Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/author/engage-minnesota/page/6/)
by Thasneem Ahmed, 5/10/08 • Engage Minnesota • On Friday, April 25, Hamline University had a wonderful event featuring Iranian lawyer, human rights activist and 2003 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr. Shirin Ebadi. Her lecture centered on the “Roots of Chaos in the Middle East,” and she gave an honest, frank assessment of the region’s problems as well as of potential solutions.
by Marcia Lynx Qualey, 4/16/08 • Engage Minnesota • Several years ago, I would have told you confidently—if haltingly—that I worked in a madrassa. Ana bashtaghal fi madrassa, I would’ve said. I worked there as a mudarissa, a teacher.
by Fedwa Wazwaz and Marcia Lynx Qualey • On April 9, we read Katherine Kersten’s column in the Star Tribune, and the e-mail exchange between Kersten and Asad Zaman, executive director of Tariq ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA), and were compelled to respond.
by Owais Bayunus, 4/4/08 • Hajj is considered the fifth pillar of Islam, meaning every Muslim who can afford it and is in good health has to perform Hajj (at least) once in his lifetime.
by Corey Habbas, 4/8/08 • As health care costs increase in Minnesota and the uninsured rise in number, the Islamic Center of Minnesota (ICM) has taken on the role of a first-access, primary care clinic for anyone who needs it, through the Al-Shifa Clinic.
by Emily K. Bright, 3/24/08 • Engage Minnesota • It’s not the first time you’ve been a victim of a hate crime, nor is it the last. It’s 8:30 on a winter evening, and you’re closing up your store. The entrance door is locked, half the lights are off, and you’re mopping at the far end of the room when three men barge in the exit door as though they mean to rob you. Two of the men have their hooded backs to you. One of them you can see. He’s over six feet tall, with short reddish blonde hair and a goatee. Continue Reading
by Marcia Lynx Qualey, 3/21/08, Engage Minnesota • It was 1998 when Basimah Hasan left her hometown of Chicago for Minneapolis.
In the Twin Cities, she attended nursing school and began her career at North Memorial Hospital. She says that there is a “big difference” between the Minneapolis and Chicago Muslim communities.
by Ramla Bile, Engage Minnesota • 3/14/08 • The mudslinging has reached the level of flagrant Islamophobia. In the past few months, I have seen my faith reduced to a smear tactic.
Minnesota Muslims are finding themselves voiceless, discussed, defined, categorized, psychoanalyzed, talked at and talked about without a serious attempt at inclusion. Muslims, and friends of Muslims, would like to change this climate. Engage Minnesota is a blog that begins that effort.
by Marcia Lynx Qualey, 2/24/08 • Engage Minnesota • Many Minnesotans—perhaps you, if you’re reading this post—want to better understand their Muslim neighbors.
by Emily Bright, 2/15/08 • Engage Minnesota • When I arrive at the History Theater in downtown St. Paul, a school bus is parked in front of the door. It’s the perfect audience for Jeffrey Stetson’s play The Meeting, which imagines a meeting between Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1965 Harlem. Not that this is a children’s play, per se. Continue Reading