The Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has recently launched their new website. In addition to a new design, more functionality has been added. The site includes online membership registration with access to the following members-only features:

• Free downloads of select CAIR publications
• Daily or weekly subscription to CAIR’s informative and empowering e-mails
• 10% discounts on select CAIR events and publications
• CAIR’s “Know Your Rights Pocket Guide”
• Automatic online membership renewal

For the general user, the site offers access to action alerts, press releases and plenty of multimedia clips. Utilizing the importance of Muslim blogging, several top level CAIR personnel maintain a blog. Here is a list of blogs we found:

• Edgar Hopida Blog
• Ahmed Bedier Blog
• Dawud Walid Blog
• Parvez Ahmed Blog
• Nihad Awad Blog
• Hussam Ayloush Blog
• Iftekhar Hussain Blog

As for our involvement, we helped with the design…indirectly. Three IslamCrunch team members were invited for a publicity campaign photo-shoot. Some of the photos were used in CAIR’s new promotional brochure, on the website and at their ISNA Convention booth. We have provided a guide below to help you find some familiar IslamCrunch faces. We would like to thank Shafath Syed, president of the Bay Area CAIR executive committee who invited us to attend this prestigious opportunity.

Update: Images from the CAIR brochure Sept. 30, 2007 :::

Iqra bismi rabbika alladhee khalaqa - Read! In the name of your Lord who created…[Quran Chapter 96, Verse 1]

The Muslim Literary Society is a new “educational charity organization that promotes the intellectual, artistic and spiritual heritage of Islam through its classical literary works.” The MLS have collaborated with Sidi Muhtar Holland and Fons Vitae to publish 2 much-needed texts. The first text, al-Shama’il al-Muhammadiyyah (The Muhammadan Virtues), is due in Winter 2007.  The second text, Ihya ‘Ulum al-Din (Revival Religious Sciences), needs your support. The MLS is seeking donations which will help to complete the translation of Imam Ghazali’s renowned text and future projects. 

Visit Sidi Yursil’s blog for sample pages for the Ihya text. Also: full text of Sifat al-Muminun - Attributes of the Believers (Part 1).

Also, check out the MLS blog: http://themuslimliterarysociety.blogspot.com/

Thanks to our friend and brother: Sidi Irfan Nooruddin who is actively involved with MLS.

The South Valley Islamic Community (SVIC) has recently launched a new project, The Cordoba Center. To commemorate the launch, The Cordoba Center has unveiled a new website: www.CordobaCenter.org

The recent launch has also seen The Cordoba Center ramping up their promotional campaigns. The organization was a platinum sponsor for the Muslim Unity Day 2007 event in the Great America theme park, co-sponsor for CAIR’s annual picnic and co-sponsor for South Bay Islamic Association’s recent “million-dollar” fundraiser for the Evergreen project. The Cordoba Center has also entered in negotiations to with highly acclaimed Illume Magazine for a monthly ad run.

During the month of Ramadan, The Cordoba Center will be organizing 2 events: their annual Ramadan community dinner, Feeding The Soul and a mosque open house interfaith event in collaboration with CAIR and ING.

As with last year, The Cordoba Center website is hosting a SMS Ramadan notification signup. Community members who sign up for the service will receive a short text message informing them of the beginning of Ramadan. No need to keep on calling a busy phone line, sitting in front of your computer, waiting and waiting for notification. Make your way to the mosque, receive an SMS message and continue with tarawih prayers. And if no moon is sighted, you can still pray ‘Isha at the mosque. The SMS notification is geared towards community members living in the San Francisco Bay Area. However, last year, they received signups from users outside of Silicon Valley, including an area code from Washington D.C. (across the country!).

SVIC has the honor of using another Web 2.0 tool: a faith-based blog. One of the first few organizations to use a blog to disseminate information, they have recently migrated their original Wordpress hosted blog to the new site. Khutbahs by Imam Ilyas Anwar are featured on the blog and has been syndicated by Illume Magazine for their “From The Minbar” column.

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Master Calligrapher, Haji Noor Deen, has collaborated with the M.E.C.C.A. Center to produce a calendar for the 2008 calendar year. The calendar will be produced by Andalusian Arts, the producers of the award-winning ‘Longing For The Divine’ calendars. The calendars will be launched at the ISNA 2007 convention in early September, insha’Allah. After that, the calendars should be available at your favorite Islamic bookstore.

Already there are have been early discussions to bring the calendars to mainstream bookstores. As soon as we receive sample images and other updates, we will post them here. We would like to thank Sidi Tariq Subhani, Vice-President of M.E.C.C.A Center for the news. Please support M.E.C.C.A. Center by purchasing your copy of the calendar (or several copies!)

Imam Zaid Shakir views Haji Noor Deen’s calligraphy scrolls.

“The Muslim Education and Converts Center of America (M.E.C.C.A.) was founded in January 2006 by Nur Aisha Samat, Thomas Wilentz and Sara Umm Zaid, with the goal of providing quality education and support to new Muslims, while building bridges with non-Muslims in American society.

To learn more about M.E.C.C.A. Center, please visit their site: http://www.meccacenter.com/

In regards to our earlier post about the Zaytuna community announcement, here is an update from the Zaytuna website: http://www.zaytuna.org/zrelocation.asp 
Answers for the following questions are provided:

• Question: Why is Zaytuna Institute moving?
• Question: Isn’t this move sudden?
• Question: When and where will Zaytuna be moving to?

Zaytuna’s new address after September 1st, 2007, insha’Allah:

2070 Allston Way, Suite 300, Berkeley, CA 94704