muslim american charlotte edition september 2015

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A Hillbilly Muslim in Carrol Mitchem’s Court .............. 08,09Become a Peace Partner ........................................................ 06Green Burial ........................................................................... 07Muslim American Innovation ........................................ 12,13Shahada Stories ...................................................................... 10The Sunnah of Vinegar ......................................................... 05

September -2015, Volume 1, Issue 9ISSN 2377 - 9624Publisher & Editor-in-Chief: Mohamed Haroon SaitEditor: Duston BartoDesign & Layout: Mubin M.K.

All content Copyright © 2015 Muslim American, Inc. except where otherwise noted. Please contact the editor or publisher directly to obtain reprint permission and guidelines.

Opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the advertisers or individual contributing writers and not necessarily those of the editor or publisher of this magazine.

This magazine is published monthly.

Article submissions are welcome, email: [email protected] inquiries should email: [email protected] American400 Arrowhead Dr EastCharlotte, NC 28213

Phone: (704) 597-5424FAX: (704) 597-9310Email: [email protected]

From The Editor’s Desk – September 2015Salaamu Alaikum wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh,As our children go back to school, we are reminded of how important knowledge is. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: “If anyone travels on a road in search of knowledge, God will cause him to travel on one of the roads of Paradise. The angels will lower their wings in their great pleasure with one who seeks knowledge. The inhabitants of the heavens and the Earth and (even) the fish in the deep waters will ask forgiveness for the learned man. The superiority of the learned over the devout is like that of the moon, on the night when it is full, over the rest of the stars. The learned are the heirs of the Prophets, and the Prophets leave (no monetary inheritance), they leave only knowledge, and he who takes it takes an abundant portion.” - Sunan of Abu-Dawood, Hadith 1631We should seek wisdom on all topics from religion to science to politics and issues of the day.

May Allah’s peace, mercy and blessings be upon you all, Duston Barto

Editor, Muslim American magazine

Subscribe to our upcoming digital edition at:www.MuslimAmerican.com


Long before modern medicinal research proved its benefits, Prophet Muhammad (SAWS) heralded vinegar as a food that was preferable and good for us. In small amounts, it can be taken as a digestive cleansing agent, as an aid for those living with diabetes (it can increase sensitivity to insulin and facilitate its release into the body), and can be useful in many other ways. Again, Prophet Muhammad informed us hundreds of years ago about the goodness of vinegar before any tests or studies were conducted by medical professionals!

As reported by Jabir: “I entered the house of the Prophet with him and there was some bread and vinegar. The Messenger of Allah said: ‘Eat; what a good condiment is vinegar.’” (Sunan an-Nasa’i 3796)

There are many uses for vinegar as remedies or supplements for specific ailments, but this list is inconclusive and not always backed by scientific research or studies. Here, we will focus on what has been documented and researched. Perhaps the newest and most well-

known is the benefits vinegar has for people with Type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes makes it difficult for a person’s cells to accept insulin (a hormone) that helps absorb and process the sugar from the foods they eat into energy. When the cells do not accept the insulin, sugar becomes saturated in the bloodstream and this can, over time, lead to nerve damage. However, a small amount of vinegar (5 teaspoons mixed with water) taken by individuals with type 2 diabetes a couple minutes before a meal seemed to make the cells more accepting of the insulin and lowered the previously high amounts present in their bloodstreams before.

Thanks to its high acid content, vinegar also can help women and the lactose-intolerant to absorb more calicium from calicium-abundant dark greens without putting dairy products into their systems.

Despite its benefits, vinegar should not be ingested in large amounts due to its previously mentioned high acidity. Drinking large amounts of vinegar could cause heartburn to intensify and could also damage the enamel of the teeth. It is best to mix or dilute the ideal amount of 1 to 3 teaspoons of vinegar by mixing them with a slightly greater amount of water.

