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 Muslims worshipping at the end of Ramadan.
September 11th, 2012
02:56 PM ET
Opinion: American Muslims live in fear 11 years after 9/11
By Sumbul Ali-Karamali, Special to CNN (CNN) - My father always told me never to talk about religion, politics, or other people’s children. He was part of a generation of American Muslims who wanted to stay quiet and assimilate into American life and not rock the boat. Growing up in Southern California, I tried to follow his advice. But after 9/11, I found that I, along with other American Muslims, have had little choice but to talk about religion. Although countless Muslims have condemned the acts of 9/11 in the United States and worldwide, American Muslims became objects of suspicion. Read the full Opinion piece on CNN In America
September 11th, 2012
12:33 PM ET
Mom wants Muslim son’s name moved to be among first responders at 9/11 memorialBy Susan Candiotti, CNN You won’t find Mohammed Hamdani among the names of the first responders that are etched in a wall at the 9/11 memorial in New York. But on the day of the 9/11 attacks, the 23-year-old certified EMT and onetime NYPD police cadet skipped his job at a university research lab to rush to the World Trade Center. Not long after, his family posted Hamdani’s picture on a wall of the missing. Six months later, his remains were found - in 34 parts.
August 5th, 2012
04:00 PM ET
10 years after Sikh murder over 9/11, community continues to blend in and stand outEditor's note: An earlier version of this story ran in 2011, around the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. By Jose G. Santos, CNN Fairfax Station, Virginia (CNN)– Ten years ago, Balbir Singh Sodhi was gunned down, apparently because he looked Muslim or Arab. He was neither. Sodhi was a Sikh. Members of the religious tradition say he was the first person to be murdered in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks. That claim has been backed up by the Justice Department. "The first person killed in post-9/11 violence, Balbir Singh Sodhi, was a Sikh, shot while pumping gas at his gas station in Arizona four days after 9/11," said Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez in congressional testimony earlier this year. For American Sikhs, Sunday's deadly attack on worshippers at a Sikh temple outside Milwaukee dredged up memories of other recent attacks against their community. At least seven people, including a gunman shot by a police officer, were killed in Sunday's attack. In the case of the post 9/11 attack on in Arizona, a 45-year-old aircraft mechanic named Frank Roque gunned down a bearded, turban-wearing Indian immigrant outside a Mesa gas station. Roque drove up to the station, fired a handgun at Balbir Singh Sodhi - who owned the station - five times, then fled.  The names at the 9/11 Memorial are overly segmented, the author argues.
February 27th, 2012
02:51 PM ET
My Take: 9/11 Memorial not sacred enough
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN Sunday was the 19th anniversary of the first World Trade Center terrorist attack, which claimed 6 lives on February 26, 1993. I took this occasion as a chance to see the 9/11 Memorial, which remembers these six victims alongside the 2977 people killed on September 11, 2001, in the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. I have been writing recently about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and the Lower Manhattan site is obviously influenced by that design. So it is hard to avoid comparisons. There are the granite walls, though in the New York memorial there is flowing over them. And there are the names of the dead, though in New York they are cut through bronze rather than inscribed on granite. But the spirit of the 9/11 Memorial is very different.  A recent global survey suggests that Muslims are more religious than Christians and Hindus.
December 3rd, 2011
10:00 PM ET
Conflict, theology and history make Muslims more religious than others, experts sayBy Richard Allen Greene, CNN (CNN) – Every religion has its true believers and its doubters, its pious and its pragmatists, but new evidence suggests that Muslims tend to be more committed to their faith than other believers. Muslims are much more likely than Christians and Hindus to say that their own faith is the only true path to paradise, according to a recent global survey, and they are more inclined to say their religion is an important part of their daily lives. Muslims also have a much greater tendency to say their religion motivates them to do good works, said the survey, released over the summer by Ipsos-Mori, a British research company that polls around the world.  The old St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church stood in the shadow of the World Trade Center before 9/11.
