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  • Goodbye Brother Muhammad Ali!

    Goodbye Brother Muhammad Ali!

    On a flight home from the Janaza of Muhammad Ali (ra), and wanted to pen my emotions while they’re still raw.

    It was an absolute whirlwind. When we arrived at the center, it seemed more like a sporting event than a funeral prayer. Everyone was excited to have their ticket and take pictures of the occasion. In many ways, it seemed offensive. This was a man that I grew up adoring, and It was like seeing a family member go. To be honest, I had a really hard time forcing a smile throughout the day. But I thought to myself, one of the things that made Muhammad Ali so special was that he would make everyone around him feel special no matter how swamped or busy he was.

    His family walked in and sat down one by one. Layla, Hana, etc. People surrounded them as if they were some sort of display taking pictures of them sitting in their grief. At that point, for whatever reason, one of the organizers recognized me and a few other scholars/preachers, and pulled us to be in the very front row.

    Then there his body was. I imagined him walking through shouting “the champ is here!” It’s amazing that he has a presence even in his death. I stood next to one of his sons that looks exactly like him as his coffin was rolled out. With all the selfies with his casket, snapchatting, etc. around me, I chose to focus my eyes on my dear brother Hamza Abdullah who was one of those standing next to his casket. I know the softness of the heart of Hamza and could see the emotion in his eyes and wanted to feel that rather than the “I was there” euphoria. So I focused my eyes on the coffin of the champ, and the eyes of my beloved brother. Surat Al Fajr was recited as his coffin was moved. “Oh soul at peace, return to your Lord pleased and pleasing. Enter thou amongst my servants, enter though my paradise.”

    The center roared with shouts of Allahu Akbar and La Ilaha IlAllah. He evokes that raw emotion even in his death. As Imam Zaid moved forward to lead his janaza, I couldn’t help but think what the journey of his soul must be like. That he’s hearing the shouts and the footsteps of the people around him. I pray that the angels are comforting him, and assuring him of his place in paradise. If there is any indication by the way he’s loved around the world, I hope we will all bear witness for our champ.

    The reciter than read from Al Fussilat, “those who say our Lord is Allah, and remain firm, the angels descend upon them saying “do not fear or grieve, and receive the glad tidings of the Paradise you’ve been promised.” It was at that point that I broke down. I love the champ, and I also envy him. Not in a way that’s negative but in a way that I can only wonder if the angels would descend upon me with mercy and words of comfort like I hope they have descended upon him.

    To be honest with you all, I didn’t know how much it would hurt to hear of the death of Muhammad Ali or attend his Janaza. I was surprised by my own grief. We knew he was severely ill, aging, and barely able to communicate. It was only a matter of time so why did it hurt so much? I still don’t know that I fully understand as many people have expressed the same feelings. But what I do believe is that Allah put the love of Muhammad Ali in the hearts of so many people. This is a special connection. It can’t but be divine.

    I can’t think of anyone more deserving than him to have Janaza prayed in absentia across the country and many parts of the world. I’m still immensely grateful to Allah for allowing to have actually prayed in the first row of the janaza of one of my heroes.

    May Allah shower him in His mercy, raise him to levels in the hereafter even higher than the ones he reached in this world, and join us with him and the one he was named after in the highest level of Jannatul firdaws. Ameen

    I always wanted to meet him in this life, but pray it will happen in the next.

    Love you champ,
    Omar

     

    Source: Omar Suleiman

  • 11 Year Old American Boy Shoots Dead 8 Year Old

    11 Year Old American Boy Shoots Dead 8 Year Old

    An 11-year-old boy in the US state of Tennessee has been held on suspicion of shooting dead an eight-year-old neighbour in a row over a puppy.

    The boy has been charged with first-degree murder as a juvenile.

    According to police, he shot the girl on Saturday evening with his father’s shotgun after she refused to let him see her puppy.

    The girl has been identified as McKayla Dyer. Her mother Latasha said that the two children went to the same school.

    “He was making fun of her, calling her names, just being mean to her. He quit for a while and then all of a sudden yesterday he shot her,” Ms Dyer told WATE-TV.

    “I want her back in my arms,” she said.

    McKayla Dyer's mother Latasha (right)

    Neighbour Chastity Arwood told WBIR News that she heard the shot ring out and saw McKayla lying on the grass.

    “Trying to comfort her mama and her aunt and her grandma and her grandpa and her sister and her brother was the hardest thing I ever had to do,” Ms Arwood said.

    The boy is scheduled to appear in court again on 28 October.

    The Gun Violence Archive, a not-for-profit organisation that compiles data on gun violence in the US, says 559 children aged 11 or under have been killed or injured in the United States in gun violence so far this year.

     

    Source: www.bbc.com

  • Postman Wins ‘Turban Battle’ Over Disney

    Postman Wins ‘Turban Battle’ Over Disney

    MIAMI • A Sikh postman at Disney World in Florida has won a legal fight against the global entertainment giant after he said he had been made to work away from customers so they would not see his beard and turban.

    Lawyers for Mr Gurdit Singh said he had been segregated from staff and customers at the Florida theme park because he violated a “look policy”, the BBC reported.

