Photo by Sandra Whitehead

Waheed Ahmed, Ph.D., (left) and Will Perry (right) participated in a panel in May at the book launch for “Muslims in Milwaukee,”  Three University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee professors began research for the book in 2010, after Dr. Ahmed and his son Aamer proposed UWM conduct a demographic study of Milwaukee’s Muslims.

In an email to the Wisconsin Muslim Journal, Waheed Ahmed, Ph.D., politely offered a correction to an article I wrote in November about the history of the Milwaukee Islamic Dawah Center’s food pantry. The article credited former MIDC executive director Will Perry with founding the pantry. 

“We should place the credit where it belongs, although Will Perry’s contribution has been selfless and invaluable. Here is some additional information, which was not available to her at the beginning and probably to almost all people presently associated with the Dawah Center,” he wrote. “The first stage of every project, big or small, successful or not, is its conception and initiation. The food pantry idea was conceived, initiated and initially financed by Dr. Nauman Siddiqi, a nephrologist, who was doing his fellowship at the Medical College of Wisconsin … He was assisted in this effort by the late Br. Ayyub Al-Amin.

“He is one of those selfless people who try to remain out of the limelight,” Dr. Ahmed added. “However, a respectable and vibrant community like ours must place the credit where it belongs before all the witnesses are gone to meet their maker and the information is totally lost.” 

Exactly! I thought. 

Thus began our correspondence, a visit to his longtime home on Milwaukee’s south side and interviews with his children and others who witnessed Dr. Ahmed’s important role in establishing Milwaukee’s Muslim community.

The early days

In a subsequent email, Dr. Ahmed said, “I wrote a history of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee as well as that of the Dawah Center, both of which have become miserably outdated now. I am one of the two or three old goats who are still alive and are dying to tell the tale whenever opportunity is presented.”

“May my husband and I visit you?” I responded. 

“You and your husband are most welcome,” he replied. We visited in mid-January.

Dr. Ahmed’s wife, Syeda, greeted us at the door and directed us to the living room. She disappeared down a hall to tell her husband we arrived.  

Dr. Ahmed emerged from his study where he had been reading a variety of newspapers. One of them was The New York Times. He has been subscribing for 40 years and has never missed a day of reading it, he said.

Apologizing that he couldn’t hear well, the small man, dressed in a beige tunic and loosely fitted beige trousers, sat in a large armchair. He mentioned he still drives, but getting across the ice and snow to the garage behind the house is impossible these days.

Dr. Ahmed presented us with a copy of his self-published, 31-page booklet, “A History of the Islamic Center of Milwaukee, The Formative Years.” Published in 2012, it notes, “The author was the president of the Muslim Student and Community Association of Greater Milwaukee from 1982 to 1983 and the president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee from 1983 to 1986. This history was first published as a booklet in 1990 and now revised with minimal changes.”

As he did for my story, Dr. Ahmed wrote his history to set the record straight; its introduction explains. “Written records and documents are scarce and scattered,” he wrote. “If the Islamic Center loses its link with the past, it is likely to lose its relevance.” Having “been involved in the Islamic work in Milwaukee since 1979 and in the acquisition and the administration of the Center since 1979 to 1986, “I have in my possession facts as well as vivid memories which I would like to put on record for the benefit of those who might be interested,” he wrote.

Born in Hyderabad, India, in 1933, Waheeduddin Ahmed completed a Ph.D. in chemistry at London Metropolitan University. He worked as a professor at the University of Tripoli in Libya before coming to Milwaukee in 1976 to work as a research scientist at Sigma-Aldrich Chemical Company. 

Ahmed wrote in a Nov. 12 email that he came to know other Muslims in Milwaukee at the Sunday Islamic School run by the Muslim Student Association at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “In parallel with the classes for children, a Quranic study session for adults used to take place. This whole activity was organized by Dr. Suleyman Kurter. Abdullah Clark, Mahmoud Atta and Ayyub Alamin were among the attendees, he noted. 

“Those meetings were what gave birth to the Islamic Society of Milwaukee,” he wrote. “When the proposal for the formation of the Muslim Student and Community Association was made, Abdullah Clark was supposed to be the president of that organization, but for some reason he couldn’t attend the elections. So, Dr. Farooq Al Quadan was elected. After he left, Dr. Munir Al Gharaiibah succeeded him and, after him, I was elected president. From that setup, the ISM emerged with me as its first president.”

Milwaukee Public School System placed the New Road School for sale in 1982. It was purchased by a coalition of two early Milwaukee Muslim organizations (the Islamic Foundation of Greater Milwaukee and the Muslim Student and Community Association) for $115,000.

Another early Milwaukee Islamic organization, the Islamic Foundation of Greater Milwaukee, was also organizing to create a mosque for the Muslim community. Its members included M.Y. Quereshi (president), Mohammad Aslam Cheema, G.M. Shah, Hafiz Yunus, Mohammad Saleem, Mohammad Y. Khan and Mahmoud Atta.

During Dr. Ahmed’s presidency, the two organizations pooled resources to purchase a building in 1982 that had formerly been a Milwaukee Public School. It became a home for the Milwaukee Muslim community that included a mosque, Sunday school classrooms and an area in the basement used for Ramadan iftars and other events. The community expanded the ISM building in the Nineties, making a larger prayer hall and Wisconsin’s largest Islamic School.

Waheed Ahmed spent 14 years in England, where he completed a master’s and a doctoral degree in chemistry at London Metropolitan University and worked in a pharmaceutical company. 

Next up—the Milwaukee Islamic Dawah Center

With a home for the community, Ahmed and some other early leaders turned their attention outward. “The Islamic Center of Milwaukee (later ISM – Main) … was at first the target of considerable hostility from the local population,” Ahmed wrote in his history. “As is always the case, it was caused by ignorance about us which bred prejudice.”

Determined to pursue dawah (sharing the message of Islam), the early leaders held an open house, Ahmed said in the interview at his home. “People didn’t know about Islam. They thought we were maybe the P.L.O.

“Our idea was to somehow engage them in asking questions and we could give them information,” he said. “That led to the Islamic Information Center, which was a precursor to the Dawah Center.”

Brother Ayyub Al-Amin and his business partner Ali Lubbad monitored a 24-hour phone line. It rang in their store during business hours, then transferred to Al-Amin’s home phone afterwards. 

Longtime executive director of the Milwaukee Islamic Dawah Center Will Perry first met Dr. Ahmed in 1999 or 2000, Perry recalled in an interview with WMJ. “That’s when I learned about the Dawah Center and first got involved,” he said. “I met Dr. Waheed, his son Aamer, Brother Mahmoud Mala, Dr. Pruitt, Sheikh Zacharia, Mohammed Abdul Hamid … they were leading the Dawah Center and were all my mentors. Dr. Waheed was at the helm. He was president of the shura (the board).”

Dr Ahmed “was intent on getting the Dawah Center actively engaged in the greater community,” Perry said. “He’s a social activist kind of guy. He’s got to shake the tree a little bit, getting involved in the community politically and socially. He spearheaded a lot of that activity. And so did Aamer (Ahmed).

“Brother Waheed’s also an intellectual guy, a scientist. He’s always very thorough and systematic in his approach to things,” Perry added. “We all had a great appreciation for his knowledge and historical perspective. He’s been a guide for me in regards to having a broader view on Islam, its history and the impact it has had in the United States. He’s written some beautiful, in-depth articles where he breaks down complicated ideas in simple terms.”