October 14th, 2011
04:08 PM ET
Agreement signed to rebuild church at ground zeroBy Dan Merica, CNN (CNN) – A decade after the 9/11 attacks, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America agreed Friday to rebuild the destroyed St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Manhattan. The agreement stipulates that the church be rebuilt near the original site with slight modifications to the archdiocese's desired plans, the most noticeable being a nondenominational bereavement center at the east end of the structure. “Rebuilding St. Nicholas Church, with a nondenominational bereavement center, is not just good news for the Greek Orthodox community, but for all New Yorkers,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement. “With this agreement, we are continuing New York’s collective healing, restoration and resurgence.”
September 30th, 2011
05:33 PM ET
Worshippers at al-Awlaki's old mosque 'not glad' he's dead, but 'it's helpful'By Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor Falls Church, Virginia (CNN)– Worshippers hurried by a host of cameras and reporters on their way to Friday prayers at the Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center. Many of those who stopped to ask about the gaggle of media found out for the first time American Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who once stood in their pulpit, had been killed Friday by a CIA drone strike in Yemen. “I think he should have gotten a proper burial as a Muslim, but as a human being I don’t think he was right for his mentality and his morality,” said Jouwad Syed, who recently started attending the Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center. “In a way, we’re not glad that he’s dead. At the same token, it’s helpful. We’re trying to clear our name. There’s crazy people everywhere you go in different religions. He’s just one of the few and he definitely doesn’t represent what Islam is all about,” Syed said.  The CIA pulled ads from a Muslim paper.
September 23rd, 2011
04:56 PM ET
Pulled CIA ads undermine Muslim outreachBy Suzanne Kelly, CNN (CNN)– It's likely not the kind of public relations within the Muslim community that the CIA was aiming for, but when the Arab American News published a recent wire story that was critical of the agency and some of its believed operations in the community, something strange happened. "We received an email from the advertising agency which handles the CIA's account," publisher Osama Siblani said. "The agency sent an email saying that the CIA wanted to remove their ads immediately for undisclosed reasons. I said 'OK, capture the front page in a picture and let's make the request to the webmaster to remove it.' They would not even wait. They want the ads to be removed immediately without a delay." The ads seeking linguists interested in working for the agency were undoubtedly strategically placed in the Dearborn, Michigan, newspaper, which serves greater Detroit's Muslim community. Read the full story from CNN's Security Clearance Sheikh Hamza Yusuf Hanson addressed a crowd at the 9/11 Unity Walk.
September 12th, 2011
10:44 AM ET
More than 1,000 turn out for multifaith 9/11 eventBy Mary Grace Lucas, CNN Washington (CNN) - More than 1,000 people of various faiths gathered Sunday for a unique religious "open house" event as a way to commemorate 9/11 and to get to know each other's faiths. The 9/11 Unity Walk, now in its seventh year, drew diverse participants from across the United States to engage with each other at 13 different houses of worship along Washington's Embassy Row. The walk began with a symbolic Muslim call to prayer from the podium in the Washington Hebrew Congregation temple and included one of America's most prominent Muslims, Sheikh Hamza Yusuf Hanson, as a featured speaker. An American-born Muslim, Yusuf helped co-found the Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California, and is a leader in the Muslim intellectual community. Speaking to CNN before the event, Yusuf talked of lessons learned in the decade since September 11, 2001. Read the full story here. Christian activist Shane Claiborne teamed up with Ben Cohen, of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, for a presentation on militarism and ice cream.
September 11th, 2011
01:26 PM ET
Jesus, bombs and ice creamBy Sarah Hoye, CNN Philadelphia (CNN) – An unlikely pairing took to the stage Saturday in front of a sold out audience at World Café Live to promote peace and ice cream. |
  About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke and Eric Marrapodi with daily contributions from CNN's worldwide newsgathering team and frequent posts from religion scholar and author Stephen Prothero.  |
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Editor's note: Sumbul Ali-Karamali is the author of 
Editor's Note: Stephen Prothero, a Boston University religion scholar and author of "God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World," is a regular CNN Belief Blog contributor.
