Buddhist monks destroy Muslim shrine in Sri Lanka

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Guy who is Muslim: “Muslims should stop apologizing for 9/11.”

Comedian and writer Aman Ali of the "30 Mosques" project featured previously here on Boing Boing has an opinion piece up at CNN about how he's sick of feeling like he has to apologize, on behalf of all Muslims, for 9/11.

Just like Christianity and Judaism, Islam unequivocally condemns terrorism. Don’t take it from me, though. Grab a copy of the Quran from a library and find out for yourself.

Don’t rely on some cherry-picked crackpot interpretation of the Muslim holy book that you read on some Islamophobic hack’s poorly designed website. Speaking of which, Islamophobes need to put down the Quran and pick up a book on HTML programming and Flash.

When 9/11 happened, I can understand why the average person would want to know what Muslims actually believe. After all, the terrorists claimed they were acting in the name of Islam.

That’s why hundreds of Islamic organizations around the globe condemned the attacks and told the truth about how Islam doesn’t condone terrorism whatsoever.

But that was 10 years ago. Why are mainstream American Islamic groups like the Islamic Society of North America, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim Public Affairs Council still condemning the attacks and just about any other act of terrorism that pops up in the news?

Read More: My Take: Muslims should stop apologizing for 9/11 – CNN Belief Blog.

Aman is funny on Twitter.

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NYPD’s secret “Ancestries of Interest” list guided surveillance of innocent people identified as possible Muslim threats

Continuing in an investigative series on ties between the The New York Police Department and the CIA, and coordinated activities involving Muslim populations in NYC, the Associated Press reports that NYPD collected lists of mosques, restaurants, and other Muslim-owned businesses identified as possible security risks, for reasons that included having religiously devout customers. The report is based on hundreds of pages of internal police documents obtained by the AP.

The records reveal the extent of an undercover effort that initially studied more than 250 mosques in New York and New Jersey and identified hundreds more "hot spots" in a hunt for terrorists. Many showed obvious signs of criminal behavior, but the police explanations for targeting others were less clear.

A Bangladeshi restaurant, for instance, was identified as a hot spot for having a "devout crowd." The restaurant was noted for being a "popular meeting location for political activities."

The documents obtained by the AP, many of which were marked secret, paint the clearest picture yet of how the past decade's hunt for terrorists also put huge numbers of innocent people under scrutiny as they went about their daily lives in mosques, restaurants and social groups. Every day, undercover officers and informants filed reports from their positions as "listening posts" inside Muslim communities.

At the White House, where President Barack Obama recently urged local authorities not to cast suspicion on entire communities, spokesman Jay Carney declined to comment Tuesday on whether it endorsed the tactics outlined in the NYPD documents.

An AP investigation last month revealed that the department maintains a list of "ancestries of interest" that it uses to focus its clandestine efforts. A secret team known as the Demographics Unit then dispatched plainclothes officers into the community to eavesdrop in cafes and chat up business owners.

That effort has benefited from federal money and an unusually close relationship with the CIA, one that at times blurred the lines between domestic and foreign intelligence-gathering.

Read the full report: The Associated Press: Documents show NY police watched devout Muslims.

Image/REUTERS: A demonstrator holds a sign as he marches during a rally held in support of a proposed Islamic cultural centre and mosque in New York.

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15 days exploring Muslim America

Aman Ali and I have been on the road for the past 15 days exploring Muslim America. We started our trip in Alaska, somehow ended up in Hawaii and are now on our way to Mississippi. Our challenge is to visit a different mosque in a different State everyday during the Islamic month of Ramadan and then blog about it on our site by the end of the day. We are fasting on the trip and will be driving close to 13,000 miles. Here are some of the people we have encountered the past 15 days.

Day 1: Anchorage, Alaska. Mohammad Obeidi came to Alaska on a whim in the 1960's and worked as a cab driver. He would also sell prints of famous paintings on street corners. Soon enough, he made enough money to open a small gallery. Now, Obeidi is one of the leading art collectors in Anchorage.

Day 2: Seattle, Washington. Ann Holmes was an Episcopalian priest who was ousted from the church when she declared that she was both Muslim and Christian.

Day 3: Corvallis, Oregon. As the night prayer begins, Ali Godil sits off to the side and writes a note to MoMo, a friend who is now in prison after attempting to bomb a christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon.

Day 6: Las Vegas, Nevada. We covered Amanullah last year on our blog when he was going through an inner conflict of being the board member of the mosque and also being the manager of slot machines at MGM Grand Casino. Amanullah is still working the same job and impatiently waiting for retirement.

Day 8: Sioux Falls, South Dakota. David (left) stands with his wife, Nor. They met and married through the Islamic Pink Pages, a matrimonial newsletter, when Nor was in Singapore teaching at a school and David was in a South Dakota prison.

Day 8: Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Basheer Butcher is a full-blooded Native American that converted to Islam in 2001. He hails from the Sioux tribe and grew up on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota. He now lives in Sioux Falls and is active in the Muslim community here of about 3,000 people.

Day 10: Omaha, Nebraska. Marshall Taylor sits on the concrete that once was Malcolm X's birth home. Marshall and a close group of his friends have created a foundation that is working to create a cultural center in Omaha in his honor.

Day 10: Omaha, Nebraska. Lutfullah Wali embraced Islam in the early 1950s and built the first mosque in Nebraska with his hands. He is now above the age of 100 and reclusive. He spends his entire day at home swimming in his mess.

Day 10: Omaha, Nebraska. The entire upstairs of Lutfullah's house is covered in vulgar scribbles and cryptic drawings that he has been making for the past five years.

Day 13: Little Rock, Arkansas. A lady pours Rooh Afza, a red sherbet, drink into cups in preparation of the break fast meal.

Day 14: Houston, Texas. Aman Ali, co-creator of 30 Mosques, takes a break from the road and stands in the middle of a blooming cotton field.

More: 30mosques.com

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