The ease with which you can

add vinegar to your diet is amazing, alhamdulillah. It is a better low-calorie alternative to mayonnaise for flavor in several dishes. You can also add some on vegetables and salad for taste instead of relying on other dressings with unnecessary fats and calories. So generally, for anything you would like to dip or drizzle over another food, vinegar could be a much healthier option!

The sunnah of vinegar is a simple yet very beneficial habit to adopt. If you have any medical conditions or questions about adding vinegar to your diet, please consult a doctor, inshaa’Allah, before making any changes to ensure that the vinegar will not interact negatively with your condition or medications you are currently taking. Otherwise - happy eating!

The Sunnah of VinegarTori Dominski


The U.N. International Day of Peace is an annual event that reminds us that peace is a fundamental state of being desired by all human beings.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention states, “no country is immune to the devastating physical and emotional effects of violence. Each year it results in over 1.6 million deaths worldwide; over 90% of which occur in [developing] countries. It is the leading causes of death in all parts of the world for those ages 15 to 44.” One example of this violence

is Domestic Violence against women where, in the USA, a woman is beaten every 15 seconds by a current or former intimate partner. [US Dept. Justice Statistics, 2006]

This state of affairs is unacceptable as it insults individual human dignity and threatens the future and well-being of humankind. For this reason, Cultural Enrichment Services, Inc. of Raleigh is calling on everyone (especially community leaders) to pause on September 21st and acknowledge the importance of peace. The best way would be to publicly address violence and promote peace among your community on a regular basis. Take action in your community! Prophet Muhammad (SAWS) tells us, “Whosoever of you sees an injustice, let him change it with his hand; and if he is not able to do so, then speak against it with his voice; and if he is not able to do so, then hate it with his heart — and that is the weakest of faith.” Let’s do more

than just hate it; we must become better agents of change.

Become a Peace Partner in your own way on September 21st.

Become a Peace PartnerNaomi S. Feaste


Say, “Truly, my prayer, my service of sacrifice, my life, and my death are for Allah, the Cherisher of the Worlds” (Surah 6: 162).

Recently my husband Tom and I visited a green burial, wildlife preserve. Ramsey Creek Preserve in South Carolina is the first of its kind in the USA. Not only are burials natural, but also the forested preserve supports native plants and wildlife, including bears, deer, raccoons, bobcats, and opossums. It is 120 acres that include hiking trails, a creek with a water fall, a picnic area, and an interfaith chapel. It is a unique place where death is celebrated with life.

The human body, as with all living bodies of creation, was designed to return to the earth in a beautiful continuation of energy. A green burial respects the natural process of decay and emphasizes the “dust to dust” aspect that is often heard in funeral speech but seldom taken as a directive. Embalming, cement vaults, metal caskets, and elaborate headstones

are not allowed. No body is robbed of its blood and filled with formaldehyde, locked in a metal box, and then placed deep in a cold vault, without the comfort of the earth’s embrace. In a green burial, the body of the deceased is washed and shrouded and then put into the ground with or without a biodegradable coffin. A natural stone may be engraved as a marker.

Dr. Billy Campbell, founder of Memorial Ecosystems, explained, “What we’re doing is basically land conservation. By setting aside woods for natural burials, we preserve it from development. At the same time, I think we put death in its rightful place, as part of the cycle of life. Our burials honor the idea of dust to dust.”

In recent years, several green burial sites have been established in North Carolina and South Carolina. Some of these are called ‘hybrid green burials,’ which usually means that they are only a small part of a modern, non-green cemetery. If you

are interested in a green burial, search for sites that are purely green and not just a part of a cemetery unconcerned with the carbon footprint. Ramsey Creek Preserve is in the process of creating a small, green burial, nature preserve in Asheville, NC. As the trend grows, we can hope for more fully green efforts.

