Frankie Martin

A young, rail-thin, and gaunt Somali woman, cradling her starving child in her arms, looks straight into the camera. Her eyes are dead; she has seen too much suffering. "Where are the Muslim countries?" she asks. "We are dying."

The image is haunting, and her words keep coming back, though...

For Americans, Islam brings to mind many things, but poetry is rarely among them. Yet the Muslim world has produced some of the greatest poets the world has seen, like Rumi, currently the most popular poet of the United States. In this environment of suspicion and questions about who Muslims...

This year has not been an easy one for Jewish-Muslim relations. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process is in a state of collapse, apocalyptic pronouncements about Iran's nuclear program abound, and the suggestion by venerable Jewish organizations like the Anti-Defamation League that a planned Islamic Center near Ground Zero be relocated created...

Last Sunday, during the World Cup final, suicide bombers struck two targets in Kampala, Uganda, killing 74 people and turning a global celebration into an unspeakable tragedy.

The Somali militant group al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for the attacks, which targeted both a rugby center frequented by foreigners and an...

This Fourth of July, Americans gathered at barbecues, watched firework displays and remembered the men who assembled in Philadelphia to sign the Declaration of Independence in 1776. For many, the celebrations serve as a reminder of the value of freedom, of a country forged by the people in direct opposition...

On Tuesday in Washington, two of the most important appointments President Obama has made were put up for debate in the US Senate. Ordinarily, both a nominee to the Supreme Court and a general selected to run a major war would have faced critical questioning, but this time the response...

Over the last two years I have been on an extraordinary journey. As a member of a research team accompanying American University's Chair of Islamic Studies, Akbar Ahmed, I have visited over 75 US cities and 100 mosques for the book Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam,...

Last week I attended the European premiere of the film Journey into America at the Culture and Cultures International Film Festival near Toulouse in Southern France.

The film, which premiered in Washington DC on July 4th, is the result of a nine month cross-country trip I took...

This 4th of July I celebrated America's Independence with Pastor Rick Warren, Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), and 45,000 Muslims. We were together in Washington, D.C. as a part of the Islamic Society of North America's (ISNA) annual convention. The Washington Convention Center came alive with halal food stands, people praying...

As I sat in the American University class "Dialogue or Clash of Civilizations", taught by Akbar Ahmed, American University's Chair of Islamic Studies, little did I know that four years later I would be completing and starring in a major motion picture. This July 4th at 9 PM the film...

President Barack Obama's June 4th speech in Cairo will be one of the most important of his presidency.

The success or failure of Obama's presidency may well depend on his actions in the Muslim world, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan where he has recently committed thousands of additional American...

Last week I attended the Washington, D.C. area premiere of writer-director Babar Ahmed's action-packed movie Royal Kill, currently running in limited release in Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Los Angeles. The movie boasts an impressive cast including Eric Roberts from The Dark Knight, Lalaine from Lizzie McGuire, WWE wrestler Gail...

At the beginning of last year, Kenya seemed to be descending into madness. Those scenes return as if from a nightmare: children massacred inside burning churches, mobs using machetes at will in city slums, a country on the brink of breakdown. By the time the dust settled, more than 1,500...

While the world watched the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama in Washington D.C., I was far away on Sapelo Island, off the coast of Georgia.

I was on Sapelo -- near the more famous Jekyll Island -- as part of a project called "Journey into America," an American University...

This week has been an extraordinary one for Somalia.

The past seven days have brought both the resignation of Somalia's president and the beginnings of a military withdrawal by his main backer, Ethiopia. This comes amid an onslaught of pirate attacks off Somalia's volatile coast, the takeover...

This week tribal militants in Pakistan launched two brazen attacks on NATO military supplies in the eastern city of Peshawar, torching over 140 military vehicles. The vehicles were destined for Afghanistan, where insurgent attacks have grown bolder and more frequent of late.

This comes amidst a report...

These are not easy times for Islam in America.

As Barack Obama continues to battle persistent rumors he is Muslim, 28 million DVDs of the film Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West have been distributed in newspapers in many swing states. A recent Pew survey found...

We got off to a great start in our Islam in America trip in St. Louis, meeting the former governor, Democrat Bob Holden, the Democratic mayor Francis Slay, and members of many different ethnic communities. St Louis has a multitude of communities, from the French Catholics who settled the...

Two years ago, I was granted the opportunity of a lifetime. My professor at American University, the Islamic scholar Dr. Akbar Ahmed, invited me along with several other young American assistants on a research trip through the Muslim world. We wanted to speak to Muslims to hear their views on...

While the world looks elsewhere, Somalia is in flames. The nation just topped a list of the world's most unstable countries by Foreign Policy magazine, and the United Nations has declared the humanitarian situation there "worse than Darfur."

In the next three months the number of people requiring immediate food...