    Disney now says Mr Singh can deliver post on all routes, in full view of customers. It says it does not discriminate based on religion.

    Mr Singh, who has worked at the theme park since 2008 but always out of sight of visitors, said he was “incredibly thankful” Disney had decided to change course.

    “My hope is that this policy change opens up the door for more Sikhs and other religious minorities to practise their faith freely here at Disney.

    “My turban and beard serve as a constant reminder of my commitment to my faith… these articles remind everybody that we’re all equal. That is not just a Sikh value, that is an American value.”

    In May, lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union and The Sikh Coalition, an advocacy group for the religion, wrote to Disney expressing their concerns over Mr Singh’s treatment.

    They said he had been assigned to only one delivery route which kept him away from customers, while other staff were rotated through different assignments where they were visible to guests, the BBC said.

    They argued this was “specifically, because of his racial/ethnic and religious appearance”, and was a violation of his civil rights.

    Disney has now put him on all the routes and said it is “committed to diversity and prohibits discrimination based upon religion”.

    Mr Singh remains in his job, delivering post at the park, and says he is happy to work for the company.

    Ms Gurjot Kaur, a lawyer acting for The Sikh Coalition, said her client first applied for a job at Disney in 2005, and was told he would have to work in the back, cleaning the carpark or in the kitchen. “The interviewer indicated that he could not work in front of guests because of his turban and beard,” she said.

    Mr Singh did not take up the position, but applied again in 2008, initially to work as a doorman.

    Despite extensive experience in hospitality, Ms Kaur said her client was denied the job “because his ‘costume’ did not match the ‘costume’ necessary”, and Mr Singh took the word “costume” to mean his turban and beard.

     

    Source: www.straitstimes.com

  • US Presses Gay Rights Abroad

    US Presses Gay Rights Abroad

    HANOI, VIETNAM — As U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, Ted Osius deals with geopolitical concerns like China’s island-building efforts in the South China Sea. But the personal can also be political when Osius introduces his husband, Clayton Bond, and speaks of their adopted children.

    “We are here to celebrate family. Family is acceptance. Family is love,” Osius told a cheering throng at a U.S.-sponsored festival last week to promote the cause of gay civil rights across Southeast Asia.

    With the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans the last major outstanding case to be decided this term by the U.S. Supreme Court, some gay rights activists are saying that even a defeat would do little to slow the global momentum of their cause in part because of Obama administration policies — and diplomats like Osius.

    As a same-sex couple with children in diapers, Osius, 54, and Bond, 38, are in the vanguard of the civil rights movement known as LGBT — shorthand for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

    The Obama administration has pressed the LGBT cause internationally since a 2009 speech by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in which she declared “gay rights are human rights.”

    While an anti-gay backlash has grown in the Arab world, Russia and many other nations, the cause of gay rights has made strides globally that once seemed implausible. Voters in Ireland, a Catholic nation, recently endorsed same-sex marriage. Osius is pressing for greater LGBT acceptance in Vietnam, where the first gay pride parade took place four years ago.

    Two years ago, the authoritarian government here decriminalized same-sex unions and is now considering broader LGBT issues. The nation has proven receptive to the ambassador’s unconventional family, said activist Le Quang Binh, director of the Institute of Social Studies, Economics and Environment.

    “Their beautiful family strikes down many stigmas,” Binh said. “They excite many people, especially youth, to accept differences and respect other people’s choices and rights. Above all they inspire LGBT communities for fight for their rights.”

    Osius, a career foreign service officer who helped open the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi in 1995 and is fluent in the language, is one of six openly gay ambassadors appointed by Obama, including one as a special envoy for human rights of LGBT persons. That’s five more gay ambassadors than the one each who served under Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Of the current six, all but Osius were political appointees from outside the foreign service.

    Osius also championed gay rights within the State Department. When he entered the foreign service in the mid-1980s, the discovery of homosexuality would result in the revocation of security clearances. Many careers had been ruined before Osius and some colleagues founded a group known as Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies. In 1993, the State Department dropped discriminatory policies while, with greater attention, the Clinton administration applied the “don’t ask, don’t tell” mantra to the military.

    Change came in fits and starts. When Clinton nominated Hormel Foods heir James Hormel as envoy to Luxembourg, Republican senators angrily refused to consider him, and Hormel ultimately assumed the post on a recess appointment. A few years later, when openly gay career diplomat Michael Guest was named ambassador to Romania, gays were impressed that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell introduced Guest’s partner with the respect accorded a spouse.

    But when Guest retired in 2007, he pointedly criticized Powell’s successor, Condoleezza Rice, on the issue of benefits for same-sex couples. Guest said he “felt compelled to choose between obligations to my partner — who is my family– and service to my country.”

    It was at a Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies gathering in 2004 that Osius first met Bond, who had come out a few years earlier at age 24. Two years later, they were married in Canada.

    While Osius has a broad portfolio of concerns, Bond, who is on leave from the State Department and is working toward a law degree, has assumed the role of unofficial LGBT ambassador.

    Their family reflects diversity in other ways: Osius is white, Bond is African-American and their 19-month-old son and 3-month-old daughter are Latino.

