Jaweed Kaleem

Imams Visit Auschwitz, Nazi Death Camp, Pray For Holocaust Victims

2013-05-23T12:47:06-04:00

Muslim leaders from across the globe paid tribute Holocaust victims this week during a visit to Auschwitz, the former Nazi concentration camp, where they prayed at the Wall of Death for those who were killed by genocide and suffered under violent anti-Semitism.

The imams, who hailed from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bosnia, Palestine, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey and the United States, performed Islamic prayers while facing Mecca as part of a Holocaust awareness visit organized in part by the International Religious Freedom office of the U.S. State Department.

"What can you say? You're speechless. What you have seen is beyond human imagination," Imam Mohamed Magid, President of the U.S.-based Islamic Society of North America, told Agence France-Presse.

"Whether in Europe today or in the Muslim world, my call to humanity: End racism for God's sake, end anti-Semitism for God's sake, end Islamophobia for God's sake, end sexism for God's sake... Enough is enough," said Magid, who leads the All Dulles Area Muslim Society in Northern Virginia.

The visit, which runs through Friday, is scheduled to include a tour of Warsaw's new Museum of the History of Polish Jews, a kosher dinner with Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich, and a meeting with the Polish Righteous Among the Nations, according to JTA. The group of imams, which includes Muzammil H. Siddiqi, president of the Fiqh Council of North America and the former president of the Islamic Society of North America, is also scheduled to meet with Muslim, Jewish and Catholic leaders in Poland.

"We thank [the imams] for their willingness to come. Our task is to encourage proper understanding between our faiths in ways that stress our common humanity," said Rabbi Jack Bemporad, who is the Executive Director of the New Jersey-based Center for Interreligious Understanding and is leading the visit. "Understanding our particular histories will help us better understand each other so that we can unite in combatting prejudice against all religions.”

"I think that the imams that came here having very little knowlege in many cases of the Shoah are now convinced that any kind of Holocaust denial or Holocaust revisionism is simply out of the question," Bemporad said.

Ahmet Muharrem Atlig, a Turkish Muslim and former imam, said that despite being educated in "much informaiton about Auschwitz-Birkenau and the Holocaust," the visit was a "turning point" for him.

"As soon as possible, I will bring my family here ... I will organize Turkish imams and muftis to go to Holocaust sites. My people don't know what happened here. It's not an agenda. It's a reality. This is not Jewish heritage, it's world heritage. Jewish people were mostly affected but the lessons are global," Atlig said.

This week's visit is not the first time Muslim leaders have visited Auschwitz. In 2010, eight American imams took part in a similar trip.

“The U.S. imams told us that their trip was transformative and they shared their experiences with their American Muslim communities. We thought a trip with an international group of imams and religious leaders to be of vital importance," said Catholic University of America law professor Marshall Breger, an Orthodox Jew and former Reagan White House liaison to the Jewish community who helped organized both trips.

“Increasing compassion and preserving man’s humanity starts with unveiling falsehoods that shore up bigotry. Unfortunately, one of those is Holocaust denial. Muslims and millions of others also suffered and Holocaust denial denies them, too, not just Jews who perished,” Breger said.

After Oklahoma Tornado, To Rebuild Or Not To Rebuild

2013-05-21T18:48:13-04:00

To rebuild or not to rebuild?

As recovery slowly begins after deadly tornadoes flattened subdivisions in Moore, Okla., and tore through nearby areas, the complex question has come up again for the disaster-prone region that sits within Tornado Alley.

Moore, a 55,000-resident city south of Oklahoma City, is no stranger to destruction. A 1999 tornado that wreaked havoc upon Moore had winds topping 300 miles per hour, and it was slammed by smaller tornadoes in 1998, 2003 and 2010. But each time, like dozens of other American communities prone to natural disaster, it has rebuilt.

Disaster recovery and urban planning experts say the tendency to rebuild American cities that have experienced tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and flooding -- and are likely to see such trauma again -- can be attributed to a mixture of economics, politics, nationalism and spiritual views that often sets the U.S. apart from other nations.

"In the modern age, no major American city has been permanently abandoned after trauma and destruction," said Thomas Campanella, an associate professor of urban planning and design at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"There's a narrative of resilience, this notion of us being challenged and overcoming that to become stronger," said Campanella, who co-edited The Resilient City: How Modern Cities Recover From Disaster.

When fires nearly wiped out Boston in 1676 and Chicago in 1871, preachers described them as events sent by God to force residents to create bigger, better cities.

San Francisco today sits where a city was torn to pieces by an earthquake in 1906. In South Florida, Hurricane Andrew wiped out parts of the region in 1992, but signs of damage are nearly invisible today amid the crowded, rebuilt subdivisions. The same goes for the Texas Gulf Coast, which has repeatedly been hit by hurricanes.

Most recently, billions of dollars have been invested in restoring New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, while businesses and homes along the New York and New Jersey shores are continuing to reopen after Hurricane Sandy.

Some of the pressure to rebuild, and not relocate, is financial.

"A lot of it has to do with the economy and getting people back to work. Places like Moore are attached to metropolitan areas, and there are jobs and businesses to run. And then there is infrastructure. It's tragic to see houses torn apart and people suffering, but in the recovery process you look at the fact that streets are still there, and there is the underground infrastructure still there," said Eugenie Birch, a professor of urban planning at the University of Pennsylvania.

"Then there are also FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] regulations, if you get assistance for rebuilding, that only support building in certain kinds of ways in certain places," usually the same place as the disaster, noted Birch.

There's also a desire to return to normal as quickly as possible.

"You would think here is a rebuilding, here is an opportunity to get it right, to rebuild the right way and replace the city, but in fact that opposite usually occurs," said Campanella. "There is an inertia to get back to the way things were the day before. It can work against any visionary, bold planning."

But it doesn't always play out this way. Some communities have not rebuilt or have taken a much slower, more thoughtful route to recovery.

Consider Cordova, Ala. Hit head on by a tornado in 2011, the small town of 2,500 residents only began demolishing its downtown for serious rebuilding last month. Though city officials have blamed the delay on slow-to-come FEMA funds, it has allowed residents to work with urban planners from Auburn University on long-term recovery planning that could produce more resilient designs for destroyed areas.

Some disasters are deemed simply too difficult or expensive to clean up. When the federal government discovered in 1983 that floodwaters had spread dangerous levels of dioxin across Times Beach, Mo., it evicted residents and bought out their property for $32 billion. The former city is now a state park. A similar situation occurred in Gilman, Colo., a small town whose residents were sent packing by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1984 when flooding caused dangerous chemicals to spread from a former coal mine.

But to find bigger cities that have been abandoned after disaster, one has to look outside the U.S. In 2008, an earthquake in Beichuan, China, killed more than 50,000 people. Officials responded by moving residents to a nearby county and declaring that the city would not be rebuilt. Epecuen, a lakeside resort town in Argentina that at its height held 20,000 residents, was abandoned in 1985 after the dam broke and it was flooded. The waters only recently receded.

Jerold Kayden, a professor of urban planning and design at Harvard, points out the pull between private property rights and societal concerns in disaster recovery. "On one hand, people want to build wherever they have property and land, and that includes rebuilding on the same plot after a disaster," he said. "On the other hand, post-disaster we come to expect and want government assistance," which raises issues of good public policy.

"We are not a society that says, 'You've made your bed, now sleep in it.' We help people," said Kayden. "But we have to find a comfortable medium that allows people to live where they desire while offering protection and building with the future in mind."

Food Stamp Cuts Spark Bible Debate

2013-05-17T16:09:26-04:00

WASHINGTON -- Republican and Democrats sparred this week on where Jesus Christ would stand on food stamps, a federal program that supported 47 million Americans last year.

On Wednesday, the House Agriculture Committee approved Republican legislation that would reform farm subsidies and trim the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by roughly $2.5 billion a year. Republicans want fewer Americans to qualify for food stamps simply because they receive benefits from another safety net program. Under the new legislation, more people would have to pass income and asset tests to be eligible for food stamps. Nearly 2 million fewer people would qualify.

Rep. Juan Vargas, a California Democrat and former member of the Jesuits, a Catholic religious order, said he favored a Democratic amendment to undo the cuts because Jesus made himself clear on feeding the poor.

"Jesus kinda fools around and gives you parables. He doesn't oftentimes say exactly what he means," Vargas said. "But in Matthew 25 he's very, very clear. And he delineates what it takes to get into the kingdom of heaven very, very clearly. And he says how you treat the least among us, the least of our brothers, that's how you treat him."

In Matthew 25, Jesus describes those who will enter heaven as anyone who gave him food when he was hungry, invited him into their homes when he was a stranger, clothed him, cared for him while he was sick and visited him in prison. "The extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even the least of them, you did it to me," Jesus says.

Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas) said during the hearing that he, too, is a follower of Christ.

"I read this chapter of Matthew 25 to speak to me as an individual," Conaway, a Southern Baptist, said. "I don't read it to speak to the United States government. And so I would take a little bit of umbrage with you on that. Clearly, you and I are charged that we do those kinds of things but [our government is not] charged with that."

Many religious groups lobby Congress on federal nutrition programs. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Jewish Federations of North America, and dozens of religious and secular organizations signed a letter to Congress last week urging members to oppose food stamp cuts. "If SNAP is weakened, our nation will see more hunger and food insecurity, worse health and educational outcomes, and higher health costs," it said.

While religious leaders in the U.S. have thrown their weight behind food stamps and government assistance programs, Pope Francis also spoke more broadly Thursday on his views on "cult of money" in his first address at the Vatican global finance.

Addressing new ambassadors to the Vatican, Francis described the prevalence around the world of an "an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal," resulting in people who "have to struggle to live and, frequently, to live in an undignified way."

