My Muslim-American Thanksgiving

By Saadia Faruqi

Source: NBC Asian America

 

"Amma, will we have to eat turkey?"

"Amma, are you sure we can celebrate Thanksgiving even though we're Muslim?"

 

The questions start even before Thanksgiving break comes around, usually around the time of the fall party at school and the coloring papers with Mr. Turkey who begs to be hidden so that nobody eats him. My first generation Pakistani-American children, now 9 and 6, struggle with much these days, and Thanksgiving is just another worry as they try to live life with dual identities. Imagine how much harder it is for an immigrant like myself.

Muslim Reaction after the Paris Attacks

Source: Houston Matters

 

What Exactly is Interfaith Dialogue

By Saadia Faruqi

Source: J-Vibe Houston

 

I’ve been working in the field of interfaith activism for almost fifteen years, and when I started it wasn’t actually a profession and it didn’t even have a name. People would look at me strangely if I said I wanted to visit a church or a temple, because I was obviously a Muslim. There was an idea that we were all different and we stuck to our kind, stayed in our spaces. There was little overlap. I remember how difficult things were after 9/11 and how my ideas of meeting with other faiths was met with resistance and even ridicule.