colors and loose, full clothes.
But Tarlo has seen Muslim street fashion bubbling up in Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany - all countries where being "visibly Muslim" is not always appreciated.
"I think that's partly why people work all the harder to develop interesting hijab styles, to decorate the hijab...so that it actually becomes a sort of visual talking point, it attracts attention. And many young women welcome - if people ask about their dress - they welcome the opportunity to explain it."
France, with its estimated five to six million Muslims and an international reputation for fashion, appears to be a promising market. But Islamic wear collides with its staunchly secular creed.
Chahira Ait Belkacem is executive director of the Muslim women's magazine MWM.
Belkacem says unlike their counterparts in the United States or Britain, conservative Muslim women in France are afraid of making bold fashion statements. Being chic, she says, is still badly viewed within the Muslim community.
But that appears to be changing. In a sign of their growing social presence, Muslim women now have two new French "webzines," or Internet magazines, that directly target them. One is MWM. The other is titled "Hijab and the City".
Twenty-two-year-old Mariame Tighanime co-founded "Hijab and the City" two years ago with her older sister Khadija.
Tighanime says the magazine wants to reach all Muslim women, not just those who are well-off and successful. Like MWM, it strives for a broad audience that includes Muslims and non-Muslims. Besides fashion, both Internet magazines have sections that include beauty, health, family, environment, culture - and features on women who have made a difference in society.
Still "Muslima wear" is gaining a foothold among young, trendy Muslim women.
Even a few, non-Muslim designers like Cindy van den Bremen are getting into the act. Van den Bremen markets a line of sporty hijabs mostly through her Internet store, Capsters.com. She says many Muslim retail stores are not meeting the needs of the new generation.
"On the other hand, there's an increasing number of modern and fashionable shops on line which combine different styles. And there is an increasing number of Muslim women interested. But it's different from the shops their mothers would go to."
EXTREMISM RAISES ITS UGLY HEAD AGAIN
SCHOOL LEADERS, CAIR MEET ABOUT COMPLAINT, RELATIONSHIP
St. Cloud Times
3/26/10
Members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Minnesota chapter and St. Cloud school district officials met in St. Cloud for about 90 minutes Friday to discuss the complaint CAIR filed with the U.S. Department of Education claiming that Muslim students confront a hostile learning environment in St. Cloud schools. It is expected to take a month to determine whether there will be an investigation.
The school district has agreed that human resources director and human rights director Tracy Flynn Bowe will serve as the point person for any future complaints CAIR hears from St. Cloud students.
CAIR has also agreed to consider writing a second letter to the Department of Education saying that CAIR and St. Cloud school district have been partners in working through issues in the schools. The two sides are also considering a joint statement to the community saying the same thing
3/25/10
Senior Judge Robert L. Echols of the Middle District of Tennessee today sentenced Eric Ian Baker to 183 months in prison for vandalizing and burning down the Islamic Center of Columbia, Tenn., the Justice department announced. Baker pleaded guilty on Sept. 18, 2009, to destruction of religious property and using fire to commit a felony.
One of Baker's co-defendants, Michael Corey Golden, was sentenced to 171 months for his role in the arson. The other co-defendant, Jonathan Edward Stone, pleaded guilty but has not yet been sentenced.
"This type of crime strikes at the heart of our civil rights and religious freedoms in America. I am very pleased that through local, state and federal cooperation, all defendants responsible for this vile attack have been brought to justice," said U.S. Attorney Edward M. Yarbrough for the Middle District of Tennessee.
Subway Blasts Kill Dozens in Moscow
By Clifford J Levy
March 29, 2010
NY Times, March 29, 2010
Alexander Natruskin/Reuters
The subway system, one of the world’s most extensive, had been subjected to attacks related to the separatist war in Chechnya in the early part of the last decade.
Officials said the first explosion Monday occurred at 7:50 a.m. in the Lubyanka subway station, killing 19 people both on the platform and aboard an incoming train. Numerous others were injured.
About 40 minutes later, another explosion occurred in the second car of a train at the Park Kultury station, killing 14 people, officials said.
March 28. 2010
The suspects are expected to make an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Detroit on Monday.
On Sunday, a source close to the investigation in Washington, D.C. confirmed that FBI agents were conducting activities in Washtenaw and Lenawee counties over the weekend in connection to Hutaree, a Christian militia group. Detroit FBI Special Agent Sandra Berchtold told The Detroit News the federal warrants in the case are under court seal and declined further comment.
Sources have said the FBI was in the second day of raids around the southeastern Michigan city of Adrian that are connected to a militia group, known as the Hutaree, an Adrian-based group whose members describe themselves as Christian soldiers preparing for the arrival and battle with the anti-Christ.
WXYZ-TV reports that helicopters were spotted in the sky for much of Saturday night, and agents set up checkpoints throughout the area. Witnesses told the station that it was like a small army had descended on the area. The Department of Homeland Security and the Joint Terrorism Task Force are also involved in the raids.
Lackomar said he heard from other militia members that the FBI targeted the Hutaree after its members made threats of violence against Islamic organizations.
"Last night and into today the FBI conducted a raid against homes belonging to the Hutaree. They are a religious cult. They are not part of our militia community," he said.
One of the Hutaree members called a Michigan militia leader for assistance Saturday after federal agents had already began their raid, Lackomar said, but the militia member -- who is of Islamic decent and had heard about the threats -- declined to offer help. That Michigan militia leader is now working with federal officials to provide information on the Hutaree member for the investigation, Lackomar said Sunday.
Sources from the Michigan militia community said one of the FBI raids took place Saturday during a wake for a Hutaree member who had died of natural causes. A Hutaree leader was arrested during the wake while at the same time agents were conducting raids at other locations.
The Associated Press is reporting that FBI spokesman Scott Wilson in Cleveland said agents arrested two people Saturday in northwest Ohio. A third arrest was made in Illinois on Sunday, a day after raids in northwest Indiana.
Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on Islamic-American Relations of Michigan, made an announcement Sunday during the group's 10th anniversary banquet about receiving a call from a network journalist about the alleged threat against Muslims.
"Don't allow this news to scare you away from practicing your faith," said Walid.
Audible gaps were heard throughout the banquet hall when the news was announced. Walid said he will call local authorities about more information on the allegations. He urged local Muslims to recommitt themselves to their faith in light of the accusations.
David Shepardson and Oralandar Brand-Williams contributed to this report.
END
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