"In circumstances like these, solidarity, which is the treasure of the poor, is often considered counterproductive, opposed to the logic of finance and the economy. While the income of a minority is increasing exponentially, that of the majority is crumbling," Francis said. "This imbalance results from ideologies which uphold the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation, and thus deny the right of control to states, which are themselves charged with providing for the common good."

Former Pope Benedict XVI had a similar view. In a Christmas address in 2011 that touched on Europe's financial crisis, Benedict said that "solidarity, commitment to one's neighbor and responsibility toward the poor and suffering are largely uncontroversial" but that the "motivation is often lacking ... to make sacrifices."

This week's debate was not the first time lawmakers brought religion into disagreements over economic issues and helping the poor. Amid debates over the debt ceiling, federal budget cuts and the fiscal cliff over the last two years, dozens of prominent denominational and church leaders formed a coalition called the Circle of Protection, to lobby for the protection of assistance programs. In 2012, liberal Catholic groups in particular criticized former vice-presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who prominently supported broad budget cuts to government assistance. A Catholic, he said his views came from the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, meaning that decisions should happen at the lowest level of government that can handle them most effectively -- often individuals -- instead of big bureaucracies.

But groups like the Circle of Protection don't always sway Republican policy. During the food-stamp debate on Wednesday, other Republicans disagreed with Vargas' position and his reading of the Bible.

"The Bible says lots of things," Rep. Stephen Lee Fincher (R-Tenn.) said. He pointed to Matthew 26:11, which says "for you always have the poor with you," then 2 Thessalonians 3:10, which says "for even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: If anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either." Republicans have argued that programs like food stamps discourage work and make the safety net more of a hammock.

"Jesus made it very clear we have a duty and obligation as Christians and as citizens of this country to take care of each other. Democrat, Republican, Independent -- we should look after one another," he said. "But I think a fundamental argument we're having today is what's the duty of the federal government. We're all here on this committee making decisions about other people's money."

Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.) cited Ephesians 2:8-9, which says, "for by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast."

"It always looks good when politicians can go say, we brought a bunch of money to this project here or that project there, standing next to this big, giant blown-up check somewhere and saying, 'look what we did for you.' That's all someone else's money," LaMalfa said. "We should be doing this as individuals, helping the poor."

Several Democrats noted that even with 47 million Americans benefiting from SNAP, some people are still hungry.

"Christians, Jews, Muslims, whatever -- we're failing our brothers and sisters here," Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said.

John Hall, Dean Of Westminster Abbey And Officiant At Royal Wedding, Visits United States

2013-05-16T07:37:01-04:00

In his 36 years as a priest in the Church of England, the Rev. John Hall never thought he would become best-known for being part of a wedding.

But since officiating the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton two years ago, an event watched by hundreds of millions of people worldwide, the dean of London's Westminster Abbey has used his newfound exposure to his advantage.

In the United States for a three-city tour over the past week to fundraise for the abbey, and promote the famed London tourist attraction and its unique relationship to the royal family, Hall visited The Huffington Post's New York office to discuss the popular royal couple, his relationship to the monarchy, and his views on the Anglican church on both sides of the Atlantic.

"There's certainly something about the couple strikes a chord and attracts people. You could say it's the height of celebrity culture, but I think there's something deeper," said Hall, who became dean in 2006 after serving as chief education officer of the Church of England and, prior to that, working in various positions promoting Anglican educational services and in church assignments in London and North West England.

"There's a certain mystique of the monarchy, and of course, a religious underlying and significance to it. But the renewal of it with a new generation of people has really put a new spotlight on it. We symbolize the closeness -- in the English sense understanding -- of church and state."

The church gets millions of visitors every year who come to see its historic Gothic architecture and learn about its role in British history. Dozens of kings and queens have been crowned in the abbey, which also has hosted 16 royal weddings and is the burial site for several monarchs and famed citizens. The abbey, which is part of the Church of England but operates separately for the most part, has a $15 million yearly budget and is financed almost entirely by admission costs and fundraising by groups such as the New York-based American Fund for Westminster Abbey. Hall visited there this week, in addition to Chicago, and will head to Washington next.

The church staff reports to the monarchy, instead of the local bishop like other London churches, and in addition to at least four daily worship services, Westminster regularly hosts events for the royals. On June 4, Hall will host Queen Elizabeth II, the Duke of Edinburgh and royal family members for a service to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the queen's coronation. The unique relationship to the royal family also means Hall for the most part has stayed clear of church controversies such as infighting over the ordination of women bishops.

This is your third visit to the U.S. to promote the church. What brings you back?

I came here in 2011 and again in 2012. It seems to me that fundraising isn't the main thing, to me it's more "friend-raising." The abbey has a huge number of American visitors, which is wonderful, and I think it's important to reach out reciprocally. It began in 2010, when St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue invited me to come give the prizes at their commencement at the end of the year, but I couldn't come that year. So I came back in 2011, and made some time for a small vacation and we realized that there is this growing interest in America in the abbey because of the wedding.

In the U.S., we don't have a state church, or a church such as Westminster Abbey that has the role of serving the monarchy. How do you balance running a church while being available to the queen and welcoming millions of tourists?

Because the abbey is such a visited place, we have a real opportunity there to ensure they are understanding the religious character of the building they are visiting so they are not just visiting an attraction. We have a fundamental question: How do we balance our life as a religious community between our purpose of worshipping the almighty God and, on the other hand, welcoming visitors and trying to make them pilgrims to a degree as much as we can?

The connection with the monarchy has gone back to the beginning. Westminster Palace, next to the abbey, was originally where Edward the Confessor lived in the 11th century. Westminster became the center of rule in the Kingdom from that time on. William the Conqueror was crowned in Westminster Abbey in 1066 and every monarch who has been crowned has had the coronation ceremony since then there.

Is there a regular congregation?

We see between 200 and 1,200 regular worshippers each day, but our focus is not on building a congregation in the traditional sense.

You have been dean for seven years and a priest for many more, but interest in your work has peaked since the royal wedding. Does that bother you?

No. It goes deeper than celebrity, I think. Of course, there is at the heart of the monarchy the monarch herself, who is one of the best-known figures in the world and one of the longest serving, so many people know of the queen. But this new generation is fascinating to people. The story of Catherine Middleton getting to know Prince William and them coming into each others' life is itself majestic and legendary. But for me it was wonderful that at the heart of the wedding was not just celebrity or splendor but a deep, central core of a couple coming together in the presence of God, and asking for God's gift of love and commitment throughout their lives.

There's also a baby on the way for the couple. Will you a play a role when he or she is born?

There is no expectation that I will be involved in the baptism. I imagine the Archbishop of Canterbury will be the one to pour the water and pray for the child's baptism, but where that will happen I don't know yet. All we are doing for the moment is praying for the pregnancy and birth to go well, and that the child is born safe and well. And when he or she is born, we will ring a full peal of the church bells, which lasts more than three hours.

The Episcopal church here is part of the Anglican communion, as is the Church of England, but the church here is also different. It has ordained gay bishops, blesses same-sex unions and has approved ordaining transgender priests. The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church is a woman. Meanwhile, the Church of England recently voted against allowing women bishops. What's your impression of Episcopalians?

What is predominant in my mind is the similarities we have in the communion around the world. There are clear similarities and also different issues people are engaged with. We have clear traditions of worship and the focus on hymns and prayer, and you feel that wherever you go.

For me, the experience of preaching on a couple of occasions at St. Thomas in New York and St. James in Chicago this week showed me a tradition of worship with which I am extremely familiar. You simply feel that we are one.

We live in a complex and difficult world and we engage with the world as we see and we want to share the gospel with the world in which we are. That may lead us to take different views about some marginal issues from Anglicans in other parts of the world. But on the core issues of belief in God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and God's revelation of himself in Jesus Christ, we are the same.

I am glad that we wrestle publicly with issues, and I'm glad that with that we have this community that keeps us together. I long for the unity and reconciliation of all Christians so we can give a more powerful, united message to the world of God's love in Christ. I certainly don't want to see the Anglican Communion broken up. Nobody does.

What was your reaction to the votes against women bishops in the Church of England?

The ordination of women to the episcopacy is something the great majority of people in the Church of England want. It completes a process, which seems to have been right, to include women in the leadership. We have very much to be thankful for from women deacons and priests, and there will be women bishops. My guess is that there were as many people surprised as I was by the outcome of the vote. It was a very small number of people in the House of Laity who voted against it. This issue will be re-addressed and there has been a speedy process of getting people together to find ways through this dilemma. Exactly how this will work, I don't know, and I have not been involved personally. I hope it can be resolved quickly.

There's also a relatively new archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. What's your relationship to him and his predecessor, Archbishop Rowan Williams?

Rowan Williams was one of the finest archbishops one can imagine. His deep spiritual life, his absolute devotion to God, his extraordinary learning and breadth of knowledge, and his power of interpretation, there are things we have benefited enormously from at Westminster Abbey. Justin Welby brings a new perspective and new experience to the extraordinary task of being the archbishop of Canterbury. I didn't know Justin Welby very well, and I have met him now a few times. He is an extraordinarily gifted communicator, he has a very strong faith and a very hopeful outlook. His experience in finance and the oil industry is probably also a great blessing to us in the church. We shall look forward to seeing how he brings to bear those many gifts on the future of the church.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev Buried At Muslim Al-Barzakh Cemetery In Doswell, Virginia

2013-05-10T13:03:46-04:00

The body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the suspected Boston Marathon bomber whose burial was surrounded by controversy during the past week, was interred Thursday in an Islamic cemetery in central Virginia, an imam confirmed to The Huffington Post.

Imam Ammar Amonette of the Richmond-based Islamic Center of Virginia said Friday that Tsarnaev was buried at Al-Barzakh Cemetery, a small cemetery in Doswell, Va., a rural community 25 miles north of Richmond.

