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American Muslims
A Good Country: My Life in Twelve Towns and the Ongoing Battle for a White America
Apr 03, 2021 by SOFIA ALI-KHAN
Circa 1977 a the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia (Image subject to copyright)
Exciting news! The book I've been writing, researching and breathing for the past four years is finally on its way. Due out by Random House in July 2022, the book is memoir braided with little known chapters in American history.
As Trump launched his campaign in 2015, Muslim families like mine were already grieving the execution-style murders of three beautiful, bright young students in North Carolina, followed by a year of unprecedented attacks on American Muslims. When the San Bernardino shooter was identified as Muslim in late 2015, and Trump used that as an opportunity to scapegoat us all, calling for a 'complete and total shutdown' of...
Exciting news! The book I've been writing, researching and breathing for the past four years is finally on its way. Due out by Random House in July 2022, the book is memoir braided with little known chapters in American history.
As Trump launched his campaign in 2015, Muslim families like mine were already grieving the execution-style murders of three beautiful, bright young students in North Carolina, followed by a year of unprecedented attacks on American Muslims. When the San Bernardino shooter was identified as Muslim in late 2015, and Trump used that as an opportunity to scapegoat us all, calling for a 'complete and total shutdown' of...
What We Have Now
Jun 20, 2019 by SOFIA ALI-KHAN
North Americans and Europeans have created entire countries full of climate refugees and entire countries full of refugees from brutal colonial violence in South and Central America and the Middle East. We maintain the colonization and suppression of vast underclasses of Black Americans and First Nations people (and also often "immigrants," by which we mean brown people). The only sound response, the only ethical response, is to open borders to those whose suffering we have, ourselves, created. And to engage in reconciliation and reparations to the internally colonized, including large transfers of land and power. The pressure and the brutality will not stop at our borders as climate crisis and late capitalism make it harder to sustain a middle class,...
Celebrating Christmas with Abandon
Dec 04, 2018 by SOFIA ALI-KHAN
This holiday season I’m fully embracing Christmas. Those of you who know me know I’m not a little bit Muslim. I’m ardently Muslim. I love dhikr, I celebrate when my kids recite chapters of the Qur’an, I quote from its meaning in conversation, I talk about the meaning and solace I take from it and from the prophetic tradition as if I haven’t fully realized I live in North America in the 21stCentury. Or maybe I talk about those things in a way only someone in North America in the 21stCentury would. Either way, Christmas is in no way, for me, a repudiation of Islam.
Christmas started as a way to let my kids enjoy the lights in a dark season,...
Christmas started as a way to let my kids enjoy the lights in a dark season,...
Dear Beloved Resistance
Feb 19, 2017 by SOFIA ALI-KHAN
Dear Beloved Resistance,
We now have a President and Cabinet who almost certainly have no interest in the safety or well-being of their people. Many of us marched in the streets last weekend in an awesome show of solidarity against Trump and all that he promises and stands for. It was, by several accounts, the largest global protest in history.
But in the hours and days following the march, we began to size each other up, tear each other down, and occasionally thoughtfully critique each other's politics and intentions. Donald Trump poses an unprecedented threat to all of us. It is true that some of us are more used to being targeted by the government than others of us. Some of us...
We now have a President and Cabinet who almost certainly have no interest in the safety or well-being of their people. Many of us marched in the streets last weekend in an awesome show of solidarity against Trump and all that he promises and stands for. It was, by several accounts, the largest global protest in history.
But in the hours and days following the march, we began to size each other up, tear each other down, and occasionally thoughtfully critique each other's politics and intentions. Donald Trump poses an unprecedented threat to all of us. It is true that some of us are more used to being targeted by the government than others of us. Some of us...
Time for Discernment: A Muslim Women Calls on Her Buddhist Cousins in Faith
Dec 12, 2016 by SOFIA ALI-KHAN
To read at Tricycle: https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/a-time-for-discernment/
The last time I had worn a hijab, a headscarf, on the street was 11 years ago, when I was a practicing public interest attorney in Philadelphia. I’ve worn it for prayers since then, but this time I wore it to go to the grocery store near the small town on the Delaware River where I am raising my two young children. It was several days after our country elected Donald Trump, and I wanted to reassure myself that my world was still full of goodness and light. I wanted to watch others see past what I was wearing on my head. And because my local Trader Joe’s is in true-blue New Jersey, I got what I...
UNDOING TRUMP’S DAMAGE: TALKING TO OUR CHILDREN ABOUT THEIR BODIES
Oct 18, 2016 by SOFIA ALI-KHAN
"It’s only a matter of time before what’s on every news channel and on every Facebook feed bleeds into our children’s consciousness, or those of their classmates at school. That makes it a good time to talk to our children about their bodies, boundaries, inappropriate touching, and sexual abuse.
