Posts tagged : "Islamophobia"

Kourosh Ziabari: The former Archbishop of Washington Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick says that none of the divine religions permits and discounts the humiliation of the followers and sacraments of other religions and scoffing at what millions of people hold to be sacred and holy is not allowed or commended by any religion. “There has to be respect for what other people believe. It is almost like you slap somebody on face if you attack what they hold to be sacred, and it is really an attack on the respect that other people deserve. If we believe that we are all brothers and sisters in God’s family, then we must love all brothers and sisters and not treat them as fools, and not attack what they hold to be holy and sacred,” said...

Iran Review - Kourosh Ziabari: Someone who has spent nearly three decades of his life in service of the world’s most sophisticated and intricate intelligence agency is perhaps in the best position to comment on some of the most important issues ahead of the U.S. foreign policy. As confirmed by tens of policy advisers and academicians, the United States sees the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran’s nuclear program as two of its most demanding and exigent foreign policy challenges. It is also facing the problem of legitimacy in the Muslim world as many people in such countries as Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf consider Washington’s foreign policy as aggressive and unproductive. The continued...

  Kourosh Ziabari - The election of Dr. Hassan Rouhani as Iran’s 7th president renewed hopes around the world that a new era of interaction and cooperation between Iran and the international community will begin soon. The government of “prudence and hope” promised to improve Iran’s foreign relations and find a negotiated solution to Iran’s nuclear stalemate after almost one decade of confrontation and dispute. Iran has had no official ties with the United States for nearly 3 decades, and relation with the U.S. has always been a controversial and contentious point in Iran’s foreign policy. President Rouhani has pledged to find a way for settling the disputes with the United States, if the officials in the White...

  Kourosh Ziabari, Iran Review: Even if you don’t know his name, you’ve most probably heard of the Christian Pastor who set several copies of Quran, the holy book of Muslims, on fire in 2010 on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The eccentric pastor believes, or pretends to believe that Muslims were responsible for the killing of American citizens as the American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the World Trade Center North and South Towers respectively on September 11, 2001 and killed around 3,000 people. Terry Jones is the name who sparked an international controversy in 2010 and 2011 when announced his plans for burning the copies of Holy Quran under the pretext that Islam is a religion of...

  Kourosh Ziabari - The offensive movie “Innocence of Muslims” which has pejoratively insulted Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and portrayed Islam a retrograde, corrupt and repressive religion is still drawing international condemnation, even though it seems that the wave of protests and demonstrations against this blasphemous movie across the Muslim world has calmed down. People with different political viewpoints and religious belongings have expressed their dismay and consternation at the movie and called it an effort to sow the seeds of discord and conflict between the Muslims, Christians and Jews and pitting them against each other. In order to further investigate the motives behind the production of the film and the...

  Kourosh Ziabari - Dr. Trond Ali Linstad is a prominent Norwegian physician and a renowned member of the Muslim community in the capital, Oslo. He worked for several years as a volunteer physician in the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon. From 1977 to 1986, he was the chairman of the Palestine Committee of Norway, and independent and non-partisan organization that works to promote the Palestinian values and support their struggle and resistance against the Israeli occupation. The organization is part of the umbrella Joint Committee on Palestine, based in Oslo. After making an acquaintance of Islam and Iran’s Islamic Revolution, he embraced Islam and become a Shiite Muslim. Dr. Linstad is the founder of the first...

  Kourosh Ziabari - Muhammad Abdul Latif is the imam of Lighthouse Mosque in Oakland, California, and an instructor at ILM Tree, a home-schooling cooperative in Lafayette, California. He also teaches at Zaytuna College's annual Summer Arabic Intensive program in Berkeley, California. Abdul Latif converted to Islam in 1995 in Atlanta, Georgia, when he was 20 years old. He subsequently traveled throughout the Muslim world and, in 2002, relocated with his family to the San Francisco Bay Area to take advantage of the resources of knowledge and the community that had formed around Zaytuna Institute. Mr. Abdul Latif joined me in an interview to discuss the cancelled plan of Dove World Outreach Center to burn copies of the Holy...

Kourosh Ziabari - Prof. John E. Hare is the Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology at the Yale University’s Divinity School. A British classicist, philosopher and ethicist, he is the author of several well-known and best-selling books in religion and morality including “God and Morality: A Philosophical History”, “The Moral Gap”, “Ethics and International Affairs”, “Why Bother Being Good” and “Plato’s Euthyphro”. John Hare has in his background the experience of teaching philosophy at the University of Lehigh from 1975 to 1989. In his “God’s Call” book, Hare discusses the divine command theory of morality, analyzing texts in Duns Scotus, Kant and contemporary moral theory. John joined me in an...

Kourosh Ziabari - Craig L. Blomberg is the Distinguished Professor of the New Testament, and has been a New Testament scholar since 1986 at the Denver Seminary in Colorado. Denver Seminary where Prof. Blomberg teaches is an evangelical graduate-level institution that was founded in 1950. Blomberg delivers speeches and writes on a number of Christianity, religion-related issues regularly. He has published several books on the New Testament of which we can name “From Pentecost to Patmos: An Introduction to Acts Through Revelation” and “The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel: Issues and Commentary”. He specializes in the parables and the writings of Luke-Acts. Prof. Blomberg joined me in an interview to answer my questions...

Kourosh Ziabari - Despite constituting a significant minority in the western countries, Muslims around the world are subject to disproportionate, unjustifiable bias. Such attitudes distance them from their most fundamental social rights by portraying them as extremists and fanatics. The group is represented as able to endanger the interests of Europe and America. As reported by the German Central Institute Islam Archive, there are 53 million Muslims living in Europe (excluding Turkey) who represent some 7.2% of the continent’s population. According to a Pew Research Center 2011 demographic study, globally Islam has 1.6 billion adherents, making up 23% of the world’s population. Muslims exist with other groups in peace and...

Kourosh Ziabari - They see the offensive movie which has insulted one of the world's most ancient, venerated and popular religions in the light of their ambassador and other diplomatic staff being killed overseas. Of course such violence is not accepted, but the U.S. politicians and mass media have never paid due attention to the disgraceful and outrageous nature of a movie which portrays Islam a repressive religion and its holy prophet as a depraved and corrupt individual; a movie which has targeted the souls of 1.5 billion Muslims around the world with its heinous and appalling language. "Innocence of Muslims" produced by a man who has been laying in ambush since the release of the 13-minute trailer of his movie on Youtube is a film...

  Kourosh Ziabari - "Iran has a long rich history dating back to ancient Greece and Rome, and its culture predates the rise of Islam in the seventh century. Reclaiming its dignity and patrimony in the 1979 revolution, it is logical that Iran would be the first country in the Middle East to break free from its imperial chains given its vast reservoir of history and knowledge from which to draw on in getting back on its feet," said Dr. Colin S. Cavell during an exclusive interview with Tehran Times. Born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Dr. Cavell is an American author who earned his Doctorate of Philosophy degree in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Dr. Cavell is currently Assistant Professor...