August 9, 2018.
TO:
Islamic Society of Sheboygan
9110 Sauk Trail Rd.
Oostburg, WI 53070
http://islamicsocietysheboygan.com
920-564-3456
This is the maiden issue of the News Letter for the Muslim Community in USA. It is brought to you by the Muslim Planet Project. You can enjoy this News Letter in three ways:
· By reading it inline within this email.
· By opening the attached PDF file. This will have an arbitrary Mosque name and address instead of your own.
· By going to the newsletter blog here: http://NewsLetter.MuslimPlanet.org. This has an arbitrary Mosque name and address instead of your own.
Please check the accuracy of the information about your Islamic Center and update us with any changes by replying to this email. We also will appreciate information about other Islamic Centers and organizations in your area so we can keep our database current.
The Muslim Planet Project
News Letter Volume 1, Issue 1, Number 1, August 2018.
Announcements:
1. The News Letter welcomes scholarly contributions of timely relevance for the Muslim Community in USA. See the News Letter section http://muslimplanet.org/newsjournal.html for details. Contact us at: iCommunity@mail.muslimplanet.org (301-775-9555 and 240-614-6161)
2. We congratulate the people from Pakistan and India on their Independence Day.
3. You can participate by using our services described in this newsletter, and by volunteering your time and talent; as well as helping the Ummah’s current predicament with your donations, Zakat and Sadaqat.
To donate please click this link: http://muslimplanet.org/donate
In this Issue:
1. This maiden issue consists of one article contributed by Mr. Sabir Abdur Rahman who is an Islamic Scholar in Interfaith Dialogue. He is a member of the Muslim Community Center, Silver Spring, MD.
He can be reached at jamaalhomes@gmail.com. (301) 775-9555
Disclaimer: Views expressed in the articles are those of their authors and do not necessarily represent the Muslim Planet Project.
A Timely Appeal to the Muslim Community in USA
By Sabir Abdur Rahman
The New York Times of 28 June 2018 discussed the possible consequences of the retirement and replacement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. It stated: “In the simplest terms, the Supreme Court is likely to begin siding more often with those who already have power – and against those who don’t have much.”
It is a profound observation with far reaching consequences for the Muslim Community in USA. Already, some of us have experienced that “In the current political and social environment of USA the American Muslim Community does not receive human respect, citizen’s dignity, equal justice, and proper image depiction.” In view of the coming composition of the US Supreme Court, this predicament of Muslims in USA is likely to become direr.
Ray Hanania of the Daily Arab News observed that: “Left doesn’t care about Muslims, only uses them as wedge”. Then he goes on to explain: “Activists on the Left often claim that they champion the rights of others including Muslims and sometimes Arabs, but the truth is they really don’t support us. They just don’t mind using us for their own political agendas. Activists on the Left have been no less critical of Muslims and Arabs than activists on the Right. A recent controversy created by the Huffington Post involving Congresswoman Debbie Dingell and gubernatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed is a good example.”
The complete article is in the link below, and it is well worth the time anyone invests in reading it:
https://thearabdailynews.com/2018/07/17/left-doesnt-care-about-muslims-only-uses-them-as-wedge/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheArabDailyNews+%28The+Arab+Daily+News%29
Facing such precarious times and situations, it is high time that we the Muslims in USA follow the advice of Iqbal to stop waiting for tomorrow but make our tomorrow with our own efforts, as Quran 53:39 says: “And that man hath only that for which be maketh effort”, اَنْ لَّیْسَ لِلْاِنْسَانِ اِلاّٰ مَا سَعٰی.
We need to prepare and take care of ourselves because nobody is going to do it for us if we don’t actively do it for ourselves, as Quran 13:11 says: “Lo! Allah changeth not the condition of a folk until they (first) change that which is in their hearts”, إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُغَيِّرُ مَا بِقَوْمٍ حَتَّىٰ يُغَيِّرُوا مَا بِأَنْفُسِهِمْ ۗ
The key is to change our hearts. Let us get organized,
identify our needs and goals and 
proceed to work hard to
achieve them.
Iqbal pointed out that it is the very area where we are lacking. He emphasized that the salvation of East lies in a proper organization and discipline among the community, but the community are as yet unacquainted with this fact. He was talking about me and you.
He also told us that we need to gain strength before we
set out to make sacrifices for our mission. Let us do what 
Quran commands
and Iqbal emphasizes.
First, we need to get organized and disciplined in order to gain strength. We need to come together at a Platform for the Muslim Community in USA. The platform shall enable us to work among ourselves for accomplishing common goals.