Many of our families and communities enforce strict taboos on speaking about anything involving sexual contact at all, ever. There is a widespread sense that to speak about sexual contact is to encourage it. Let’s be clear: sexual abuse is not sex. It is violence, and, unfortunately it happens in Muslim communities as well as outside them. The goal is to give our children tools so that they can avoid being hurt...."...
Many of our families and communities enforce strict taboos on speaking about anything involving sexual contact at all, ever. There is a widespread sense that to speak about sexual contact is to encourage it. Let’s be clear: sexual abuse is not sex. It is violence, and, unfortunately it happens in Muslim communities as well as outside them. The goal is to give our children tools so that they can avoid being hurt...."...
When Pakistan is Safer than North Carolina
Oct 18, 2016 by SOFIA ALI-KHAN
"Remember the clock kid, Ahmed? He was honored by President Obama for his ingenuity and scholastic achievement after he was put in handcuffs and arrested at his own school for the same. He lives with his family in Qatar now, because of safety concerns after he became a target of Richard Dawkins and other right-wing public figures.
There’s a recent story that is every bit as heartbreaking. In it, a cherub-faced first-grader named Abdul Aziz was beaten, punched in the face, kicked in the stomach and ended up with his arm in a sling. The seven-year-old was attacked by his classmates for being Muslim. They tried to force him to eat non-zabiha food, and when he refused, they made fun of...
There’s a recent story that is every bit as heartbreaking. In it, a cherub-faced first-grader named Abdul Aziz was beaten, punched in the face, kicked in the stomach and ended up with his arm in a sling. The seven-year-old was attacked by his classmates for being Muslim. They tried to force him to eat non-zabiha food, and when he refused, they made fun of...
Dear Neighbor: I Take Your Trump Sign Personally
Oct 09, 2016 by SOFIA ALI-KHAN
"Dear Neighbor:
I want you to know that I take your Trump sign personally. I take it personally because I have a vagina, or as your favored candidate might say, a “p***y.” My daughter has one, too. And I figure if you’re okay with a p***y-grabber for President, you might just be one yourself. I assume you vetted the guy before you put that sign on your lawn, facing my home, in our safe and quiet suburban neighborhood. The latest news, I bet, reaches you before it reaches me, since we don’t have cable television at our house. But your loud, proud sign supporting a sexual predator for President is still out there, right alongside the quiet part of the block,...
I want you to know that I take your Trump sign personally. I take it personally because I have a vagina, or as your favored candidate might say, a “p***y.” My daughter has one, too. And I figure if you’re okay with a p***y-grabber for President, you might just be one yourself. I assume you vetted the guy before you put that sign on your lawn, facing my home, in our safe and quiet suburban neighborhood. The latest news, I bet, reaches you before it reaches me, since we don’t have cable television at our house. But your loud, proud sign supporting a sexual predator for President is still out there, right alongside the quiet part of the block,...
A Muslim and a Jehovah's Witness Walk into a School...
Sep 26, 2016 by SOFIA ALI-KHAN
This year, as the 2016 election season heats up, I was increasingly worried about sending my young children off to their preschool and elementary schools. I could not imagine sending my children into the care of people I didn’t know in schools that were new to us in a broader national climate of anti-Muslim bigotry. So I did what many Jehovah’s Witness moms do before school starts each year. I emailed my children’s teachers and administrators and asked for fifteen minutes of their time...
Read the full article here:
http://www.altmuslimah.com/2016/09/muslim-jehovahs-witness-walk-school/
Read the full article here:
http://www.altmuslimah.com/2016/09/muslim-jehovahs-witness-walk-school/
Radio Spot on the Experiences of Muslim American Women
May 09, 2016 by SOFIA ALI-KHAN
Guests: Fariha Khan, Sofia Ali-Khan, Kameelah Mumin Rashad, and Bina Shah
How do Muslim women feel about the way their religion is portrayed in the media, its place in American culture, and the ongoing presidential race? To get some answers, Radio Times producer Elizabeth Fiedler spoke with three Muslim women who live in the Philadelphia area about their lives, the surprising comments they receives about their appearance and religion, and about the term ‘forever foreigner.’ She spoke with FARIHA KHAN, associate director of the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania, Muslim American public interest lawyer and writer SOFIA ALI-KHAN and KAMEELAH MU’MIN RASHAD, the Muslim chaplain at the University of Pennsylvania and founder of the nonprofit Muslim Wellness...
