Ode Magazine printed an article in its November 2006 issue titled "We define our faith in our own ways, no matter what Western media and middle Eastern Mullahs tell us" by Tansneem Jamal.

My response to this article is as follows:

Dear Editors: I usually love your articles and read your magazine cover to cover and share articles with friends and students in our spiritual Center here and online. So, I do get the word out about world issues and care deeply about them. However, with this article, I am disappointed. Who cares if this fine lady wears short skirts, drinks wine, is an unwed mother, and lives with her boyfriend and feels absolutely normal? Intelligent people know that normal exists. What the world cares about— and yes, all of us who are loving and tolerant, and love all religions and peoples—what we all care about is to see an overwhelming outpouring of intelligent discussion from the Muslim intellectuals, regular people, teachers and religious leaders-everyone-about the extremists who are using Islam to terrorize the world. They need to speak out with one voice about the continued terror and killings crippling societies all over the world. Everyone’s life is endangered anywhere in the world when there is such silence.

In my last trip to London one month ago, even my chap stick was taken away from my carry-on luggage! Where is the world going when such a huge sector of society all over the world stays silent and blows up only when someone says anything remotely controversial about the Muslim faith? Why is this silence? Where is this discussion and denouncement? Where is the disgust from young and old alike? I know it is there, but we need to see it in print and in all kinds of media.

We need the Western Media to print these statements so that the whole world can see and read what Muslims all over the world must be thinking and feeling. Instead, the most visible comments on the Internet are from extremists from Muslims and non-Muslims with their already biased views. So, Ode, it is a free country and someone in a miniskirt who enjoys wine and is a normal kid may be entertaining. But who cares? Is it news if a Buddhist woman wrote an article saying she eats meat, wears mini skirts, is not married and has a baby, and does not meditate? No, it does not make front-page news. But Ode can do much more than give space to this sort of article. Here is your huge opportunity. I would love to see some very serious discussions from Muslim leaders in your magazine. You certainly have the editorial intelligence and right motive to print such material. Why not make it even easier and create an online discussion forum inviting thinking people from all Muslim sectors to post their views and their solutions? We certainly could use some solid and sane discussions.