The Quranic imperative is to help to those in need; the religion of the beneficiary does not matter. Voluntarism is thus integral to the daily lives of many Muslims, both in Muslim societies and in Western societies. From Ramadan food drives in local mosques in Boston, to volunteering with the police force in Mumbai, to giving toys to orphans in Beirut, to raising money in Abu Dhabi for Darfur victims, Muslims are serving others in numerous ways. Muslim Americans also volunteer avidly in their local communities -- in Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, PTAs and homeless shelters, as well as globally with the Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity, Doctors without Borders and the Aga Khan Development Network.
Yet, surrounding the range of desires among American Muslims to participate in American civic life is an ambiguous discourse on Islam in the American public sphere. On the one hand, there have been beautiful gestures celebrating diversity including interfaith gatherings to read one another's scriptures everywhere from Lansing, Mich., to New York City to Houston, Texas; the Interfaith Youth Core's service-learning events on college campuses across America; and President Obama's appointment of a Muslim woman, Farah Pandith, to the new State Department position called "Special Representative to Muslim Communities." On the other hand, controversy over the Park51 Community Center, "Quran Burning Day," various state legislatures fear of sharia law and the Rep. King Muslim radicalization hearings indicate a failure often to really listen to one another.
While a number of leaders within the American ummah (community) have declared the current Islamophobic climate in America to be a targeted witch-hunt and the reinstatement of McCarthyism, a quieter majority of Muslim Americans has continued to address the difficult climate through an age old tradition: volunteering.
Growing numbers of Muslim Americans are becoming more engaged in civic work after 9/11. Many of them see their giving practices, including gifts of time, knowledge, and monetary and other resources, as acts of faith and as acts of citizenship. They explain that the American and Islamic value systems uphold common values of generosity, compassion and sharing and respect for life. By giving back to society to leave the world improved enables them to return to the Divine origin and to do so as patriots. As Usman, a middle-aged Muslim American businessman in Texas who became active in his Democratic precinct after 9/11, explained: To be a "good Muslim" means that one should necessarily be a "good citizen."
Through dialogue, understanding and service, individuals like Usman seek to enact Islamic values of compassion, sharing and pluralism. Pluralism, or the celebration of our differences, is a skill set to be learned; it is not innate. Indeed, the Quran says that God, in an act of beneficence, made peoples different so that they may know one another and vie with one another in good works.
Perhaps we can view the current Islamophobic climate as an opportunity to get to know one another by taking a course on Islam at a local university, breaking bread with our Muslim neighbors, volunteering in interfaith service activities or reading about Muslims' lives in their own words, such as in I Speak for Myself, a volume of autobiographical experiences of Muslim American women. In so doing, perhaps we can come to see ourselves in the "other" and discover that we are fellow patriots and fellow seekers of truth.
Follow Zahra N. Jamal, Ph.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/znjamal
I Speak for Myself: American Women on Being Muslim | Facebook
It's the members of a group who try to lower others to their level who always seem to ger more attention than those at the opposite end of the spectrum. But that doesn't mean good is the less powerful force. I believe enough people working together can and will change the whole dynamic. In fact, I think this is already happening, that as some here quote a rising tide lifts all boats.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Language-Commentaries-of-WDeenMohammed/message/766
Inaugural Interfaith Prayer Service for the Inauguration of Bill Clinton
January 20, 1993
Presented by W. Deen Mohammed
"Our Prophet said he saw in a vision the followers of Moses, the followers of Christ Jesus, and his followers (peace be upon them) in heaven, in Paradise. With that I give you this reading from the Book of all the Muslims which numbers about one billion now, today."
"Surely, those who have faith and those who are Jews and the Christians and the Sabians. Whoever believe in God and the Last Day and does good work, for them is a reward with their Lord. There shall be no fear on them nor grief. " (Qur'an, 2:62)
Our Prophet Muhammed said, 'There is no superiority of a black over a white, or a white over a black or a nationalist over another nationalist or an Arab over any other nation. 'He said the only criteria is consciousness, regardfulness."
