|
|
| |||||||||||||||||||
Controversies
Texas Senate Imam Prayer
Khomeini Ayatollapoluza
Mission Statement
Vision Statement
Areas Of Focus
Our Team
Public Diplomacy
Events Legislative Advocacy Print Media Broadcast Media
Texas Muslims
Civic Engagement
Elections Central
Government Central
Media Central
Texas Islamic Council (TIC)
About the T.I.C.
Triumph Over Terror (TOT)
TX Muslims Scholarship Fund
Applicants
Education
Health
Civil-Religious Liberties
Environment
National Security-Foreign Policy
|
EventsEvents: F&J has organized or sponsored dozens of events; here we have included a few for you to get a handle on our advocacy work. Texas Halal Law Signing Ceremony with Governor Rick Perry
During the 78th Regular Legislative Session of the Texas House and Senate, the Texas Muslim community drafted, had introduced and lobbied for the passage of a Texas Halal Law to protect Halal food consumers from intentional mislabeling of these products by producers. On Tuesday August 12, 2003 Muslim leaders from around the Lone Star State met in our Governor's Capitol Office for the Ceremonial signing session of HB-470 (TX Halal Law). Many activists from numerous organizations collaborated through the Freedom and Justice Foundation to achieve the Texas Muslim community's 1st Legislative victory in Texas. All Muslim in Texas should be very proud of this day, because it marks the culmination of much effort to unite the Texas Muslim community. In explaining the development of this bill during the 1st Annual Texas Muslims Legislative Day on March 18th 2003, Farha Ahmed expressing the need for coalition building stated that "it took a Muslim Republican working with a Jewish Democrat to get this bill drafted." Governor Perry was very friendly as always with the Muslim activists as he recalled his days as TX Agricultural Secretary and the opening of a slaughter house that processed Halal meat. The Governor also shared his successful experience working on expanding Texas Meat producers' markets to include Middle Eastern countries. Governor Perry also made a special effort to thank everyone in attendance individually, but with special emphasis to Imam Bakhash whom Gov. Perry thanked "for everything he does". F&J led a delegation of Texas Imams to an Interfaith Prayer at the National Cathedral and to Capitol Hill in Washington D.C.
Texas Imams Delegation pictured at the National Cathedral with National Muslim Interfaith leaders including Islamic Society of North America (ISNA's) Dr. Sayeed Saaed and Mohamed Elsanousi as well as the new President of the the Muslim Youth of North America (MYNA), the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) National Legislative Director Corey Saylor, as well as a few Christian leaders including the Alliance to End Hunger's Exec. Director.
Max Finberg, Executive Director of the Alliance to End Hunger, and Ahmed Younis (former National Director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and Muslim Spokesperson) co-chaired the national Muslim-Christian leadership meeting to discuss how both communities can better work together to end hunger in America and around the globe.
Pictured from Right to Left: Imam Zia of Irving, Dr. Tarek of Houston, US Senator John Cornyn, Imam Abdulhakim of Fort Worth, Imam Muhammad Nisarul of Houston and Mohamed Elibiary of Plano.
WASHINGTON D.C.- On June 11-12, 2007, Mohamed Elibiary, President and CEO of the Freedom and Justice Foundation (F&J), led a delegation of Texas Imams to a major interfaith event at the National Cathedral as well as to meetings on Capitol Hill in Washington DC. Imam Zia Haque of the Islamic Center of Irving (ICI), Imam Abdulhakim Al-Heyafi of the Islamic Association of Tarrant County (IATC), Imam Muhammad Nisarul Haq of the Islamic Dawah Center and ASIA Center in Houston and Dr. Tarek Hussein - President of CAIR-Houston participated in two major interfaith events organized by the Alliance to End Hunger, a broad interfaith coalition spanning from the National Council of Churches to the National Association of Evangelicals. The groups involved included major interfaith leaders from around the country, the UN Representative in charge of the millennium project to end hunger (from South Asia), bipartisan senators as well as a couple of presidential candidates.
The first event the Texas Imams represented our community was as part of a National Muslim Leadership meeting with the Christian Movement Against Hunger Leadership at American University in Washington, DC. The second event was an interfaith convocational Prayer at the famed National Cathedral attended by several thousand folks from around the country where the Texas delegation participated in the program. And finally on Tuesday morning, F&J guided the Texas Imams to some policy meetings on Capitol Hill including US Senator John Cornyn's Texas Constituent Coffee where the Imams met Senate Staffers and took a picture with Senator Cornyn.
Background: In 1996 the United States along with all nations committed through the UN to half the number of hungry folks globally by 2015. The US committed to half hunger in America by 2010 and end it by 2015. On a local level many mosques and Muslim organizations are connected to the local food banks, well the Alliance to End Hunger is the national and international level coordinators to expand the food bank programs, school nutrition programs, food stamps, minimum wage reform and other efforts.