At Ramsey Creek Preserve, there is a Jewish section, and years ago, when I first wrote about green burials, Dr. Campbell said, on behalf of Ramsey Creek Preserve, “…we are very interested in working with Muslims to establish burial grounds,” and he indicated his willingness to establish a Muslim section. Muslims, let’s not be deadheads and let this opportunity get buried! Islamic burials should be green burials. May our lives and our deaths be for Allah!

Green Burial: the Last Good DeedLinda “iLham” Barto


Though it may be hard to fathom, I don’t go picking fights. I leave hornets nests alone and even feed raccoons and opossums on purpose. Basically, I try to be passive and go with the flow. I don’t compromise or hide my religion, but I don’t see the need to shove it in front of everyone. That being said, I will actively stand up for the rights of Muslims when they are violated or threatened, and I will especially speak out when an elected official makes bigoted comments about Islam and Muslims.

The first week of May this year found me in such a situation. As a born-and-raised resident of Lincoln County, I had to speak out when County Commission Chairman Carrol Mitchem spewed hateful words against Muslims to a local journalist. It all started when local Rowan County commission came under legal pressure for consistently praying “in Jesus name” and referring to Jesus (AS) as “Saviour” while preventing other faith traditions from providing an invocation. Lincoln Times-News reporter Adam Lawson merely asked Chairman Mitchem about his thoughts.

“A Muslim? He comes in here to say a prayer, I’m going to tell him to leave,” Mitchem said. “I have no use for (those) people. They don’t need to be here praying to Allah or whoever the hell they pray to. I’m not going to listen to (a) Muslim pray.” He continued by explaining that he didn’t care for “changing rules on the way the United States was founded, Constitution was founded,” Mitchem said. “I don’t need no Arab or Muslim or whoever telling me what to do or us here in the county what to do about praying. If they don’t like it, stay the hell away.” He finally punctuated, “I’m very adamant about that. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that happens. We’re going to pray as usual.”

As usual, for Lincoln County Commissioners, meant praying an

exclusively Christian prayer delivered by local preachers or, when they are not available, by commissioners themselves. While the ACLU and Americans United threatened lawsuits, I penned a simple letter to local media outlets and to the commissioners themselves entitled, “No, we Muslims won’t ‘Stay the hell away,” and in doing so, entered a much larger stage than I anticipated.

My goal was simple: to express disgust at the fact that a local elected official is saying hateful things about the citizenry he is supposed to govern and to include Islam in the dialog of local religion. Lincoln County is not a huge Muslim American population center, but I personally know of over a dozen Muslim families in the county, so it stands to reason that there are between 50-100 Muslims in the county. We are spread out, and as such we travel to neighboring cities for worship in established Masajid.On May 18th, 2015, I stood before the county commission, and I told them that to remove the presence of faith, the core of morality, from the presence of government would be a tragedy. I also proposed an interfaith prayer which did not name God and did not make reference to names which represent only one faith, so that our community could

be united in thought and in governance. I further stated that I didn’t blame Chairman Mitchem for his ignorance of what we Muslims believed, that I blamed myself and others for not reaching out to tell him. In order to set that straight, I offered him a Qur’an and some brochures from the Charlotte-based American Islamic Outreach Foundation. He refused to take those items from me and directed me to leave them with the secretary of the commission.

At the close of the May 18th meeting, the commission adopted a policy which would allow any appointed leader of any faith group to come and give an invocation. Problem was, there is no mosque, synagogue or temple within Lincoln County, so once again non-Christians were excluded.

This led to a brainstorming session with others who represent minority religions, and we decided collectively to form the Foothills Interfaith Assembly in order to make sure that minority religions were no longer excluded from public dialog. While the trigger point to join together was the exclusion from county invocations, Foothills Interfaith Assembly quickly decided that we needed to be ready to defend the liberties of individuals in many parts of the rural areas surrounding Lincoln County. We framed the mission statement so that it matched the declaration of the commission and filed our petition to make invocation as soon as the opportunity came available, and we had met enough times to qualify for “regular and periodic meetings within the county.”

