After the New York Observer‘s D.M. Levine wrote a story involving Mos Def sipping “a bottle of Rolling Rock” (a brand of beer), Mos Def valiantly defended the allegation in a letter to the editor, making proud Muslims all over these United States of America. Although the letter wasn’t posted on the Observer‘s website, the transcription from the print edition is below.

Oh France, you have done it again. After attempts to ban the hijab, the burqa, and the niqab - as visible symbols of the “Islamification” of the precious French (i.e. white) identity - there is a new controversy that finds French Muslims unwillingly pitted against their non-Muslim countrymen.

Move over Apolo. Somebody else is getting ready to take center stage when it comes to athleticism based on awe-inspiring footwork and mind-numbing speed. Meet Pakistani sprinter Naseem Hameed, who is fast-becoming (pun most definitely intended) a force to be reckoned with on the international sprinting scene.

During the 2010 U.S.-Islamic World Forum, which took place in Doha, Qatar from February 13th to the 15th, President Obama announced the appointment of Rashad Hussain as special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). And so at the end of the conference, all was well with the world. The Muslim community was happy, as the appointment reaffirmed the President’s commitment to continuing dialogue and reaching out to the Muslim world. Everyone else was put at ease since Hussain’s record of speaking out against violent extremism demonstrated that moderate Muslims do exist. And the fact that he’s a hafiz sent a message of “Look at that, religion doesn’t make people crazy after all!”

Western club-goers have been partying to Middle Eastern music for years. When you thought you were grooving to Jay-Z’s “Big Pimpin,” you were really dancing to Abdel Halim Hafez’s “Khosara.” Listen to Aaliyah’s “More Than a Woman” and then compare it to Mayad El Hennawi’s “Aloly Ensi.” Sound familiar? Someone even made an entire YouTube clip about how producer Timbaland rips off Middle Eastern artists. But I personally dig that classical Arabic music is constantly being innovated and revamped in contemporary Western music. 

Looks like Valentine’s Day is officially over, folks. Just when you thought it was only single American women facing the worst marriage drought in decades, Iraqi women have set a new precedent in spinsterhood. According to the World Food Program (why are they monitoring this?), there are just way too many women and far too few men to accommodate the blessed union of marriage for many Iraqis. 

Last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke at a forum at the all-women’s college Dar Al Hekma, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, that showed her in the newly flattering light she has enjoyed since becoming an Obama CHANGE-ling.

If you watched last week’s episode of Community you already know that Abed gets, for lack of a better cliched term, smashed. Which begs the question: What, if anything, does it mean for a mainstream Muslim character on network television to get hammered?

The project, a collaboration between the Alliance for Justice in the Middle East at Harvard University and the MIT Center for Future Civic Media, was launched in response to the horrific Israeli attack on Gaza last December-January and the subsequent and ongoing siege on Palestinians living there. 

Was anyone else pleasantly surprised to see some Mooselims walking in the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics last week? I think all those stereotypes of Muslims as desert-dwellers must have infiltrated my brain, because my first thought was actually: “What the heck are those Muslims doing competing in the snow?!” But of course Muslims live all over the world - near mountains and rivers and plains (we really are everywhere. Bwahaha!). I watched the ceremony in a restaurant and I think I alarmed everyone around me by whooping my support for Morocco, Algeria, Pakistan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iran.