While meeting to prepare my taxes, my accountant asked me, "What's new and good in your line of work?" She knows that I am a long time interfaith educator and that in the last few years I have been working in coalitions with members of other faith communities to combat religious prejudice against Muslims in this country.
Despite much to deplore and enormous challenges ahead, I could answer that there is some good news about Islamophobia. Obviously, the good news needs to be heard in the context of the bad news, bad both for Muslims and for the rest of us who care about America. Recent reports by the Pew Research Center (August), the Center for American Progress (August) and the Brookings Institution and the Public Religion Research institute (September) all document the bad news. More than half of all Muslims under the age of 30 report being the victims of religious intolerance in the last year (Pew). In the last decade, seven foundations have poured more than $40 million into efforts to drum up fear of Muslims in America (CAP). Forty-seven percent of Americans believe Islam is incompatible with American values (Brookings). Clearly, religious prejudice against Muslims continues to be a concern -- a serious concern. At the same time, each report also includes the seeds of some good news.
First, the Brookings study, "What It Means to be an American: Attitudes in an Increasingly Diverse America Ten Years after 9/11," reveals that most Americans have very little direct experience of Muslims. The majority have no opportunity to speak to a Muslim, even occasionally. What's good about that? In fact, it helps explain findings such as the Gallup Poll that placed Muslims as the most disliked religious group in America. We tend to dislike what we do not know. Robert Putnam describes the opposite situation as the "Aunt Susan effect." In his book "American Grace," Putnam observes how positive feelings develop as people get to know the "other" as friends and eventually family members.
With the exception of African American Muslims, Muslims are part of a recent immigrant community. The Pew study, "Muslim Americans: No Sign of Growth in Alienation or Extremism," reports that 63 percent of Muslim Americans are first-generation immigrants to the U.S., with 45 percent having arrived since 1990. (Strikingly, 81 percent of Muslim Americans are citizens of the U.S., including 70 percent of those born outside the U.S., a higher percentage than most other immigrant groups.) Muslims simply have not had the time to integrate into American society, but there is evidence, also in that study, that the process is well under way.
The Brookings report broke down responses by age of the informants. Americans ages 18-29 were twice as likely as those ages 65 and older to know Muslims personally. In each category, the young are moving in the direction Robert Putnam would predict will lead to better news. The future looks more promising than the past.
Second, most Americans do not know much about Islam. Once again, this can be the good news. In the Brookings study, people were asked how much they believe they know about Islam. Fourteen percent said they know a lot about the religious beliefs and practices of Muslims, 57 percent said they know a little, and 29 percent said they know nothing at all. The group that was most likely to say they know a lot about Muslims was, interestingly, Americans who identify with the Tea Party movement (21 percent).
What they know, unfortunately, was provided by a small cadre of well funded scholars, bloggers and media personalities, in particular, those on Fox News. The Center for American Progress recently documented the effort to shape the perception of Americans about Islam through an "echo chamber" of recycled information and misinformation. "Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America," shows how movements like the one to ban so-called "Sharia law" are created. A "solution in search of a problem," state legislation proposing to keep Islamic law from superseding American law did not emerge out of spontaneous grassroots concern. In fact, according to a recent article in the New York Times, one of the chief authors of this legislation confessed that "if this law passed in every state it would not have served its purpose." The purpose is to stir up suspicion and controversy, not to actually pass legislation that the author himself knows is unconstitutional as well as unnecessary.
As people learn more about the work of this small group and their funders, we will be in a better position to offer a counter narrative. The good news lies in the more than 80 percent of Americans who know little or nothing about Islam and know that they know little or nothing about it. Americans are evenly divided over the question of whether Islam and democracy are congenial, but the question is flawed. It presumes a static entity called "Islam." Like other great religious traditions, Islam is evolving and multidimensional. Neither Roman Catholicism nor Judaism were, in essence, "democratic," but American versions of both of those traditions became part of the fabric of American religious life, as will American Islam. Again, this has already begun to happen.
This brings us to the third piece of good news, the outpouring of support for Muslims by their sisters and brothers in other religious communities in America. On Sept. 8, I stood proudly, shoulder-to-shoulder, with representatives of 26 national religious organizations, organized by the Islamic Society of North America. We said we refused to allow our communities to be victims of campaigns of misinformation. We can also use the Internet. Around the country, people commemorated 9/11 with formal programs and through simple acts of friendship.
Could I tell a darker story today? Of course. Should we be complacent? Far from it. The bad news is that there are people waking up early in the morning to take advantage of Americans' ignorance about Islam and to fill the void with fear. The good news is that others are determined to wake up earlier still and help Americans live the best of our country's values.
