Let the Eagle Soar...

TQF is pleased to welcome Najam Haider to our ever-rapidly expanding (ok not really) team of bloggers. Najam is a doctoral candidate at Princeton University hoping to submit his dissertation focusing on the formation of sectarian identity in 8th century Iraq in the Fall of 2006. He will be teaching a course on early Islamic history this spring as an adjunct Professor at New York University.

This is his first entry.
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The New York Times reported today that Attorney General John Ashcroft and other high ranking officials will have to appear in a civil lawsuit filed by some Muslims held in Brooklyn after 9/11. This is a huge victory for civil liberties groups that had been trying for months to draw attention to the plight of Muslim communities in Brooklyn.

The staggering rate of Pakistani departures from Brooklyn has been the repeated focus of Washington Post articles over the last few years. Michael Powell documented the voluntary exodus in February 2003 and its impact on the community in May 2003 but this is the first indication of an organized legal response.