Sikander Hayat's America

Home - For many American Jews, Christmas Day means Chinese food and movies. But how do American Muslims spend their time on Christmas? Jesus is also revered as a prophet in Islam. "Muslims and Christians believe that Jesus is the only messiah," explains Hisham Mahmoud, an Arabic teacher at Harvard University. He points out that Jesus' mother, Mary, is considered by Muslims to be a saint. "In fact, there's an entire chapter in the Quran called 'Mary,' and the story of Jesus' birth is recounted in that chapter," he says.On Christmas Day, Mahmoud and his devout Muslim family fast. "We also relate the story of Jesus and Mary," he says. "We read those passages in the Quran and we make sure the holiday is focused through and through on Jesus — peace and blessing be upon him — as opposed to feeding into the commercialization of this holiday." Read the full story here. 

Home - That's what Hamza Warsame's friends and family in Seattle's Somali American community come back to again and again: Hamza , just 16, was only one sura, or chapter, away from finishing Islam's central text. He was a great studier. The American-born son of two refugees from Somalia, Hamza dreamed of studying computer science at MIT. He was already taking classes at Seattle Central College, which is where he said he was headed the last time his family saw him, on Dec. 5. Even for someone as diligent as Hamza, his plans that day were unusual. He never left home on a Saturday to study at school, his sister Ikram Warsame recalled. As he left around 2:40 p.m., his family — doing what families do with children everywhere — reminded Hamza to come home safe. Read the full story here. 

Home - In Dearborn, Michigan, American Muslims held a march to denounce ISIS. As in they held an actual parade to condemn ISIS and ISIS' version of Islam which is, uncannily enough, exactly what many shrieking xenophobes (e.g. sitting congressman and King of the Mole Rats Steve King) have been demanding American Muslims "do" in order to disassociate themselves with the bad people. You know what happened next, right? It took about 10 days for conservatives online to start sending each other pictures of the march with claims that it was a rally in support of ISIS. Jesse Singal: "This is Dearborn Michigan after the radical Islamic attack in California ! These are Isis flags and Isis supporters folks but the media has not reported because of politically correctness.” It had been shared almost 3,700 times, and I also found a tweet with the same photo that had been retweeted more than 1,300 times. I assured the guy who had messaged me that if ISIS were openly demo