Chill Yo Islam Yo

I wonder how many Muslim brothers will buy this T Shirt, haha.

I came across it randomly at Bustedtees.com

Shout out to YM and Br. Asim for sharing this via facebook.

Click here to visit YoungMuslimsTV, the official Channel for YM.

It’s about time!

Best Buy became the first retailer to nationally invite consumers to celebrate Thanksgiving and Eid Al Adha (it was seen on Techcrunch first, thanks Techcrunch)

See Below

This is big news for the American Muslim market in particular and for some extreme Christians that are hating.I don’t see why? I mean all these years retailers have recognized other religious holidays for sales and now it’s our time and all of a sudden it’s a big deal.

Muslims have never shown hate for other religious consumer groups and brands/stores recognizing them, people need to really fall back and take it easy.

Everyone has a right to be market to.American Muslims have significant purchasing power and it’s in the best interest of businesses to take advantage of this opportunity, so leave it peoples.Thank you Best Buy! Don’t worry your going to be getting that Eiddy…hehe.

Send some love to Best Buy for reaching out to Muslims

Customer Service, Web Site, Store and General/Corporate Inquiries
Best Buy Corporate Customer Care
P.O. Box 9312
Minneapolis , MN 55440
1-888-BEST BUY (1-888-237-8289)

Media Inquiries
Best Buy Public Relations Department
Email: NewsCenter@bestbuy.com
Phone: 612-292-NEWS (6397)
After Hours Pager: 612-618-6703

LOL! Republicans crack me up. Shout out to Asim for sharing this.

As President Barack Obama said:

“The dream of opportunity for all people has not come true for everyone in America, but its promise exists for all who come to our shores — and that includes nearly 7 million American Muslims in our country today who, by the way, enjoy incomes and educational levels that are higher than the American average.

Moreover, freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one’s religion.  That is why there is a mosque in every state in our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders.  That’s why the United States government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab and to punish those who would deny it.

So let there be no doubt:  Islam is a part of America.

Salam yo,

This year at Muslim Youth Day I came across an apparel company that caught my eye.

Usually when I browse through T shirt company’s  made by Muslims, the quality is unfortunately cheap and the designs don’t stand out.

This brand however was different, the name  “Profound Aesthetic” is appealing by itself. You can tell when you pick up any of the t shirts, alot of effort, thought, and design was put into the product.

The co-founders who are actually siblings started this company and since they have introduced their brand, things have been working well insh’Allah.

It makes me good that we have Muslim entrepreneurs that are producing company’s with products that are appealing to both Muslims and Non Muslims.

Here is a short clip with brother faraz (co-founder) breaking down the brand

Brand Philosophy:

At Profound Aesthetic our foundation lies in spreading a positive message that carries weight with tremendous metaphoric connation. We are a team of individuals seeking to express change in society’s mode of thinking by bringing about a positivist attitude. Along with the creative ideas developed in our Profound Mind lab we also encourage our fans to help in developing the Profound Cause by contributing your thoughts and ideas; everyone is talented in their own way. The world is a beautiful place, that should never be forgotten, and our goal is to help remind you of that every time you look in to your wardrobe.

Anyways check it out, here are some more shirts below.

10,782,698 views to be exact and Youtube has disabled comments. Wonder why? ha.

I agree! Some Muslims have stop hating and start appreciating life.

Shiekh Hamza Yusuf said it best “Most Muslim countries don’t even have a minimum wage”

Here is an excerpt from the article in the Christian Science Monitor titled “Best place for Muslims to live? America” which I found interesting.

In the majority of Muslim countries the government is an intrusive enterprise with eyes and ears everywhere. The result is bleak. Countries reward only sycophants of the “divine” state. Muslims feel stifled by the encroachments of the establishment and lack of religious tolerance. If a man or a woman wanted to organize a protest against the government to gain the right to practice their religion more openly or be politically active against the status quo, may God help him to escape from the wrath of the state.

Many Muslim countries promote homogeneity while their citizens yearn for a right to diversity, which will give them the ability to practice their religious rituals freely.

