MUSLIM IN AMERICA: PART TWO

Nine-Eleven shocked America. I remember my own disbelief and anger viewing images of smoke bellowing from the Twin Towers then the Towers collapsing, the damaged Pentagon and United Flight 93, headed for the White House, having crashed in Western Pennsylvania. The disaster proved equally eventful for Ameena Jandali. A Colorado native and resident of the East…

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MUSLIM IN AMERICA: PART ONE

Showtime’s Homeland offers something unusual this season. The CIA employs a young woman savvy in technology and banking to entrap a senior member of Iran’s intelligence service. The character Fara Sherazi (Nazanin Boniadi, born in Tehran, raised in London) is a Persian-American Muslim who wears a hijab—a headscarf. This Hollywood tale about Muslim bad guys…

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TRUE BELIEF IN TEHRAN

In 1951, Eric Hoffer’s book The True Believer presented a chilling subject. Political and religious mass movements form when leaders promise ultimate truth. Those leaders remain in power by defining truth, no matter how much they have to lie. See: Iran, Islamic Republic of. In the September/October issue of FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Akbar Ganji profiles Iran’s…

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LONDON NOTEBOOK

Carolyn and I spent ten days in London. It’s interesting to gather perspectives from someplace else, even if London is familiar. My thoughts: On the day we arrived and met up with our middle son Yosi, who’d completed a three-week tour of Ireland and the UK with the band Hurray for the Riff Raff, two…

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YOU’RE WELCOME

Periodically, a Muslim shares in the media a particularly wonderful bit of wisdom. So it was last week. Yet the speaker or writer always seems to remain unaware of that wisdom’s source. It’s borrowed from Judaism. Such recognition might help to eliminate the hatred that many Muslims exhibit towards Jews. The Quran (Sura 5:32) states:…

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