NYC Latino Muslims, Alianza Islamica, ASWAD at MIB

By Yahya Figueroa Abdul-Latif Director, Alianza Islamica What was Andalusia?  Islam has come full circle in the west today.  Daily we hear of various horrible events atrocities unfairly attributed to the noble Quran and Blessed Prophet (PBUH).  The insane terrorists and Islamophobic media and politicians share the same distorted propaganda against our faith.  A full…

By Yahya Figueroa Intellectual fads and cultural truism are very hard to detect. These false trends often have a grain of truth but the final product is distorted truths and fabulous falsehoods. The larger society has in so many ways lost its mind morally and intellectually. Our minority groups are usually in the rear but…

Recently, I pared the Islamic section of an old cemetery.  My father is there. It is a beautiful peaceful place with hundreds maybe thousands of Muslim tombstones. Some simple, others ornate yet each one has a quick synopsis of a life. They all have a few Qura’n versus, some have a crescent and star, and…

By Yahya Abdul Latif Figueroa Director, Alianza Islamica Beginnings and starting points are always difficult to determine and become obscured in the pages of bygone days. How and when movements and ideas bloom is never easy to pinpoint.  Historical studies of the same period rarely agree on key issues. Nonetheless, the following lines hope to…

This lecture shines a light on the problem of racism in the American Muslim community. Its primary focus is on the ways Arabs and Indo-Pakistanis discriminate against Black and Latino Muslims. The examples cited reveal the stark reality of Muslim discrimination and the need for frank and open dialogue. As with most things noxious, prejudice…