In America, on the other hand, doors open to accommodate people’s religious beliefs. And that, along with citizenship rights and the opportunity to exercise the freedom to practice Islam day in and day out, is what makes the US so good for the millions of Muslims here.

 

Now go be a productive member of society without giving up your Islamic principles. =)

Salam,

You might not care but I do, I love how Dwight Howard first gave thanks to God after today’s game and then said you gotta do what you can in any situation and God does the rest. That reminds me of when Mufti Abdul Rehman Ibn Yusuf was speaking to us about tying our camels and putting trust in Allah swt. Meaning if you ever get worried about a test, or risks in life, he said just “Do your best and Allah swt does the rest”, that’s my new motto. I don’t know what Dwight’s Aqeedah is, haha, but he can become Muslim, sure why not?

May Allah (swt) guide the Non Muslims to Islam, Ameen! Including you Dwight Howard/Superman, being as big as Dwight is a blessing, he reminds of a couple of African American brothers or AK’s that come to the Mosque that are giants, Inshallah we can be giants in our ranks on the day of judgment. Chill I need a super-eman rush.

Anyways watch the interview below

Follow Dwight Howard on twitter

Salam,

Below is a pretty interesting article which I just recently came across.

I agree that Hip Hop is definitely being used to spread Islam, no doubt about that. I think most of these Muslim rappers who revert to Islam use Hip Hop for dawah because that’s what their good at. If they have the ability to change the way people think through their lyrics, then why not use it to send out positive messages that can help transform peoples lives for the better.

In the same way we have Muslims who are comedians, that use their talents to crack halal jokes and put out entertainment that has it’s limits or web developers who create sites to benefit the ummah, etc. The point is if your good at something, why not use that talent or skill for the sake of Allah swt to give back to the world. Of course their are many non-Muslims that create products and services that Muslims use also, but it all comes down to intentions and what your ideals are. Enough said, read the article below.

To convert to Islam, a man or woman must pronounce the shahada, or testimony of faith, either in private or in public. The convert states that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is his prophet; the reason, according to the Quran, is that followers need to understand that they may not worship anything but God. Many converts opt to shower either before or after their declaration, to symbolize the repenting of sins from their previous life. Nothing more is required.

Becoming a rapper is a bit more complicated. The sheer technical skill (learning rhythm and meter, building a vocabulary, adjusting one’s voice) often requires years of practice, and then there is the not-so-small matter of developing beats and musical production. The convert to rap must also prepare to adjust his lifestyle. The most successful rappers on the market focus their subject matter and their public appearances around a small list of topics: one’s previous experiences of poverty, drugs - especially the dealing thereof - guns and/or criminal records, fast money and loose women.

The twain shall meet, however, as I learned while watching “New Muslim ,” a new documentary about a Puerto Rican convert, Hamza Perez, who gave up drug-dealing in exchange for Islam, but couldn’t quit hip-hop. Perez’s new life is certainly rich with subject matter - the FBI raids his mosque without giving a reason; he teaches prisoners in the county jail until his security clearance is mysteriously revoked - but it’s a different kind of subject matter, and he’s operating under different constraints. His ideal audience isn’t the head of a major label - it’s the young men hanging out on the corner, to whom Perez offers his albums and a new way of life. He doesn’t consider there to be anything odd about this. He considers his music to be a form of da’wa, or religious outreach.

“New Muslim ” will be showing on PBS on June 23, but I couldn’t wait that long to find out more. Perez’s record label was originally based in the Bay Area - where there is, apparently, a thriving Islamic hip-hop scene.

“Oh, I love being a citizen of the Bay,” Tyson Amir-Mustafa told me. Amir-Mustafa is a 29-year-old San Jose native who’s released four Islamic-influenced rap albums. “Islam is still young here. The Muslim community is still shaping its identity here. And it’s very much a Muslim-American identity, with no question that the two things can go hand in hand.”

And the “American” portion of that identity would include hip-hop. Many local Islamic rappers have been rapping longer than they’ve been Muslim.