"It's a small, privately owned plot on the countryside that has the graves of a few dozen people at the most," said Amonette, who confirmed news of the burial with a contact at the cemetery, but said his mosque is not connected to it.

Amonette said the burial was arranged by Martha Mullen, a 48-year-old Richmond resident who independently contacted the cemetery after hearing reports on National Public Radio that dozens of burial grounds had refused to give space to Tsarnaev's body.

Mullen, a professional counselor who has a degree from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, did not return a phone call from The Huffington Post on Friday, but said in a statement that it was her Christian faith that motivated her to contact the cemetery to arrange the burial.

Jesus says to “love your enemies” she said in the statement. “Not to hate them even after they are dead.”

The statement was sent by the Islamic Society of Greater Richmond, a mosque in Henrico, Va., which helped Mullen arrange the burial. In it, the mosque's administration said it was motivated by "faith principles."

"We are all brothers and sisters in our humanity. Muslims, Jews, and Christians all believe we are created by God out of one man, a soul and a body. To God belongs the soul, and He has the final judgment … what Tsarnaev did is between him and God," it said. "We strongly disagree with his violent actions, but that does not release us from our obligation to return his body to the earth."'

The statement also said that Mullen had emailed Christian, Jewish, and Hindu communities in central Virginia to discuss the burial, and that she had consulted with her pastor about the "moral and ethical reasons" behind her effort. The United Methodist pastor, whose church is not named, "expressed support for Mullen’s Christian convictions and encouraged her interfaith efforts."

Tsarnaev's body had been held at Graham Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Parlors in Worcester, Mass., since May 3. The funeral home had faced daily protests over its offer to find a burial ground.

The city of Worcester, which spent tens of thousands of dollars on police to patrol the funeral home, announced Thursday morning that Tsarnaev's body had been "entombed" at an undisclosed location outside the city thanks to the help of a "courageous and compassionate individual."

Amonette, who leads one of the Richmond area's largest mosques with 4,000 members at peak times, said Friday that another group, Islamic Funeral Services of Virginia, was also involved in the burial. That organization did not return a phone call from The Huffington Post.

"Nobody consulted with us or people here in the community. Our input was not requested, this was done privately," Amonette, who said he did not support the burial. "But as a Muslim community, I do not anticipate any problem with our neighbors because of this. We have good relationships in Richmond, but you never know what kind of things individuals will be thinking of doing."

On Friday afternoon, officials of Caroline County, where Doswell is located, released a statement saying they were surprised by the burial.

There was "no advanced notice of the decision and [we] unfortunately learned of the selection of a burial site through the media” County Administrator Charles M. Culley, Jr. said in the statement. In a press conference, Floyd Thomas, chairman of the county’s Board of Supervisors, added that "if no laws were broken, there’s nothing we can do."

But if the law was broken during the burial process, Thomas said, "we would try to undo what has been done."

Read Tsarnaev's death certificate below:

Tamerlan Tsarnaev Death Certificate

CORRECTION: The original story misidentified the Islamic Society of Greater Richmond, and has also been updated to reflect statements from the Islamic center and Caroline County officials.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev's Secret Burial Brings Relief And Worry To Funeral And Cemetery Operators

2013-05-09T16:46:53-04:00

When he heard Thursday that suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev had finally been interred 19 days after his death, Brad White was relieved but worried.

White, who runs the largest at-sea burial business in New England, had kept a close watch on the escalating controversy as cemeteries rejected burial for Tsarnaev's body. He spoke Wednesday with the Worcester, Mass. funeral director who had possession of the body, in order to offer his services.

"I talked with one of the funeral directors in Worcester yesterday, and I said 'Are you making any progress?' He said 'I am pretty sure this will come to an end soon but we don't have any plans,'" White recounted. "I'm glad this is all over with, but now it's unfortunately going to be a witch hunt."

The City of Worcester announced Thursday that Tsarnaev's body, which had been held at Graham Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Parlors for six days, had been "entombed" at an undisclosed location outside the city, and thanked the anonymous "courageous and compassionate individual" who came forward to help with the burial. In later statements, the funeral home added that the body had been taken out of Massachusetts.

But after days of protests and police patrols outside the Worcester funeral home, and after cemeteries in several states and the cities of Boston and Cambridge rejected Tsarnaev's burial, funeral directors and cemetery operators say they are concerned that Americans who are angry about burying a suspected terrorist on U.S. soil will now try to find and desecrate the (for-now) secret grave.

"I think what happened within the last several hours is something that should have happened 10 days ago without fanfare, without soundbytes," said Bob Biggins, a former president of the National Funeral Directors Association and the owner of Magoun-Biggins Funeral Home in Rockland, Mass. "That's what we as funeral directors are supposed to do -- we don't make public what we are doing or how we are serving a family."

"But death certificates are a public record," he added, and in Massachusetts, as is typical of many states, the certificates specify not only when and how a person died, but when, where and how the body was laid to rest.

"The death certificate would have been filed in Boston, where he was pronounced dead. The city would have to issue a burial permit for any burial to take place, regardless of which state it's in," Biggins said. "The death certificate can be obtained if requested, but there may be an exception in this case to making the location of burial or the certificate itself public."

Peter Stefan, the Worcester funeral director who handled the funeral arrangements, told reporters last week that he had received the death certificate from the state medical examiner, which listed Tsarnaev's cause of death as “gunshot wounds of torso and extremities” and “blunt trauma to the head and torso." At the time, the certificate had not been submitted to the city of Boston, and it did not list a burial location.

Phone and email requests on Thursday to the Boston clerk's office for updated information on the death certificate filing were not returned. Anne Roach, a spokeswoman for the Massachusett's Department of Health, which oversees the Registry of Vital Statistics, said the office would not have a copy of the death certificate until June 10 at the latest, as cities and towns are required to file death certificates with the state by the 10th day of each month.

Several individuals throughout the U.S. had come forward in recent weeks through news reporters, social media and blogs to offer private burial plots for Tsarnaev's body, but none said publicly on Thursday that they were involved in a burial.

"With all the public declarations they certainly knew they had permission to use my plot. I have not been notified they have done so," said Paul Keane, a Vermont resident who had made headlines for making an appeal on his blog to bury the body for free next to his mother's grave at Carmel Burying Ground in Hamden, Conn.

Another high-profile offer had come from Sheikh Abu-Omar Almubarac, a Muslim in the Denver area who had said he would do a free Islamic burial in an Muslim cemetery. "There has been no (involvement) and I have not been asked nor have we had a burial here," he said.

It's also unclear what kind of final resting place Tsarnaev's body was given. Stefan, the funeral home director, did not pick up his phone Thursday, and the city of Worcester's use of the word "entombed" in its statement left it ambiguous as to the kind of ceremony Tsarnaev received. The word can specifically mean putting a body or an urn with ashes in an above-ground burial chamber or vault that requires no digging, but it can also broadly mean any kind of after-death ceremony, including cremation and burial.

In Islam, the religion of Tsarnaev and his family, Muslims are typically buried in simple ceremonies with unadorned, flat grave markers that only have a name and Quranic verses. Bodies are supposed to be put in the ground wrapped in a shroud with no casket, with the grave perpendicular to Mecca and with the head of the deceased facing Mecca if possible. Cremation is frowned upon in Islam. Prior to burial, there is a ritual washing and prayer. Rusan Tsarni, an uncle who lives in Maryland, did the washing for Tsarnaev's body, according to Stefan.

Tsarnaev isn't the first suspected murderer to have a funeral and burial in the U.S. The bodies or ashes of Newtown, Conn. shooter Adam Lanza, Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho, Columbine High School shooter Dylan Klebold and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh were all buried or scattered in the U.S. with little fanfare.

"There are an awful lot of bad people who are buried here, people who have committed all sorts of atrocities," Biggins said. "But that is not what's important, what's important is that we are civilized society and we bury the dead."

Link Between Islam And Violence Rejected By Many Americans After Boston Bombings: Pew Survey

2013-05-07T16:48:50-04:00

After the Boston Marathon bombing suspects were revealed to be Muslims who investigators said were motivated in part by radical Islam, American Muslims were quick to condemn the bombings and plea for Americans to not retaliate against the peaceful majority.

Now, the results of a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press show that despite heightened interest around radical Islam's connection to the Boston attacks, Americans' view of whether Islam is more likely than other religions to support violence remains close to what it has been for the past decade. The survey also found that Americans view Muslims as the group that's most discriminated against when compared to gays and lesbians, African Americans, Hispanics and women.

The survey, which was released Tuesday, found that 42 percent of Americans believe Islam is "more likely" than other religions to encourage violence among believers, while 46 percent say it's not any more likely to promote violence than other faiths. Those figures are within 7 percentage points of the results of surveys going back to 2003 that have asked the same question. Only in 2002 did Pew find widely different results to the question about Islam and violence, when 25 percent of those surveyed said Islam was more likely to encourage violence while 51 percent disagreed.

Tuesday's results found that about 45 percent of Americans say there is "a lot" of discrimination against Muslims, while 39 percent say there is the same amount of discrimination against gays and lesbians. A quarter of Americans believe there is "a lot" of discrimination against Hispanics, 22 percent believe there is a similar level of discrimination against African Americans and 15 percent believe there is "a lot" of discrimination against women.

Pew, which polled 1,504 people for the survey with a margin of error of 2.9 percent, also found differences between views of Islam when results were broken down by age, sex, political party and religion. The majority of young people don't believe Islam is more linked to violence than other religions, while half of people above 50 believe Islam is more likely to promote violence. Men were also more likely than women to say Islam is related to violence. Republicans were also more likely to believe in a link between Islam and violence than Democrats, as were white evangelical Protestants when compared to mainline Protestants.

