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ISPU Banquet Celebrates Organization’s 15th Anniversary

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by TMO Staff

Over the past 15 years, the Institute of Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) has become America’s source for data for and about American Muslims.

Established in 2002, ISPU aims to conduct objective, solution seeking research that empowers American Muslims to develop their community and contribute to democracy and pluralism in the United States.

According to their website, “ISPU has been at the forefront of discovering trends and opportunities that impact the American Muslim community. Our research aims to educate the general public and enable community change agents, the media, and policymakers to make evidence-based decisions. In addition to building in-house capacity, ISPU has assembled leading experts across multiple disciplines, building a solid reputation as a trusted source for information for and about American Muslims.”

ISPU celebrated their 15th anniversary milestone with their supporters at the Fairlane Club in Dearborn Nov 18.

This banquet event, titled “15 Years of Research Making an Impact: Empowering Tomorrow,” honored the legacy of ISPU’s first 15 years. Attendees were able to view a timeline that highlighted the 15 most important moments from ISPU’s history, including milestone research projects such as A Portrait of Detroit Mosques and Promoting Healthy Marriages and Preventing Divorce in the American Muslim Community.

The program included remarks from various influential leaders including ISPU’s very own Executive Director, Meira Neggaz, who highlighted some of the many ways ISPU data powers the crucial work of other organizations and ISPU’s Director of Research, Dalia Mogahed, who talked about ISPU’s impact in the world of media. Other speakers included Harpreet Singh Mokha, a Regional Director at the Department of Justice, who discussed his work to address hate crimes and how ISPU’s research helped infuse data and the human faces of American Muslims into his department’s diversity trainings and Marwa Abdalla, a recipient of ISPU’s inaugural Young Scholar Award, who spoke about how ISPU’s research empowered her to address her elected official’s bigoted remarks.

The keynote speaker of the night was Representative Ilhan Omar, a former refugee and the first Somali-American lawmaker in the United States. Omar spoke about various important issues including our duty and involvement in democracy.

“In a democracy, it is our duty to see that the work continues and this requires steering through many complex problems. We must not give up hope in face of any adversity,” Omar said.

Omar encouraged everyone to get involved, whether it be politically or socially. She referenced how any type of involvement can surprise someone with the difference and impact it potentially can make.

We commend ISPU’s work to build understanding, catalyze community development, and safeguard American pluralism. Vist their website www.ispu.org to learn more about the organization and what they do.

17-year-old Pakistani Scientist Garners International Praise

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by Aysha Qamar

As one of the first Pakistani’s to participate in the International Young Physicists’ Tournament, then 16-year-old Muhammad Shaheer Niazi, replicated and provided a visualization of an ‘electric honeycomb’ creating international praise.

Upon returning from the International Young Physicists’ Tournament in Russia in 2016, Niazi said he decided to get published after receiving encouragement from his mother.

Presenting his research as any professional scientist would, Niazi developed photographic evidence of charged ions creating the honeycomb and published his work, earlier this month, in the journal Royal Society Open Science. The Royal Society Open Science is a journal that publishes research in the fields of Mathematics, Engineering and Science.

17-year-old Niazi has been named one of the youngest recognized scientists after his recent publication.

“We have to add something new [to existing knowledge] to get published and I introduced two new factors in the electric honeycomb phenomenon,” Niazi told reporters.

“Newton was 17 [years-old] when his first research [paper] got published in the same journal,” Naizi added.

Naizi said the attention his research received, particularly after its discussion in the New York Times, surprised him the most.

“It was a very small thing, and only four to five research papers had been written on it, so I did not think it would get such publicity,” Naizi said.

While physicists have known the phenomenon of electric honeycomb for decades, the Lahore residing high school student was the first to photograph the movement of ions that form the honeycomb alongside recording the heat found on the surface of oil. No one has done this before.

According to the New York Times, “an electronic honeycomb is what happens when certain kinds of electrically charged particles travel between a pointy electrode and a flat one but bump into a puddle of oil along the way.”

“Its what happens as natural forces work to keep an electric charge moving in an interrupted circuit, the New York Times said.

Niazi’s project has received international praise from various scientists and scholars including his own inspiration.

“I think it’s outstanding for so young a scientist to reproduce these results,” Dr. Alberto T. Pérez Izquierdo, a physicist at the University of Seville in Spain said.

Dr. Izquierdo’s work in 1997 inspired Niazi’s project.

Niazi encourages students to use the internet to supplement their learning due to the lack of quality of education in some regions of the country.

“There are online courses that I have been taking since I was very young,” he told reporters, suggesting that those interested in learning beyond the classroom take free online courses from websites like Coursera and EdX.

While Naizi did not expect all the media attention he is now getting, he is glad he was able to make his country proud. He now hopes to win the Nobel Prize again for Pakistan and is looking to continue his work and education at a prestigious university, like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Muslim activism Leads to Progress with Google Search

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by Tina Lapsia

We all know that Islamophobia is a rampant issue in this country, especially as seen by the discriminatory rhetoric and legislation advanced by President Trump and his supporters over the recent year.

In fact, according to a recent Vox article, the trends seen in Google searches reveal much about spikes in prejudicial behavior and the American psyche. Based on research done by author Seth Stephens-Davidowitz of Everybody Lies, it is apparent who has hateful sentiments towards Muslim based on their Internet history.

“People search things like ‘kill Muslims’ or ‘I hate Muslims’ or ‘Muslims are evil.’ These people are basically maniacs and you can actually see minute-by-minute when these searches rise and when these searches fall… [I]t’s a small group but it’s also an important group… They are the ones who tend to commit hate crimes or even murder Muslims,” Stephens-Davidowitz explained in the article.

