Tayseer Seminary Student Interviews Rahim Ocasio

By Yahya Figueroa Many of our Muslim answers have become dogmatic, repeating of a few themes someone has kind of understood from some book or the other. Iman (faith) is of course the cornerstone of our Muslim lives. I won’t recant basics of faith, theology and points we believe in. These cardinal points are laid…

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…

By Yahya Abdul-Latif Figueroa Director, Alianza Islamica In these next few lines I want to boldly assert that Alianza was truly unique as a voice of Spanish Islam and that its vision and mission must be reclaimed and built again.  I want to stress that other groups today that are attempting to monopolize a Spanish…

Alianza Islamica Journal Published by the first iteration of the organization Alianza Islamica of the mid-80s, it was the first bi-lingual publication of its kind. The journal Alianza Islamica was a joint effort with the Bismi Rabbik Foundation in Chicago. The second iteration of Alianza Islamica as an organization, which lasted from the late 80s…

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…

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…