Reflecting on the man

Dr. Ahmed’s son, Aamer Ahmed, 44, spoke with WMJ about his memories of his father. Aamer was born in 1981, the year before ISM formed.

“All of my earliest memories actually happened to be in the mosque,” he said in a phone interview from Florida, where he lives.  “He would take me along every time, for meetings, prayers, everything. The community was a lot smaller and everyone brought their kids along.

“From the standpoint of a child to now, I see the progression of the community. There were dynamics back then you don’t see so much now. One of them is that everyone had the shared goal of building a community. Now the community is well-built, well-established, with multiple institutions.

“Consequently, back then there was a greater need to bind together,” he said. “As a byproduct, the cultures were always secondary. So, I remember it as very diverse. People were from different backgrounds—Sunni, Shia, South Asian Muslims, Arab Muslims and Black Muslims were all together.

“That has shaped my outlook on life, and my mission and purpose in life as well,” said Aamer, who helped establish Mahruf, a Muslim social service organization.

“It was very family-oriented back then, too. Today, you’d hire a construction company and the contractors would do all the work.  Back then, the community came together and did a lot of stuff themselves. That created bonds between us across our diverse backgrounds.

“There was no full-time Islamic school,” he recalled. “My mom was a teacher and when she learned about the Clara Muhammad School, she quit her other school and asked for a job. I remember going there in a preschool type of situation.”

At that time, the Ahmeds lived on the north side of Milwaukee. Aamer was in middle school when they moved to the south side. “They only moved once since they came to America,” he said with a laugh.

“I see my dad as someone who was almost like glue that brought really disparate people together around a common cause,” Aamer said. “I think he did a good job diplomatically in creating a pathway for people to put their differences aside.

“In this country, it didn’t matter if you were Salafi or Sufi, Shia or Sunni, Palestinian or Pakistani. This country doesn’t see those things. They see you as Muslim. That is why my dad saw Dawah as so important. It let us create (for ourselves) an awareness of Islam and Muslims in America, to create a level of understanding and mutual respect between communities.  

Protesters hold signs in support of the detainee hunger strike outside Delaney Hall, where ICE is housing detained immigrants on June 7, 2026 in Newark, N.J. Credit: Adam Gray/Getty Images

Hundreds of noncitizens detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have gone on hunger strikes across the country to protest the widespread denial of due process and deteriorating conditions in detention centers during the Trump administration, according to advocates and detainees.

Conditions in ICE detention facilities have never been good, typically prompting around a dozen hunger strikes a year, said Josefina Mora-Cheung, director of organizing at La Resistencia, a grassroots organization that supports detainees at the Northwest ICE Processing Center (NWPIC) in Tacoma, Washington. Last year, La Resistencia documented 16 such protests, mostly carried out by single detainees. But this year, the group has already documented 18 hunger strikes involving about 25 individuals at NWPIC, the most recent of which ended July 20. 

“This year we’ve seen such a skyrocketing of numbers that indicates how much people are willing to put their lives at risk in order to call attention to these conditions that are ultimately life-threatening for people,” Mora-Cheung said. “People are not willing to give up so easily or to have their spirits broken.”

Hunger strikes in ICE jails have also been reported at Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California; North Lake Processing Center in Michigan; Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania; Prairieland Detention Center and Camp East Montana in Texas; Torrance County Detention Facility in New Mexico; the ICE unit at the Louisiana State Penitentiary or “Angola”; and Delaney Hall in New Jersey. About 500 noncitizens have reportedly joined the strikes.

Advocates say there have likely been more hunger strikes across the 425 jails administered by ICE and its network of private contractors, but the agency denies they are taking place and, according to the advocates, quickly tries to break them up through threats or coercion. 

ICE did not respond to a request for comment. 

Detainees complain about inhumane conditions—including unsanitary food and water, lack of medical care, widespread physical abuse, and retaliation for filing complaints—along with racist abuse and a complete absence of justice and due process.

Take the case of Rogelio Bolufé Izquierdo, a Cuban national who has gone on multiple hunger strikes, including one that lasted nine days in Torrance. Initially sent to the notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida, Bolufé was transferred nine times in retaliation for his organizing, according to La Resistencia.

Bolufé spoke with Prism over the phone from Guayaquil, Ecuador, where he was deported in June despite having an open asylum case and a pending appeal before an immigration court.

He claimed that detainees are denied access to legal counsel at the Torrance ICE jail and very likely at the other jails where he’d been detained. He also claimed that his legal court documents were taken from him and that facilities do not provide mail service, which is the only way detainees can follow their deportation proceedings or request asylum. 

“That was one of the main reasons we went on hunger strike,” Bolufé said.

“The legal proceedings do not follow due process. They are a farce,” he added. “The Fifth Amendment does not exist in U.S. immigration proceedings.”

Torturous conditions in ICE jails have been well-documented by advocacy groups over the past two decades. These conditions have not only persisted during the current Trump administration but have worsened, according to advocates.

At least 52 people have died in ICE custody since President Donald Trump’s inauguration last year. According to Human Rights Watch, this mortality rate is nearly four times that of the Biden administration and more than two and a half times that of the first Trump administration.

In the largest documented hunger strike of the year, at Delaney Hall in New Jersey, more than 300 men and women participated in a weekslong labor and hunger strike that ended in June. They denounced degrading conditions and a lack of due process, including arbitrary denials of bond and coercion to sign legal documents that would result in deportation.

“We see with profound helplessness and frustration that the right to due process & legal counsel were violated, and benefits granted in the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution were unacknowledged,” wrote 25 of the Delaney Hall hunger strikers in a public letter. The author, identified as Leonardo Villalba, was summarily transferred to another ICE jail, according to the letter’s postscript.

ICE could not simply deny that the massive hunger strike at Delaney Hall was happening, so agents resorted to violence, said Jenny García, a campaign coordinator at the nonprofit American Friends Service Committee’s New Jersey Immigrant Rights Program. ICE officers cut off the detainees’ external communication, repeatedly threatened to sabotage their cases, and brutally assaulted and pepper-sprayed them, García said.

Hunger strikers at Torrance were stripped naked and sent to cold cells, where they were exposed to 24-hour lighting, according to Bolufé, who spent seven months in that prison. Innovation Law Lab, an immigrant and refugee justice organization, has documented these cold chambers at Torrance, calling them torture.

At some point during his strike, Bolufé said he asked himself, “Why should I go on if it makes no sense? No one will find out. It’s a lawless situation; the law isn’t respected here, no one will know.”

Despite the odds, strikes have brought individual victories: answers about cases from ICE officials, release from solitary confinement, and release from detention altogether at NWPIC and Delaney Hall, which also secured $12 million in pro bono legal services, said Mora-Cheung.

“This is strong,” García said about the ability of detainees to organize and encourage one another amid the horrific and inhumane conditions in which they are confined. “What’s happening inside is the best of humanity.”

Pastor Darren Utley of First Presbyterian Church of Racine speaks at the Solidarity Fast for Gaza MKE in June on the Federal Courthouse steps in Milwaukee with members of Veterans for Peace, Peace Action Wisconsin, Jewish Voice for Peace, Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine, Milwaukee for Palestine, Wisconsin Christians for Justice in Palestine, Catholics for Peace and Justice, and others.