Click through the slideshow to see most and least Muslim states in America:

Tamerlan Tsarnaev Burial Raises Questions About Funerals For Suspected Killers

2013-05-06T19:44:51-04:00

Watching the news this week of cemeteries refusing to accept the body of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev and protestors descending upon the Worcester, Mass., funeral home where it's been held, the Rev. Don Marxhausen was disgusted.

"Funerals are for the living, not the dead," said Marxhausen, pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Idaho Springs, Colo. "There are always going to be haters, people that are immature and want to get revenge after death, but they are missing the point of comforting a family."

As the pastor who presided over the funeral service for Dylan Klebold, one of the two Columbine High School shooters who killed 13 people and injured 24 others in 1999, the controversy over Tsarnaev's death rites brings up complex questions for Marxhausen, as it does for the funeral directors and cemetery operators who work with families of the dead.

Do suspected killers deserve a funeral and burial? Do rituals after death necessarily honor the dead and their actions, or are they simply a way take care of a dead body and offer a service to the person's family? If, as in Tsarnaev's case, the person was born in a different country where his parents currently live, should his burial be there?

"There is no precedence for this in this area," said David Boyle, president of the Massachusetts Cemetery Association, who has been thrust into the national spotlight since Tsarnaev's body arrived early Friday at Graham, Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlors in Worcester, Mass. Since then, every cemetery that's been contacted in Massachusetts and several other states have refused to allow a burial for Tsarnaev.

"I have no right to comment on any individual cemetery, but it's safe to say this kind of burial begins with the family," Boyle said. "In other parts of the country when these situations have risen, it's been done quietly and in private."

Peter Stefan, the funeral director who has possession of the body, said at a news conference Monday that he had "done all I can do," including a ritual Islamic body washing, and that "the ideal situation" would be to get the body to Russia after having no luck in the U.S. Stefan, who has been holding the body on behalf of Tsarnaev's uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, who lives in Maryland, said it makes Americans "look bad" that no cemeteries are open to burial.

The conflict over what to do with Tsarnaev's body is unusual for a high-profile case, said experts in funeral and cemetery traditions. In December, the body of Adam Lanza, the Newtown, Conn., elementary school shooter, was claimed by his father for undisclosed "private arrangements" with little media coverage. In 2007, the body of Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho was buried at a secret grave in Fairfax County, Va., by his family. In the case of Klebold, Marxhausen said the body was cremated, and he is unsure what happened to the ashes. After his execution, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh had his ashes scattered in an undisclosed location. Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated President John F. Kennedy in 1963, is buried near Dallas.

Brad White, who runs Boston-based New England Burials At Sea and does at-sea ash scatterings and full-body burials for Stefan's funeral home, said he was contacted by about a possible sea burial for Tsarnaev.

"The funeral home sent us a note saying if they didn't get a cemetery to bury him, they might want to talk to us about it. Our answer right now is no," said White, who typically does burials 25 miles to 40 miles offshore. "If we had a state-level and federal request to do so, we would do it 100 miles offshore in the middle of the night."

Cremation is common in the deaths of notorious criminals, said experts, because it's easier for families to distribute or keep their ashes and they don't have to find a burial place. But cremation is not allowed in Islam, the faith of Tsarneav and his family. The permissibility of burial at sea, as was done with Osama bin Laden's body, has been debated by Islamic scholars. Experts said an unmarked burial ground would not be out of line with Islamic practice, as Muslims are encouraged to have simple burials instead of extravagant ones.

It's also unclear whether it would be possible to send the body to Russia, as Tsarnaev's mother has reportedly requested. David Casper, a funeral director at Casper Funeral Services in Boston, has shipped several bodies to Russia for funerals, but said it costs thousands of dollars, and requires the deceased to have been issued a passport before death, and embalming, which isn't done in Islam.

"Historically, criminals would have been buried in potter's fields," said Gary Laderman, a professor of religious studies at Emory University who wrote The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes Toward Death, 1799-1883. "That is to say that in the 19th century and earlier, a criminal would not have been given the respect of any kind of proper funeral or individual burial site. They would just throw them into collective anonymous graves that existed in sections of different cemeteries and churchyards. But today, we assume that people within a society are given dignity by a burial or funeral and that it says something about the overall values of society."

Protesters and police have gathered outside Stefan's funeral home since Tsarnaev's body arrived in Worcester. The funeral director, who said he doesn't condone the killings, but believes everyone deserves a funeral, said at a news conference Monday that he has hoped to have had the situation resolved by this point. Cemeteries fear vandalism and outbursts against them if they give space to someone police say killed four people and injured at least 280 in the Boston area, including the marathon bombings and a shootout and car chase, he said.

"In Massachusetts, cemeteries can decide independently what they want to do and who they will accept," said Bob Biggins, a former president of the National Funeral Directors Association and the owner of Magoun-Biggins Funeral Home in Rockland, Mass. "I can understand to a certain degree why a cemetery would be concerned about safety issues and desecration by those protesting, but I think there is a way to do this."

"It can be done privately and quietly, which is something you see often with high-profile deaths, such as with celebrities," Biggins said. "I think it's time to take a step back, let the professionals do what they are called to do, and let them do it without fanfare as we focus on the victims."

Deathbed Singers, Threshold Choirs, Grow To Comfort Sick And Dying

2013-05-02T06:41:58-04:00

WASHINGTON -- Always face the person in the chair. Sense their breath, the rising and falling of the lungs, the blood's flush on the cheeks. Watch the loosening and tightening of the muscles, the movement of the eyelids, how the hair on their arms straightens up. Don't stand out. Speak softly. Blend in with the voices.

This was the advice of Ellen Synakowski to members of the Washington, D.C., Threshold Choir, only a few months into its existence. Their job: to use song to comfort the dying through the end of life.

As if repeating a mantra, they sang in unison as they rehearsed: "It's alright, you can go/ Your memories are safe with us/ It's alright, you can go/ Your memories are safe with us."

"Words are good for many things, but they don’t seem sufficient when it comes to death. The feelings are just too deeply intense and words are too inadequate," said Synakowski, a 55-year-old former academic journal editor who has always had a hobby of singing, whether it's to the car radio or in a community chorus. "But music … music can reach those places where words alone can’t go."

Death used to happen solely at home or in a hospital, with company limited to family, close friends and clergy. Solemn music would be reserved, perhaps, for the funeral. But as the options for the end of life have grown to include hospice, palliative care and other avenues that recognize not only physical but also emotional and spiritual well-being, Synakowski and like-minded volunteers are offering another service to the dying: soothing through a cappella song.

Each week, Synakowski and between five and 10 people gather around an imaginary bed to practice original songs written for the dying. The D.C. circle formed in January, and is one of the newest in a little-known, mainly U.S.-based network that began in Northern California 13 years ago and now includes dozens of groups across the country.

In the years before launching the choir, Synakowski was a theater critic, a parenting newspaper staffer and an editor at a physics journal. Now an aspiring creative nonfiction writer, she spends her days memorizing songs, calling hospices and hospitals to gauge their interest in bedside singers, and placing ads seeking members in coffee shops, churches and newspapers. But it's not easy to find volunteers and she's just started to look for friendly care facilities that may house those who are dying and willing to listen.

"Do not initiate touch. If someone reaches out to you, you can respond," she told the men and women gathered to practice in April in a massage school classroom in a nondescript, concrete office building that donated its space. It was a Wednesday night, and the singers, most in their 20s and 30s, had rushed in from their day jobs. They included a legal secretary, a massage therapist and an acupuncturist. "If someone asks you for water, or to adjust them in their wheelchair or bed, we can't," Synakowski said. That's up to the nurse. They are singers, and singers only.

Members of the Washington, D.C., Threshold Choir meet weekly at the

Potomac Massage Training Institute in Northwest Washington.

As if it were a worship service, she opened the meeting with a testimony, reading a letter from a woman who recently had another choir in California sing to her ailing mother who is in her late 80s. The students had never performed for the ill or dying, and they needed encouragement and inspiration.

"When you came to our church and sang, I had more energy than I have had in many months. When you and the choir sang to my mom, I felt your singing was able to hold a space open that we all fear. That 'space' could be death or just the struggle of sickness, and when it's held open like that, we are less alone in it ... When you sang, your voices had a kind of wisdom of being in dark places or feared places ... My mom told me the feeling overwhelmed her, while you were all singing to her, of not being afraid to die."

The D.C. choir practices for 90 minutes each week at the Potomac Massage Training Institute, where Synakowski is also a student. Laureen, the acupuncturist, joined after seeing a flyer at Starbucks seeking people who could "communicate kindness" with their voices. Becca, the legal secretary, had taken a class at the massage school, through which she met Synakowski. She brought her friend Leah, who has wanted to work with the dying ever since her brother died of cancer.

It will take six months, possibly up to a year, before the choir can reach its goals: having each member memorize 30 songs, and reaching enough understanding of the dying process and the effect sound can have during it, including receiving hospital and hospice volunteer certification.

For now, they prepare.

***

Ellen Synakowski launched a Threshold Choir in Washington, D.C. in January.

Synakowski's husband and one or two men come to each rehearsal, though most Threshold Choirs are made up of only women. They're located in nearly every major American city, and meet once or twice a month to practice. Each choir varies in its style and composition, though the majority skew older than 50 on average. They visit by request only to hospitals, hospices and private homes. The service is free, and because of limited resources, the groups usually don't advertise unless they are just getting started. Oftentimes, it's a chaplain, social worker or doctor who asks for them.

Two to three singers will go to a bedside, and they pick songs based upon what a patient or the patient's family wants. The tunes can be slow or upbeat, and emotional or lighthearted, like "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," though most are original. At first, choirs sing two or three songs to gauge a person's response. Sometimes, the recipient will move a finger, mouth a "thank you" or will change their breathing and relax their muscles. At the end of life, when human functions began to slow and cease, the signal for "I like this" can be as simple as a blink. Sessions last between 15 to 45 minutes, depending on the patient.