Such a platform has already been created and is readily available for the community. Its availability makes it easy for us to work together for our collective goals. AlHamdoLillah. Now we need to generate authoritative content about our community, our heritage and history, our strengths and weaknesses, our opportunities, our issues and problems, and the goals and objectives we together want to accomplish.
Late Dr. Aftab Ahmad Khan used to say that if we do not tell our story, who will? If we let others tell our story, they will not tell the real story, and not tell it the way it should be told. Only we can tell our story and tell it right. Listen to what others are saying about us and read what they are writing, and we see the wisdom of what Aftab Bhai had said. The prevailing narrative about us is at such large variance from the reality. We need to take control of the narrative and project our real image. Only we can do it. Let us start to do it using the resources which have already been created and are readily available. MaShaAllah.
The Muslim Planet platform has been created and established to provide all the technological and sociological capabilities needed for collection, storage and dissemination of the vast information about our community: our identity and heritage, our history and future, our opportunities and strengths, our weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and our mission going forward. The platform is up and running to support these capabilities in an end-to-end manner.
It is the platform of the American Muslim Community that is designed and operated for the community and by the community.
It seeks to enhance the potential of the Muslim community in USA to strengthen itself and to prosper; share prosperity with everyone, and to outreach about the Muslim contributions to the world. You can read more about it at its website: www.muslimplanet.org. It is the platform of the Muslim Community in USA.
Our community is highly resourceful and educated, with a large number of scholarly individuals holding treasures of knowledge, ideas and writings. We as the community must build comprehensive and authoritative content into this platform. The Muslim Planet platform is available for the community to display their works and share them with the world. The platform offers the community members a suite of capabilities to share their ideas and writings with the world. 1. It will host their websites for them to share their knowledge globally; 2. it will provide them the blogging platform to share their writings; 3. it will give them email addresses at mail.muslimplanet.org; 4. it will electronically publish their scholarly works; and 5. it will also publish their scholarly works in hard copy. The community members are urged to share themselves with the larger Muslim community in USA while availing of these services.
Muslim Planet has developed a local mailing list for Washington D C metropolitan area as well as a list for USA. We are using one such list and the capabilities of the Muslim Planet platform to reach out to you via this newsletter. These lists are already good sized though efforts continue to expand the lists in comprehensiveness and in scope. The Muslim Planet platform is comprehensive and self-contained.
Contributions from the community are respectfully requested. Contribution is often viewed in financial terms, but here it also means active participation by the individual members of the community, and the support of community organizations. While financial help is indeed desired, we are also talking in terms of: (a). contribution to the platform content, (b). contributions to add to the e-mail lists, (c). to volunteer your time and expertise, and (d). to spread the word about the Muslim Planet platform with an appeal that it should be used widely.
For example, consider the website hosting for the mosques. Currently it is all random. Mosques are hosted with a myriad of hosting companies. Mosques have .com domains, .org domains, and .us domains. There is no systematic naming convention for the domain names. A common strategy for the Muslim community in USA would not be supported in such chaotic conditions. And that is not all. Look at what each mosque is paying for their website hosting charges?
The Muslim Planet platform will change all that. InShaAllah. It will advise mosques about the domain names, it will host the mosque websites with the community goals in mind, and it will provide hosting services at no cost.
It is therefore imperative, in the interest of the Muslim community, that the mosques migrate their websites from whichever company is hosting them to the services of the Muslim Planet platform – the platform of the Muslim community in USA. The service from the Muslim Planet platform will serve the community far better, and the money that each mosque saves will funnel back into the service of the community. InShaAllah. Out of these savings, the mosque can choose to provide a small voluntary donation for the services of the Muslim Planet.
Muslim Planet platform is not for profit. It currently runs on private funds and volunteer services. Therefore, each mosque is respectfully urged to do as suggested above, namely to migrate their websites to the Muslim Planet platform. Please circulate this letter within your community email list, so that the community members can use the services described here; and also forward this letter to other area mosques to enable them to have a website with the Muslim Planet platform.
Last but not the least, you are strongly urged to help the current predicament of the Muslim Ummah by helping the Muslim Planet platform with your donations, Zakat and Sadaqat.
To make a donation please click this link: http://muslimplanet.org/donate 
May Allah bless you and your community.
We offer our sincere thanks and respectful regards.
The Muslim Planet Project www.muslimplanet.org
iCommunity@mail.muslimplanet.org
Mr. Rahman: 301-775-9555 and Professor Choudhary: 240-614-6161