tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post1269432780746361129..comments2024-03-27T15:36:44.737-07:00Comments on Haq's Musings: Reza Aslan at Islamic Scholarship Fund Dinner in Silicon ValleyRiaz Haqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-6766069618679789022022-10-01T16:57:06.289-07:002022-10-01T16:57:06.289-07:00Islam is the second largest religion in America
B...Islam is the second largest religion in America<br /><br />Buddhism, Islam and Judaism have the most followers after Christianity in most of states.<br /><br />By Reid Wilson<br /><br />https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/06/04/the-second-largest-religion-in-each-state/<br /><br /><br />In 20 states, mostly in the Midwest and South, Islam is the largest non-Christian faith tradition. And in 15 states, mostly in the Northeast, Judaism has the most followers after Christianity. Hindus come in second place in Arizona and Delaware, and there are more practitioners of the Baha’i faith in South Carolina than anyone else.<br /><br /><br />Christianity is by far the largest religion in the United States; more than three-quarters of Americans identify as Christians. A little more than half of us identify as Protestants, about 23 percent as Catholic and about 2 percent as Mormon.<br /><br />But what about the rest of us? In the Western U.S., Buddhists represent the largest non-Christian religious bloc in most states. In 20 states, mostly in the Midwest and South, Islam is the largest non-Christian faith tradition. And in 15 states, mostly in the Northeast, Judaism has the most followers after Christianity. Hindus come in second place in Arizona and Delaware, and there are more practitioners of the Baha’i faith in South Carolina than anyone else.<br /><br /><br />All these data come from the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, which conducts a U.S. Religion Census every 10 years.<br /><br />The data the ASARB release every 10 years are revealing: Adherents to any religious faith — that is, those who actually attend religious services — make up more than half the population in 28 states. Utah has the highest percentage of adherents, at 79 percent of the population, while just over a quarter of Mainers are adherents. North Dakota, Alabama and Louisiana are near the top of the list, while Oregon, Vermont, Alaska, Nevada and Washington sit near the bottom of the rankings.<br /><br /><br />Catholicism dominates the Northeast and the Southwest, and Southern Baptists have a strong foothold in the South. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dominates Utah and surrounding counties in Idaho, Wyoming and parts of Nevada. Lutheranism has a strong following in Minnesota and the Dakotas, while Methodists make their presence felt in parts of West Virginia, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-49100036736303120622016-09-13T22:16:23.776-07:002016-09-13T22:16:23.776-07:00Watch Islamophobe racist xenophobe Ann Coulter bei...Watch Islamophobe racist xenophobe Ann Coulter being roasted alive by a buch of comedians....it's hilarious!!<br /><br /><br />http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/the-best-ann-coulter-jokes-from-rob-lowes-roast-have-been-rounded-up-a7237861.htmlRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-37149325441004374132014-10-02T09:43:01.913-07:002014-10-02T09:43:01.913-07:00ASLAN: Islam doesn't promote violence or peace...ASLAN: Islam doesn't promote violence or peace. Islam is just a religion, and like every religion in the world, it depends on what you bring to it. If you're a violent person, your Islam, your Judaism, your Christianity, your Hinduism is going to be violent. There are Buddhist -- marauding Buddhist monks in Myanmar slaughtering<br /><br />women and children. Does Buddhism promote violence? Of course not. People are violent or peaceful. And that depends on their politics, their social world, the way that they see their communities, the way they see themselves. <br /><br />CAMEROTA: So, Reza, you don't think that there's anything more -- there's -- the justice system in Muslim countries you don't think is somehow more primitive or subjugates women more than in other countries? <br /><br />ASLAN: Did you hear what you just said? You said in Muslim countries. <br /><br />I just told you that, Indonesia, women are absolutely 100 percent equal to men. In Turkey, they have had more female representatives, more female heads of state in Turkey than we have in the United States. <br /><br />LEMON: Yes, but in Pakistan...<br />-------<br /><br />(CROSSTALK)<br /><br />ASLAN: Stop saying things like "Muslim countries."<br /><br /><br />ASLAN: Stoning and mutilation and those barbaric practices should be condemned and criticized by everyone. The actions of individuals and societies and countries like Iran, like Pakistan, like Saudi Arabia must be condemned, because they don't belong in the 21st century.<br /><br />But to say Muslim countries, as though Pakistan and Turkey are the same, as though Indonesia and Saudi Arabia are the same, as though somehow what is happening in the most extreme forms of these repressive countries, these autocratic countries, is representative of what's happening in every other Muslim country, is, frankly -- and I use this word seriously -- stupid. So let's stop doing that. <br /><br />LEMON: OK, Reza. Let's -- I want you to listen to Benjamin Netanyahu again. This is actually the one I wanted you to hear. ASLAN: Yes, the ISIS. <br /><br />(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)<br /><br />NETANYAHU: But our hopes and the world's hopes for peace are in danger, because everywhere we look, militant Islam is on the march. It's not militants. It's not Islam. It's militant Islam. And, typically, its first victims are other Muslims, but it spares no one. <br /><br />(END VIDEO CLIP)<br /><br />LEMON: He's making a clear distinction there. He says it's not militants, it's not Islam; it's militant Islam. Do you understand his distinction there? Is he correct? <br /><br />ASLAN: Well, he's correct in talking about militant Islam being a problem. <br /><br />He is absolutely incorrect in talking about ISIS equaling