I was surprised to read in the column by Ray Hanania, “Don’t let violence sabotage efforts toward peace,” that Christians, Muslims and Jews have “never lived together in peace.”

Leonard Pitts’ editorial “Even if Obama were a Muslim, so what?” (Jan. 29) addresses an issue that the Muslim community faces on a daily basis: the presupposition that there is something wrong with being a follower of Islam.

Tuesday’s front page article on “hate Web sites” does a poor job of differentiating between Chicago’s own respected community institution, Radio Islam on WCEV 1450 AM, and the foul fringe website masquerading by the same web name and featured in the article.

Goering’s piece on the new Australian Burqini’ was an eye-opener even for an already modesty-minded Muslim woman such as myself (*a burqa is a loose outer robe that some Muslim women wear to cover their bodies or heads). A spinoff of the word burqa and bikini, it’s swimwear that allows the entire body to remain clothed.

As a generally amiable Muslim American, I was surprised to see in Wednesday, June 20, 2007’s paper that I, as a part of the ‘Muslim world’ am supposedly furious. The headline reads: ‘Rushdie, Britain stir Muslim world’s fury’ (Tom Hundley).

In these times of turmoil it is all too common to hear voices of fear and hatred shouting the loudest. That is why it made me so happy to read Margaret Ramirez’s excellent article, “Islam’s diverse faces take center stage” (6/22/07).

Kathleen Parker’s Article, “When Topic is Terror, Surveys Are Misleading” is in fact itself a very misleading interpretation of the recent Pew Research Center survey that found American Muslims to be largely moderate and mainstream.

Here is an interesting point to ponder: what if Don Imus had referred to a mostly-white woman’s basketball team as “dumb blonde ho’s,” would it have been any less racist or sexist than the “nappy-headed ho’s” comment he used against a mostly black team?

Reading the work of Kathleen Parker one might get the impression through her conspicuous intellect and confident voice that she speaks with academic authority on the issues for which she writes.

In her April 4 column, “Ignore them, and be spared the drama,” (Commentary) Kathleen Parker makes it clear that what bothers her most about the backlash to the chocolate Jesus exhibit is that it makes people in this country look a little too much like the Big Bad Muslims.