Family members are given song sheets so they can join in or continue after the singers are gone, though choir members themselves prefer memorization. The lyrics aren't religious, and are meant for those who may be spiritual but don't follow a strict dogma. It's rare for a choir member to witness a patient's last breath. Most people prefer to die alone or in the presence of family, say singers who have performed at deathbeds.

So far, Synakowski can sing just 10 pieces from memory. And while she has attended choir workshops in New York and Ohio, she has yet to sing to the dying. Searching fruitlessly for a choir since moving to D.C. nearly four years ago, she became tired of waiting and recently launched her own. Maybe she hadn't sung to the dying before, she thought, but she loved to sing, was taught by the pros and felt at ease with death.

When the D.C. singers gather, Synakowksi doesn't just train them in music, but poses questions about the end of life. What role does song play in transitions? What do they want to hear in their last week alive? The aim is to steer their minds toward thinking about the death that will soon surround them, and to weed out the uncomfortable. She starts by sharing her own experience.

Growing up in Lincoln, Maine, she sang in nursing homes with her Girl Scout troop. She went to her first funeral, for her aunt who died of ovarian cancer, when she was in third grade, and has vivid memories of the open casket and the raw grief in her rather stoic family. She was in her high school's chorus, and was in a gospel choir as an adult until one of her vocal chords started to get chronically swollen about six years ago, making it tiring to sing for extended periods.

When her father died of a septic aneurism back home in 2000, she joined her siblings and mother in touching him, holding his cheeks, his legs and his feet, though she never thought to sing. When her mother was dying eight years later, Synakowski remembers rushing during the two-hour commute from the Bangor airport to her childhood home and spontaneously breaking out into song: "Swing low, sweet chariot/ Comin' for to carry me home." While singing, she got a call that her mother had died. It was one of the first times she realized "the transcending energy of music," she says.

"I feel almost responsible to show up and do this because I understand not being (alive)," she says.

Syankowski first heard about bedside choirs six years ago, when she lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the family moved for her husband's job as a physicist. She came across the idea the way most people do: through word-of-mouth. But between work and taking care of two kids, it wasn't until recently that she could manage the time to get involved.

Kate Munger founded the Threshold Choir organization in 2001 in El Cerrito, Calif., and teaches workshops nationally about how to sing to the ill and dying. Today, 100 Threshold Choirs exist in the U.S., Canada and Australia.

There are 19 choirs in Northern California, the epicenter of the bedside singers' movement. They're each aided in one way or another by Kate Munger, the founder and executive director of Threshold Choir. A 63-year-old resident of Inverness, Calif., 40 miles north of San Francisco, she's a lifelong singer and former elementary school music teacher.

Munger, too, remembers the first time she realized the power of song at death. It was early November in 1990, when her close friend Larry was dying of AIDS.

"I found myself doing chores all morning and was supposed to sit by him in the afternoon, but was terrified when the time came," recalls Munger. "He was comatose but agitated."

She was upset, afraid and confused. So she did what she always did in times of trouble: She sang.

"I sang the same song for two-and-a-half hours. As soon as I started singing, he started to calm," she says. The song was Gail McDermott’s "Hello, Moon:" "There's a moon/ There's a star in the sky/ There's a cloud/ There's a tear in my eye/ There's a light/ There's a night that is long/ There's a friend/ There's a pain that is gone/ Long are we waiting awakening/ Long are we singing this song."

It took until 2000, and many years between of Munger teaching music to kids, for the first choir to begin. Launched in El Cerrito, Calif., its first client was a terminally ill friend in her 50s with Lupus. In small groups, the original 15 members sang to her weekly in the nine months before she died, and she gave them feedback. Soft, blended voices felt better, she explained. Singers learned to read her body language. Even the smallest twitch of a limb could mean she was enjoying or put off by the music. At her death, they sang to her for hours on end.

Today, Munger leads Threshold Choir full-time as a registered nonprofit. It has a small part-time staff, 100 chapters across the U.S., Canada and Australia, and a repertoire of 500 original songs written in a dozen languages. Most are no more than two minutes long, and have been perfected at annual camps that members organize in Northern California. The most recent one in April at a retreat center in Sonoma County drew 140 women. The titles of songs sung during those five days invoke wonder, ease and tenderness: "Welcome Home," "May Peace be with You," "What Light Do You Shine in the World."

In early April, 140 Threshold Choir singers gathered for five days at The Bishop's Ranch, a retreat and conference center in Healdsburg Calif., for the network's annual gathering, where they wrote and sang new and old songs.

"There is no audition process to join. All I ask is that you feel the shiver when you hear about our work," says Munger. "A mother's heartbeat is the first sound that each of us hears. It feels to me that women's bodies are the guardians of life entering this world and it feels right that we will be guardians of the gate out."

Experienced soloists are often not the best fit because "projection of voice is not the goal, softness and comfort are," says Munger. She, Synakowski and other choir leaders encourage those who like to sing but lack professional experience to join. It's easier to teach them to mix their voices into the group's, sing softly and focus on the dying instead of themselves.

***

The Threshold Choirs' ultimate purpose may not be a creative one, but one that's psychosocial. One of the hardest parts of dying, say those who have been at bedsides or been close to death themselves, is not pain but fear of the unfamiliar -- of a stopping point -- even for those who believe in an afterlife. Feelings of guilt and regret, too, can stress the body and mind.

While bedside singers may be unique in American culture, it's not unprecedented. In some Hindu and Buddhist practices, hymns are sung near those who are dying, while mantras are chanted into the ear at the moment of death. In the Middle Ages, French Benedictine monks became famous for establishing infirmaries across Europe for the terminally ill, where they used Gregorian chants to soothe the dying. In more advanced hospitals and hospices around the nation, music therapists are employed to use instruments, such as harps, to calm the ill. And an emerging academic and medical field, music thanatology, is studying the effects frequency and tone have on a dying person, from changes in heart rate, temperature and respiration to better sleep and reduction in stress. Studies that have scanned brain waves near the time of death have indicated that hearing is one of the last senses to be lost.

"Our culture is coming to a great awareness of the role of song and music when it comes to pain, death and grief," says Joy Berger, who teaches in the music therapy program at the University of Louisville and is the director of education for Hospice Education Network.

The D.C. Threshold Choir performs "Ocean Breath" and "Oh, Break My Heart" during a rehearsal in April.

Diana Sebzda, the director of bereavement at the Karen Ann Quinlan Hospice in Newton, N.J., says she has often seen music used for terminally ill patients. It seems "to bring about a sense of peace to the dying by calming down their terminal restlessness and for the family bedside," she says. "Often, the hospice team will request the music continue to play, even after the loved one has died, because it helps create an emotional environment to respect the transition period of the loved one who died."

But songs at death can also go wrong. Research is still being done on how music affects the dying, says Berger. "Especially if the musicians are not clinically trained music therapists, assumptions and mis-uses of music can occur with ... what music is selected, and outcomes to expect."

"Music should never be imposed upon another, but rather should be empowering with and for the dying person. And, the same power of music to engage one's emotions, memories, and memories can ignite overwhelming pain," Berger says.

Some of the most traditional or least-equipped hospitals and hospices still don't have music-therapy programs, let alone a relationship with bedside singers. And the cooperation and interest among medical staff varies when it comes to Threshold, though personnel are typically asked to listen in and the choirs' songbooks include appreciation songs for nurses and doctors. Once at a hospital in California, says Munger, two of her singers were pushed to sing for a patient who was in pain by a "desperate" nurse, even though they had not been invited. "So they started singing for Mr. Jones who sat bolt up in bed and ordered them out."

***

While more experienced choirs have seen broad success in gaining membership and clientele, it's a struggle for the newcomers in D.C. People come and go. Synakowski and her husband, Ed, are the constants, though others have started to come more regularly. She says local hospitals and hospices have be "very receptive" to the idea, thought she still doesn't know who, exactly, the choir will sing to.

"You can't just go around saying you are singing to people who are dying in beds. Some people are very uncomfortable with it," Synakowski says. "I'm confused about how to market it."

When she's asked to explain what she does or when she makes a flyer, she leaves the concept a vague: "We sing to people at tender times."

Singers practice at the Threshold Choir national conference in Healdsburg, Calif., in early April.

With a group so focused on the dying, its rehearsals are often equally meditations and conversations on death as they are chances to harmonize. In the middle of the April practice, Synkowski asked singers to reflect on the role of music in transitions and what led them to the music and the dying.

Laureen Gastón, the acupuncturist who found one of Synakowsi's flyers at Starbucks, talked about her mother and sister, who died four weeks apart a year ago. She first learned of Threshold Choir songs last summer while attending a community singing group at church during a vacation in Maine. "At the time, I thought that the idea of a Threshold Choir was intriguing given my latest losses and how much I sang at their bedsides. It made sense that others would do the same for their loved ones, but to hear about an organized group was news. Last night, I found myself singing those songs, and it transported me right back there to the ones I love," Gastón said.

"My brother had died from cancer. His favorite song was called 'Change,' and back when he was in high school he had a senior quote which was from the song. It was amazing how fitting it was," said Leah Dick, a massage therapist who wants to specialize in serving cancer patients. "I sing that song over and over and over again" to remember him.

Synakowski thought of her son, Byron, who was born Sturge-Weber Syndrome, a rare neurological condition that usually affects one side of the brain. A port-wine stain on his forehead signaled the condition, which was caused by vascular malformations. Byron suffered hundreds of seizures within less than a year after his birth that resulted in 11 hospitalizations. Doctors had to remove half his brain when he was 10½ months old, and he could have easily died from bleeding during the surgery or a stroke afterwards. It was 1997, and she now realizes it was then that her path in death and song really began.

