Seventeen Years After 9/11, I’m Still Fighting for American Ideals of Pluralism and Inclusion

By Maha Elgenaidi, Executive Director. This opinion appeared at the ING blog. The terror attacks of September 11th, 2001 were a watershed event in American history. After more than a decade free of the machinations of the Cold War, the United States appeared to be advancing in its promises of liberty and justice for all....

Jewish and Muslim Communities Share 20 Year Interfaith Relationship

This interview featuring ING Executive Director Maha Elgenaidi appeared in the August 2018 issue of JValley Magazine, the official Jewish magazine of Silicon Valley. At a time when we seem to be bombarded by one negative message after another, it’s reassuring to know that there is a lot of good going on in Silicon Valley...

How can we improve our Islamic schools?

By Maha Elgenaidi, Executive Director. This speech was originally presented at the 19th Annual ISNA Education Forum’s Celebration Banquet on March 31st, 2018 in Rosemont, Illinois. A modified version appeared in the July/August 2018 edition of ISNA’s Islamic Horizons magazine. The United States has a network of at least 270 full-time Islamic schools, almost as...

Finding home in America is difficult these days

By Maha Elgenaidi, Executive Director. This opinion appeared at the ING blog. On this fourth of July, finding home for immigrants and minorities in the current political environment is a difficult conversation. While immigrants like me know we are home in the United States, some of our neighbors are questioning whether we really belong. The...

Supreme Court decision on travel ban promotes bigotry

By Maha Elgenaidi, Executive Director. This opinion appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. As the executive director of an organization whose mission is to counter Islamophobia and all forms of bigotry, I am deeply disappointed in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to preserve the Trump administration’s Muslim ban. This decision sets a dangerous precedent by...

Christian acceptance of Muslim Americans guarantees religious freedom – for all

By Maha Elgenaidi, Executive Director. This opinion will appear in the May/June 2018 issue of “Report from the Capital,” the magazine of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. It is also available to read on ISSUU and as a PDF here. Civil liberties are indivisible. Denying the freedom of one group threatens the freedom...

ING’s 25 Heroes

By Maha Elgenaidi, Executive Director I was so inspired by the 25 Influential American Muslims project produced by CNN recently that I thought I would highlight my own list of influential Muslim leaders. With the exception of Ameena Jandali, who is our content manager and founding member at our home office, they’re all directors of...

Today’s “White Person’s Burden”: To Counter Racism

By Maha Elgenaidi, Executive Director. This opinion appeared at the ING blog. After decades of leading a national nonprofit that counters bigotry through education, I am now firmly convinced that we need new partners to overcome racism, Islamophobia, and exclusivist thinking in our nation. So far, we have been treating the disease of ignorance through...

Holy Week, Passover, and Rajab: On our responsibilities toward the stranger

By Maha Elgenaidi, Executive Director. This speech was delivered at a Maundy Thursday foot-washing ceremony in Morgan Hill on Thursday, March 29th, 2018. Salam alaykum/peace be unto you. We are standing here together during a sacred time in many faiths. For Muslims, we are in the month of Rajab, the seventh month of the Islamic...

Escaping Essentialism: Educating Objectively About Islam in a Time of Islamophobia

By Maha Elgenaidi, Executive Director. This paper was presented at the American Academy of Religion Western Region Conference at the Institute for Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, California on Sunday, March 25th. What follows is an excerpt of the full paper; we will update this article once the full paper is published. (Note: in this conversation,...

Posts By: Maha Elgenaidi