As we celebrate the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on a national holiday dedicated to his honor, many people point to the surging presidential candidacy of Barack Obama as evidence of how far this country has come in terms of race relations since the days of the Civil…

In fourteen hundred and ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue, An event that happened a bit too soon, ‘cause in sixty-nine they were on the moon. A happening not without precedent, The same place Galileo’s telescope went. Which isn’t to say we’ve become farsighted in…

The January 6, 2008 edition of the New York Times Book Review was devoted to “Islam,” as the header for the edition boldly proclaims. The edition aims to highlight some of the most relevant historical, literary, political and theological issues informing contemporary discourse around the topic of Islam, as it…

For that reason, we ordained for the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul for other than murder or spreading corruption in the land, it is as if he has killed the whole of humanity… Qur’an 5:35 One of the gravest charges levied against Islam, in terms of its…

Devotional Practice: Month Dhu al-Hijjah By Imam Zaid Shakir The first ten days of Dhul-Hijja are blessed days, which we frequently neglect. The Noble Prophet, Peace and Blessings of God be upon him, said, “There are no days in which righteous deeds done during…

The recent “Teddy-Bear” crisis in Sudan illustrates the failure of many Muslims to understand a stark reality; one that if left misunderstood will probably lead to a lot of unnecessary bloodshed in the Muslim world, and destroy the opportunity for many western, non-Muslim people to benefit, at a mass level,…

Yesterday was sobering. After spending many hours trying to work through my inbox, catching up on my backlogged emails, my wife received a phone call from Atlanta, Georgia. Exhausted from seven straight weeks of coast to coast travel, culminating in a non-stop ten hour flight from London to San Francisco…

The world’s greatest humanitarian crisis, as quiet as it is kept, is not in Darfur. While the situation there deserves the attention it is getting it is far less grave than the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Somalia. The nature of that crisis demonstrates much about the nature of US foreign…

In this lecture Imam Zaid examines the implications of Brotherhood and Sisterhood in Islam. For more information Click Here For a complete listing of the lectures, please visit Audio/Video section.

When George W. Bush began making poignant references to what he termed “Islamic Fascists,” he shed more light on the nature of the ideology driving the neoconservative movement than he did on the ideology driving militant Islamic groups in various parts of the world—for reasons we will soon examine. Although…