Statue of
                      liberty shines alongside the minaret of an Islamic
                      mosque
ARTICLES/PUBS
  Freedom, Democracy & Civil Society
  Free Markets
  Islamic Society
  Education
  Women in Islam
  Middle East Conflict
  Terrorism & Jihad
  Civil Liberties
  Other Topics



VIDEOS
  Free Markets

Middle East Conflict
  Other Topics
   
  LINKS
  Atlas Economic Research Foundation

Islamic Resource Bank
  Zakat Foundation
  Launch Pad: 100's of links on liberty & Islam
Minaret of
                              Freedom Institute, calling the faithful to
                              freedom
Search this site for:



  Home  |  Mission  |  Personnel  |  Activities   |  What's New?  |  Twitter  |  Photos  |


  Opportunities  |  Donate  More Info

  


 

Summary of MFI Activities in 2007

Prior years activity: 1996-2000 | 2001 | 2002-3 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009

Send Comments, Suggestions

 Opportunities!

Internships
Fellowships
 
 




December 2007


November 2007

  • MFI president Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad participated in a conference for progressive Muslims in Germany sponsored by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. Dr. Ahmad challenged the conference panelists to define a "progressive Muslim." At the conclusion of the conference it was suggested that a progressive Muslim is one who "uses the past in service of the Future."
  • MFI Program Assistant Alejandro Beutel presented paper �Sunni Structural Puritanism� at AMSS UK conference in London, UK
  • Dr. Ahmad was interviewed on "The Scholar's Chair" television program on Ibn Khaldun's theory of how bad policies, including interventionist economic policies, bring about the fall of civilizations.
  • We spoke with editors, reporters and journalists from the Ukraine hosted by the State Dept. to discuss "Objectivity in Reporting on Diversity Issues."
  • Dr. Ahmad wrote a review of Graham Fuller's new book The New Turkish Republic: Turkey as a Pivotal State in the Muslim World for The Georgetown Journal of International Affairs.
  • Alejandro Beutel delivered four presentations on basic Islam, US counterterrorism policies, contemporary Islamic religious authority, and Islam and contemporary global politics at Hartford University.
  • Dr. Ahmad met with the head of the Rumi Forum to discuss common goals and interests.
  • We were interviewed by Farspress on Elbaradi's report on Iranian compliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
  • We were interviewed by El Mercurio for our perspective on the Annapolis conference on Palestinian-Israeli peace.
  • Dr. Ahmad wrote an article on  Islam for the Cato Institute's Encyclopedia of Libertarianism.
  • We provided commentary to a doctoral candidate for a dissertation on the movement for "gold trade payment arrangements."
  • Sarah Swick wrote a blog on her trip to Saudi Arabia.
  • Alejandro Beutel reported on his talk on "Breach of Law, Breach of Security: A Muslim American Analysis of US Counterterrorism Policies" at the AMSS conference.
  • Dr. Ahmad wrote blogs on  "The Naked Ugliness of Grand Jury Abuse: Ashqar Gets Eleven Years for Refusing to Spy for Israel," "The Betrayal of Islamic Law by Its Self-Appointed Guardians."

October 2007


September 2007

  • MFI President Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad was interviewed by FarsTV Arabic service on the Petraeus report on Iraq.
  • We participated in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's iftar for Muslim-American leaders during his trip to the United Nations. He was warned that holocaust denial undermines the credibility of his attempt to be a spokesman for Palestinian rights. He disagreed.
  • Alejandro Beutel attended DHS Muslim Youth Panel Discussion with government intra-agency law enforcement officials.
  • Dr. Ahmad spoke to administrators and representatives of the Montgomery County (MD) Public Schools on compatibility of Islam with the 21st century.
  • We attended a reception for His Excellency Prof. Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
  • We attended a presentation by Mearsheimer and Walt on their new book on the Israeli lobby, where we shared our concern that that lobby's cavalier dismissal of analyses of its power as "anti-Semitism," manifesting a deliberate attempt to conflate the Israeli lobby with Jews in general, may be stoking actual anti-Semitism.
  • Alejandro Beutel reported on "Examining the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood at NORTHCOM" on our blog.

August 2007


July 2007

  • We participated with a wide variety of other Muslim-American groups in the development of an initiative to help end the sectarian violence in Iraq. One immediate concrete result was the proposal of a code of honor for Muslims in dealing with other Muslims.
  • We were interviewed by Pam Constable of the Washington Post on the crisis in Pakistan.
  • We were interviewed by Monaza Siddiqui of Radio Germany on female genital mutilation.
  • We were interviewed by Canada's Caravan radio program on the  vulnerability of women in Iraq.
  • We provided material for an American University student film project on Immigrant Voices about cross-cultural marriages in the Muslim community.
  • We reviewed two books on Islamic law for DOMES (Rudolph Peters's Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law: Theory and Practice from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-first Century and Muhammad Baqir Al-Sadr's Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence: According to Shi`i Law.)
  • Alejandro Beutel argued the importance of diplomatic engagement with Hamas and reported on his recent participation in the International Humanities Conference in Paris as guest blogs for the Institute on Religion and Public Policy. (The post is also reproduced here and here, respectively, on the MFI blog.)
  • Alejandro Beutel reported on the "DHS Roundtable on Security and Liberty: Perspectives of Young Leaders Post 9-11."