Milwaukee Muslims often spot a lanky man in a clerical collar protesting against Israel’s genocide in Gaza that began in October 2023. And long before, at rallies for Palestinian rights over the years, the minister universally called “Pastor Darren” stood with protestors, spoke at rallies and offered prayers.

A reverend with the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. and pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Racine, Pastor Darren has no apparent ties to Palestine—he has no Arab heritage. He is not part of the Muslim ummah (the worldwide Muslim community). Yet he has long been aware of the plight of the Palestinian people and has taken up the fight for their rights.

And, although Pastor Darren cannot personally take credit, no one was more pleased than he when on June 30 the Presbyterian Church U.S.A.’s General Assembly, which was meeting in Milwaukee, voted overwhelmingly (454 to 15) to declare Israel’s military actions in Gaza a genocide. It supported a U.S. arms embargo against Israel and divestment from specific corporations tied to the Israeli military. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, welcomed the decision, calling it “historic.” (In 2022, PCUSA also declared Israeli policies met the legal definition of apartheid and divested from select companies profiting from the occupation.)

Who is Pastor Darren and why does he always show up to defend Palestinian rights? The Wisconsin Muslim Journal conducted three interviews with Pastor Darren last week and also interviewed people who know him well to answer those questions.

Reverend Darren Utley leads prayer outside the Waupun Correctional Institution. He is an avid defender of the rights of incarcerated people.

Following his interest

Utley, 55, didn’t set out to be a clergyman. As he described it, he went to seminary and joined the clergy by default. With none of what he called, “Normal career ambitions,” he floundered. He taught high school “because I was offered a job,” he said. “I wasn’t necessarily bad at it; it just wasn’t doing it for me.”

It was the Bible’s Gospel stories that hooked him and reeled him in.

Throughout his childhood, Utley’s family bounced between different conservative Protestant Christian denominations, he said. His parents divorced when he was kindergarten age, and when his mother remarried, the family moved about every three years because of his stepfather’s work. 

“I don’t really know what it was but, when I was in high school, the main stories of the Gospel (which focus on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus) stuck out to me,” Utley said. “I would read and reread the Gospels (the first four books of the New Testament—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John). I wasn’t a ‘holier-than-thou’ type of kid; it was just something I did.

“I felt that those stories described a way of being in the world and it was something I wanted to figure out how to do.”

His interest in the Gospel stories didn’t match up with many professions, he noted. So rather than aspiring to a certain career, Utley focused on “studying that thing I’m interested in.” 

Going to Bible College in Ohio right after high school seemed like a logical choice, he said. “But that’s not what Bible college is. It’s really an indoctrination into a particular branch of understanding. I don’t remember the denomination now, but it was something like ‘the Christian Church,’ he said with a laugh. “Something fairly conservative.

“I didn’t find what I was doing there matched with what I thought I would be doing,” he said. “I ended up skipping classes and doing a lot of urban ministry work. I joined a group and we went out early in the morning, picked up donuts and went down to a homeless shelter, had a little church service and just talked with people. We’d look through the want-ads with them.”

Utley decided that Bible College wasn’t the right place for him. He moved back to Illinois to live with his parents for a while. Then he moved up to Grand Rapids, Michigan to stay with one of his high school friends. He stayed 12 years, met Debora, who became his wife and graduated from a Bible college of the Christian Reform Church. “It was fairly conservative, too,” Utley said. “But what I was interested in was finding people who were in need. That’s what the Gospels showed. I was wrestling with this idea of how to actually live like I should. Being a pastor doesn’t necessarily lead to being the kind of person you want to be.

“What keeps kind of coming back to me, and I don’t think this is unique to Christianity, it comes across multiple faiths and to people without faith, is this sense that we are created to live in a world in a certain way,” he explained. “This world that we live in has enough for everyone. If we place people in our hearts and desire peace, we know what to do. People know what justice is. It rings true.”

Elizabeth Brownson, Ph.D., (left) stood by as Racine Coalition for Peace and Justice president Sonali Knotek (right) introduced the University of Wisconsin-Parkside associate professor of history before her public talk on the often untold history behind the Israeli military’s assault on civilians in Gaza.

Fighting the good fight

Utley’s understanding of the Gospels and God’s message led him into activism, he said. “The Gospels is a story about that world God is calling into existence. There are people and powers who want to stamp that out for their own greed, their own profit and their own power. The people who want (to fulfill God’s will) have to fight them and do whatever you can to get to that world you want,” he said.

On a daily basis, it means “trying to attune myself to the voice that’s calling for the other possible world,” he said. And it’s not a fight for only Palestinian rights. “It goes across multiple causes. It’s the simple reality that everywhere there are people trying to live on their own land, sustain themselves and take care of their own people. If left alone, most people do that well.

“Take the example of Cuba,” he said. “When you’re with the everyday people there, there’s a natural tendency to try to help each other out to make it through the worst circumstances.”

In March, Utley went to Cuba to visit the First Presbyterian Church of Racine’s sister church. On that visit, “most of the time, I just followed people around, listening to their stories.”

Although it’s difficult for Americans to travel to Cuba due to U.S.-Cuba relations, Utley can get a religious visa that is requested by a religious organization in Cuba. “It’s a long process and you have to be prepared to apply 60 to 90 days in advance.”

Now he is preparing to go again soon. “After what happened in Venezuela in January with the kidnapping of their president and the first lady, then (the Trump administration’s) attention turned toward Cuba,” Utley said. “My family and I thought, “Well, we need to try to get down there and bring whatever we can to the church and the community down there.

“The people at the church there are serving the community, too, so taking it to the church is taking it to everyone. We just want to make sure to get things they need down there because we are worried it will really shut down again.” 

The Racine Coalition for Peace and Justice, a longstanding group that Utley joined after moving to Racine, is helping gather supplies and donations to go to Cuba with Utley.

Utley said the First Presbyterian Church in Racine and the Unitarian Church, that uses the church space and where Utley preaches once a month, have both been receptive to his call to stand with the oppressed. “In the Presbyterian Church, we are not decreeing on high what the people of the church should do. We are suggesting, making recommendations. People are open to changing their ideas. It is not as easy to change our actions.”

Utley’s underlying philosophy

“Especially since 9/11 and afterwards, what has shaped my advocacy is my reading of the Gospels,” Utley reiterated. “The Gospels and the Hebrew scriptures are anti-imperial scriptures for people subjected to imperial powers, whatever they may be. They ring out with the message not to accommodate or play along with the empires, that you have to be a separate people. You have to counter what they are doing.

“What I’ve learned over the past 25 years is that we live in the empire,” he continued. “We are today’s empire. We are Rome; we are Babylon. If we are trying to be a people who read these scriptures and follow them, what does it mean to combat empires for us? 

“In part, it means to stand on the side of those who are being oppressed by the empire, to be true to general human dignity.

“Beyond just having the right ideas about things, we need to be an actual presence. What does it mean to be people who are concerned about people’s liberation, people willing to bring unjust laws, to hide people, to provide sanctuary?”

North Memorial Health employee Zamzam Kussu helped give feedback to taff as they worked to implement a hygienice hijab program. She’s seen modeling the hijab on July 14, 2026. Credit: Aaron Nesheim | Sahan Journal

North Memorial Health recently began offering disposable hijabs at its hospitals, a step that staff say is a small gesture with a meaningful impact. 