Hamas. That's just ridiculous. No one takes him seriously when he says things like that. And, frankly, it's precisely why, under his leadership, Israel has become so incredibly isolated from the rest of the global community. <br /><br />Those kinds of statements are illogical, they're irrational, they're so obviously propagandistic. In fact, he went so far as to then bring up the Nazis, which has become kind of a verbal tick for him whenever he brings up either Hamas or ISIS. <br /><br />Again, these kinds of oversimplifications I think only cause more danger. There is a very real problem. ISIS is a problem. Al Qaeda is a problem. These militant Islamic groups like Hamas, like Hezbollah, like the Taliban have to be dealt with. But it doesn't actually help us to deal with them when, instead of talking about rational conflicts, rational criticisms of a particular religion, we instead so easily slip into bigotry by simply painting everyone with a single brush, as we have been doing in this conversation, mind you.<br /><br /><br />http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/09/30/reza_aslan_mahers_facile_generalizations_of_islam_the_definition_of_bigotry.htmlRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-43305123228484367882013-10-10T20:27:22.873-07:002013-10-10T20:27:22.873-07:00Here's a Wall Street Journal story on Aizzah F...Here's a <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304203304576446681774039142.html" rel="nofollow">Wall Street Journal</a> story on Aizzah Fatima:<br /><br /><i>As a playwright, Aizzah Fatima knows she is pushing boundaries with the title of her one-woman show, "Dirty Paki Lingerie," which will make its debut Saturday at the Dorothy Strelsin Theatre as part of the Midtown International Theatre Festival. But as an actress, Ms. Fatima is delighted to portray roles that transcend the traditional fare she is typically offered as a Pakistani Muslim actress. "'Terrorist No. 2's girlfriend' is an actual title of a character I once auditioned for," she said.<br /><br />Aizzah Fatima plays 20 characters in her 'Dirty Paki Lingerie.' Here, as Asma, a mother searching for a husband for her daughter.<br /><br />Ms. Fatima is the first Muslim playwright to have her work featured in the Midtown festival, which is in its 12th year, and the title of her comedic show about Muslim women reconciling their ethnic identities with their American lives has proved too controversial for some members of the Muslim community in New York. Many, she said, have asked her to change it to something less salty. "Several people have told me they have an issue with the word 'lingerie' in the title, and not so much the 'dirty Paki,'" the 34-year-old said. "Conservative Muslim women in my social circles have suggested I change the title to 'Dirty Paki Laundry' to make it more politically correct."<br /><br />But she insists the title is important to the work. "The juxtaposition of 'Paki' and 'lingerie' grabs attention since Pakistani women may be stereotypically thought of as very conservative and not sexual," she said. "In the play we learn that wearing the hijab doesn't necessitate that one is conservative in all aspects of life."<br /><br />Of course for some, the reference to women's undergarments isn't the issue. One South Asian theatre festival in Canada asked Ms. Fatima to alter the title of the show to "Dirty Pakistani Lingerie" because the festival's jury didn't feel the word "Paki," often used as a derogatory nickname for someone of Pakistani ethnicity, was appropriate.<br /><br />There are also leaders in the Muslim community who have overlooked the title—which was coined by Ms. Fatima's husband, Azeez, a physician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. She was asked by Zeba Iqbal, the executive director of the Council for the Advancement of Muslim Professionals, to perform parts of her show and speak on a July 3 panel in Chicago about relationships, gender and sexuality, which was hosted by the Islamic Society of North America. "Aizzah is the type of artist I want to promote," Ms. Iqbal said. "She is not afraid of taking critical conversations among Muslim women from the living room to the public sphere."<br /><br />Ms. Fatima plays 20 characters in the show, among them Selma, a hijabi feminist caught between her commitment to Muslim culture and her desire to wear sexy lingerie, and Asma, a mother searching for her daughter's suitor in the Urdu Times Matrimonial section. The scenes pay equal homage to 18th-century Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib and Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack."<br /><br />The writer and actress, who supplements her artistic work with a job as a technical engineer at Google has lived in Manhattan for 10 years but was raised first in Saudi Arabia, then Mississippi where her family moved when she was 13 to be closer to her brothers who were studying at Mississippi State University. This is the first play Ms. Fatima has had produced; she previously has acted in off-Broadway shows, commercials and independent films....<br /></i><br /><br />http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304203304576446681774039142.htmlRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-34701557931573493502013-10-08T17:23:23.408-07:002013-10-08T17:23:23.408-07:00Hamid: Great job br. Riaz and thank you for attend...Hamid: Great job br. Riaz and thank you for attending the our event.<br />As a quick FYI, my name is spelled “Hamid”"<br /><br />You and Ejaz did a wonderful job of organizing the event. <br /><br />I apologize for misspelling your name. I am correcting it on my blog.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-69653868021154289592013-10-08T17:22:33.670-07:002013-10-08T17:22:33.670-07:00Great job br. Riaz and thank you for attending the...Great job br. Riaz and thank you for attending the our event.<br /> <br />As a quick FYI, my name is spelled “Hamid”Hamidnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-63475264989260793702013-10-08T17:21:54.345-07:002013-10-08T17:21:54.345-07:00thank u riaz sahib
very well written articlethank u riaz sahib<br />very well written articleMariumnoreply@blogger.com