News and Analysis (12/7/15)

“Bringing these academic programs here was not just for the sake of the programs. We wanted our citizens to be mentally open. We wanted them to be critical thinkers, to have a stake in the country” Sheikha Moza bint Nasser …

• In Qatar’s Education City, U.S. Colleges Are Building an Academic Oasis (Washington Post)

… VCU’s “president said the involvement of six U.S. universities in Qatar will have a huge impact on the region”:

• Doha’s Education City by the Numbers: Enrollment, Diplomas, Faculty, Finances (Washington Post)

Islamic? No. A state. Yes. “Seeing Daesh [Isis] and the caliphate as simply a target to be systematically broken by forces other than Middle Eastern Sunnis … is to fail to understand this fight” – Lt. Gen. Graeme Lamb …

• The Isis Papers: Leaked Documents Show How Isis Is Building Its State (Guardian)

… The Islamic State is “not looking to direct attacks at all… [T]heir direction is to inspire” — Michael Leiter, a former senior counterterrorism official in the George W. Bush and Obama administrations:

• Obama’s Islamic State Address Marks Shift in War on Terror (Christian Science Monitor)

“[A]s police officers wrestled the suspect to the floor, a bystander yelled: “You ain’t no Muslim, bruv’”:

• Man in Court Over London Tube Attack; Police Step Up Patrols (AP / abc News)

For Lina, Islam is bigger than any ethnic identity; for Miriam “Islam … pushes you to know and seek knowledge;” and Noelia “has never seen so much love” as in Islam, and Myree sees “Islam growing in the Hispanic community”:

• Four Muslim Latinas Open Up About Their Journeys to Islam (Fusion)

Women are the favorite targets of cowardly Islamophobes:

• After San Bernardino and Paris Attacks, Women Are Targets of Anti-Muslim Harassment (LA Times)
• Muslim Sixth Grader Allegedly Attacked by Schoolmates Who Called her ISIS, Tore at Her Hijab (Inside Edition)

“At first men in Kafranbel were suspicious of the center and unwilling to let their wives or daughters go there but gradually they relented, realizing the benefits of women learning new skills that could be applied both in the home and outside”:

• From Hairdresser to Hero, a Syrian Woman Forges a New Path for Women (Christian Science Monitor)

An Ahmadiyya community member’s intense devotion to the U.S. provides no immunity from Islamophobia:

• Muslim Detained on a Flight: I’m Your Biggest Ally (Time)

If Turkey thinks its sovereignty is threatened by a 17-second incursion of Russia into its airspace imagine how Iraq feels about Turkish boots on its soil:

• Iraq Wants Turkish Troops Out of Its Territory (Christian Science Monitor)

The man claiming “the world’s greatest memory” can’t remember Muhammad Ali (whom he has met several times”) or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar who “penned an essay critical of Trump’s absurd, uninformed or just plain incorrect’ statements”:

• Donald Trump Forgets Muslim Champions During Obama Criticism (NBC News)

ImadadDean