Typically before going into surgery, patients and health care staff put on a bouffant cap to cover their head as a piece of personal protective equipment, or PPE, to ensure a sterile environment. Now, they can choose to wear a disposable hijab instead. Several other local hospital systems also offer disposable hijabs. North Memorial rolled them out for the first time this summer. 

Made of a breathable material, the hijabs come in two styles: one that can be wrapped around the neck similar to a traditional hijab, and another that can be pulled on over the head. Both of North Memorial’s hospitals in Robbinsdale and Maple Grove stock them.

The hijabs are a more culturally responsive option, but they also have an important hygienic purpose to prevent the spread of infection. 

“Patients and team members shouldn’t feel like they have to choose between their faith and receiving or providing care, so this program helps bridge the gap,” said Zamzam Kussu, who works in policy and compliance at North Memorial, and previously worked in patient-facing roles such as a nursing assistant.

Kussu, who is Muslim, helped give feedback to hospital staff as they worked to implement the hijab program.  

She said previously Muslim health care workers would have to take steps to ensure their hijab wasn’t exposed in an operating room. Health care workers need to scrub in and out before each procedure. Kussu said health care workers would need to remove their hijabs or ensure they were completely covered by PPE, like bouffant caps.

The bouffant caps are made of a more transparent material that didn’t meet modesty standards, and would frequently fall off. The disposable hijabs can easily be changed out between patients, and are made of a more opaque material. 

North Memorial is buying the hijabs from Mawadda, a local startup founded by two Muslim respiratory therapists. After years of trying to tuck their hijabs underneath PPE, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, the founders of Mawadda decided to create their own product. In addition to North Memorial Health, Mawadda also works with Hennepin Healthcare and other hospitals across the country.

North Memorial Health has developed disposable hijabs for patients and staff, pictured July 14, 2026. Credit: Aaron Nesheim | Sahan Journal

Jessi Kingston, the system director at North Memorial, said she started looking into providing disposable hijabs after an operating room worker asked about them.

“I’m glad North listened and developed the inclusion to support both patients and team members, it’s a very good thing,” Kussu said. 

The process to implement the disposable hijabs took several months and included testing to make sure they met the hospital’s operating room and infection prevention standards, Kingston said. Employees like Kussu also gave feedback on hijab samples and tested their style and fit. 

For patients undergoing procedures, Kingston said offering the hijabs can be a small gesture that can help them feel more at ease. Oftentimes patients are vulnerable when at a hospital, and may be experiencing stressful situations. 

“To the extent that we can recognize who they are, provide something that respects whether it’s their religion or their culture, and make that as seamless as possible, … I think it helps them in their health journey,” she said. 

SUMMARY: Parents can foster connections with their children by focusing on and participating in what interests in them, even if the stage passes as they grow.

Have you ever received that familiar piece of advice, “Enjoy them now because they grow up so fast”? As a mom of multiple children, with one already in their twenties, I can absolutely attest to that. One moment, you are holding a little bundle of joy in your arms, staring into those loving little eyes, and the next, they are rolling those same eyes at you with an attitude you never expected. Welcome to the world of parenting! It is unpredictable, frustrating, and incredibly rewarding all at once, and somehow it goes by much faster than we realize. As children grow older, it may seem like some distance begins to form in the parent-child relationship. During the preteen and teenage years, they naturally become more independent, increasingly influenced by their peers, and more invested in a world that may sometimes feel separate from our own. However, that does not mean you have completely lost your baby girl or boy. They still need their parents, even if the way they need us begins to change. 

Finding ways to enter our children’s world, taking an interest in what matters to them, and creating opportunities for genuine connection can be essential to maintaining that special parent-child bond. Sometimes, staying close simply means being willing to care about what they care about, even when we do not quite understand its appeal. I have learned from experience that children’s interests, much like their moods, can shift dramatically from one day to the next. One minute, they are playing with dolls and Lego sets, and the next, they are suddenly interested in crocheting, sports, or something else entirely. They may even leave all those hobbies behind at some point and become completely absorbed in electronics. As parents and trusted adults in their lives, our first instinct may be to question these changes or, depending on the new interest, even panic a little. Resist the urge! Believe me, learning to approach their interests with curiosity rather than immediate criticism will be much better for your relationship in the long run. 

Ask me how I know!

When one of my children was in their teens, they became completely engrossed in the world of manga, or Japanese comics. They wanted to draw the characters, read the books, and even buy posters. As a practicing Muslim parent, I became concerned about whether it was permissible to draw these types of characters, especially since they can be incredibly detailed and are sometimes depicted wearing inappropriate clothing. Admittedly, I may have overreacted and told my child that these images were completely forbidden. Instead of deterring the interest, however, my reaction only seemed to make my teen double down and push back even more. Our constant conflicts eventually led me to consult a scholar about my concerns and my child’s newfound pastime.

When I reached out to the sheikh, I fully expected him to confirm my fears, tell me how haram the behavior was, and advise me to put an immediate stop to it. Instead, his advice was quite the opposite. He reminded me that my child’s interests would not necessarily last forever and advised me not to make this particular issue into a constant source of conflict. My husband and I could not believe what we were hearing, but we took his advice and gave our child some room to navigate their pursuits. Sure enough, the obsession with manga eventually shifted to something else, and then to another thing after that. That is the thing about children; their hobbies, fascinations, and tastes can change dramatically as they grow and discover who they are. Rather than fighting them over everything, we must learn to choose our battles. Sometimes, preserving the relationship and keeping the lines of communication open will have a much greater impact.

I have written before about how, when my children were young, they were exposed to superheroes through their teachers and peers at Islamic school. Even though I wanted them to grow up only looking up to Muslim heroes, they inevitably got swept up in the world of superheroes that fascinated their friends. Instead of fighting against something that had already captured their attention, we decided to provide them with a safe space at home to explore those interests under our supervision and guidance. When they wanted to watch a show or movie featuring one of their favorite characters, we turned it into a family movie night. The children felt seen and loved as they cuddled up next to us to watch the latest superhero flick, and it gave us an opportunity to spend quality time together while staying engaged with what captured their imaginations. Was it always how I wanted to spend my Friday night? Probably not. However, I have since learned to appreciate those little moments when we can create memories with our children while they still want us around.

As my children got older, their interest in music became another topic of contention. There are significant differences of opinion among Muslim scholars regarding the permissibility of music and musical instruments, and our family has always leaned toward the stricter side of that spectrum. For that reason, music was not something we generally allowed in our home. When our children were young, we could more easily limit what they listened to, and the Quran and nasheeds were primarily what they heard as they grew up. Once they reached their teenage years, however, they were inevitably exposed to more music through movie soundtracks, friends, social media, stores, and even school. As much as I resisted their growing interest, I eventually had to recognize that I could not control everything they encountered, especially as they became older and more independent.

Over time, we found ways to compromise within boundaries we felt comfortable with, such as allowing them to listen to some clean music during Eid celebrations or while working out. They were thrilled by this small amount of flexibility, but more importantly, it helped keep the lines of communication open. They felt comfortable sharing with us the artists and songs they liked, rather than feeling they had to hide their interests. At the same time, we maintained clear boundaries regarding content, explaining that anything containing foul language or indecent lyrics was unacceptable. They understood and, for the most part, respected those limits. I came to accept that knowing what my children were listening to and having conversations about it gave me a greater chance to guide them than simply pretending I could prevent them from encountering music altogether.