The major engine behind this alliance is a major Christian group called "Bread for the World". Earlier this year, Mohamed Elibiary was invited to speak at an evangelical policy conference where the President of this organization, which connects many thousands of congregations, also spoke; thereby kicking off a developing relationship where Texas Muslims can more effectively work in concert with other faith communities to end hunger in America and globally. Mass Rally for Peace in Lebanon during the Israel-Hezbollah War of '06
The North Texas Islamic Council (NTIC)*
NTIC Organized a Jumma & Peace Rally in Downtown Dallas on Friday August 11th calling for an end to the War on Lebanon. A couple of hundred Muslims came down to Ferris Plaza in Downtown Dallas to not show support for Hezbollah as the Imam stated but to call for a Cease Fire and respect for civilian human life. The event was well covered by local media. Founding of the Texas Islamic Council (TIC) began at ICGA (Feb 2005)
The TIC is a project of the Freedom and Justice Foundation (F&J), meant to bring the Texas Muslim Congregational Voice to the fore front on issues of social public policy. This state-level representative body allows Muslim congregations in Texas to stand shoulder to shoulder with our brothers and sisters in the Mainline Protestant (Texas Conference of Churches), Catholic (Texas Catholic Conference) and Baptist (Baptist General Convention of Texas) communities. The members of the TIC are Muslim Congregations (Mosques) and full-time Islamic Schools from around the Lone Star State. The current membership of the TIC gives it a representative strength of more than 75,000 Texas Muslims, thereby making it the largest single representative body for Muslims in Texas and it all began at the Islamic Center of Greater Austin (ICGA) in February 2005.
To Learn more about the TIC, please visit: http://www.texasislamiccouncil.net/ Various Muslim Leadership Forums
F&J has organized and spoken at dozens of community functions and forums to spread its philosophy of political empowerment through civic and interfaith engagement. We have organized Community Leadership Forums in North, Central and South Texas as well as a Youth Leadership Forum in Dallas specifically to expand the cooperation between various Muslim grassroots groups in the Lone Star State.
2003 Dallas - Fort Worth Muslim Community Leadership Forum
F&J brought together 54 of D-FW’s most influential leaders & activists to a hotel in Irving to discuss F&J ’s mission to “Foster Muslim unity by increasing coordination between different Muslim organizations across the state of Texas.”
Issues from duplication of efforts by local volunteer organizations to the empowerment of Muslim women in local activism were discussed.
Dr. Yusuf Ziya Kavakci joined 53 other Metroplex leaders to chart a more coordinated course for local Muslim organizations in the D-FW Area.
Annual TX Muslims Legislative Day (2004 pictured / 2nd TMLD)
"Your Rights as Americans,
Congratulations to the Texas Muslim Community for not only making history last Friday September 10, 2004 with the 1st ever Khutbah Jumma Prayer at the Texas State Capitol, but for overflowing the largest room available at the Capitol complex with over 400 attendees.
Non-Muslim participants were very proud of the level of policy discussion that the Texas Muslim community was capable of, and commented that they were eagerly looking forward to working together during the next legislative session in January.
Salam Al-Marayati, National Executive Director of MPAC, complemented the organizers for putting on a very successful conference together with a diverse crowd of elders and youth; Arabs, South Asians, African-Americans, White and Latino Muslims; Sunnis and Shia; and an even attendance of women and men.
Prominent Religious leaders from the three Abrahamic faiths of Islam, Christianity and Judaism gave a moving prayer for the victims of 9/11/2001 and their families. Sheikh Waleed Basyouni of Houston represented Islam and made history as the 1st Khateeb to ever lead the Jumma prayer in the Texas State Capitol.
State of Texas Homeland Security Director, Steve McCraw was very generous with his time before this large crowd as seen here fielding a question from Austin's Mohsin Lari.
Some of the more than 400 Texas Muslims who made history during the 2nd Annual Texas Muslims Legislative Day on September 10, 2004 by holding the 1st Khutbah Jumma at the State Capitol.
Texas' very own and the 1st Muslim ever to be promoted by the FBI to Special Agent - Gamal Abdel-Hafiz sharing some of his thoughts with the audience on this post-9/11 environment.
(Left) Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) National Executive Director Salam Al-Marayati shared with the audience MPAC's efforts working with Federal authorities to draft successful policies around federal counter-terrorism efforts. These programs including MPAC's highly endorsed counter-terrorism Policy Briefs can be downloaded from their website at www.mpac.org.
(Right) F&J President Mohamed Elibiary thanked the crowd for attending and making history with an overflow crowd for the 1st Khutbah ever in the Texas State Capitol and highly encouraged voting as a method Muslims have before them to count as a factor in the upcoming election. He also supported Salam's previous comments that American Muslims must participate in counter-terrorism public policy formulation if America is to achieve the successes it desires.