    The children are biological siblings. Bond said they were adjusting to life with an infant son when they received word that the boy’s birth mother was again pregnant and wondering if they’d consider a second child.

    Bond said they hope to set an example. On a recent day at the U.S. ambassador’s official residence in Hanoi, he proudly watched as workmen replaced the familiar signage on foyer restrooms from men and women to a new symbol for “gender neutral” — an image that depicts a figure divided vertically with a skirt on one side and pants on the other.

    “It makes me so happy,” Bond said. “This is all about affirming people’s dignity.”

     

    Source: www.mcclatchydc.com

  • Obama Orders More Troops Into Iraq To Guide Fight Back Against Islamic State

    Obama Orders More Troops Into Iraq To Guide Fight Back Against Islamic State

    President Barack Obama on Wednesday ordered the deployment of 450 more U.S. troops to Iraq’s Sunni heartland to advise and assist fragile Iraqi forces being built up to try to retake territory lost to Islamic State.

    The plan to expand the 3,100-strong U.S. contingent in Iraq and open a new operations center closer to the fighting in Anbar province marks an adjustment in strategy for Obama, who has faced mounting pressure to do more to blunt the momentum of the insurgents.

    But with Obama sticking to his refusal to send troops into combat or to the front lines, the White House announcement failed to silence critics who say the limited U.S. military role in the conflict is not enough to turn the tide of battle.

    U.S. officials hope that a strengthened American presence on the ground in Anbar will help the Iraqi military devise and carry out a counter-attack to retake the provincial capital Ramadi, which insurgents seized last month in an onslaught that further exposed the shortcomings of the Iraqi army.

    The U.S. advisers, who will be injected into the heart of one of the most hotly contested areas of the Islamic State campaign, will offer tactical advice to Iraqi officers on how to conduct their operations, the Pentagon said.

    A complex challenge for the U.S. troops, who will establish a training hub at the Taqaddum military base only about 15 miles (25 km) from Ramadi, will be their outreach to Sunni tribal fighters, many of whom do not trust the Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad.

    U.S. officials want to integrate them into the Iraqi army and reduce its reliance on Iran-backed Shi’ite militias who have also joined the fight against Islamic State.

    Obama decided on the new troop deployment in response to a request from Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi, the White House said. The two leaders met while attending the G7 summit in Germany earlier this week.

    “To improve the capabilities and effectiveness of partners on the ground, the president authorized the deployment of up to 450 additional U.S. military personnel to train, advise and assist Iraqi Security Forces,” the White House said in a statement.

    Obama also ordered “the expedited delivery of essential equipment and materiel” to Iraqi forces, including Kurdish peshmerga troops and Sunni fighters operating under Iraqi command, the White House said.

    It made the announcement two days after Obama said the United States did not yet have a complete strategy for training Iraqi security forces to regain land lost to Islamic State fighters, who have seized a third of Iraq over the past year in a campaign marked by mass killings and beheadings.

    The fall of Ramadi last month drew harsh U.S. criticism of the Iraqi military’s retreat from the city. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said that Iraqi forces showed “no will to fight”.

    SEEKING TO SPEED UP FLOW OF TRAINEES

    U.S. forces have already conducted training at the al-Asad military base in western Anbar, and the new site will focus more on advising Iraqi forces on operations in what one U.S. official described as an effort to “buck up the ranks”.The Pentagon said the first of the new troops will arrive at Taqaddum, in eastern Anbar, within a few days from forces already in the country. The base will also be used to help guide Iraqi efforts to reclaim Fallujah, a nearby city the militants have held for more than a year, U.S. officials said.

    Still, Obama’s new plan stops short of some of the more assertive steps demanded by his conservative critics at home, such as putting U.S. spotters in forward positions to call in air strikes or embedding American advisers with Iraqi forces in combat.

    U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said Obama’s plan to send additional U.S. military personnel to train Iraqi forces was a “step in the right direction,” but not a sufficient strategy to defeat Islamic State.

    “It’s clear that our training mission alone has not been enough,” the Republican lawmaker said.

    John McCain, Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said: “I remain deeply concerned that this new deployment is disconnected from any coherent strategy to defeat ISIL.”

    With the latest adjustments, Obama is deviating only slightly from his policy of relying on a bombing campaign and local forces without committing large-scale U.S. troops. His options are hemmed in by a deep aversion to seeing America drawn back into Iraq after pulling out U.S. forces in 2011.

    Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said the president recognized the “inherent risk” of attack that the new U.S. contingent could face in volatile Anbar and insisted that security precautions were being taken.

    U.S. officials took pains to insist that Wednesday’s announcement did not amount to an overhaul of Obama’s anti-Islamic State strategy, but they left open the possibility of further unspecified steps.

    “The president hasn’t ruled out any additional steps,” Rhodes told reporters on a conference call. “He’s always open to considering refinements.”

    (Additional reporting by David Alexander, Jeff Mason, Warren Strobel, David Lawder andPatricia Zengerle in Washington, Phil Stewart in Jerusalem; Editing by Alan Crosby and Grant McCool)

     

    Source: www.reuters.com