This Too Shall Pass

These experiences have taught me an important lesson that applies to many of the challenges we face as Muslim parents. We can never protect our children from or prevent them from being exposed to everything. More important is that we establish a solid foundation at home, set reasonable boundaries, recognize where there is room for flexibility, and equip our children with the knowledge they need to make responsible decisions. Our children should not be afraid to tell us about their doubts, what captures their attention, or what they do not understand regarding the permissibility or impermissibility of certain activities. If they feel comfortable enough to approach us and talk openly about their questions, likes, and dislikes, we have a better chance of remaining a trusted source of support in their lives. More importantly, that openness helps us stay connected and make the most of the precious time we have together before they grow up and begin navigating more of the world on their own.

Everyone’s interests continue to shift, and the latest craze in our house is collecting and trading Pokémon cards. At first, I did not quite see the appeal, but before long, it became a beloved family activity that everyone wanted to participate in. Even I started showing more interest, not necessarily because I suddenly understood the excitement of collecting cards, but because I saw how happy it made my children to have their parents join in on something they love.

The truth is, they may not care about Pokémon cards forever. Before we know it, this interest will probably give way to something entirely different, just as so many others have over the years. But that is precisely why we should take advantage of these moments while we can. We do not have to love everything our children love or even fully embrace why they love it. Sometimes, simply showing up, asking questions, watching the movie, listening to the story, or learning the game is enough to show them that what matters to them matters to us. 

Photos by Cherrie Hanson

From left, brothers Haseeb, Baseer and Naseer Hussaini bring their favorite Chicago-based halal restaurant to Milwaukee.

When members of the Hussaini family craved delicious fast food, they would drive at least once a month to a Chi Tea restaurant in the Chicago area to get their fix. When they saw they weren’t the only ones from the Milwaukee area seeking halal hot chicken sandwiches and smash burgers, a longtime aspiration clicked into place. 

Baseer and Haseeb Hussaini recently opened Chi Tea Hot Chicken and Burgers, 7251 S. 76th Street, Franklin, the first Wisconsin location for the Chicagoland chain. The fast-casual restaurant, located in a former Pizza Hut space at the Franklin Centre plaza, had its grand opening June 26.

The new Chi Tea restaurant (the name refers to chicken + boba tea) brings the brothers’ business dream to fruition. 

“The idea has been there for a few years, and we thought that something like this would do great in Franklin,” Haseeb said. 

The two realized that Chi Tea would fill a void in the Milwaukee area for food that is not only fast-casual, but halal.

“Number one, the quality of the food is great. Second, there’s really nothing like this in the City of Milwaukee, or even Wisconsin in general. We felt that people were really looking for fast, pickup food where they don’t necessarily have to dine in,” Baseer said.

Chi Tea restaurant has dine-in seating and ample bench seating in the waiting room for carryout.

The franchise, which has multiple locations in the Chicago area along with a restaurant in Texas, is popular for its halal-certified fried chicken sandwiches, smash burgers, loaded fries and handcrafted boba tea. 

“Once they agreed to work with us, we started looking for the perfect location,” Haseeb said. “This strip mall drew us in because it has a lot going on and it’s a good, high-traffic area,” he said, noting the Pick ‘n’ Save and a range of thriving businesses and a large dental clinic. Additionally, Franklin High School is nearby, and a new Islamic school is being built just minutes away. 

Once Baseer and Haseeb had committed to be franchisees, they took on-the-job training at the Chi Tea restaurants.

“I’ve never worked at a kitchen,” Baseer said “So, we would go to Chicago for two months straight—we went every single weekend to their different locations in Illinois—to train and get different experiences. The franchise owners did a great job of assisting us in what we needed to know and providing us all the details and all the recipes and making sure that we didn’t open before we felt like we were ready to run the business on our own,” he said.

On June 27th the Hussaini family celebrated the grand opening of Chi Tea with a ribbon cutting ceremony by Franklin’s mayor John Nelson.

Concise menu delivers quality and consistency

Because Haseeb and Baseer loved the food and the business model, Chi Tea was a logical choice for their new business venture.

“My go-to foods are a nice chicken sandwich, a good smash burger, and when you combine it with boba, it’s amazing,” Baseer said. 

Haseeb said his longtime menu favorite was the popular Big Bird, a Nashville-style hot chicken sandwich. The coleslaw topping is key, he said.

“The coleslaw 100 percent makes the sandwich for me. It’s just the perfect mix of ingredients,” Haseeb said. His current favorite, however, is Beef Loaded Fries paired with his go-to drink: peach boba with mango popping pearls (they pop on your tongue with a little burst of flavor).

“Along with the fried chicken sandwich (grilled is an option), loaded fries and boba tea, smash burgers, wings, mac and cheese, fried pickles, fruit teas, chai tea and banana pudding round out the menu.

“Besides loving the food, another reason why I really like this franchise is that the menu is very limited and everything we make is to perfection,” Baseer said.

“You’re not spread too thin. And the meat is fresh, antibiotic-free and everything is natural with no preservatives. Our chicken and even our beef is never frozen. Everything is made fresh to order.” 

Business is a family affair

Haseeb has an information technology management degree from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and previously worked at Johnson Controls, while Baseer is a full-time industrial engineer at Ingeteam, a global renewable energy company based in Milwaukee. Both said the restaurant is humming along thanks to their family. Their younger brother Naseer works in the restaurant as the “boba man.” Their father Wahab, an experienced business owner, is a main investor in the business and a valuable mentor to his sons. 

Jamal Amro and his son Adam enjoy refreshers and conversation while waiting for their food order. 

“We learned a lot from my dad in terms of how to operate and manage a successful business, from inventory to all the business-related aspects that go into it,” Baseer said. “We’ve been learning the business side of things our entire lives and that helped us a lot in dealing with customers and customer service and making sure that the customer is getting the quality product that they deserve.”

Haseeb said business runs in the family.

“Business is something that my family has a passion for—my parents, my uncles—we just come from a business family, so even though it’s something that we didn’t know we had in us, me and my brothers, it was basically instilled in us,” Haseeb said.

Chi Tea Hot Chicken and Burgers is located at 7251 S. 76th Street in Franklin.

Their mother, Farheen, vice principal at Salam Elementary School, pitches in preparing tea, making mac and cheese and even working the fryers. Baseer’s wife Jehan, a speech pathologist, helped design the space—even drawing up a blueprint—created promotional flyers, helped set up online ordering and lends a hand at the restaurant whenever needed. Her father, Nabil Salous, an engineer and contractor, did Chi Tea’s interior build-out and construction.

Engineer Nabil Salous relaxes in waiting area he helped design and build. 

After being open for about a month, the Hussainis are pleased with the reception they have received and the brisk pace of the business. 

“So far, the response has been amazing,” Baseer said. “We’re seeing different ethnicities, we’re seeing different ages. What we would like to see, and we’re seeing right now, is it’s inclusive, and it brings all kinds of people out, which is what you need for a successful business and for the longevity of it.”

A record-tying heat wave helped spread a wildfire in Northern California’s Shasta and Trinity counties in July 2018. Terray Sylvester/Getty Images

When heat waves hit the Western United States, the risk of wildfires quickly rises. The prolonged heat dries out vegetation, but that’s only part of the cause – heat waves also play other roles in spreading wildfires.