How do Muslim women feel about the way their religion is portrayed in the media, its place in American culture, and the ongoing presidential race? To get some answers, Radio Times producer Elizabeth Fiedler spoke with three Muslim women who live in the Philadelphia area about their lives, the surprising comments they receives about their appearance and religion, and about the term ‘forever foreigner.’ She spoke with FARIHA KHAN, associate director of the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania, Muslim American public interest lawyer and writer SOFIA ALI-KHAN and KAMEELAH MU’MIN RASHAD, the Muslim chaplain at the University of Pennsylvania and founder of the nonprofit Muslim Wellness...
Is Your Passport in Order?
May 08, 2016 by SOFIA ALI-KHAN
"...I have always known that I would need to prepare my children, as racial and religious minorities, to handle the kind of covert racism and ignorance I experienced with my teachers, and the hypocrisy I experienced with my childhood friend. Those experiences were not easy, but they were not crises. Through them, I developed the ability to speak loudly and clearly, to carry myself with dignity, to listen carefully, and to learn. They were the inevitable challenges of taking part in the great project of pluralism. In that project we are offered the divine opportunity to reach across gender and color, across nation, language and tribe “that we might come to know one another,” as the Qur’an describes.
But today’s Republican...
But today’s Republican...
An American Muslim Mom on Faith, Parenting and the 2016 Election
Apr 27, 2016 by SOFIA ALI-KHAN
My latest piece on Huffington Post:
"...This is my Islam, this is my surrender. This is what it means to me to be a person of faith: to strive to understand the nature of myself as a human, and to strive to understand the nature of the world around me. To be in humble service wherever I can. And to steward what is my part firmly, gently when possible, as best as I can. Is there a place for my faith in America today?"
Read More Here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sofia-alikhan/an-american-muslim-mom-on_b_9786870.html
"...This is my Islam, this is my surrender. This is what it means to me to be a person of faith: to strive to understand the nature of myself as a human, and to strive to understand the nature of the world around me. To be in humble service wherever I can. And to steward what is my part firmly, gently when possible, as best as I can. Is there a place for my faith in America today?"
Read More Here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sofia-alikhan/an-american-muslim-mom-on_b_9786870.html
In My Prayers
Apr 21, 2016 by SOFIA ALI-KHAN
You are in my prayers
such as they are,
which is to say imperfect,
bound together with a bit of biodegradable twine
and sprouted in a shovel full of compost
yearning like the veins
on a translucent yellow leaf
earnest but
not ever quite what the scholars imagined.
Neither the ecstatic precision of
a mystic on cosmic time
counting each sujood as an essential detail in the
unfurling of some great global lotus of prayer,
nor the hafizah who corrects the
timing of my salaam
seem to motivate the kind of
principled obedience I might
expect from myself.
It seems my heart has always some
stray hair
or unintentional caress
to dole out in exactly the wrong circumstance.
It seems I am always falling backwards
out of the parable, and onto the floor
unkempt and smiling.
such as they are,
which is to say imperfect,
bound together with a bit of biodegradable twine
and sprouted in a shovel full of compost
yearning like the veins
on a translucent yellow leaf
earnest but
not ever quite what the scholars imagined.
Neither the ecstatic precision of
a mystic on cosmic time
counting each sujood as an essential detail in the
unfurling of some great global lotus of prayer,
nor the hafizah who corrects the
timing of my salaam
seem to motivate the kind of
principled obedience I might
expect from myself.
It seems my heart has always some
stray hair
or unintentional caress
to dole out in exactly the wrong circumstance.
It seems I am always falling backwards
out of the parable, and onto the floor
unkempt and smiling.
Dear Fellow Americans (4)...
Mar 28, 2016 by SOFIA ALI-KHAN
"...rhetorically, Cruz has moved us one step closer to a fractured democracy. While his words are certainly scary for Muslims, they pose a serious threat to all Americans. The Republicans’ inflammatory rhetoric this election cycle has done something remarkable to this country in a very short period of time: It has turned this country into a tinderbox." Read the full letter here.
Bandaging My Wounds: A Spiritual Journey Through Hijab
Feb 25, 2016 by SOFIA ALI-KHAN
.......Hijab became my skin when I was skinless. As I wrapped an oblong scarf around my head each morning I felt as if I were securing it to my body, as if I were bandaging a wound. It was a constant reminder that in a world gone mad, and in the lonely process of making a new life in a strange city, I could exist in a state of grace. I belonged to my maker. I was liberated from the excesses of the world around me, both the personal excesses of individuals, and the violent excesses of nation states. It was the equivalent of finding a fixed point to focus on when your yoga teacher tells you to balance on...