"Oh people: Surely We have created you from a male and female and have made you nations and tribes that you may regard each other and recognize each other. Surely with God the most honored one is the most conscious one of his duty to God." (Qur'an 49:13)
Person of the book can be anyone that has a reference, an ethical standard in their life. Really Muslims are people of the book too and all the warnings in the Qur'an addressed to the people of the book (not to go to excesses in religion, no to be ideological and doctrinaire, not to use religion as a means to hoodwink or satisfy greed) apply to Muslims too. The Qur'an does speak pejoratively of the mushrik (translated as pagan) who is in essence the relativist who follows his own whims, lusts, ego and takes his own self as the axis for meaning (i.e. Reality or God). Such a person is unable to reach truth.
The Qur'an is also clear- we are not to judge the hearts.
Those who are Jewish, Sabian, Christians, Magians, and Polytheist-- Allah will judge between in the Period of Rising- Allah witnesses all. (22:17)
All of my acts of devotion are for G-d. G-d is the object of my worship. My whole life is devoted towards what pleases G-d and to restrain myself from those things that displeases G-d. I am in constant motion moving towards G-d. It is G-d who created me and it G-d who shall guide me. My form defines my function. The guidance for my life is within my created form itself. G-d established nature and we can't change the nature. Either we are accord with the nature or we are separated from what is established in nature. Not to say we can't take on other natures, but the nature as G-d established it originally remains, and we can't change it. It's outside of my authority to move away from what G-d has ordered for my life upon the original pattern of nature in order to please that that is not my nature.
G-d do not condemn me for what i don't know or for what I do because of a mistake. I have an inborn consciousness that speaks to me when I'm right or wrong.
The terms "disbeliever or infidel" is translated from this term "kafir or kufr". The term for Jews is "yahudu" and the term for Christians is "nasaara". Kafir has described some among Jews, Christian, Muslims and others in qur'an.
The Qur'an acknowledges that there are "BELIEVERS " among the people of all revealed scriptures before the Qur'an was revealed. Among the Christians there are BELIEVERS, among the Jews there are BELIEVERS and among the Muslims there are BELIEVERS. However, among all these groups there are those who say they BELIEVE but they are not really BELIEVERS for that they have no real faith in their hearts. Therefore whenever the Qur'an addresses its reader as BELIEVERS it is referring to any who professes to BELIEVE in G-d. They can be those among the Jews, Christians and Muslims or some other way of life
also note that there are 3 kinds of Kafir and only 1 we can say for sure is going to Hell, this is someone who 1. Knows the truth of Islam and 2.Rejects the truth of Islam. Those are two conditions which takes a lot more explaining but the summary of it.
There are many in my state, and my smaller community who are using the mentality that all Muslims are terrorists, just using the proof that the most recent and highly publicized terrorists atrocities were done by Muslims.
This could be attributed to a couple of things.
The first is the media is not really reporting terrorist campaigns by Christians. When was the last time the national media focused on the Lords Resistance Army, who is a Christian group?
The 2nd reason for the ignorance in Iowa is they haven't seen a regular everyday Muslim. All they see is what they see on tv. I am not sure of the Muslim population in my state, but I do know in rural areas there aren't too many.
It's sad that a few months ago we saw reports of protests during a fundraiser in Californa which was being done by a Mosque and a large group of Muslims.
First hand education, letting the masses seeing that the regular everyday member of the Muslim religion is the same as everyone else would go along way to helping people understand.
Change of sane muslim into a radical muslim appears as simple as a costume change. See that Fort Hood radical muslim. No further education for non muslims about Islam is necessary; they see Islam in action every day and that is scarry enough.
See today's news.
"A man convicted of the murder of a brilliant schoolgirl who hoped to go to Oxford University was an illegal immigrant who was free to kill her following a series of blunders by immigration officials.
Mohammed Smoured, 21, was granted bail by an immigration judge and allowed to live with his elderly parents while appealing moves to deport him back to Algeria.