In a new study, our team of fire and climate scientists looked at two decades of wildfire activity in the West, from 2001 to 2024, and for the first time quantified the effect of heat waves on those fires.

We expected a big impact, but the numbers still surprised us: While heat waves, which we defined as three or more consecutive days with temperatures in the top tenth of hottest days, accounted for only 12% to 15% of warm-season days, we found that 42% of all the area burned by fires had occurred during or right after a heat wave.

A wildfire burns near Merced, Calif., during a heat wave in June 2024. Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images

Heat waves also limit nighttime humidity. The drier air allows fires to remain active for longer periods and burn through more hours of the night.

Making matters worse, heat waves can create conditions favorable for lightning because of the hot, unstable atmosphere. We found increases in cloud-to-ground lightning, including “dry” lightning, during and after heat waves across many parts of the West.

An illustration shows how heat exacerbates wildfire risk. Mukesh Kumar

Dry lightning can occur when the precipitation in a storm system evaporates before it reaches the ground. This type of lightning is particularly dangerous because it can ignite vegetation without producing enough rainfall to douse the flames.

These factors combine to heighten the risk of wildfires. That risk often persists even after the heat wave ends, as dry vegetation and dead material on the ground tend to remain unusually dry for days after temperatures return closer to normal – allowing fires to continue growing.

Trends in heat and fires

The connection between heat waves and wildfire activity is becoming increasingly important because heat waves are becoming more common as global temperatures rise, fueled by greenhouse gas emissions.

Since 2001, the number of heat wave days across Western U.S. forests has nearly doubled. During the same period, the amount of forest area burned increased by 2.5 times. Strikingly, without the increase in heat wave days since 2001, we found that the cumulative are of burned forest would have been 37% smaller.

Heat waves have a bigger influence in some regions than others. The map shows the percentage of the total area burned during and immediately following heat waves from May to October, 2001-2024. Dmitri A. Kalashnikov, et al., 2026

However, not all ecosystems respond the same way.

While we found a strong long-term relationship between increasing heat waves and increasing burned area in forests, this was not the case in grasslands and shrublands, where the total burned area has not increased. In grasslands and shrublands, the amount of land that burns in a given year is influenced more strongly by the amount of available vegetation than by heat alone.

How burned area and lightning-caused wildfire ignitions increase during and after heat waves, from a review of wildfires in the Western U.S. from 2001 to 2024. The chart shows the percentage increase each day compared to levels before a heat wave. For example, on average, the seventh day after the heat wave starts produces an almost 200% increase in forest burned area compared to the conditions that existed before the heat wave. John Abatzoglou

A future with even drier heat waves

Climate change is causing Western U.S. summers to trend hotter and drier. Consequently, relative humidity during heat waves has also declined in recent decades, especially in forested regions of California, Oregon and Washington.

These drier heat waves appear particularly effective at increasing wildfire activity. Alongside long-standing fire deficits, which resulted from the practice of quickly extinguishing fires rather than allowing low-level fires to burn away forest debris, these factors have escalated the potential for large fires in the West.

Wildfire forecasts already account for factors such as wind, humidity and fuel dryness, but they typically have not included heat waves. Our research suggests that heat waves deserve greater attention, as they are not just periods of uncomfortable and sometimes deadly weather, but are also increasingly important drivers of wildfire risk.

An exam at a private university in Kabul. Photograph: Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty

Before he leaves for Kabul University each morning, Hashmat* checks his face for the beard he has been ordered to grow. Male students are required to grow their facial hair and wear traditional Afghan clothes and those who fall short are punished. Hashmat says he recently saw a classmate beaten for wearing trousers.

“They look at you before they listen to you. If your appearance is wrong, you are already in trouble before the class begins,” he says.

Five years after the ultra-conservative Islamists of the Taliban retook Afghanistan, students have described to the Guardian a collapsing education system, with women banned, lecturers leaving and teaching increasingly focused on religious subjects and discipline.

Students are required to attend religious lectures and pray in public every day, sometimes for two hours at a time, says Hashmat. The lectures are about Islam, conduct and obedience. They are not optional. In some cases, he says, they are held during time that would otherwise be used for regular academic courses.

“I am missing my actual classes to sit in a lecture about obeying. That is what they [the Taliban] think education is for. Everyone talks about the girls who were banned, but nobody talks about what is happening to the boys who were allowed to stay.”

Another student studying in central Afghanistan said the problem is not only weak teaching, but also the disappearance of debate and questioning from the classroom. “We are expected to listen, not to question,” says Qader*. “Since the fall of Kabul, the university has lost its purpose. It feels more like a madrassa now — a place where curiosity is banned and remaining silent ordered.”

A booklet on Islamic civilisation that students say they are forced to study. Photograph: Handout

Hashmat studies journalism, a subject shaped by digital tools, online platforms, verification, ethics and technology, but as he listens in class, he says he wonders whether the person teaching the course understands the subject well enough to teach it.

“He is teaching us about the modern world while struggling to use PowerPoint in the class. How can you teach journalism technology if you do not understand what technology is?”

Hashmat’s account matches those of more than 20 students interviewed by phone at public and private universities in seven provinces across Afghanistan – Kabul, Kandahar, Helmand, Nangarhar, Bamiyan, Balkh and Wardak.

Afghanistan’s higher-education sector contracted sharply between 2019 and 2024, according to Unesco, with female enrolment down to zero by 2024 and male enrolment falling from 310,369 in 2019 to 188,957 in 2024.

Kabul University still looks like a university from the outside. The buildings are open, male students still attend, exams are held and degrees are issued. But students say much of what makes it a university has been hollowed out.

Experienced professors have left the country, stopped teaching or been pushed aside. And ideologically aligned Taliban lecturers have been hired in their place. In some departments, recent graduates and even undergraduates are teaching.

A graduation ceremony at Kandahar University in 2024. Photograph: Samiullah Popal/EPA

Hashmat points to one lecturer who, he says, finished his own degree only two years earlier. “Now he is standing in front of us. It is clear he does not know more than we do.”

Zalmay*, a student in Helmand province, describes a similar decline in the quality of teaching. “Some teachers come to class and only read from old notes,” he says. “When we ask questions, they cannot explain beyond what is written in front of them. We are university students, but sometimes it feels like we are back in high school.”

A former Kabul University professor, who has requested anonymity because he fears retaliation, confirms the students’ accounts and says the loss of qualified lecturers has weakened universities that are still expected to produce graduates.

Nearly all those who have spoken to the Guardian describe some version of the same crisis: weak teaching, underqualified lecturers, mandatory religious lectures, pressure over appearance and a growing belief that education no longer leads to work.

Kabul University once meant something very different. For generations, it trained Afghanistan’s doctors, engineers, journalists, civil servants and political leaders. To be admitted there was a source of pride for a family. It meant a brighter future was possible.

Taliban fighters outside a Kabul university last August. Photograph: Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty

After the fall of Kabul, Hashmat says two of his younger brothers dropped out of school. They no longer believe education would help them find jobs or build a future. For years, school was presented as the safest path forward: study, graduate, work, support the family. Since the Taliban takeover, that promise no longer seems real.

“They do not believe education will help them any more. I am reaching the same conclusion and find it hard to attend classes.”

