How does CAIR support women who are discriminated because they are mulims? For instance if a woman wears niqab and she is discriminated against in the workplace, what can she do?
Answer
Wearing niqab in the workplace may be a little more difficult to defend legally than wearing the hijab in the workplace, but we would still try to defend her. It is more difficult because an employer may be able to more successfully claim that a woman wearing niqab in the workplace would cause him or her to lose business. However, legally, the burden of proof is on the employer to show that accommodating the religious practices of one of their employees would cause a serious negative effect to their business.
This is a very important point: courts have held that the perceived prejudice of a business's customers does not count when considering accost of accommodating religious practices. An example is, that a hotel owner cannot say that they cannot hire any black people because they are worried that their customers are racist. CAIR has taken many niqab cases and will continue to do so.
Name
Ibn Ismail
- United States
Profession
Question
You say that the objective of CAIR's upcoming fundraising dinner and workshops is to mobilize Muslims. How do you expect to do that?
Answer
There are two reasons why Muslims are not as effective as they could be:
1. They don't feel that they can make a difference.
2. For those who would like to make a difference, many of them don't have the tools to do so.
Therefore, for the first group, our goal is to show that with effort and intelligent action within the bounds of Qur'an and sunnah, we can promote our rights and Islamic values in America.
For the second group, the workshops are designed to teach people how other activists have used the system to influence American society. We encourage them to take these tools back to their communities where they can promote an Islamic agenda.
Name
Hasan
-
Profession
Question
As-Salaamu Alaikum,
I would like to first say jazakum Allahu khairan to the brothers and sisters at CAIR for all the hard work they are doing.
Also, I would like to ask you what direction you think the Muslims in America are going from a community standpoint?
Answer
Wa Alaikum Salaam,
Wa Eyyak. Muslims are becoming more sophisticated and more professional in their dealings with non-Muslims. The keys are to increase our unity, to learn how to use the system within Islamic bounds and to hold fast to our values of tawheed and Islamic principles. If we do this, we'll continue down the path of increasing our prescence in America and our significance to the non-Muslim community. If you look at where we were 10 years ago, we were much less organized and much less unified. With the help of Allah, 10 years from now, we'll look back at where we are today and see a dramatic improvement.
Name
Yusef
- United States
Profession
Question
Who will be the main presenters at your workshop?
Answer
We made an effort to get the top trainers in their fields, including a former Harvard instructor in negotiations who has negotiated disputes between major corporations and even countries. Some are not Muslim, but we got them because we must learn these skills in order to maximize our impact.
Also, two workshops will be conducted by CAIR staff including myself (Ismail Royer) on "How to Run an Internet-Based Campaign."
Name
Muslimah
- United States
Profession
teacher
Question
What can a person do when anti-muslims pose as muslims on the internet chat forums with the intention of giving daw'ah, but what they are giving is daw'ah for uniting the religions and not the true islam? Is it possible to stop groups who are enemies of islam from doing such things and misleading people?
Answer
No, it is not possible to stop them because people can say or do pretty much anything they want to on the Internet. The most effective thing that you could do is to expose their ideas for what they are and then people will be able to judge for themselves what the truth is. CAIR has only supported shutting down websites in the past if they have been blatantly racist or called for violence against Muslims. Sometimes, exposing the dishonest tactics of some anti-Muslim activists is more devastating to these groups than shutting them down.
