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(11/20/12 9:07am)
Today is the sixth day of the Muslim New Year, and in two days we will celebrate the long-awaited Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S. This is a providential overlap created by Islam’s lunar calendar crossing paths with the Western Gregorian calendar. This overlap seemingly invites me and many others to take part in many layers of joy and festive celebrations. But the mood in the Antepli household is far from joy and celebration, mainly because of the recent outbreak of violence in Gaza. I think many households in the U.S. and around the world share this bitter and resentful mood of ours and join the Antepli family in our grief and mourning over what has been going on in Israel and Palestine in the last couple of days.
(11/06/12 8:29am)
Reflecting on today’s presidential election decades later, I believe many Democrats and Republicans who were actively involved in 2012 elections, either as candidates or supporters, will be highly ashamed and embarrassed of what has been said of the American-Muslim community during this critical election. More importantly, they will be ashamed of what is NOT being said or done about millions of upright, tax-paying American citizens who happen to be Muslim.
(10/23/12 8:21am)
As you read these lines, millions of Muslims in Mecca are going through various stages of their life-changing pilgrimage experience. The billion and a half remaining Muslims who didn’t go to Hajj this year are busying themselves in preparation for Eid al-Adha, or “Festival of Sacrifice,” which marks the end of Hajj this coming Friday. Eid al-Adha is one of the two most important days of celebration in the Islamic calendar. It is in many ways a Muslim Christmas, for like Christmas it features joyful celebrations in all Muslim-majority societies. Duke’s Muslim community also has organized wonderful Eid events that all are welcome to attend.
(10/09/12 6:18am)
Every nation has their own ups and downs in their histories. They have periods they can be proud of and other chapters that are not sources of pride but rather of embarrassment and shame. National holidays are important symbolic events. Nations reveal a lot about themselves—who they are and what they are made of—through these symbolic national days of celebration.
(09/25/12 6:43am)
One of the consistent messages of the holy Quran to her followers is addressed in the following verses: “The good deed and the evil deed are not alike. Repel the evil deed with one, which is better, then lo! He, between whom and you there was enmity [will become] as though he were a bosom friend.” And: “The servants of the Most Merciful are those who walk upon the earth humbly, and when the ignorant address them [harshly], they respond with [words of] peace.”
(09/11/12 6:10am)
What is there to write about in today’s column, other than the barbaric and heinous attacks by those heartless terrorists that took place 11 years ago today? Thousands of people in New Jersey, New York City and the District of Columbia started their mornings on that day in their usual manner, but since then things have never been the same, for them and for the rest of the world. In cold blood, fewer than 20 men rocked the boat globally through their unjustifiable, despicable and treacherous actions. Many innocent lives were lost during these attacks.
(08/28/12 6:19am)
America’s 2012 presidential election is around the corner. We the people of this beautiful country, as the rest of the world watches very closely, will soon go through another round of soul searching to decide the country’s political leadership at a very critical time in our history.
(04/25/12 4:00am)
April 24 is one of the most painful and troubling days for me as it is commemorated worldwide by Armenians as Genocide Memorial Day. As you read this column, millions of Armenians all around the world will be mourning and remembering their painful and tragic displacement from their homeland in the early years of the 20th century. I would like to discuss this extremely painful, controversial and complicated issue in my last column of the year.
(04/10/12 4:00am)
If you are really stressed out and discouraged by the headlines and looking for news that will feed your hope about the future of our planet, pay attention to what has been going on in my first adopted homeland, (I only have two—the U.S. is the other one) Burma, also known as Myanmar. A historical change and transformation for the better is taking place with very little attention or support from the rest of the world. Decades of patience, perseverance and endurance, in the form of peaceful resistance against one of the most brutal regimes in recent history, are finally bearing fruit for the noble people of Burma. This great nation is teaching the global human community a great lesson of hope and non-violent resistance. Burma, the jewel of Southeast Asia, is finally about to get what she deserves—God willing.
(03/27/12 4:00am)
It has been an eventful couple of weeks to say the least. The national and international headlines were full of soul crushing events both at home and abroad. Just to mention a few: An American soldier named Robert Bales walked into the midst of an Afghan community and in cold blood shot 16 people dead, including nine children and three women, one of whom was pregnant. A 17-year-old black high school student, Trayvon Martin, was tragically shot and killed by a racist in Florida. A terrorist in France killed seven people in a nine-day shooting rampage against paratroopers, two of whom were fellow Muslims, and innocent Jewish schoolchildren. Last, but not least, Shaima AlAwadi, a California resident of Iraqi Muslim background and mother of five children, was beaten to death with an iron bar in her own home. According to the police reports, there was a note left on her body, which read: “Go back to your country, you terrorist.”