Even on campus, Hashmat says, journalism students feel hostility. They are studying an occupation that has been restricted, lost professionals and treated with suspicion. Many independent news outlets have closed. He says he and his classmates have been called shaitan (Satan) by their teachers.

“We are studying journalism in a country where journalism barely exists. What are we being trained for?” he asks.

The question has worn down many of his classmates. Some still attend because their families expect them to; some come because a degree, even a weakened one, still carries social status.

But Hashmat says many fellow students no longer believe in what they are doing. “They come because their families want them to. But inside, they have already given up.

“I keep going because I do not know what else to do. But every day it gets harder to believe it means something,” he says. “The Taliban war on the battlefields has stopped, but their war on education continues in silence.”

* Names have been changed to protect their identities

For the important governor position, WMCA added steps to its already rigorous endorsement evaluation process, Qureshi said. In addition to asking candidates to complete a questionnaire on civil rights and civil liberties, immigrant and refugee policy, economic opportunity, funding for education and healthcare, equity, support for working families and other issues, it held a forum so the audience could see how they responded firsthand. It also reviewed their records.

It’s not just a matter of alignment, Qureshi emphasized. “We looked at what candidates have actually done. 

“For example, staffing is important,” she said. “How much staff diversity do you have in your campaign? Francesca is the first state representative in Wisconsin to have a Muslim serve as chief of staff—something very big. Nada Elmikashfi is a Muslim, first-generation American, born in Sudan.

“Rep. Hong didn’t decide to run for governor, then come to ask for our vote. She has supported our community for years. She has supported our organization. At our 2025 iftar (a dinner breaking the Ramadan fast), we honored her with our Advocacy Champion Award, ‘for supporting our community and committing to recognize Muslim contributions through legislation.’

“In a year with so much at stake, who sits in the governor’s office matters enormously to us,” Qureshi said. “We care about the veto power over legislation affecting Muslim immigrants, refugee communities and all of us; and about executive control over the state agencies that investigate and prosecute hate crimes, and about how immigrant refugees are administered at the state level. 

“The governor really sets the state’s public tone on issues like IHRA and anti-BDS legislation. The governor sets the budget, determining funding priorities. The position holds a lot of power.”

Gov. Tony Evers signed legislation that made the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism state law. WMCA and other critics of the law have said it undermines free speech because it equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. WMCA lobbied aggressively against that legislation.

“A lot of community members understood the importance of the governorship during the time when we were trying to make sure that the IHRA definition of antisemitism was vetoed,” Qureshi said. “Coincidence or not, we know Brother Salah (Sarsour) was taken a few days after the IHRA definition was signed into law. The governor had the ability to veto that legislation, legislation that could have a harmful impact.” Sarsour was taken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on March 30 in what The New York Times reported “appears to be the latest case in which the administration has sought to deport someone who was active in pro-Palestinian causes.”

Endorsements for Senate and Assembly 

WMCA endorsed candidates only for races contested in the Aug. 11 primary, which will determine which candidates run in the general elections on Nov. 3. It will release another set of endorsements before the midterm elections in November.

The 2026 November general election will be the first since 2010 in which all three top executive and legislative offices in Wisconsin will change hands at the same time. Incumbents Gov. Tony Evers, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) have all announced they will not seek re-election. 

Corrine Hendrickson won WMCA’s endorsement for the Wisconsin Senate, District 17.

In other contested primary races, WMCA endorsed nine candidates for state Assembly seats:

WMCA urges Muslims to vote Aug. 11

“It’s extremely important to vote in the primary on Aug. 11,” Qureshi added. “This will determine who is in place to make things happen. 

“We need to understand that everything is political—the price of food, our right to practice our faith, our right to free speech. All of it is shaped by who’s in office.”

Quiet service and a long-term vision for upcoming generations were the hallmarks of a little-known yet important Islamic teacher in the United States who passed away this week. Yahiya Emerick may not be a household name, but it is likely that Muslims growing up in North America will have encountered his books: he left a legacy of Islamic literature for various ages that is hard to match, certainly in the Anglophone world.

Yahiya John Joseph Emerick was born into an Irish-American Baptist family in the American Midwest in 1971. Having picked up a fascination with fantasy literature in his youth, he brought adaptable, creative writing skills and an active imagination into the world of Muslim writing after converting to Islam. That conversion came after some trouble during his teenage years in accepting the concept of the Trinity among Christians. In his first year of university during the late 1980s, he studied the Quran for some six months and, as he said during a rare interview, “couldn’t deny the personal appeal from God to the reader.”

By contrast Emerick was disappointed in the writing quality of many English-language Islamic books during his early years in the faith. “I saw,” he said in the same interview with the UmmahReads blog, “that a lot of Islamic books were written in a very one-dimensional way without much verve or imagination. I wanted to write books that would show people how I saw Islam when I came into it. For me, Islam was a blend of spiritual, emotional, intellectual and practical things all woven together in an artistic tapestry that one could use to decorate their inner and outer world.”

As a history schoolteacher, Emerick began an impromptu fictional series about Ahmad and Layla Deen that formed part of his oeuvre: such fictional stories about and for Muslims were much rarer when he started out than they are now. On the importance of fiction for Muslim children, he explained, “Kids look almost exclusively for inspiration and identity from their peer group. Books are another window into viewing and adopting attitudes and if our kids spend their reading time reading only about non-Muslims and their world, then our Muslim kids will feel that the non-Muslim world is the ‘real’ world…Having some books with Muslim characters allows our kids to see that, in addition to the non-Muslim world, there are places and spaces to be Muslim, also. The two can even mix, and in that mix, Islam can still remain.”

In addition to fiction, Emerick wrote a large number of books explaining Islam for readers of various ages: these included an addition to the famous “Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding” series, which publishes basic explainers for novices and was particularly widespread during the 1990s and 2000s. Several of his books were written to explain the Quran, especially to teenagers. “Muslims take it for granted that, well, a kid from a Muslim family will be and stay Muslim by osmosis and association.” In a secular environment, “Muslims have…to do da’wah to our own children in order to win their loyalty for life. I write books, therefore, to bring Islam to our young people in a way tailored for them. Too many of our ‘scholars’ live in ivory minarets and fail to see the lives of the real people below them.”

On the growing body of Muslim literature in the Anglophone world, he remarked that he would like to see more “teenage, real life experiences.  A lot more literature for the tween set. We need a monthly kids magazine and a separate monthly teen magazine. These have been tried in the past, but always failed, due to a variety of factors. We also need more diverse literature, not just flighty poetry or political books.”

Emerick’s body of work was particularly impressive given that he worked two jobs and largely self-published through his personal press, Amirah Publishing Company. In addition, he was involved in both activism and interfaith initiatives and founded the Islamic Foundation of North America bookstore. His books have covered a large number of topics and genres, and his death to cancer is a loss to the Muslim community.

One of Yahiya Emerick’s many books.

One of his former students, Fawzia Syed, expressed her shock in a social media post. “Brother Yahiya” was her first Islamic Studies teacher, the first convert she had met, and one whose work she still uses as a “starter kit” for young Muslims.

