Targeted Islamic Outreach to Hispanics Achieving Results...
PEARLAND, Texas • Carlos Lopez works in the United States to earn money and send it back home to his family in Mexico. But he sends back something else, too: pamphlets and personal testimonies about his new faith. On Dec. 22, 2013, Lopez took the “shahada” — the profession of the Islamic faith — and joined the ranks of what the American Muslim Council estimates is a 200,000 strong Hispanic Muslim community across the U.S. Unlike previous generations of Hispanic Muslims who were attracted to the faith by their own spiritual explorations, Lopez and many others like him are converting as a result of targeted Islamic outreach efforts. This new form of Islamic “da’wah,” or outreach, aims to...
I Wish All Americans Received the Message of Islam...
Diane Charles Breslin is an ex-Catholic Christian living in US. She lost faith after reading the Bible but her continued belief in God led her to explore other religions including Buddhism and Hinduism. In this concluding part of her series, Breslin recounts her Irish Catholic background and says it was only by instinct that she always would pray to God — the One and Only — before going to sleep. It took three full years of my searching and studying Qur’an before I was ready to proclaim that I wanted to be a Muslim. Of course I feared the changes in clothing and habits, such as dating and drinking to which I had become accustomed. Music and dancing...
Daughters in Islam
Allah Almighty says (what means): “To Allah belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth; He creates what He wills. He gives to whom He wills female [children], and He gives to whom He wills males. Or He makes them [both] males and females, and He renders whom He wills barren. Indeed, He is Knowing and Competent.” [Qur’an 49:50] Allah is the One, based on His ultimate wisdom, who grants whomever He wills sons and daughters; He grants sons only to whomever He wills, and grants daughters only to whomever He wills, and if He so wills, He makes whomever He wills infertile. We notice in the above verse that the mention of daughters preceded that of...
Islam Is Ireland’s Fastest Growing Religion...
The Republic of Ireland may be intimately associated with the Roman Catholic Church, but the fastest-growing faith on the emerald isle is Islam — at such a rapid rate that Muslims are projected to replace Protestantism as the second-most popular religion by the year 2043. Ireland’s Central Statistics Office reported that between 1991 and 2011, the percentage of Irish residents who were Muslim jumped from 0.1 percent to 1 percent (equating to about 49,000 people). By 2020, Ireland’s Islamic population will more than double to at least 100,000. The increase is attributed to both immigration and population growth. The second fastest-growing faith in Ireland is Orthodox Christianity, largely due to immigration from Eastern Europe — doubling in just...
Islam, the American way
Listening to immigration attorney Muna Jondy talk about growing up in Flint, Mich., it’s easy to imagine her as a teenager, eyes ablaze, hands on hips, confronting her Syrian-born parents with her all-American attitude. A petite woman with a strong, expressive face, she sits cross-legged on her couch and leans forward to recount the day, at age 13, that she wanted to go to the movies with a friend. Ms. Jondy says her mother, a devout Muslim, responded “like I had asked to snort cocaine.” She was incredulous, and Jondy recalls her asking: “Did you just ask that? Did you just say that out loud?” Jondy had already started to cover her hair with a head scarf...
Pope Encourages Dialogue and Mutual Respect with our Muslim Brothers...
Muslims are “our brothers” and Christians must cultivate “mutual respect” with them. These were the words of Pope Francis yesterday during the Angelus, a message which could signal a turnaround in the relationship between the Catholic Church and Islam. This changing tide can even be seen in the words used in addressing Muslims. This is the first Pope to have referred to Muslims in such direct and explicit terms as “our brothers”. This would have been practically unthinkable even up until the recent past. During the Angelus, the pontiff made reference to the message sent to Muslims to mark the end of Ramadan and the Eid al-Fitr feast, which was published on 2 August, which he asked to...
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