{"id":86,"date":"2014-01-20T23:48:50","date_gmt":"2014-01-20T23:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/?p=86"},"modified":"2014-03-15T05:19:28","modified_gmt":"2014-03-15T05:19:28","slug":"episode-32-tamim-saidi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/episode-32-tamim-saidi\/","title":{"rendered":"Episode 32 – Tamim Saidi"},"content":{"rendered":"

City of Residence:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Maple Grove, MN<\/p>\n

Occupation:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pharmacist<\/p>\n

Excerpt:<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think we have to realize that [when] we do the Sunday schools, the Islamic schools,\u00a0the weekend schools, that we are not in Kabul anymore. We are not in Karachi\u00a0anymore. We are not in Cairo anymore. We are not in Mogadishu anymore. We\u2019re in\u00a0America and we really are a minority. We\u2019ve got to start teaching them very relevant\u00a0things. We have to teach them how to pray, how to fast, why they believe, why are\u00a0they Muslims? We have to teach them comparative religions, we have to teach them\u00a0about Islamic identity. And I think the other thing that we have to do for them is to\u00a0make sure to have a positive environment for them.<\/p>\n

I think not only that we have mosques, but I think mosques are doing more things;\u00a0they have more food shelves, they are not only reaching out to the Muslim\u00a0community, but the larger community. They are doing more volunteer work, their\u00a0people are actually going and cleaning up the highways and trying to go and help out\u00a0the neighbors as an organized way to rake their leaves from their yards if they\u2019re\u00a0elderly, they\u2019re trying to help reach out more to the larger community, not just the\u00a0Muslim community, which I think is really good to have.<\/p>\n

I think that I\u2019ve been blessed in many, many ways. I was able to go to school, I was\u00a0able to meet a lot of good people; a lot of good people who did not look at me like a\u00a0Muslim foreigner, a lot of people who looked at me like as I\u2019m regular person. They\u00a0offered me jobs, and internships, and volunteer activities; and they showed me the\u00a0way, how to apply to scholarships and how to apply to colleges and things, so I met a\u00a0lot of very good people here. And, alhamdulillah, thank God, I think that life has been\u00a0good. I was able to finish college, I was able to get a job as a professional, I was able\u00a0to invite my parents to come over. I was able to have our children here go to school,\u00a0and buy a house, and buy a car\u2014what people call the American dream. So,\u00a0Alhamdulillah, I think that it has been very good, and I have been telling people also\u00a0that we should be grateful for the blessings that God has given us in America, the\u00a0blessings that God has given us in Minnesota, because sometimes, the other side of\u00a0things is that we forget about the blessings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Podcast Preview:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\"Play\"<\/a><\/object>\n<\/div>\n

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Podcast (full length):<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\"Play\"<\/a><\/object>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

City of Residence: Maple Grove, MN Occupation: Pharmacist Excerpt: I think we have to realize that [when] we do the Sunday schools, the Islamic schools,\u00a0the weekend schools, that we are not in Kabul anymore. We are not in Karachi\u00a0anymore. We are not in Cairo anymore. We are not in Mogadishu anymore. We\u2019re in\u00a0America and we …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":87,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ep","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions\/89"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irgmn.org\/muslimexperience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}