Fareed Zakaria expresses his views on the controversy surrounding the proposed Islamic center in Manhattan, and he proposes that Mayor Bloomberg's speech defending the center should be required reading for all American students (as I would.) Jon Stewart interviews Akbar Ahmed, a professor at American University, about his year-long study of Islam in America.
“Mayor Bloomberg stands up for mosque”
Today, the New York Landmark Preservation Committee voted unanimously to not grant landmark status to a Manhattan building, the site at which an Islamic and interfaith community center is to be built. If landmark status had been given to the obscure building, the plans to build the Cordoba House would have been put to a …
Illustrations of Islamophobia Part II (and a little bit of hope)
On another blog, I just came upon this speech given by Newt Gingrich. He discusses America's major security threats, namely "radical Islamists". He says clearly that we are not at war with terrorism--which is news to me. He claims that we are endangered by an Islamic threat. I obviously do understand that America has been …
Continue reading "Illustrations of Islamophobia Part II (and a little bit of hope)"
A Catholic priest’s defense of Islam in Europe
In his open letter to Dutch MP Geert Wilders, UK Catholic priest Frank Julian Gelli criticizes the MP's Islamophobic statements. As a fellow Catholic, I am encouraged by Fr. Frank's remarks, and I hope more Catholics in Europe and the US come to share his view. Thanks to Saladin128 for the link.
Thoughts from My Teacher
Here is a great op-ed written by John Esposito, one of my former professors at Georgetown. His piece addresses the wide-spread and unnecessary backlash against the planned Cordoba House, an Islamic and interfaith community center that is to be built blocks from Ground Zero. Esposito's views to me seem like common sense, but sadly, there …
JORDAN DENARI DUFFNER 