Thousands of Muslim men and women remain unnoticed despite the much sincere work they do in the service of Islam, and those are the people who are more worthy of being honoured.
This was stated by Dr Sheikh Yusuf Estes, who has been named the Islamic Personality of the Year in the 16th session of the Dubai International Holy Quran Award (DIHQA), while talking to the media at the DIHQA head office in Al Twar on Wednesday.

The Dh1 million award is granted every year to a different Islamic personality or institution in appreciation to their work in the service of Islam and Quran.

“I am surprised of the honour and I am also worried about myself. It is so dangerous to think well of yourself. I do not want to be at a loss in my life here and in the life hereafter,” he said, adding, “I do believe the real honouring is not in the award itself but in the chance I am given to speak to the people about Islam.”

Dr Estes has travelled extensively around the world to preach Islam. He especially spoke about the good treatment he receives from Muslims and non-Muslims. “After embracing Islam I am spending my entire life in preaching this great religion, from Norway in the north to New Zealand in the south,” he said. In reply to a question about official statistics that around 20,000 people from 75 nationalities, of whom 65 per cent are women, have embraced Islam in Dubai from 2001 to 2006, Dr Estes said what attracts him more to the UAE in general and Dubai in particular are the many people hailing from various nationalities who preach and embraced.

“We need to focus not only on the number of new Muslims, but also on the nationalities and gender,” he said, noting that women are embracing Islam faster than men and in bigger numbers. “We also need to focus more on what we do after. It is not a matter of just embracing Islam; we should concentrate on the future, and exert our utmost for the service of Islam.”

Indicating that most Americans get their information about Islam from the Internet, Dr Estes said that he has purchased, created and built 2,200 websites in English to guide people to Islam. “I am paying around $83,500 every month on these websites. I am the first to post a clip on Islam on YouTube, let alone the www.tubeislam.com which I owned.”
The renowned American scholar, born in 1944, is often featured as guest presenter and keynote speaker at various Islamic events. He frequently appears on various Islamic satellite TV channels, in addition to his personal websites yusufestes.com and islamtomorrow.com.
SOURCE: Khaleej Times

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the handful of House Republicans, led by Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who sent letters in June to inspectors general at five government departments, asking them to investigate evidence of Muslim Brotherhood influence on U.S. government policymaking. The Muslim Brotherhood is a global Islamic movement engaged, according to the group’s own internal document, on a “grand jihad” in North America to destroy “Western civilization from within.” To date, the inspectors general haven’t responded.

Nonetheless, Bachmann and her colleagues — Trent Franks of Arizona, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Tom Rooney of Florida and Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia — have focused attention on the disastrous policy of bringing members of known Muslim Brotherhood fronts and their associates into Uncle Sam’s policymaking chain. The representatives’ letters went to inspectors general at State, Justice, Defense, Homeland Security and the Office of the National Intelligence Director. These government nerve centers are increasingly advancing policies American leaders once would have excoriated for supporting the enemies of this country.

Is it by chance, for example, that director of national intelligence James Clapper, reading from prepared notes, absurdly described the Muslim Brotherhood to the House Intelligence Committee last year as a “largely secular” organization? Is it an accident that in June the State Department issued a visa to Hani Nour Eldin of Egypt to meet with senior White House officials? Eldin is a member of Gama’a al-Islamiyya, a terrorist organization once led by Omar Abdel Rahman, “the blind sheikh” convicted of the first attack on the World Trade Center. In the person of Rahman’s successor, Refai Ahmed Taha, the group is one of the five signatories of Osama bin Laden’s February 1998 “World Islamic Front Statement Urging Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders.” Isn’t it imperative to review the policy mechanism that permitted a member of bin Laden’s jihad front into the White House?

According to our elected officials, the answer is no. Not one House member, Democrat, Republican or tea party, has come out in solidarity with the National Security Five. Typically, the mainstream media have reacted not by digging up facts themselves (what are they, journalists?), but rather by throwing mud on Michele Bachmann. “Stop ‘witch-hunting’ Huma Abedin, top aide to Hillary Clinton,” is the war cry from CNN to USA Today. Many conservative outlets, such as Fox and The Washington Examiner, are strangely silent.

To be sure, one of the Bachmann letters notes the case of Huma Abedin — a confidante of the secretary of state whose family has dense ties to Muslim Brotherhood organizations. She has become the human face used to distract from the overarching national security issue. Honest answers to the wide array of questions the House members have asked would expose high elected officials in both parties as dupes of our enemies, at best. The American people would find out how Uncle Sam came to support al-Qaida in Libya; Muslim Brothers in Egypt; and, now, al-Qaida and Muslim Brothers in Syria. An honest investigation would spotlight the internal process that led Uncle Sam to sponsor a new international counterterrorism organization without Israel. The shameful fact is, our power-elites don’t want these questions answered because the answers would threaten their hold on power.

Bachmann & Co. haven’t alleged wrongdoing on Abedin’s part. Rather, their question turns on the process that permitted a person with close family ties to an array of world Islamic movements and figures hostile to the United States to gain the security clearance Abedin requires to serve alongside the secretary of state.

