What I want for Mother's Day this year is clarity. It has been a lot of confusion all year long, and now even my identity has changed. This will be the first year I do not have a mother to celebrate Mother's Day with. My mother passed away gracefully 6...

On the first anniversary of the 25th of January Egyptian Revolution, I had the opportunity to commemorate it in more ways than one. While I really would have liked to have been in Tahrir Square with the millions celebrating in Cairo, I was stuck in Washington, DC contemplating ways to...

On Friday, November 18, I was standing in Cairo's Tahrir Square for the first time in 2011, inspired by the almost festive mood of the Million Man demonstration. Since Saturday, November 19th, the Egyptian Central Security Forces and the Egyptian Military have been attacking the protestors with live ammunition and...

In 2009 I had the privilege to spend two weeks with Tawakul Karman, the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize recipient along with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee. We traveled the United States visiting grassroots communities in a study tour on 'religion and society' for a program I directed for the...

On September 11, 2010, at the height of the Terry Jones "Burn the Quran" madness and the New York City Park 51 Islamic Center controversy, I received tens of calls and emails from complete strangers. Apparently they found me online and discovered my association as a member of the American...

Since Tuesday evening's escalating protests in Egypt, my friends have been contacting me about my Facebook video and photo re-postings of the demonstrations. They are confused about what is happening and why. After all, for many of them Egypt is a tourist friendly destination offering the best of its ancient...