Sheik Hamza Yusuf

From The New York Times

A recent spate of arrests of Muslims accused of terrorism in the United States has revealed that many of them were radicalized by militant preaching they found on the Internet.

Now nine influential American Muslim scholars have come together in a YouTube video to repudiate the militants’ message. The nine represent a diversity of theological schools within Islam, and several of them have large followings among American Muslim youths.

The video is one indication that American Muslim leaders are increasingly engaging the war of ideas being waged within Islam.

“We need to shepherd our own flock and to say that, theologically, these things are unacceptable,” said Imam Suhaib Webb, the educational director for the Muslim American Society, a grass-roots group in Santa Clara, Calif., who is among the nine in the video. “The Prophet Muhammad, when on the battlefield, saw that amongst the enemy there were innocent women and children killed, and he was openly angry. He is prohibiting us from killing the innocent. It is very clear.”

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From the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue,

Learn what some of today’s most exciting visionaries, thinkers, advocates, and activists are doing in the field of religion. Watch exclusive interViews, and read responses from the next generation of graduate students, seminarians, and civic leaders.

Click here to read what the panelists had to say in response to Rabbi Baird’s comments.

At Streets 2010: Urban International Festival, the winners of One Chicago, One Nation’s film contest were announced. The grand-prize winner, “1700% Project: Mistaken for Muslim” is a sobering commentary on anti-Muslim hate crimes committed around the country after 9/11. The text, a poem created from filed police reports and citations, is stark: “Awoke to find / A South Asian American, Sikh / Chased by a group of four men yelling, ‘Terrorist’ / Sikh mistaken for Muslim.”

"1700% Project: Mistaken for Muslim"

James Warren at the Chicago News Cooperative, writes:

It’s the five-minute effort of both Anida Yoeu Ali, a Cambodian Muslim performance artist who came to Chicago when she was 5, and Masahiro Sugana, her video producer-husband, who as a teenager came here from Japan. The video features a fictional poet, dancer, angel and prisoner speaking out against anti-Muslim hate crimes by repeating the jarring essence of incidents around the country.

Freeway signs declaring, “Kill All Muslims.” Assaults on South Asian Sikhs, Egyptians, Spaniards and bagel store owners mistaken for Muslims. Citations of nasty incidents in suburban Bridgeview and Collingswood, N.J. A man pushing a stroller past a mosque and yelling, “You Islam mosquitoes should be killed.” There are more.

The “1700%” alludes to a national increase in anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate crimes after the Sept. 11 attacks. The video is unsparing and short of uplifting, but effectively unsettling, concluding with spare words across the screen: “Look at what you’ve done … because we refuse to end the violence.”

The videos are the next stage in a Chicago experiment — One Chicago, One Nation — to create greater understanding of a Muslim population estimated as high as 6 million in the United States, with the largest number, perhaps 400,000, in the metro area. The endeavor is backed financially by George F. Russell Jr. of Tacoma, Wash., founder of a billion-dollar investment-services firm best known for the Russell 2000 stock index.

Mr. Russell was moved by the events of Sept. 11 and joined in a worthy effort by the Chicago Community Trust, San Francisco-based Link TV and two other Chicago groups, the Interfaith Youth Core and the Inner-City Muslim Action Network. Mayor Richard M. Daley was at Saturday’s announcement by the groups of 100 “community ambassadors” to lead gatherings in various forums and help oversee $200,000 from Mr. Russell to spur interfaith cooperation.

Click here to watch the winning films.

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Australia’s ABC TV youth video team covers Day 7 of the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions, Melbourne, focusing on saying farewell and what participants take from the event.

Australia’s ABC TV youth video team covers Day 6 of the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions, Melbourne, focusing on youth at the Parliament.

In this Parliament of the World’s Religions session, this panel of yogis and yoga experts considers whether the practice of yoga is necessarily linked to Hinduism, and whether it is possible to practice yoga fully without taking on the beliefs of Hinduism.

Australia’s ABC TV youth video team covers Day 5 of the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions, Melbourne, focusing on Social Cohesion.

Islamic society head describes changing Muslim community engagement

by Deb Christian

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CHICAGO (RCCongress 2010), April 9 — Dr. Ingrid Mattson, Director of the Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary told a story of how change involves communication to participants gathered in Chicago for Religion Communication Congress 2010 (April 7-10).

The congress is the once-a-decade gathering of communications professionals from different from different faiths, different countries, and different areas of faith. More than 500 participants in this decade’s event explored the theme “Embracing Change: Communicating Faith in Today’s World.”

Using the example of a film documentary planned to help explain Muslim beliefs, Dr. Mattson described the difficulty innate in a medium requiring images, when Islam forbids the creation of images of the prophet Mohammed.

To assist the filmmakers, Dr. Mattson suggested the best way to represent the prophet was to look at the life of his followers, then found herself a reluctant participant in the often intrusive filming process. She found this experience a good metaphor for American Muslims because it illustrated the tension between the cultural emphasis on “I” rather than on God.

Dr. Mattson spoke at length on the affects of the 9/11 attacks on American Muslims. “How do you respond to injustice when you are persecuted because someone hijacked your religion? We had to divert money, human resources, creativity, thoughts, strategy to keep the Muslim community safe,” she said. “God has a purpose and we are only responsible for our own response.”

These difficulties led more Muslims to better understand the need for interfaith involvement. That involvement now is much more a part of the mainstream Muslim life. Another response that grew from 9/11 was a push to define more globally “who is a Muslim” Since religious authority is decentralized in Islam, in 2005 King Abdullah of Jordan called together a group of scholars, who issued the Amman Declaration to stop sectarianism within the Muslim faith.

These events and others have been instrumental in helping the Muslim community to find new partners, become more open to change and learn to use change as the basis for new opportunity.

Dr. Mattson also is President of the Islamic Society of North America. She is the first woman and first convert to Islam to lead the organization.

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Australia’s ABC TV youth video team covers Day 4 of the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions, Melbourne, focusing on Indigenous Peoples.

This short film features the Council’s executive director, Rev. Dirk Ficca, and was recently awarded a Bronze Remi Award from WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival. Darfur: Raging Genocide Continues was made in collaboration with Interfaith Youth Core, Amnesty International, the UNA and directed by Fr. Armando Ibanez of Flashpoint Media. Congratulations to Fr. Armando and team for this honor.