On August 3rd, 2015, I went to give the invocation as the members of our group unanimously voted that since Muslims were the target of Mitchem’s hate, Muslims should be the first represented in interfaith dialog. The invocation was a clear English translation of Surah Al Fatihah along with a du’a for guidance in

A Hillbilly Muslim in Carrol Mitchem’s CourtDuston Barto


governance from God to the leadership of our county. [Full text of the invocation will appear on MuslimAmerican.com]

During the invocation there were many shouts of “Amen” from the assembled which brought back memories of tent revivals from my childhood. I was strengthened in my resolve because of the presence of many members of Masjid Ash-Shaheed who had come out in support of defending Muslim rights for equality in governance. Brothers made the hour-long drive from their homes in Charlotte to stand by me and stare down bigotry.

Chairman Mitchem, however, had chosen to turn his chair around and leave the room a few minutes before my invocation was to begin. This action prompted Commissioner Patton to publicly chastise him before the end of the meeting and denounce the disrespectful way he conducted himself. This argument between the

commissioners resulted in the county commission deciding to remove prayer entirely from the commission meetings.This was not my intended goal; but, there are ripple effects to everything that has happened. Today if you Google “Lincoln County Prayer,” there are over 750,000 results. If each page was read by only 20 people then over 15 Million people would be reading that Muslims will not be silent as our rights are taken away. That’s not even counting the radio and television interviews that I’ve done over the past few months.

We must be prepared to stand up and speak out in order to defend our liberties and stop any effort that will force one view as superior while silencing others. As Muslim Americans we must defend the rights for all citizens to be able to be represented equally by our elected officials as defending liberty for others results in defended liberty for us. It does not compromise Islam in any way to demand for justice and equality in

governance. I encourage everyone to be educated in the liberties that should be secured. Pay attention to your elected officials, especially at the local level, to ensure that they are not espousing ideologies that would lead to stripping your rights away.

Our American ancestors fought for liberation from the oppression of England, liberation from the oppression of slavery and for civil rights legislation to ensure that all Americans are treated equally by government without regard to race or religion. Do not be afraid to stand up for those liberties.

“The constitutional freedom of religion [is] the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights.”

– Thomas Jefferson, 1822


Islam is featured on the news almost daily. However, most of those stories aren’t told by Muslims. Shahadah Stories is a live production which expresses the reality of being Muslim and coming to Islam. It’s an opportunity for Muslims to take control of the narrative and express why we bear witness!

Sometimes it is a story about a non-Muslim finding Islam, sometimes it is a story about reaffirming belief in Islam. Whatever the story, all in attendance are sure to leave with a renewed sense of purpose and focus toward Islam. Shahadah Stories is a family friendly presentation.

The first presentation of Shahada Stories was on April 18th to a packed house at Spotlight Performing Arts Theater in Charlotte. The next presentation will be on September 26th in Raleigh.

Keep informed at facebook.com/shahadahstories


Four years ago while making Ummrah, Mohamed Salahuddin, president & CEO of NAZTEC-USA, recognized a serious problem for himself and other visitors of the two holy Mosques. Over 70% of those visiting the holy places of Islam cannot speak or understand the Arabic used for the Khutbahs at Masjid al Haram or Masjid An-Nabawi.

As a Scientist, Engineer & Industrialist, Mohamed worked on a dedicated solution to this problem along with his team of product designers & engineers at NAZTEC Florida. For three years they worked tirelessly toward creating a world class, state of the art, first of its kind technological solution. The result was a digital simultaneous live translation system for installation at both holy places. The design involved complex and critical innovations to create a system capable of simultaneously translating the Friday Jummuah Khutbahs into 35 different languages.

The new innovations would result in registering new invention patents with the United States Patent & Trademark Office. “We invented a new Antenna

system for installation at the tall minarets of the Masjid Al Haram” explains Mr. Salahuddin. All of the equipment was designed and manufactured in-house and tested at the Florida facility of NAZTEC before being sent for installation in Mecca.