"I told them they didn't have permission to keep him alive if he did not want to be here," says Synakowski. She would touch his small hands, holding him in her lap before and after treatments, lulling him to sleep with what she knew could be the last words he would hear: "This little little light of ours/ We're going to let it shine/ ... We won't let anyone (blow) it out/ We're going to let it shine."

He survived and is now a high school sophomore. Though weak on one side of his body, he enjoys playing volleyball, and is close to becoming an Eagle Scout.

"Going through that baptism, it enables me to say I can go in there and be with a child who is suffering," she says.

Recently, Synakowski has started calling pediatric hospitals, asking if they would be interested in allowing song in their checkup rooms. "It made me comfortable with the idea that babies' lives can end. It's not just older people. People always say phrases like 'his time was cut short' and things like that. I think we are giving a certain amount of time on this earth, and that's that. It's the time we have to live."

This story appears in Issue 49 of our weekly iPad magazine, Huffington, in the iTunes App store, available Friday, May 17.

Association For Death Education And Counseling Convention Draws Grief, Dying, Thanatology Experts

2013-04-26T19:07:55-04:00

LOS ANGELES -- As a ceremonial officiant who specializes in helping people grieving over death use spiritual and secular rituals to mourn, Candice Courtney often finds that her work makes her the odd one out in her Scottsdale, Ariz., neighborhood. Since her husband died 14 years ago, Courtney has made a living speaking and writing about grief and death, and has written a book, Healing Through Illness, Living Through Dying -- a title that usually requires a bit of an explanation.

So when she arrived in Southern California this week to join 600 grief counselors, chaplains, academics, clinicians, social workers, funeral directors and hospice volunteers who had come to one of the nation's few death-centered conferences, Courtney said she was a tad overwhelmed.

"People are so afraid of death and dying that it prevents them from being present," said Courtney, fresh from a workshop on Turkish death and grieving rituals. "But right here, right now, I feel I'm among my own."

Every week, hundreds of convention centers across the U.S. are booked by professional groups, but the the one Los Angeles this week was unique. At the Association for Death Education and Counseling conference, at the Loews Hollywood Hotel, some of the nation's leading thanatologists -- people who study death for a living -- gathered to discuss what's new in one of the oldest experiences that all that all of the living share: the inevitable demise.

"We can talk openly about things for many people that they don't even want to think about," said Robert Zucker, a family counselor who specializes in helping parents who have have had loved ones die cope with their own losses and nurture grieving children. Zucker had traveled from suburban Boston to attend the conference, where organizers offered dozens of events on nearly every aspect of how people die and what happens afterward.

"It's tremendous to get this sort of input from all sorts of perspectives in thanatology," said Zucker, who attended workshops Thursday on Latino grief styles and funeral rituals, and how Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism interplay when it comes to death rites and grief in Malaysia.

Other events ranged from personal story presentations ("Laughing in the Face of Death: Comedies for Funeral Planning," showed how humor can be used alleviate some of the negative feelings around death), academic papers ("Healing the Wounded Self: A Feminine Psychology of Mourning"), teach-ins on spiritual and physical techniques in mourning ("Yoga: A Somatic Tool for Transforming Grief"), and art and activism centered around how to bring death to the forefront of everyday conversations ("Tea, Cake and the Death Cafe") and how the nation's health care systems deal with death.

On information tables outside the sessions, flyers advertised books, classes, and attractions that might interest the death-aware: organ donation, degree programs in thanatology, a "Heal Grief" iPhone application, and Dearly Departed, a tour of where celebrities have died in Hollywood.

But while attendees described their experience as fun and enriching, they said the theme of the convention was one of the most serious: how to better live, better die, and make the pain of death for those whose loved ones die the best and most productive experience it can be. The meeting was the Association for Death Education and Counseling's 35th conference since the group formed in 1976, and organizers said membership and attendance has increased as resources for death and grieving have grown and become more diverse. The group has about 1,800 members, most in the U.S.

"It's a wonderful, loving community of those who truly understand the wounds of the heart," said Bonnie Carroll, a former member of the Association for Death Education and Counseling board who is president and founder of the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, a national veteran's service organization based in Washington.

Carroll founded the veterans' group after her husband died in an Army C-12 plane crash in Alaska in 1992. Speaking of the families of dead veterans she counsels, as well as like-minded colleagues who had come this week, Carroll reflected on the gathering.

"There's nothing more life-affirming than working with those who have truly looked at death in the face," she said.

Boston Bombings Leave Muslim Groups Struggling To Respond

2013-04-25T16:58:01-04:00

As details continue to come out about the reported ties of suspected Boston bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to radical Islam, and their visits to a small mosque in Cambridge, Mass., American Muslims are having conversations about how to regroup after an event many believe threatens to overshadow the years of progress they've made since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Unlike the Catholic church, some Jewish groups and many Protestant denominations, most strains of Islam have no official hierarchy, leaving individual leaders and national Islamic advocacy groups to respond to the events in Boston: Do they condemn extremism and vow to root out radical Islam and leave it at that? Do they focus on emphasizing that the majority of Muslims are peaceful and patriotic, and discredit the Tsarnaevs as outliers? Do they double down on interfaith efforts to promote mosques as integral parts of faith communities, or do they amp up relationships with law enforcement and increase self-policing efforts? Perhaps the answer requires a mix of these.

At the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, Imam Suhaib Webb has spent hours this week speaking to news reporters to denounce radical Islam while working behind the scenes with Jewish and Christian clergy to counter what he sees as as a potential backlash against Muslims in the bombings' aftermath.

"I am deeply concerned that people are going to see us as complacent," said Webb, who invited Muslim first-responders to a vigil at his Roxbury Crossing mosque this week. "Many of our masjids are run by individuals who are well-intentioned but don't have the institutional know-how to respond to these kinds of things and to promote the good work they are doing."

"Muslim communities are pre-pubescent in America when it comes to running institutions," he added. "I think we grew after 9/11, and we are going to grow now."

Since the attacks, Webb has organized counseling services and relief volunteers in addition to the memorial for victims. His mosque, the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, has volunteered its executive director to be a media spokesman for the Islamic Society of Boston, where the now-deceased Tamerlan Tsarnaev reportedly lashed out against sermons that celebrated Thanksgiving and Martin Luther King, Jr. The two mosques are sister organizations, with the same owners but separate administrations, and the Islamic Society of Boston has been overwhemeled with hundreds of phone calls and emails since it confirmed the Tsarnaevs' attendance there.

Although the Boston bombing suspects attended the Cambridge mosque, officials have not linked their alleged actions to its influence. Mosque officials said in a statement this week that the Tsarnaevs were "neither members nor regular attendees" and that they "never exhibited any violent sentiments." An Associated Press report has linked Tamerlan Tsarnaev's alleged radicalization to his friendship with a vaguely described Albanian Muslim convert called "Misha," who reportedly influenced Tsarnaev's decisions to quit boxing, stop studying music and turn toward radical Islamic websites.

While Webb and many imams have promoted their interfaith efforts and increased media outreach, Imam Shafayat Mohamed of Darul Uloom Islamic Institute in Pembroke Pines, Fla., said he is making similar moves and also taking a different approach after the attacks.

When he leads the prayer service Friday, Mohamed plans to tell the hundreds of worshippers at the suburban Miami mosque to watch for those who "contaminate the mosque with their radical influence" and to "be careful of those making anti-American remarks that we need to reprimand."

Though it's not uncommon for mosques to have contact with the FBI and law enforcement authorities in the post-9/11 era, regular on-site policing can be more controversial. But Mohamed, who also runs an Islamic school and Al-Hikmat, a media company that distributes magazines and recorded sermons in the U.S. and the Caribbean, advocates just such tactics.

"I think we need to not only denounce terrorism verbally, which we have, but imams and leaders need to make that extra effort in eradicating the radicalism they find," he said. "I see these guys saying anti-Christian or anti-American things at my mosque sometimes, and we need to get them out."

He offered examples of congregants who have argued against allowing time off from his Islamic school for winter and spring break, for example, because the dates correspond with Christmas and Easter. A few years ago, he hired a police officer to stand outside Friday services: "Not to direct traffic," he said, "but in case any bad radical Muslim guy gets up."

In Washington, D.C., the civil rights advocacy group Council of American-Islamic Relations recently convened an emergency press conference at the National Press Club, telling reporters that Muslims would "never allow ourselves to be hijacked" by radical Islam, and the group has blanketed news outlets with statements touting statistics about the the rarity of U.S.-grown jihad.

But CAIR also has honed in on a particular message in interviews and news releases: Islam shouldn't be blamed for terrorism like the bombings in Boston, and Muslims and Sikhs, who are often misidentified as Muslim, need to protect themselves against retaliatory attacks. There have been at least two such reported incidents since the bombings in Boston.

“We believe it is a positive sign that the vast majority of Americans have rejected the type of guilt by association advocated by extremist commentators seeking to exploit the tragic events in Boston to further their personal agendas,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad, in a statement this week. “As a nation, we have learned to judge people based on their actions, not on their faith or ethnicity.”

Boston Bomber Suspects Had Attended Cambridge Mosque, Officials Say (UPDATE)

2013-04-20T22:18:35-04:00

A mosque in Cambridge, Mass., confirmed Saturday that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the Chechen-born brothers suspected in the Boston marathon attacks, infrequently attended services at the small center that was a 10-minute walk from their apartment.

"In their visits, they never exhibited any violent sentiments or behavior. Otherwise they would have been immediately reported to the FBI," said the statement from the Islamic Society of Boston. "After we learned of their identities, we encouraged anyone who knew them in our congregation to immediate report to law enforcement, which has taken place."

Anwar Kazmi, a member of the mosque's board of trustees, told a USA Today reporter that 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died early Friday morning after a shootout with police, was an infrequent attendee for about a year-and-a-half, while 19-year-old Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, who was captured hiding in a boat in Watertown on Friday night, attended only once.