I looked over the lengthy Form 86 that federal employees fill out to apply for national security positions. One portion is devoted to an applicant’s relatives, with a question about relatives’ affiliations with any “foreign movement.” If Abedin answered fully — and there are stiff penalties for failing to do so — she would have noted, for starters, that her mother, Saleha Abedin, belongs to the Muslim Sisterhood (the Brotherhood’s auxiliary, primarily for relatives of prominent Brothers) and serves on the board of the International Islamic Council for Dawah and Relief, a group banned in Israel for supporting Hamas. Saleha Abedin has been a representative of the Muslim World League, whose affiliates have been charged by the U.S. government with funding terrorism. Any ensuing investigation would turn up Saleha’s work with the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, where she edits the journal that Huma, too, worked on for a dozen years. That same institute was founded by Huma’s father in Saudi Arabia with the assistance and long-term involvement of Abdullah Omar Naseef. Naseef was secretary-general of the Muslim World League and also founded the Rabita Trust, a U.S.-designated international terrorist organization with ties to al-Qaida.

There’s more, but just imagine the light dawning on the background-checker: So, Ms. Abedin, let me get this straight: Your folks, and you, too, worked with a guy who founded a terrorist organization linked to al-Qaida, your mom’s on the board of a group banned in Israel for supporting Hamas, and you want top-secret clearance to work for the secretary of state.

SOURCE: Juneau Empire.com

 One trend to watch in the U.S. presidential election next November will be whether Muslim American civic engagement translates into votes.

There has been a strong Muslim American voting contingent among African Americans. But unresolved grievances rooted in race, rather than religion, have tended to be motivating factors for civic engagement among this group.

Muslims whose families have immigrated to the United States in recent generations have been slower to get involved, due in part to a prevailing view that political involvement is at least frowned upon, if not forbidden, by Islamic teachings. Such indecision stemmed mostly from a reliance on Muslim scholars overseas who promoted the idea that voting conveyed allegiance to a secular power rather than to God.

In the U.S., this has changed as American-born scholars such as Dr. Sherman Jackson, King Faisal Chair in Islamic Thought and Culture at the University of Southern California, have argued that in Islamic teachings there is no contradiction between practicing Islam and civic engagement. Jackson emphasizes the need to vote to ensure that worldly needs such as employment, housing, health care and education are met.

In 2000, Muslim immigrants became energized and helped George W. Bush win in several swing states. It was the first time the Muslim vote had aligned over common interests. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the enactment of the USA Patriot Act and the subsequent wars against Afghanistan and Iraq further consolidated voting patterns. Motivated by what many perceived as a “war on Islam,” Muslim Americans became more civically engaged and politically sophisticated as much of their support shifted to the Democrats.

According to “Engaging American Muslims,” a 2012 report by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, an independent, non-partisan think tank and research organization, voter registration and turnout has increased over the past decade and today 1.2 million Muslims are registered to vote. In addition, local Muslim leaders are promoting voter registration drives and encouraging Muslim communities to become more civically involved.

With a growing population, Muslim Americans present an opportunity for presidential candidates particularly in battleground states where no one candidate has overwhelming support – such as Florida, Michigan, Ohio and, increasingly, Virginia.

Inspired to serve, uphold social justice and promote tight-knit families and compassionate communities, Muslim Americans are engaged in contemporary debates on health care reform, immigration, education, the environment and the economic crisis.

For practicing Muslims, a fair and just resolution of these issues comprises a faith-inspired mandate. Houses of worship and Muslim non-profit organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim Public Affairs Council are increasingly joining interfaith alliances and organizing programs to educate their members about civic engagement, political involvement and voter registration. Muslim Americans who have lived in the U.S. for generations are in a position to make presidential candidates work hard to understand what is important to them and how to win their vote. And they have already begun to do so.

The Michigan Muslim Community Council, which represents the diverse Michigan Muslim community, promotes civic engagement, community service and other forms of empowerment, and is building relationships with local and state government officials to talk about issues of importance to the Muslim community.

The Islamic Center of Southern California’s voter registration drives date back to the late 1980s and the center has hosted presidential candidates such as Reverend Jesse Jackson, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988. While the center has faced criticism from within the community in the past, today it builds on a tradition of interfaith relations, organizes youth leadership and empowerment initiatives, and maintains strong ties with local and state government officials.

Muslimvotersusa.com, a site operated by the Chicago-based group American Muslim Caucus is another example of Muslim American civic engagement. The website’s sole purpose is to educate Muslims about the importance of voting and to facilitate voter registration, offering electronic voter registration kits, along with “do’s and don’ts” of political involvement designed for Muslim groups.

Civic engagement and concern for the wellbeing of all Americans is a cornerstone of Islamic teachings. As faith-inspired citizens, if Muslim Americans can build upon their emerging civic engagement, they appear poised to constitute a formidable voting block during the November 2012 elections.

Altaf Husain is an assistant professor at the Howard University School of Social Work, a research fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, and a member of the board of trustees of the Islamic Society of North America. THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration with the Common Ground News Servic

SOURCE: THE DAILY STAR