President’s Note

Happy New Year everyone. 

I mark this new year in a somber mood, yet I am still keeping my chin up and remaining clear eyed for what is ahead with the new administration. 

Yesterday we signed onto an amicus brief for a court case brought forward by parents whose children attend  public schools in Louisiana who are fighting against the new state mandate to display the 10 Commandments in classrooms. We also continue to follow a case in Florida, which we  supported with an amicus brief in alliance with a  group of Jewish women who filed suit against the state’s 6 week abortion ban  on the grounds that it violates their faith’s right to abortion. As MPV is often the go-to Muslim organization for progressive faith based advocacy initiatives, we anticipate many more cases in the coming months and years. 

Internationally, we’ve broadened our #ImamsForShe program beyond Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Rwanda to Burkina Faso and  Afghanistan. With this expansion, we’ll have a greater impact in the fight for gender equality as we work with religious leaders and scholars of Islam to promote an egalitarian interpretation of Islam, toward changing the religious and cultural mindsets that have curtailed women’s and girls’ rights which are indicators of a radicalized society. 

As we prepare for the years ahead, MPV has scheduled an in person  board meeting in March, where we will  tweak our activities for the next three years to ensure we are  more intentional in our advocacy work and to  incorporate creative arts into our program to cultivate empathy for our various advocacy causes. 

We hope to replicate more projects like “Witness”, a short fiction film about spiritual dignity that MPV supported with a community grant. The film is written by a young screenwriter and director and tells the story of an imam’s reckoning with a moral dilemma when he finds out that his daughter’s best friend and a committed volunteer at the mosque is  transgender. I see this short film as one we can screen to create space for invigorating discussions around trans folks and their rights, especially important given how trans folks and their rights were used as talking points to fire up hateful rhetoric and discriminatory mindsets in last year’s election. 

And unfortunately my own Muslim community was not immune to the impact of this rhetoric. In this past election, the Republican party received more Muslim votes than ever before. In part because of the Democratic administration’s unwavering support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, but also as a result of General Michael Flynn’s courtship of the Muslim right to bring them into the Christian Right’s crusade for the so called “family values”, a euphemism for anyone who dares deviate from the heterosexual, cisgender, and patriarchal norm of the West.  We have once again regressed as a community. Conservative Muslims have no issue discriminating against others while demanding protection of their rights. What’s the point of heeding the Quranic call to demand justice for ourselves if we fail to do so for our non-Muslim kin who face the same marginalization and injustices that we do? 

Onward and upward…

Ani 

Founder, President

Muslims for Progressive Values

Advocacy Updates

Muslims for Progressive Values joined 142 other organizations, including Shattering Glass and League of Women Votes, to urge President Biden to direct the National Archivist to certify and publish the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. You can read the full letter here. With less than a month left in his presidency, it is more important than ever for President Biden to take the decisive action required to make the ERA the 28th Amendment to the Constitution. 

Please write, call President Biden and ask him to publish the ERA! Here’s an easy way to do that.

Advocacy Updates

As a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Ani Zonneveld, President and Founder of MPV, attended a forum discussing Pope Francis and international relations. Ani asked the panelists a pertinent question regarding the Catholic leader’s ability to pressure President Joe Biden into ending his support of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians, a pressing question considering the Pope’s position of the human sufferings, and the role that faith must have in ending human rights atrocities.You can watch the full forum and hear the moderator’s response here.

National Updates

National Updates

Reading Recommendations

Blog Updates

MPV’s most recent blog post, “Why Do We Need a Progressive Islam Curriculum” by Arub Syed is now available to read on our website! Click here to read the full piece and learn why MPV’s Progressive Islam Curriculum is so important for today’s Muslim community to realign themselves with the origins of our faith.