The Los Angeles Times initially reported that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was kicked out of the mosque three months ago after he interrupted a Friday prayer service to argue with the imam. The imam leading the service had enraged Tsarnaev by praising Martin Luther King Jr. A congregant told the newspaper that Tsarnaev shouted, "You cannot mention this guy because he’s not a Muslim!” When Tamerlan Tsarnaev later returned to prayer services at the mosque, there were no additional incidents.

In an update on Sunday, the Los Angeles Times quoted Kazmi, who said that Tsarnaev was not kicked out after the outburst but that mosque staff spoke to him and he calmed down. "That was the only untoward sort of incident," Kazmi told a reporter.

The Cambridge mosque did not return a phone call and email from The Huffington Post asking for more details on the confrontation.

Imam Suhaib Webb, of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, the city's largest mosque, said in an interview that he had recently heard of the incident. "That's a sign right there that his views aren't mainstream," Webb said.

The Cambridge mosque leaders' theology is not extremist, he said. Webb's mosque has the same owners but a separate administration from the Islamic Society of Boston. Webb said he never met the brothers and had not found their names on his mosque's membership list.

Reports previously quoted friends of the brothers saying they had attended the mosque, but Saturday was the first time the mosque confirmed their association.

"Right now, our focus will remain on grieving for the victims and their families, praying for a speedy recovery for the injured, and offering what support we can to all in need," the statement said.

Friends and family have described Tamerlan Tsarnaev as becoming more strident in his religious views in recent years. Federal authorities are investigating a six-month trip he took in 2012 to Chechnya and Dagestan, Muslim-majority regions in Russia and home to militant separatist movements. Reports have painted Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev as also being interested in Chechen independence movements.

The investigation is ongoing into the motivation for the bombings.

On Monday afternoon, the Islamic Society of Boston released a statement with more information about the Tsarnaev brothers' relationship to the Cambridge mosque. The statement largely confirms earlier reports but offers more details. "As the details related below will show ... one suspect disagreed with the moderate American-Islamic theology of the ISB Cambidge mosque," it says. Part of it is reprinted below.

Below is the detailed account of the suspects’ connection to our mosque related to us from our congregants to date:

-- Neither the ISB Board nor staff ever interacted with the suspects. When congregants have shared their knowledge of the suspects, the ISB leadership immediately instructed them to call the FBI.

-- The suspects were neither members nor regular attendees of our Cambridge mosque. The older suspect began coming intermittently to our congregational prayers on Friday over a year ago and occasionally to our daily prayers. The younger suspect was rarely seen at the center, coming only occasionally for prayer.

-- On November 16, 2012 at our weekly congregational prayer, one of our preachers sermonized that it was appropriate to celebrate national holidays like July 4th and Thanksgiving, just like the birthday of the Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him). The older suspect stood up during the sermon and challenged the preacher, arguing that celebration of any
holiday was not allowed in the faith. After the sermon ended and the congregational prayer was finished, the preacher met with the older suspect to share his opinion. The suspect repeatedly argued his viewpoint, and then left.

-- On January 18, 2013, one of our preachers noted that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a great person remembered in history. The older suspect stood up, shouted and called him a “non-believer”; said that he was “contaminating people’s mind”; and began calling him a hypocrite. People of the congregation, in turn, shouted back at the older suspect, “Leave now!” Due to the congregation’s disapproval, he left the sermon.

-- After the sermon and the congregational prayer ended, a few volunteer leaders of the mosque sat down with the older suspect and gave him a clear choice: either he stops interrupting sermons and remains silent or he would not be welcomed. While he continued to attend some of the congregational prayers after the January incident, he neither interrupted another sermon nor did he cause any other disturbances.

The ISB leadership must note that this is the account we have to date.

This story has been updated with comment from the Islamic Society of Boston and from Anwar Kazmi about the outburst by Tamerlan Tsarnaev at the Cambridge mosque.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misidentified the Cambridge mosque briefly attended by Tamerlan Tsarnaev as the Islamic Center of Boston. It was the Islamic Society of Boston.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Suspected Boston Bomber, May Not Get Islamic Funeral From Wary Muslims

2013-04-20T21:57:57-04:00

In the days since two deadly bombs and the separate shootings that followed brought Boston to a standstill, the region's Muslim community has loudly condemned the violence and distanced itself from the suspects.

The reasons behind the explosions at the Boston Marathon Monday and the shootings in Cambridge and Watertown, Mass., Friday, which resulted in four deaths and more than 170 injuries, are still unknown. Investigators are working to uncover whether the suspects, Chechen-American Muslim brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, were lone assailants or trained by a terrorist organization. It also is unclear whether their possible motives were related to politics, religion or, as some reports have suggested, struggles assimilating after immigrating to the United States nearly a decade ago.

But after 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's capture late Friday night, less than a day after his 26-year-old brother died in Friday's shootout, Muslim communities now face a vexing question: Do they accept the men as Muslims despite the allegations against them? If so, will they give Tamerlan Tsarnaev an Islamic burial?

Fearing retaliation, dozens of mosques and Islamic groups have distanced themselves from the brothers after friends and family described them as Muslims, and social media accounts registered in their names indicated they were interested in Islamic Chechen insurgency groups.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of the two, has been described as more attuned to radical Islamic movements in recent years. Federal authorities are investigating a six-month trip he took in 2012 to Chechnya and Dagestan, Muslim-majority regions in Russia's north Caucasus with militant separatist movements.

"I would not be willing to do a funeral for him," said Imam Talal Eid of the Islamic Institute of Boston, a community services organization that frequently arranges funeral prayers and burials in the region. "This is a person who deliberately killed people. There is no room for him as a Muslim. He already left the fold of Islam by doing that. In the Quran it says those who will kill innocent people, they will dwell in the hellfire."

Imam Suhaib Webb of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, the city's largest mosque, said he had not been contacted about a burial. A smaller mosque in Cambridge with the same owners, but a separate administration, the Islamic Society of Boston, confirmed in a statement Saturday that the suspects occasionally attended prayers there. But a representative from the Cambridge mosque said in an email it has had "no contacts or discussion" about a funeral.

"He should be buried according to the religious tradition he adheres to. His case is with God. We can judge him as best we can according to the savage and insane actions he has done, but in the end, his soul is going to be brought before God," said Webb. "I don't think I could ethically lead a prayer for him, but I would not stop people from praying upon him."

Islamic tradition dictates that the body of the deceased is tended to as soon as possible after death, preferably before sunset, with a ritual washing. The washing is often done by family members of the same-sex or a spouse, and is followed by shrouding in a white cloth, funeral prayer gathering and burial. Boston has at least two washing facilities for Islamic rites -- one in at a general funeral home Watertown where Eid helps facilitate Islamic funeral services, and one at Al-Marhama, an organization that shares space with Webb's mosque.

"We have not discussed it," a representative from Al-Marhama said regarding a funeral for Tsarnaev.

In the U.S., few Islamic cemeteries exist, but Muslims often buy sections of cemeteries to reserve for Islamic burials. There are at least four such sections in Boston-area cemeteries, said Eid.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev died at a hospital after he was critically injured early Friday morning in Watertown, Mass., the city west of Boston where his younger brother was arrested while hiding in a backyard later that night. His body was turned over to the law enforcement for forensic experts, medical examiners and investigators seeking more details about his death and his actions.

It's unclear where the body is currently. A message left with the Massachusett's Medical Examiner's office was not returned, but experts in forensics and high-profile investigations say its release should be imminent if it hasn't happened already.

"If it's not ready for release now, it is probably going to be released as early as tomorrow," said Joseph Scott Morgan, a professor of criminal justice and forensics at North Georgia College and State University. "Evidence on bodies is very fragile, and people tend to go through the examination very quickly ... [looking for] trace evidence, blast evidence, relevant residue left behind from explosives or anything relative to trauma."

"In Boston, they deal with a large Muslim community, it's not something they have no experience with. Most medical examiner's offices in diverse communities will have clergy on call if they need to take special considerations when doing their work," said Morgan. "But the interests of the state trump everything else in this case."

The next-of-kin to take custody of Tamerlan Tsarnaev's body would be his wife, Katherine Russell, who grew up in North Kingstown, R.I. Russell is the mother of Tsarnaev's 3-year-old daughter, Zahara, and reportedly converted after meeting Tsarnaev while at Suffolk University in Boston. Her parents released a statement this week saying they were "sickened by the knowledge of the horror (Tamerlan) has inflicted." The Russells did not respond to a voicemail asking about a funeral.

"Nobody has asked me, nobody has called me," said a man who answered the phone at Masjid Al-Hoda in Kingston, a Muslim community center about a 20-minute drive southwest of the Russell home.

Abdula Hameed, the imam of Masjid Al-Kareem in Providence, said he wasn't sure if the mosque would be open to a funeral. "I'd have to talk to our board members," he said.

Imam Ikram ul Haq, of Masjid Al-Islam North Smithfield, is listed as a contact for funeral prayer requests on the Rhode Island Council for Muslim Advancement website. He said he has not received a funeral request and questioned if the suspects would be seen as truly Muslim considering the accusations against them.

"We have to confirm if (Tamerlan) was a Muslim. If that was confirmed through reliable sources, that he lived a Muslim and died as one, then we (would be allowed) to do a funeral for that person," said ul Haq, emphasizing that he did not support the killings in Boston.

Anzor Tsarnaev, the father of the suspects who has said they were framed, told CNN on Saturday that he would travel to the U.S. from his home in Makhachkala, Dagestan, but did not say if his plans included a funeral.

Even if a mosque steps forward to conduct a funeral for Tsarnaev, Webb said that Islamic law still could place restrictions on the service.

"In fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), for somebody who has committed a major atrocity, it is recommended that the imam does not pray over him, but that someone else does. It's meant to somehow symbolize that there is some grieving with the victims of the person's actions," he said.