***Similar footage is available from the 1st Annual Texas Muslims Legislative Day in 2003 where the 1st Imam performed the opening prayer in the State House of Representatives as well as received an award from the House Speaker on behalf of the whole community. The 3rd Texas Muslims Legislative Day of 2007 saw a controversy erupt due to an Imam performing the opening prayer before the Texas Senate (more info here). We have included above a summary of the 2005 Legislative Day due to its landmark accomplishment for an opening session ceremony. 79th Regular Texas Legislative Session Opening Ceremony in '05
Since 1975 the interfaith community leadership around Texas have been holding a Prayer Service to open the Texas Legislative Session on the South Capitol Steps. 2005 is the first time that the Texas Muslim Community participated in such an event.
The speakers list included: Rodwan Saleh - President of Islamic Society of Greater Houston Reverend Mel Caraway - President of Texas Impact Rabbi Steve Folberg - Temple Beth Israel Isabella Schmidt - Interfaith Ministries (Houston) Rev. Young Min Son - United Methodist Church (Austin) Margie Medrano - Read a Prayer from Bishop Romero Father Larry Stehling - Catholic Diocese of Austin Evelyn Burleson - United Methodist Women, Port Lavaca Rev. Elzi Odom Jr. - Greater Dallas Community of Churches Rev. Timothy Tutt - Pres. of Austin Area Interreligious Ministries Rev. George Bithos - Executive Director of the Texas Conference of Churches
Please visit Texas Impact's website at www.texasimpact.com to watch some of the service on video online and learn more about the great faith-based approach to public policy that Texas Impact members bring to their activism.
After the Prayer Service Rodwan Saleh (Pres. of ISGH), Mohamed Elibiary, Iesa Galloway (Ex. Dir. of Cairhouston), Dr. Hamid Ali (Pres. of ICGA-Austin), and Samira Turk joined dozens of other political activists for an advanced legislative lobbying workshop organized by Texas Impact. 2004 Presidential and 2003 Local Candidate Forums
On January 24, 2004 and January 25, 2004 F&J organized Presidential Campaigns Candidate Forums for the Muslim community in Dallas and Houston respectively. Though Texas wasn't going to be a important state in determining either party's front-runner presidential nominee, we sponsored these events to educate citizens on all the various ways a Presidential campaign supporter can help her favorite candidate. In both forums we had Presidential nominee Rep. Dennis Kucinich dial in and address the audience over the loud speaker system. Presidential campaigns who sent representatives to our Campaigns Forum were: Bush/Cheney, John Kerry, Howard Dean, John Edwards, General Wesley Clark and Dennis Kucinich.
F&J has held numerous local candidate forums covering races for City Council to Congressman. Pictured above and to the left is a 2003 Local City Council Candidate Forum held in Richardson, Texas. Over 115 Muslims and 15 Non-Muslims attended F&J’s Richardson City Council Candidate Forum.
Success like this has happened in multiple other cities and when coupled with our non-partisan GOTV phone banks driven by our registered voter database, local candidates have increased the seriousness with which they take the Muslim vote in Texas. 2003 Eid Show in Dallas - community unity through laughter
1,200 People came out to the Eid Show in Dallas in December 2003 at SMU.
Project Unity: One Moon, One Ummah witnessed the largest gathering of Muslims in North Texas for an Islamicly oriented event second only to Eid Prayers and the Ballot Box BBQ of 2002. This event was highly successful in bringing together all ethnic groups, all Mosque communities whether Sunni or Shia, and reaching out to our Non-Muslim neighbors. We usually share Ramadan Iftars, and now we share the Eid also...Our diversity is certainly our strength, and we look forward to others replicating such events in the future.
The community was entertained by many popular groups such as 786, ATAS Productions and comedian Kamal Al-Marayati, but also by late program additions such as Monem Salam and the BHA Choir.
F&J would like to recognize the 38 anonymous volunteers, who labored tirelessly to organize, publicize and put on this milestone for the D-FW Muslim community. As we try to define what Islamic Entertainment for the still forming American Muslim identity will mean, your participation will go a long way to make sure that unity stays in our community. Special recognition goes to Shahzeb Gaziani and Nazia Ahmed for successfully heading up Project Unity: One Moon, One Ummah... F&J would like to thank the event co-sponsors for their support in making this event a success, SMU Speech & Debate Club, SMU-Muslim Student Association, the Islamic Association of Collin County (IACC), and AMANA Mutual Funds. Special thanks go to Southern Methodist University (SMU) for hosting this event. © 2002-2007 The Freedom and Justice Foundation ~ 1925 East Beltline Rd. Suite 475 Carrollton, TX 75006 | |||||||||||||||||||