“The depth of my sadness has honestly surprised me,” she wrote. Emerick had been her first Islamic studies teacher and an accessible one. As he worked on his Islam edition for the Complete Idiot’s Guide series during recesses, she recalled, “my friend and I would bother him while he was writing, asking him all kinds of questions. We’d ask him what he was writing about, about Islam, why he became Muslim, and probably every random question curious middle schoolers think of. One of the things I appreciate most is that I was never too intimidated to ask him questions. He was never impatient with answering, nor did he ever make feel any of my questions were silly. He was an authority figure, but I felt like I could ask him anything — either he would answer us or laugh it away.”

Serving upcoming generations for Allah’s sake was a major theme in Emerick’s life, as explained in his final thoughts in the UmmahReads interview: “I believe we, as Muslims, need to transform ourselves to meet this challenge. We must come out of our cocoons, smell the chai and see how we can make Islam relevant for the coming centuries. Future generations will either have an easier time being Muslim or a harder time based on our groundwork today. That’s a big responsibility and it is what Allah (swt) requires of us. Strive together in His cause, the Qur’an tells us, and we will be compensated with satisfaction and Allah’s good pleasure. Truly that is what seekers should work to achieve!  Ameen.”

Emerick’s student, Syed, recalled that he had gifted her three of his books as his former student. After his signature at the end, he wrote, “Thinking long term.”

Innalillahi wa inna ilayhi rajioun. May Allah accept his service.

In the first part of this article, the counselor gave examples of 2 cases that suffer from obsessive compulsive disorders (OCD).

In this part, she will analyze the mentioned cases and explain more about the different types of Obsessive Compulsive Disorders.

The obsessive-compulsive symptoms are not attributable to the physiological effects of a substance or another medical condition.

In Ahmed’s case, it was detected as he had Hypochondrias type OCD.  Persistent visits to numerous doctors to check for cancer (a brain tumor) were eventually flagged in the system for him having a possible mental health illness.

Part of the OCD complex is about being responsible (fear of not being responsible) and being in control (lack of control).  It seemed apparent to Ahmed, that by seeking out numerous doctors, tests and opinions, (despite all physicians coming up with the same diagnosis), that he was being responsible and that he was in control of his fear (brain tumor).

However, this excessive behavior reduced his anxiety only to an extent.  As a resident medical student, Ahmed’s OCD may be addressed as due to social and career constraints.

On the other hand, Fatimah, who suffered from Checking Behavior type OCD, will likely go on for years suffering from her OCD. Checking behavior is not that apparent unless the person lives with someone who notices the excessive behaviors. Or if it begins to severely interfere with her schooling or job.

Different types of OCD

There are many types of OCD and each serves a purpose relating to an initial thought. Some are related to fears of-

• becoming ill
• violence
• sexual behaviors
• germs
• irresponsibility and so forth

The action or act to reduce the ensuing anxiety as well as avoidance behaviors are all part of the OCD. These actions are such as

• washing one’s hands 20 times a day
• checking something repeatedly, such as if the oven was left on
• counting up to a certain number
• passing through a door way an exact number of times repeatedly before finally going through
• organizing your desk (not wanting to, but having to organize it to reduce anxiety) until everything is symmetrical, and looks “just right”

On the inside

OCD produces both thoughts/images and actions/behaviors. Intrusive thoughts or images can include:

• thoughts about making mistakes
• harming someone
• contamination
• disease
• religious preoccupation
• fears of impulses or desires
• just about anything that you might consider dangerous, disgusting or dirty

Examples of obsessions are:

• “I made a mistake at work and it will blow up on me”
• “The chair I touched is contaminated”
• “I had a violent fantasy and now I will lose control”
• “The gas – I left it on!”
• “I did something that God will punish me for”

Once you have the intrusive thought, you begin looking for more examples of these thoughts.

Most people with OCD realize that their obsessions are not based in reality. Still, they only find relief in their compulsions or rituals.  Getting up and sitting down repeatedly at the dinner table, until the “just right” feeling is reached is one such ritual. This is not an action that people normally do. Thus, the person with OCD realizes that this ritual of trying to find a “comfort zone” in this manner is irrational, yet they cannot prevent themselves from doing it.

Where’s the fine line?

There is often a fine line between thought/behaviors and OCD.  For example, someone who likes a clean home may spend several hours cleaning it. Someone who is orderly and dislikes clutter may ensure everything is in it’s proper place and looks orderly; someone who works in the health care profession may wash their hands many times a day.

However, numerous reports state that the determining factors which “cross the fine line” prior to a DSM-5 diagnosis, are that the frequency increases, the actions cannot be comfortably stopped or thoughts have become increasingly bizarre.

While OCD is not a new disorder, it appears to some therapists that there is an increase in OCD diagnoses. Beyond OCD states: “There were no consumer books written about OCD until the late 1980s.  Until relatively recently, information was not readily available on the Internet. And just decades ago, research on OCD was virtually nonexistent.

As a result, few tools were available to help professionals understand OCD. Given the lack of information in the past for professionals as well as consumers, OCD remains consistent in its prevalence. However, we may be hearing more about it in recent decades, as its clinical presentation is better understood. Further, studies on OCD and etiology show that OCD may run in families (genetic) and it may be biologically based.

TeensHealth reports that 3 in 100 people have OCD. They also reported that the flow of serotonin in the brain may be blocked, causing misinformation which leads to fears, doubts and false alarms.  Additionally, “imaging studies of the brain have shown that people with OCD have different patterns of brain activity than people without OCD”.

Muslims are more likely to suffer

As research on OCD is relatively new in comparison with major disorders (i.e. major depressive disorder) we have much to learn about its etiology.  Of special interest for Muslims, due to the rise in Islamophobia, is the possibility of environmental factors and OCD.

Regarding environmental factors, there are various proposed factors, but not yet concrete theories, on what triggers dormant OCD in predisposed individuals.  These include major stress, traumatic life events, family dynamics, depression, even illness. In some cases, it’s arguable, depression and illness are a direct cause of one’s environment, thus it is included in possible factors.

When examining any mental health issue, one must also look at the environmental elements both of the internal which consists of individuals, family, and community’s internal dynamics, as well as the external environment.

Treatment

The external is much more difficult to regulate. It includes social and political belief systems of the people and country at large, and availability of common resources in an equitable  manner (jobs, health care, education, safety, justice, and so forth). Future studies generated by Muslim scholars and professionals may wish to focus on internal/external environmental factors to provide insight into Muslims locus of control and OCD.

Treatment outcomes for OCD are more positive now than in the past.   Due to increased research and available information, OCD is better understood.  However, much more research is needed in order to arrive at more conclusive findings.  Treatment for OCD consists of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with medication if needed.

The International OCD Foundation further suggests the use of Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) in which “Exposure in ERP refers to exposing yourself to the thoughts, images, objects and situations that make you anxious and/or start your obsessions. While the Response Prevention part of ERP, refers to making a choice not to do a compulsive behavior once the anxiety or obsessions have been “triggered.”

More triggers = OCD is more likely?

Looking back at our two case studies, what could have triggered OCD in Fatimah and Ahmed?  Was it a predisposed genetic link triggered by stress, trauma or some other environmental variable? Was it due to a fear of loss of control, fear of overwhelming responsibility, or some other factor?

While we may never know the etiology or outcome for Fatimah or Ahmed, we can do our part and raise awareness within our families and communities about OCD-for the ones who suffer silently, insha’Allah.

This article is from our archive, originally published at an earlier date, and now republished for its importance.