Mohamed and his team started designing the system on the basis of his recognition of need, with no contract or promise of permission to install. “We were knocking at every single possible contact in Saudi Arabia and could not reach or contact anyone,” says Mohamed. “We did not give up - made several trips to both the holy places to put forward the idea and Alhamdulillah the breakthrough came-in during 2014, when I was fortunate to meet one of the haram directors for a short while and presented my idea!” This led to introducing the concept to individuals who were able to create new translation departments for both Mecca and Medina in 2014.

Alhamdulillah, early this year NAZTEC-Florida was able to fulfill the dream of helping those in the holy places when Mohamed Salahuddin met up

with Shaikh Abdul-Rahman Al-Sudais, President & Grand Imam of Masjid Al Haram & Masjid Al Nabawi. This revolutionary project finally got the approval from the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman of Saudi Arabia.

Nearly a full plane-load of equipment was required for the translation and broadcasting system. Mohamed Salahuddin and a team of engineers from Florida worked in Saudi Arabia for 60-days of non-stop work at both the holy places! Mohamed explains, “We started the installation at Masjid Al Haram in Makkah with too many technical and administrative challenges at the holy site.” In order to meet these challenges; they created a brand new, sophisticated control room from scratch and installed the antenna system in record time, taking only 40 days at Masjid Al Haram and 20 days in Masjid Al Nabawi. After installation, the team was on hand for verifying the reliability and coverage for the system through 3 Jummuah services in both locations.

Muslim American Creates Digital Simultaneous Translation System

During the contract signing at General Presidency of Haramain, Makkah.Left to Right: Mr. Saeed Algarni, Mr. Waleed Alsagabi Translation Department Head, Mr. Mohamed Salahuddin President & CEO NAZTEC- Florida , Dr. Shaik Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais –President & Grand Imam of Masjid Al Haram & Masjid An Nabawi, Dr. Al-Khuzaim Vice President General Presidency of Haramain, and Mr. Ali Algarni.

Custom Antenna for the Translation services installed at Masjid Al-Haram, Makkah by NAZTEC – Florida.

From NAZTEC Press Release


Now non-Arabic speakers can enjoy high quality coverage within both the holy masjids and covering a radius of over 30 kilometers around the masjids. They can tune in to the channels in hotels and cars via FM broadcast or listen in on smartphones and some custom devices which are available via vending machines. In the near future there will be many other digital methods of listening to the translations.

Phase 1 of the project which launched this year provides 6 language translations: English, Urdu, French, Turkish, Indonesian (Malay) & Hausa (an African dialect used by many of those employed in Mecca and Medina). Phase-2 of the project is likely to start in next few months to add additional channels. The ultimate aim is to commission the 35-language system in both the holy places.

Other than translation of the Jummuah Khutbahs, the system will be used for tafsir of the Holy Qur’an during Ramadan, important announcements in multiple languages during Hajj, Ramadan, Fridays, and other special occasions. Mohamed exclaims, “We thank Almighty Allah to have blessed us and given this great life time opportunity to make a lasting difference to all the

visiting [Muslims] for generations to come at Masjid Al Haram & Masjid Al Nabawi!”

The commercial applications of such an innovative automated translation system are limitless and could open new doors for mass communication that will benefit humanity for many generations to come. Yet another great invention that Muslims have contributed to the world!

Established in the State of Florida in 2004, NAZTEC is a leading source for Information Technology Consulting,

Election Products manufacturing & Custom Engineering Project installations worldwide. NAZTEC is the nation’s leading voting booth manufacturer and supplies its election products to 33 different states and over 100 government clients nationwide. NAZTEC also installs hurricane alert broadcast terminals for NOAA. NAZTEC can be reached online at naztecgroup.com

State of the Art Custom designed Control Room for the Translation services installed at Masjid Al-Haram by NAZTEC-Florida

muslim american charlotte edition september 2015

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