Arif Humayun
Arif Humayun is a senior fellow with the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. As a US citizen and a practicing Muslim, Arif is a student of comparative religion – an interest he developed while living in Australia from 1989-92. His first book Islam: The Summit of Religious Evolution was published in 1992 which established the common bonds between the Semitic faiths. The terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001 prompted him to publish his second book Islam and the US Constitution in 2002 to differentiate the peaceful teachings of the Quran from the Islamists’ ideologies of hate that was used to justify the attacks. He has since authored a detailed White Paper on Radicalism among Muslims after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in 2009. He has also published papers on topics of current interest like Sharia, Jihad, Blasphemy, Apostasy, etc. Arif is an avid supporter of separation of religion and politics.
He supports the UN Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted in 1948 by virtually all nations. Sadly, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has rejected that as un-Islamic and instead adopted Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI). He feels that this reversal by Muslim states encourages radicalism by perpetuating their uniqueness and superiority over other human beings.
Keenly interested in understanding the motivation that catalyzes radicalism among Muslims, particularly those living in the US and other democracies, Arif published his third book “Connivance
by Silence” in Nov 2011. This book highlights the roots of the political-inspired interpretations of Islam that have crept in the Muslim discourse; these developments started to occur after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and Caliphate and have now assumed frightening proportions.
Arif manages a global intellectual property licensing business as an employee of a large multinational corporation. His frequent and extensive global travels bring a clearer perspective on this destructive phenomenon of Islamism that afflicts the Muslim world. Born in Pakistan, Arif came to the US in 1980 as a graduate Chemical Engineer to pursue post graduate studies in Engineering at Lehigh University in PA and has been in the US since then.
Arif also formed an interfaith group called Circle of Peace. Some of his articles are posted on this website.
Activism: My activities are posted on the Circle of Peace website. In addition to the various publications, I spoke at a seminar on Human Rights and Religion and presented the Islamic viewpoint drawn from the Qur’an on March 9, 2015, at the George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon. This was Circle of Peace’s fourth annual seminar and, along with earlier seminars, is posted on the website.
Additionally, I was invited by the ROTC program at Weber State University in Ogden Utah in Oct 2015 to speak about Islam in the US specifically addressing any National Security Threats, ‘Islamophobia’, and Islam’s Coexistence with Western Democracy.