Huff Post: Salam Al MarayatiThis week, a historic convention will take place involving American Muslims and All Saints Church in rosy Pasadena — the first national Muslim convention at a church. We will move to how we collectively work for a cultural climate change that ends the paradigm of polarization. America’s religious diversity must be transformed from the largest potential energy in the world to kinetic energy for positive work — a change from houses of worship being the most segregated places in America and from religions at odds with one another to inter-religious cooperation.
Here are the challenges for Muslims. We are told that we are silent to extremism. When we speak out and establish a presence on any public stage, however, we are tarred with the typical attack, that we have “ties to extremism.” Building a community center in lower Manhattan gets us the“Ground Zero Mosque” crisis. Working in the State Department and the White House for American interests gets us accusations of the “Muslim Brotherhood infiltration and takeover” of America.