That is why Google is actually so important to facilitating understanding and breaking stereotypes about Muslims around the world. In June, the Huffington Post released a piece highlighting the negative effects the search engine has for truly understanding Islam. The issue? When searching for specific Islamic phrases like “sharia,” “jihad,” or “taqiyya,” Google’s top results included links to Islamophobic sites run by white supremacists. Since 90% of people who run searches don’t look past the first page of hits, this can lead to an incredible outflow of misinformation.

Concerned about this issue, Oman Suleiman, a Dallas imam and founder of the Yaqeen Institution for Islamic Research, has formed a team of individuals to public accurate reports on such topics in order to influence Google’s search algorithm.

“Imam Omar Suleiman and Ali Fiaz photographed in the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research office in Las Colinas, Texas. Suleiman is currently the President of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research and a professor of Islamic Studies at Southern Methodist University.” Both are collaborating on the Google project. Photo Source: Allison V. Smith/The Huffington Post

Although Imam Suleiman admitted he did not have the monetary power to quickly influence Google like the $57 million funding Islamophobia, he was hopeful that Google would realize the problem based on the corrections it has made in the past. “It’s a fair ask that when someone goes to Google they are not being presented with information from hate groups, and representatives of the faith, as well as respectable academics… as if they’re all on the same playing field,” he said. The company removed the autofill suggestion “are Jews evil” last year in addition to the “glitch” that tagged the term “gorillas” in image searches run for African-Americans on its photos app.

Fortunately, Google has recently taken steps in the right direction. Amid pressure from activists like Imam Suleiman’s organization and others, Google’s first page results for searches of terms such as “jihad,” “shariah,” and “taqiyya” now show mostly reputable sources for explanations of these concepts. The search engine released a statement saying, “To help prevent the spread of such content for this subset of queries, we’ve improved our evaluation methods and made algorithmic updates to surface more authoritative content.” Although such hate speech should have been filtered in the first place, this is certainly a step in the right direction for the Muslim-American community.

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Institute for Social Policy and Understanding Continues to Change the Narrative about Muslim Through Research

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by Fatima Ahmed

The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) started in the fall of 2001, just weeks after the harrowing events of 9/11, a date and an event that marked the entire world in ways we will be trying to understand for decades to come. While America rightly mourned for the victims of this tragedy, a turbulent era seemed to be mounting. In its anticipation, ISPU started taking root.

ISPU started as a small grassroots group of young Muslim professionals who were concerned about the (mis)information, or lack thereof, available about the American-Muslim community as well as the lack of American-Muslim voices on the public level. The group started solely as volunteers, sacrificing their own time and energy to create something positive in a society that was increasingly becoming Islamophobic.

The organization wanted to produce facts about Muslim-Americans through research, discourse, and community outreach. ISPU has focused on social policy, public policy, and thought leadership as ways to allow Muslim voices to have a say in American society. To this day, ISPU is a modest organization, sustained by donations from people and organizations that believe in ISPU’s vision of the modern Muslim community.

“ISPU conducts objective, solution seeking research and provides thought leadership on American Muslims and the issues that affect them. A think and do tank, ISPU’s research is used to educate, to raise awareness, and to inform the major conversations of our time. In this way, ISPU promotes pluralism over prejudice, combats alternative facts by pursuing real ones and builds resiliency by strengthening community.” – Meira Neggaz, Executive Director at ISPU

ISPU examines how to amplify Muslim voices in American politics. There are clear barriers in today’s society against Muslims feeling included and participating in the governance of their own country. Whether this is done through discrimination, systematic barriers, violence, or more, Muslim exclusion is occurring on a daily basis.

Recent times have seen an unprecedented rise in Islamophobic hate crimes with approximately 385 tracked incidents in the last year. This has led to Muslim-Americans feeling unsafe and unwanted in their own homes. ISPU analyzes these barriers and their effects. They investigate the feelings of American-Muslims, the effects of Islamophobia on such communities, as well as uncover solutions on how to move forward in a divided nation. Their research has helped provide data on the demographics, identity, economics, and politics of Muslim-Americans in an effort to help give them an authentic face.

In addition to public policy, ISPU has also taken on the mantle of working with decorated scholars to conduct groundbreaking research. Prior to this initiative, there was little research available on the Muslim communities that exist throughout the U.S. In fact, many Americans operate on biased headlines rather than actual truth when forming their opinions on Islam and Muslims. When facing a world in which Muslims are quickly and easily demonized, this lack of information about the very real people living in the United States presented a glaring hole. ISPU is attempting to rectify this oversight by initiating studies and projects which analyze real-life Muslims. Through this, they have managed to gather data that has helped inform actionable recommendations on how community development among Muslims can be catalyzed.

Finally, a large part of ISPU is the discourse and discussions they ignite in today’s political climate. Too often, Muslim voices and opinions are excluded in the discourses happening nowadays. Through thought leadership, ISPU aims to rectify this problem. They conduct respectful debates, thinking, and visioning which will help shape how future Muslim communities will look in the U.S. This allows Muslims to have a say in how they live as well as stay informed and engaged in the national conversations occurring around the Muslim identity.

In the future, ISPU aims to continue working toward a more inclusive society which is built on the appreciation and acceptance of Muslims. The organization aims to further increase their impact, build capacity, and ensure sustainability in the coming years. ISPU is working to reach a wider audience, tackle new topics facing Muslims today, partner with more organizations looking to better the community and more. In this day and age, Muslim communities across the world will need strong pillars that will assist, defend, and champion them. Organizations like ISPU attempt to accomplish exactly this. Through their work, they hope to strengthen the Muslim communities of the Unites States of America.

Donate to ISPU to support the work that they do at ISPU.org!