(03/13/12 4:00am)
I believe that universities have a set of responsibilities and obligations to the societies that gave birth to them. One of the core responsibilities is to take on contemporary social challenges and offer knowledge, inspiration and even exemplary models for how to overcome those challenges. In most societies, social change and transformation are first cooked and tested on college campuses. If you want to predict the future of any given society, the demographics and landscape of that societies’ college campuses as well as the content of the conversations that take place on those campuses will provide very helpful insights and tips.
(02/28/12 5:00am)
We witnessed another violent and tragic set of events in reaction to the most recent Quran burning scandal by NATO soldiers in Afghanistan and the dust has yet to settle. Violent protests continue in different parts of the country and several civilians have lost their lives. In our recent history, we have seen several similar violent Muslim reactions when some Muslims feel Westerners have insulted and attacked their sacred images or values. The tragic reactions to Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses,” an infamous Danish cartoon and its bloody consequences, an insignificant Florida pastor’s foolish but costly Quran burning show and more. This column is an honest and sincere call to the Muslims who took and have been taking part in these kinds of violent protests.
(02/14/12 5:00am)
What else to write about other than Valentine’s Day for this Feb. 14 column? It is a providential surprise to remember and reflect on the core and essence of all creation: love. Yep, it is that time of the year when we remember and celebrate love in a unique fashion. I hope and pray that my column will not be received as rain on a parade, a cheap shot at the concept and, most importantly, it wont sour any one’s joy over Valentine’s Day. Rather, it should be received as a sincere, critical reflection over what Valentine’s Day has become for so many of us around the world.
(01/31/12 6:42am)
No, I am not talking about the debt crisis or adding public transportation in the U.S. or increasing the number of smokers … etc. There is a troubling trend that American society is increasingly becoming like Europe visa vie her attitude toward Islam and Muslims.
(01/17/12 11:00am)
Obesity is one of the most significant challenges that humanity faces today, especially in the developed world. Here is a quote from the World Health Organization’s website: “At the other end of the malnutrition scale, obesity is one of today’s most blatantly visible—yet most neglected—public health problems. Paradoxically coexisting with malnutrition, an escalating global epidemic of overweight and obesity—‘globesity’—is taking over many parts of the world. If immediate action is not taken, millions will suffer from an array of serious health disorders.” All responsible governmental and non-governmental health organizations have been sounding the alarm with a great sense of urgency as loud as they can about obesity as the United States’ number one cause of preventable death.
(12/06/11 11:00am)
In this last column of the year, I would like to share with you some of my new year hopes and wishes based on some of my personal reflections on this retiring year. They are not in any particular order, but I feel strongly about all of them.
(11/22/11 11:00am)
In Islam, being thankful and grateful to God is always discussed in the context of your ability to be grateful and thankful to others. The prophet of Islam in his famous hadith says, “For those who are not thankful to their fellow human beings can never be thankful to their Lord.” In this season of Thanksgiving and gratitude, I wanted to bring a special group of people to our attention—a group that deserves so much of our individual and collective gratitude: our war veterans. Last week we celebrated Veterans Day, and there have been numerous events, celebrations and talks about our veterans throughout that week. I don’t know what you have done about this important issue, but I sent hundreds of thank you and apology notes to the veterans that I know. I thanked them for the obvious, and we cannot be thankful and grateful enough to these brave women and men for what they have done for us. I thanked them from the bottom of my heart for risking their lives, giving their time and energy and making a commitment, often over many years, to protect this country and more.
(11/08/11 11:00am)
The historic trip that I took part with seven other Muslim-American faith leaders to the Auschwitz and Dachau Nazi concentration camps in August 2010 continues to move and inspire me. All the Muslim participants of the trip felt that condemning Holocaust denial and dialogue are necessary, but they’re not enough. The transformative effect of the trip and pressing current issues here in the United States and the Middle East requires Jews, Christians and Muslims to take dialogue further.
(10/25/11 9:00am)
The human condition is a precarious one; we cannot separate ourselves from the others who are suffering. All of us are vulnerable, and in these particularly vulnerable times, we have to be counted upon to do more to alleviate suffering in the world. I and several other clergy within the Abrahamic traditions are troubled by the recent talks in D.C. about our foreign aid and wrote the following:
(09/27/11 9:00am)
Every summer, I seem to find a way to depress myself. Last summer I, together with seven other Muslim-American leaders, visited Nazi concentration camps in Poland and Germany where we witnessed the horrific legacy of the Holocaust. This past summer, I spent the first 10 days of Ramadan in Afghanistan. It was very painful to witness the bleeding wounds of Afghan society as a result of four decades of war and destruction. It is not very well-known fact here in the U.S., but Afghanistan produced a heartless communist regime, a brutal theocracy, and went through the invasions by two superpowers and numerous other calamities in one person’s lifetime.
