Cook Amanda Saab and her husband wanted to do something to help build bridges between Muslims and non-Muslims. So, they began inviting strangers to dinner in order to form friendships, hold discussions, and counter the negative perceptions of Muslims and Islam many people hold. Their initiative, which they call "Dinner with Your Muslim Neighbor," became a regular event, bringing together diverse groups of guests. According to Saab's husband, Hussein, "We're not theologians... We're not ...
Coffee, Cake, and Islam
Learn more about Maleeha Choudhry, a young Muslim leader who is doing her part to change the conversation about Islam and Muslims through "Coffee, Cake, and Islam" interfaith gatherings. According to Choudhry, she does this work to help break down barriers and build bridges, saying, "To just walk up to a Muslim...that's not something that's easy for [many] Americans to do... So having this platform is really amazing because [it helps us] see that we have common ground." Read more (KCTS9) ...
Photo Exhibition Celebrates Diversity, Builds Bridges
A new photography exhibition, titled "I am Mohammed," features portraits of 14 people who all have one thing in common: They all bear the world's most common name—Mohammed (using one spelling or another). According to curator Narmeen Haider, the exhibition is meant to both celebrate the diversity within the Muslim community, with photos of Mohammeds hailing from Alaska to Afghanistan, and to help build bridges between Muslims and non-Muslims. "In your head," Haider says, "a Muslim looks so ...
Meet the Writer behind the First Muslim Marvel Superhero
In 2014, writer G. Willow Wilson published her take on Ms. Marvel, a character in the Marvel superhero universe. The character was originally created in 1968 and had traditionally been portrayed as white. In Wilson's version, Ms. Marvel is a young Muslim-American teenager of Pakistani descent whose real name is Kamala Khan—the first Muslim superhero in the Marvel universe. Read this engaging profile of Wilson, which discusses the writer's life, other work, and beliefs, as well as the ...
A Lesson in Religious Freedom
Read this engaging piece by Hiba Siddiqi for Religion News, in which she talks about how her high school's Muslim prayer room was an expression of the religious freedoms Americans value, respect, and fight for, and how the presence of the prayer room in her school served to normalize the Muslim members of the school community. As she explains: "I used to tell people that exposure to a thing results in the normalization of that thing, but I now realize that the only way to transcend lines of ...