"In Islam, if someone is alive and has committed a crime, their opportunity to repent is open until they die," said Webb, referring to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is being treated at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. "We hope this man would be guided first of all to help the investigation and seek the forgiveness of family members and all people he has harmed."

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said the Tsarnaev brothers were Chechen-born. They are ethnically Chechen, but Tamerlan Tsarnaev was born in Kalmykia and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was born in Dagestan. Both are federal republics in southern Russia.

Prayers For Boston Bombing Suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Pour In After Arrest

2013-04-19T22:24:01-04:00

As 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the remaining man suspected in Monday's Boston Marathon bombings and Thursday night's shootout with police was arrested Friday, cheers erupted on Boston streets and on television broadcasts. It wasn't uncommon to see Boston residents give thanks to God, and similar sentiments echoed across social media.

But prayers of another kind also poured out online: those for Tsarnaev. The teenager had been on the run since he and his brother killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer and wounded a Boston transit officer Thursday night, authorities said. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was caught hiding in a boat behind a house in Watertown, west of Boston. His brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed during Thursday's shootout.

"A wise young lady just reminded me that as we pray for everyone in Boston, we must pray for this 19 year old too...because we're Catholic," tweeted the Rev. Manny Alvarez, a priest in the Archdiocese of Miami, shortly after the arrest.

"We also need to remember to pray for the suspect, because we are Catholic. He is also a child of God, after all," said the editors of news website CatholicaOmnia on their Twitter account.

"While you're praying for the suspect, also keep the petitions to heaven going for all the victims of the #BostonBombers , alive and dead," wrote @OpenlyCatholic.

While they were elated he was caught, several other users on the social media site also said they were praying for the suspect, too.

Our God is a God of mercy AND just. As brothers & sisters of Christ, we must pray for the captured suspect, for he still is a child of God!
— Christian Adair (@FriarWannabe) April 20, 2013

Prayers 4 residents, 4 law enforcement & 4 suspect. May he be arrested without violence. Yes, to the hateful, we are to pray for enemies.
— Susan Thistlethwaite (@sbthistle) April 19, 2013

I am! “@aejohnsonphd: Anyone praying for the health of the suspect?”
— Nikki (@Necolejo) April 20, 2013

I'm praying for the man who is a bombing suspect.
— James Coleman(@Christs_kidd) April 20, 2013

Pray for the captured suspect, that if he is guilty he repents and confesses his sins.
— GuyLovingGod (@GuyLovingGod) April 20, 2013

Boston Bombing Suspects' Muslim Identity Provides Few Clues To Motivation For Bombing

2013-04-19T13:02:13-04:00

As police continue a manhunt Friday throughout Boston for the remaining living suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings after a deadly shootout near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge Thursday night, information continues to surface about Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, and his slain brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26.

Both had moved to the U.S. over 10 years ago from the Russian area near Chechnya, said an uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, who lives Montgomery Village, Md., in interviews with news reporters. Social media accounts and interviews with friends point to both men being Muslims with an interest in Islamic insurgency movements in their homeland.

But the motives that led the men to the killings still remain unknown.

Chechnya declared independence in 1991 from and subsequently fought two wars against Russia, but eventually was brought back under Russian control. The area is predominately Muslim, and militants there and in Russia's North Caucasus have led attacks and bombings in Moscow and other cities for two decades. It's unclear whether either or both suspects supported that movement or other religious-based movements.

Peter Krause, a political science professor and terrorism expert at Boston College, said that the few details about the mens' backgrounds could point to several possible motivations.

"They are from Chechnya, but you could be American, Japanese, whatever, and it doesn't mean what you do is based on your nationality. They could be committing this for personal reasons or political reasons," he said. "It could be that these individuals are not affiliated with any organization or trained by them. They could be upset about their homeland, they could have thought of this as part of a larger assault against the west or Christianity by Islam -- that is heard among Chechen terrorists sometimes. You've had Al Qaeda fighters train in Chechnya, and Al Qaeda has been looking for more European-looking individuals to blend into society."

On Russian social networking site Vkontakte, the younger brother, Dzhokhar, has a profile last updated in mid-2012 in which he describes his "world view" as "Islam" and his "personal priority" as "career and money," and lists him as a member of the groups "CHECHEN'S" and "All about Chechnya Chechen Republic." The link for the second group leads to a page with the URL that includes the words "free_chechnya." Dzhokhar's profile page also has the words "Do good, because Allah loves those who do good."

The brothers were schooled in the U.S., and Dzhokhar graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School in 2011. He won a $2,500 college scholarship from the city of Cambridge.

In interviews with networks on Thursday, relatives of the men were shocked about the attacks.

"I can't believe this, it's not possible," Alvi Tsarni, another uncle of the men who lives in Maryland, told CBS in a short interview.

When asked about what in the suspects' background could have led them to commit the bombing, Raslan Tsarni told MSNBC, "It has nothing to do with them being Muslim. They're losers ... anything to do with Islam, with religion is a fraud, is a fake." Their aunt, Maret Tsarnaeva, who lives in Toronto, told the Associated Press that Tamerlan was married and had a 3-year-old daughter in the U.S. She added that "recently, maybe two years ago, he started praying five times a day."

Separately, the suspects' father, Anzor Tsarnaev, said in an interview with the Associated Press that his younger son was a medical student who was a "true angel."

On CNN, a high school classmate described Dzhokhar as "just as American as I am or anyone else ... Smokes a little weed here and there." (Drug use is frowned upon in Islam).

A friend at Dzhokhar's high school told the Boston Globe that he last saw the suspect during Ramadan last summer at the Islamic Society of Boston building in Cambridge. Calls made by The Huffington Post to that mosque and other mosques in the Boston and Cambridge areas went unanswered.

A photo essay titled "Will Box for Passport" of Tamerlan, published in April 2009 before he competed at the National Golden Gloves competition in Salt Lake City, offered additional personal details about the suspect. (The photo essay has since been taken offline.)

In it, photographer Johannes Hirn reports that Tamerlan was a student at Bunker Hill Community College, wanted to become an engineer and had a girlfriend who had converted to Islam for him.

"Unless his native Chechnya becomes independent, Tamerlan says he would rather compete for the United States than for Russia," Hirn wrote in the profile, alluding to Tamerlan's aspirations to compete for the U.S. boxing team.

"I'm very religious," Tamerlan said in another part of the essay, adding that, as a Muslim, he doesn't drink alcohol. "There are no values anymore," he observed, and "people can't control themselves."

Regarding friendships, Tamerlan, who had lived in the U.S. for five years, said, "I don't have a single American friend. I don't understand them."

Slate reports to have found Tamerlan's Amazon.com wishlist, which includes the following titles: How to Make Driver's Licenses and Other ID on Your Home Computer; The I.D. Forger: Homemade Birth Certificates & Other Documents Explained; Secrets Of A Back Alley ID Man: Fake Id Construction Techniques Of The Underground; The Lone Wolf And the Bear: Three Centuries of Chechen Defiance of Russian Rule; Organized Crime: An Inside Guide To The World's Most Successful Industry and How to Win Friends & Influence People.

A YouTube account, which has operated under the username Tamerlan Tsarnaev since January but has not been verified as belonging to the suspect, also linked to a sermon by Feiz Mohammad, a Lebanese-born Australian Salafist preacher who has called on Muslims to join holy war. Mohammad has also called for Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician who has compared Islam to Nazism, to be beheaded. Prior to January, the account was listed under the username "muazseyfullah."

On the Twitter account @j_tsar, which many news organizations have reported as belonging to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a history of tweets includes a handful of references to his Islamic faith.

"When we consider prophet Muhammad (s.a.a.w) as our role model that's when we achieve true success & a path to Jannah," the user tweeted on Jan. 19 in response to Ismail Menk, an Islamic sheik in Zimbabwe who he follows. Menk had tweeted: "When parents are the role models of their children, there is a greater chance of them developing & achieving much more."

The user's last update was also a retweet of Menk: "Attitude can take away your beauty no matter how good looking you are or it could enhance your beauty, making you adorable."

In an email interview with HuffPost reporter Matt Sledge, Menk said it was "with absolute sadness and disgust that I came to hear about the unacceptable atrocity against innocent lives." He added, "I have no clue who the suspect is, hence I have never had dealings with him and I am very careful of the type of people I associate with or even respond to."

Last year, Dzohokar also retweeted a Huffington Post article about a Muslim convert who won $5 million dollars in damages in a workplace discrimination lawsuit after she began wearing a hijab and was called a "terrorist" by her coworkers.

In anticipation of a possible backlash against American Muslims, the Council of American-Islamic Relations, an Islamic civil rights group, called a press conference at noon in Washington, D.C.

"We must remain united as a nation as we face those who would carry out such heinous and inexcusable crimes," said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a statement. "We thank local, state and national law enforcement authorities for their diligence in bringing the perpetrators to justice and offer condolences to the loved ones of the officers killed and injured in efforts to detain the suspects."

The Islamic Society of North America also released a statement applauding law enforcement efforts, and saying that "no matter the motivation for these terrorist attacks, they will never represent the values or ideals of any religious or ethnic group."

"People of all faiths know that the horrific acts committed by these perpetrators go against everything to which God calls us. It is rather the loving, selfless acts of those who immediately responded on the scene that best uphold His teachings," said ISNA president Imam Mohamed Magid, who leads the 5,000-member ADAMS Center mosque in Northern Virginia. "At times like this, I am reminded by a verse from the Holy Qur'an which is similar to one in the Old Testament: If anyone kills a person, it is as if he kills all humanity, while if any saves a life, it is as if he saves the lives of all humanity."

This post has been updated with additional information about Twitter and YouTube accounts that reportedly belong to the suspects.