“I started writing poetry, winning poetry awards when I was 10 years old,” said Amir Abdul-Shakur, who’s 26 and originally from Oakland. “Then I started honing my rap skills in middle school.” Abdul-Shakur, who raps under the name Five Eighty, converted to Islam in 2000. There are no contradictions, he said, “but there are a lot of things I can’t talk about. There are a lot of things I just don’t do.”

Those things would include: drinking alcohol, using drugs, any kind of criminal behavior, casual sex. Both men are married. Neither wants to use his music to evangelize.

It would seem to be hard to create lyrics around these limitations until I realized that they both had a bigger topic than most mainstream rappers: their own personal journeys. After all, the rap marketplace is saturated with the same old, same old - who better to offer a different take on risk and reward than a converted Muslim rapper?

“You’re already different,” Amir-Mustafa told me. “People are already looking at you with all these associations, all these misperceptions. So why not take the opportunity to talk about things they’re not used to hearing in the music, things like integrity? Why not talk about why you decided to go a different way?”

Source

Salam,

To all my brothers and sisters interested in the American Muslim market, here is a very informative article which was recently published on nytimes.com.

A Gallup poll of Muslims in the United States has found that they are far more likely than people in Muslim countries to see themselves as thriving.

In fact, the only countries where Muslims are more likely to see themselves as thriving are Saudi Arabia and Germany, according to the poll.

And yet, within the United States, Muslims are the least content religious group, when compared with Jews, Mormons, Protestants and Roman Catholics.

Gallup researchers say that is because the largest segment of American Muslims are African-Americans (35 percent, including first-generation immigrants), and they generally report lower levels of income, education, employment and well-being than other Americans.

But American Muslims are not one homogeneous group, the study makes clear. Asian-American Muslims (from countries like India and Pakistan) have more income and education and are more likely to be thriving than other American Muslims. In fact, their quality of life indicators are higher than for most other Americans, except for American Jews.

“We discovered how diverse Muslim Americans are,” said Dalia Mogahed, executive director and senior analyst of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, which financed the poll. “Ethnically, politically and economically, they are in every way a cross-section of the nation. They are the only religious community without a majority race.”

The Gallup study is significant because it is the first to examine a randomly selected sample of American Muslims. Gallup interviewed more than 300,000 people by telephone in 2008 while conducting broader polls, and focused on 946 who identified themselves as Muslims. (The margin of sampling error is plus or minus four percentage points.)

Previous studies of American Muslims located respondents based on surnames, mosque attendance or geographic clusters, which polling experts say can skew the results.

Gallup asked an extensive battery of questions, producing a picture of American Muslims through the prisms of race, gender, class, age and education. The international comparisons were possible because of earlier Gallup studies of Muslims overseas.

American Muslim women, contrary to stereotype, are more likely than American Muslim men to have college and post-graduate degrees. They are more highly educated than women in every other religious group except Jews. American Muslim women also report incomes more nearly equal to men, compared with women and men of other faiths.

Muslim women in the United States attend mosque as frequently as Muslim men — a contrast with many Muslim countries where the mosques are primarily for men. American Muslims are generally very religious, saying that religion is an important part of their daily lives (80 percent), more than any other group except Mormons (85 percent). The figure for Americans in general is 65 percent.

By political ideology, Muslims were spread across the spectrum from liberal to conservative, with about 4 in 10 saying they were moderates. By party identification, Muslims resembled Jews more than any other religious group, with small minorities registered as Republicans, roughly half Democrats and about a third independents.

There are clear signs of social alienation, however. Lower percentages of Muslims register to vote or volunteer their time than adherents of other faiths. They are less likely to be satisfied with the area where they live. These indicators are “worrying,” said Ahmed Younis, a senior analyst at the Muslim studies center.

“There is still a sense among American Muslims of being excluded from the mainstream,” Mr. Younis said, “and among young people that’s more acute.”

But the perception is far worse among Muslims in England and France, the study found.

Mr. Younis said the finding “reinforces the proposition that the integration process for American Muslims is, on the whole, a much more successful endeavor than it is for European Muslims.”