June 2007


May 2007

  • Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, Omar Altalib, and Sarah Swick participated in a Liberty Fund symposium on Islam and economics.
  • MFI has edited a forthcoming book on Islamic Parenting by Hisham Al-Talib and Abdul Hamid Abu Sulayman.
  • We gave an interview to Farspress on the Iran-US talks and their prospects.
  • Dr. Ahmad moderated a panel on Sunni-Shia relations at the ISNA-East convention.
  • We participated in a workshop on the future of religious freedom cohosted by the Sidley-Austin law firm, The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law, and The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.
  • We met with David Luft to discuss his work on the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan.
  • We were interviewed by Ph.D. student Elsa Suckle for research project in Muslims in America.
  • The Children of Abraham and Aristotle seminar held its second discussion of Dr. Ahmad's book Signs in the Heavens.
  • Dr. Ahmad met with the popular Egyptian reformer Amr Khaled who agreed to promote the Muslims Students Liberty Network, an ambitious program of information outreach to Muslim youth across the world through the online networking tool, Facebook. All young Muslims are invited to enter into an online exploration and discussion of the relationship between Islam and liberty and how that affects their daily lives. Just search for "Muslim students liberty network" at www.facebook.com and then join our group!

April 2007


March 2007

  • Over sixty people attended the Minaret of Freedom Institute annual fundraising dinner at the Clarion Hotel Bethesda Park in Bethesda. The program featured a discussion of "the Challenges to Objective Media Coverage of Islam" featuring journalists Caryle Murphy (author of Passion for Islam, recently retired from the Washington Post), Nadia Bilbassy Charters (senior Washington Correspondent at Al Arabiya covering the White House and the State Dept.) and Alison Weir (of IfAmericansknew.org).
  • Our program on Sunni -Shia relations was noted and MFI president Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad  was quoted in Pamela Constable's Washington Post article on Sunni-Shia relations
  • Syed Kamall, British Muslim Conservative Party member of the European Parliament visited the Minaret of Freedom Institute as part of our brown bag luncheon series. Among other issues, Minister Kamall discussed the obstacle to Muslim integration and renaissance posed by the welfare state.
  • MFI president Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad attended a CATO discussion on "Escaping the Iraq Trap" where he responded to an observation that the intrenecine violence spawned by the invasion would probably get worse upon withdrawal of the American forces with the observation that delay of that withdrawal could conceivably aggravate the violence even further, a point to which speaker Ted Galen Carpenter readily assented.
  • We were interviewed by the Muslim Link newspaper.
  • We were interviewed by Alex Sarotin of Radio Free Europe on the status of the Guantanamo detainees and on the possibility that the Guantanamo detention center could be shut down.
  • We met with representatives of the U.S. government and other representatives of the Muslim community in a workshop at the Institute for Defense Analysis on the engagement of  the Muslim Community with the American government.
  • The first of a two-part discusion of Imad ad-Dean Ahmad's book, SIGNS IN THE HEAVENS: A MUSLIM ASTRONOMER'S PERSPECTIVE ON RELIGION AND SCIENCE (second edition) was held at the Children of Abraham and Aristotle monthly salon.
  • We were interviewed for a Ph.D. dissertation on religious accommodation.

February 2007

  • MFI presented a dialogue on Sunni and Shi`a Differences (Distinguishing the Real from the Imagined) at American University featuring Sulayman Nyang (Howard University) and Imam Abo Fazel Nahidian (Mannassas Mosque). MFI President Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad gave the introduction and moderated the discussion.
  • We participated in a round-table discussion of Prof. Louis Cantori's presentation "The Islamic Paradigm as a Conservative Research
    Paradigm." We presented the argument that Islamic thought is more compatible with the Jeffersonian than the Hamiltonian position.
  • We were interviewed by Radio Free Europe's Alex Sarotin on the significance of  the British redeployment of forces from Iraq to Afghanistan.

January 2007

 

 

 
   
 
  Minaret of Freedom Home | Top of page
    BECOME A MINARET OF FREEDOM INSTITUTE ASSOCIATE
Send a donation of $25 or more ($10 for students) to: 
Minaret of Freedom Institute / 4323 Rosedale Avenue 
Bethesda, MD 20814 
contact us: mailto:[email protected]
�copyright Minaret of Freedom Institute. Web design support by Teri Murphy.