An Arab friend called me the other day. He wanted to talk about a McCain town-hall meeting where someone had apparently called Obama an "Arab."

"Guess what?" my friend said sadly.

"What?" I asked.

"I'm not an Arab," he said.

"Says who?" I asked.

"Says John McCain," he...

When the Islam smear against Obama first came out, it was based on the idea that he is currently, a Muslim.

Then the Pastor Wright controversy put that mess to rest, since Obama's affiliations to an obviously Christian Church became front and center.

Now there is a new Islam smear....

In the initial stages of the primary, we heard a lot about blacks versus women. This simpleton's analysis withered away when the media realized that the Democratic Party contains other groups too, like Hispanics and young people and seniors. So, in the media's unceasing desire to live in black and...

I just watched Dutch right-winger, Geert Wilders' film, Fitna, The Movie. He had promised it to be too shocking, too frightening, too disturbing and much of the world was holding its breath in morbid, anxious, wait for its release. The media feared rabid violence by those Muslims.

My...

For many years, the United States has been suffering from political nihilism -- disbelief in its institutions.

I have seen political nihilism in various countries around the world. It manifests itself as a form of futility, the feeling that one cannot recover from what is ailing the people.

Two common...

Benazir Bhutto, a two time former Prime Minister of Pakistan, and one of the leading voices of democratization, was assassinated in a suicide bombing in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital, Islamabad. She was departing a political rally with her closest political advisors, in preparation of the January...

A teenage gunman in Omaha just killed eight civilians in a random act of violence. He then killed himself. Earlier in the year a teenage gunman killed thirty three civilians in Virginia. He then killed himself. Last year a gunman killed eleven school girls before killing himself. The Columbine killers...

The Bush administration is known for its two wars. There is one on a feeling - terror; and one upon a country - Iraq. In 2003, the war on terror was used to justify the war in Iraq. How ironic, then, that today the war in Iraq helps demonstrate the...

Today in Karachi, Pakistan, at midnight, a pair of suicide bomb attacks went off in ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's caravan. This is her first day back in Pakistan.

At the moment, the death-toll is 125 with almost 600 injured. The numbers of both are rising. Bhutto, along with top ranking...

The amount of disinformation about Muslims is disconcerting. One popular smear is that Muslims are in an alliance with the left to take over the West; it is an allegation that far right loves to use.

The other, equally popular and equally absurd, idea is that Muslims do...

An ex-senator that opposes individual rights of women; a pundit that calls people "faggots" and considers Islam a "cult"; a Christian scholar who is considered a "polemicist" and an "Islamophobe" by conservative Christians themselves; and an intellectual who has received millions from "far right" organizations...

Almost every American-Muslim youth has been to the Islamic Society of North America's annual convention in Chicago which takes place on Labor Day weekend. The organization is one of the oldest Muslim groups in the US and its evolution affects the Muslims of this country. At one point in the...

With the publication of former radical Muslim recruiter Hasan Butt's plea to fellow Muslims, the left-wing media is now playing the game initiated and developed by the American right-wing: assuming that former terrorists and radicals are a source of insight, or even of value, in dealing with radicalism and...

Man, this has been going on since I was a kid in Pakistan. Salman Rushdie does something; fundamentalist Muslims start burning stuff; start agitating for strikes; collecting money for the big pot that will go to the guy who cuts off his head.

When I was but a wee boy,...

Bush + Musharraf = Busharraf. This is what Pakistanis call their "enlightened moderate" (or is it, moderately enlightened) dictator.

I met President Musharraf after 9/11. He held a talk and a dinner at the Marriott in DC, and the Pakistani Embassy invited members of the Pakistani-American community. He gave a...

I hope Professor Chomsky is well. Though I must warn that today I am writing not to praise, but to complain against him. At the outset, allow me to state that my respect for him should be presumed. My complaints are borne not from malice, but need. I am writing...

Brian Williams has a problem: he calls it Vinny.

Vinny, with nothing more than a blog and a keyboard is able to command as much, if not more, influence upon the information Americans consume as Williams in his Armani suit and his credentials sitting in mid-town Manhattan.

In reality,...

"You can't make a ho a housewife." - Dr. Dre;

"Money, Cash, Hoes!" - Jay Z;

"This is why I'm hot/Catch me on the block/ Every other day/Another bitch another drop" - Mims

In the aftermath of the term "nappy headed hoes" a popular refrain has been that Imus merely...

Dissent can be a dangerous thing in the Muslim world. Those who are engaged in critique are actively banished from the community or are accused of leaving Islam altogether. So accused, they are faced with the prospect of death or civil penalties as "apostates."

On March 1, 2007, an important...