But when he lost his appeal hearing, UK Border Agency officials failed to lock him up in an immigration removal centre while awaiting deportation. The blunders meant Smoured was free to kill 16-year-old Agnes Sina-Inakoju as she stood innocently with friends in a takeaway – less than two miles from his parents’ home in Hackney, East London."
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1377706/Immigration-blunders-left-Mohammed-Smoured-free-kill-Agnes.html#ixzz1Jr8t1bpz
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1377706/Immigration-blunders-left-Mohammed-Smoured-free-kill-Agnes.html#ixzz1Jr8PKigQ
All of them have an end. Jihad violence against all non muslim commuties in the world; barbarism practised against them in 60 odd muslim countries and 17,000 terror strikes since 9/11; violence in the name of Islam seems unending. No wonder concerns are raised and close scrutiny is unavoidabe.
I'd prefer to see the latter. It's a subtle difference, but indicates which is the primary, or defining identity.
How charitable of you.
The title of the article, "To be a good Muslim is to be a good citizen" seems to imply that if one follows the strictures of Islam correctly, one would be a good citizen. It gives primacy to the laws and mores of Islam in how one defines also being a good citizen.
By turning that around, "To be a good citizen is to be a good Muslim," the laws and mores of society take precedence, implying that one must follow those societal laws to be considered a good Muslim (or, actually, to be considered a good member of any other group within that society).
As I said, it's a subtle difference.
And yes, of course, radical Muslims are worth fearing - and eliminating, by all available means - including education (the only reason anyone can agree with thinking that out of line with all that is sane, is sheer ignorance, on one level or another).
The reason why he said that he knows that he can be radical because normally when one go to any muslim house of worship (the masjid or mosque), the sisters usually are praying behind the men separately, or in some cases, especially where mostly immigrant dominated masajid are - the women will be separated by a partition from the men and praying behind a partition.
The point is, to many muslims of the muslim world for Imam Mohammed to say that a muslim sister should be allowed to pray in the same way as they do in mecca while on their pilgrimage in our local masajid, is saying something very radical. It can be seen as such a radical statement that most muslims probably are not prepared to make those kinds of concessions. Nevertheless, what we see being allowed in mecca should be a sign for us at home.
the germans and japanese were fellow patroits.
patroitism can blind the eyes of its followers.
support your troops is the cry of the patroit. watch movies of the germans lining the streets cheering their soldiers on after they had invaded poland and france.
patroitism can become very distructive. as anthony de mello stated you would not catch him saluting any flag. his nation india had been divided twice due to patroitism and religious beliefs.
patroitism is a double edge sword.
He's a very good example of what we're talking about here, in general.
Catholic priests have gotten a lot of negative press, lately -- because of horrible behavior on the part of some of them, and related horrible behavior on the part of the Catholic Church as an organization.
However, Anthony De Mello was a Catholic priest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKkyB8kd154
No group of people can be labeled -- because every group is comprised of individuals.
The psychological spectrum of the individuals in any group -- and the larger the group, the more true this is -- follows what is essentially a Bell Curve:
Closed-minded, control-oriented and ultra-conservative on one end (a small percentage), open-minded, liberation-oriented and ultra-liberal on the other end (a small percentage), and the vast majority somewhere in the middle -- and the more in the middle you get, the more people you find.
This is true of Muslims, non-Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Atheists, Americans, Politicians, Catholic Priests, you name it ... it's always this way, because it's a human-nature thing.
That's how elections can be predicted with only 1% of the vote in, for any election; people are that predictable - always.
And so, I would suggest (to everyone reading) -- that it's pretty unlikely that Muslims will be found to be the first exception to this, in all of human history.
www.americanmuslim360.com or 646.716.4478
Imam Faheem Shuaibe: Understanding The Way Forward in the Community of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed. Leadership? Centralized? Decentralized? No Leadership? This khuthba may go down as a major paradigm shift in the perception of the students and followers of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed thinking, debate, and discussions on what's next.
The is a Special address from Philadelphia Masjid/Clara Mohammed School.