Annual Banquet
WHAT: CAIR-NY Annual Banquet & Fundraiser, Celebrating 13 Years of Service
WHO: Featuring Dr. John Esposito, Imam Siraj Wahhaj, Haroon Moghul, Preacher Moss & more! Honoring Ibrahim Abdul-Matin & the New York Civic Participation Project
WHEN: Saturday, May 15, 2010, Doors Open 6:15pm
WHERE: Faculty House, Columbia University, 64 Morningside Drive, NY, NY 10027
TICKETS CAN ONLY BE PURCHASED AT THE DOOR -- IF THEY ARE STILL AVAILABLE
Door Price: $85
SPEAKERS & HONOREES:
Dr. John Esposito
University Professor, Professor of Religion and International Affairs and of Islamic Studies and Founding Director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. Esposito specializes in Islam, political Islam from North Africa to Southeast Asia, and Religion and International Affairs. He is editor-in-chief of the six-volume The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, The Oxford History of Islam, a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam and The Islamic World: Past and Present. His more than 40 books include The Future of Islam, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think (with Dalia Mogahed), Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam (a Washington Post and Boston Globe best seller), and What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? His writings have been translated into more than 30 languages.
Esposito has served as consultant to the U.S. Department of State, European and Asian governments and corporations, universities, and the media worldwide. A former President of the Middle East Studies Association of North America and the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies, he is a member of the E. C. European Network of Experts on De-Radicalisation and an ambassador for the UN Alliance of Civilizations.
Esposito is recipient of the American Academy of Religion’s 2005 Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion and of Pakistan’s Quaid-i-Azzam Award for Outstanding Contributions in Islamic Studies and the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University Award for Outstanding Teaching. He has been interviewed or quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, ABC Nightline, CBS, NBC, and the BBC and in newspapers, magazines, and the media in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
Imam Siraj Wahhaj
Imam Siraj Wahhaj, Imam of Masjid Taqwa in New York is well known among Muslims in North America as a dynamic speaker and tireless supporter of Islamic causes. He received Imam training at Ummul Qura University of Makkah in 1978 and has gone on to become a national and international speaker on Islam. Imam Siraj has been Vice President of ISNA U.S. since 1997 and has served on Majlis Ash-Shura since 1987. He is the Amir for Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA), past member of ISNA´s Planning Committee and has served as a member of the Board of Advisors for NAIT from 1989-1993. Imam Siraj is also a member of the Board of Advisors for the American Muslim Council.
Haroon Moghul
Haroon Moghul holds a B.A. from NYU in Philosophy and Middle Eastern Studies, and an M.A. and M.Phil. from Columbia University in Middle East Languages and Cultures. He is a Ph.D. Candidate at Columbia. Mr. Moghul is Executive Director of The Maydan Institute, a consulting and communications project devoted to enhancing understanding between Muslims and the West. He has served as Director of Public Relations for the Islamic Center at NYU (2007-09), and has been selected a global Muslim Leader of Tomorrow, participating in the Third Annual Doha Conference. His first novel: "The Order of Light" (Penguin 2006; translated into French by Cherche Midi, 2007). His writings and essays have appeared in a variety of media, including Dawn, The Friday Times, Religion Dispatches and Tikkun, as well as the Tabah Foundation of Abu Dhabi. Through the Islamic Center at NYU new media services, his sermons reach over 30,000 listeners per month in approximately 125 countries.
Ibrahim Abdul-Matin
Ibrahim Abdul-Matin - National Urban Fellow, MPA, radio personality on WNYC’s nationally syndicated news show, “The Takeaway” and green economic consultant in his own right at Brooklyn’s Green City Force - is a passionate voice for transforming our pollution based way of life to one that prioritizes our planet and its people. Ibrahim is a member of the Interfaith Leaders for Environmental Justice, and frequently represents the environmental viewpoint on faith-based panels. His forthcoming book, Green Deen: What Islam Teaches About Protecting the Planet, shows how all voices of all kinds can join in a chorus that will transform our public, private, civic sectors, bridge the innovation gap and move all the world’s citizens from entitlement to empowerment through our fundamental human connection to the environment. He is also Policy Advisor in Mayor’s Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability. Ibrahim is a graduate of Baruch College.
NYCPP
La Fuente is a not-for-profit organization that brings together organized labor and community partners to develop collaborative projects that educate and promote civic participation in new immigrant communities. La Fuente’s New York Civic Participation Project (NYCPP) has three grassroots immigrant committees in the South Bronx, Queens and Upper Manhattan. Each committee is represented by three elected representatives on our citywide Leaders Advisory Council (LAC). The NYCPP has succeeded in creating an active base of approximately fifteen hundred immigrant community members that have successfully developed, participated in and won city-wide and local campaigns for immigrant rights, improved schools, inclusion of the Muslim holidays in the NYC public school calendar, and access to parks and public facilities.
Alioune Niass
CAIR-NY is proud to announce Alioune Niass as recipient of the "Good Samaritan Award."
Mr. Niass, a Muslim immigrant from Senegal, was the first vendor to notice and speak up about the smoke rising from the parked vehicle used in the Times Square plot.
Watch his interview on Democracy Now! here.
MAKE HISTORY ON MAY DAY!
Join Us to Demand Immigration Reform & Strengthening of Workers’ Rights this Saturday!
Our broken immigration system has led to a civil rights and liberties crisis in New York and across the country. Join CAIR-NY, NYCLU and a coalition of major labor, civil rights and immigrants' rights groups as we rally, march and demand comprehensive immigration reform and strengthening of workers' rights on Saturday, May 1st at 11am.
Organizers are expecting 15,000 to 20,000 participants as all of the major labor unions are turning out.
WHAT: NYC May Day March & Rally for Immigration Reform & Workers' Rights
WHERE: Assemble at Foley Square, Worth Street (Between Centre and Lafayette St)
WHEN: Saturday, May1st @ 11am
If you are interested in marching with CAIR-NY, please email fali@cair.com.
More About the Coalition
We are united—the employed and the unemployed, the documented and the undocumented, the organized and the unorganized, the people of diverse races and ethnicities who live and work in New York City. We are the members of scores of labor unions, immigrants' rights organizations and community groups. We are the great working-class majority.
Why We March on May Day
On this day of international solidarity among working people and of traditional struggle for immigrant rights, we celebrate our roots in the struggle for justice. May Day recalls both our immigrant histories and the ongoing struggle for the rights of working people. We are marching on May Day as workers have marched on this day since 1886, when laborers, immigrants, artisans and merchants in Chicago waged a general strike to win the eight-hour day. Our demand today—for the rights of immigrants and workers—is as urgent and as transformative as the demand for the eight-hour day.
In 2010 we are facing the most acute economic crisis for the working-class majority in our lifetimes. The recession has led to a new wave of austerity policies for working people, as the banks are bailed out using our tax dollars, and the jobs and services on which we depend are being destroyed.
Our immigration policy is bankrupt. The current crisis has had a devastating impact on immigrant communities. And that devastation hurts us all.