The reality of Islamophobia in America - Los Angeles Times
Mosque Controversy: Does America Have a Muslim Problem? - TIME
Islamophobia in America: Some finance it, while others fight it ...
Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America
John L. Esposito: Islamophobia in America: Where Do We Go From ...
We are secular Muslims, and secular persons of Muslim societies.
We are believers, doubters, and unbelievers...
We affirm the inviolable freedom of the individual conscience...
We find traditions of liberty, rationality, and tolerance in the rich histories of pre-Islamic and Islamic societies. We see no colonialism, racism, or so-called "Islamaphobia" in submitting Islamic practices to criticism or condemnation when they violate human reason or rights.
We call on the governments of the world to reject Sharia law, fatwa courts, clerical rule, and state-sanctioned religion in all their forms; oppose all penalties for blasphemy and apostasy,... eliminate practices, such as female circumcision, honor killing, forced veiling, and forced marriage, that further the oppression of women; protect sexual and gender minorities from persecution and violence; reform sectarian education that teaches intolerance and bigotry towards non-Muslims; and foster an open public sphere in which all matters may be discussed without coercion or intimidation.
We demand the release of Islam from its captivity to the totalitarian ambitions of power-hungry men and the rigid strictures of orthodoxy. We enjoin academics and thinkers everywhere to embark on a fearless examination of the origins and sources of Islam, and to promulgate the ideals of free scientific and spiritual inquiry through cross-cultural translation, publishing, and the mass media.
The left and the radical homosexuals did the same thing when they invented the meaningless term "homophobia", which would actually mean "irrational fear of sameness", if such a phobia really existed.
I guess I'm just Phobophobic.
So what I have presented here in multiple comments/posts is with the intention of educating those who come here, read negative comments about Islam from some people, and want to know what some of us Muslims believe, adhere to, and how we see Islam.
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NOTE: I have posted as "tolerant" in the past, but that ID is no longer working despite many queries to HP tech. support, who have not bothered to even respond to me.
I have followed you for a long time, and read most of your comments. I found nothing but plagiarized Eastern philosophy in a wrapping of Islam. Sufism is Islam minus the superiority complex--admirable, but again, plagiarized. While Islam proper plagiarized from Pagan, Jewish, Christian and Zoroastrian practices and fetishes, Sufism went a step further.
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I hope your ID is returned to you, we don't want another conspiracy theory. Or, you should get a new one, considering that "tolerance" implies condescension. We are not looking for tolerance from Muslims, we are demanding respect and acknowledgement of facts, reality and history.
QUESTION:
Another question is that of a religion being a matter of personal choice. Is it a matter of personal choice or is it something that most people adopt because of their ethnic origin, perhaps their cultural pressures or even their upbringing?
ANSWER:L
Well, a way to Reality, which religion is, is a way to discovery and awakening, it is a bit like inheritance. We all want wealth, but inherited wealth is often not appreciated, and often is abused or is taken for granted.
Many of us who were brought up in an Islamic environment take it for granted, yet we may have deviated considerably from the inner reality of it. Because we again have assumed so, then the cultural inheritance becomes a barrier and an aberration.
Awakening and inner fulfillment and inner purity is definitively a personal exercise based on a choice. You can not impose Islam upon anyone, even though they may have inherited it.
In fact, Muslims in societies, or in environments that are healthy like Canada, who rediscover their heritage are far more real in their Islam than an average person in an Islamic environment. There are always exceptions anyway.
Rediscovery depends very much upon the individual, the home environment, the cultural environment and the social environment.
The entire discourse is at http://archives.nuradeen.com/Reflections/LightLovePeaceOfIslam1.htm
QUESTION:
As you are aware, Jesus said that all the laws and the Prophets can be boiled down to two. To love God with your whole heart, whole soul, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Is this also a teaching in Islam?
ANSWER:
In fact, one definition of a Muslim is that he will not sleep the night if there is one person who has not had enough supper that night in that town.
He is not a Muslim if he sleeps the night in comfort and knowing that there is one person anywhere within that city who has not had enough to eat.
The Qur`an says: "He who kills one person has killed the entire creation, and he who brings back to life or enlivens or awakens or helps to bring light to the heart of one person is as though he has brought into life the entire creation." God says in the Qur`an: "I created from one self".
There is one macro-self and we are the micro-selves. Each one of us is a microcosm, we reflect the entire cosmos. If you do not respect the image of this microcosm in your neighbor and friend then you have no respect for the source of it.
There are, of course, degrees of how much we can get out of the Qur`an. The Qur`an is the book of knowledge, and the book of knowledge essentially also exist in the heart of the seeker of knowledge.
The other side of the coin, the microcosmic aspect of the Qur`an is in the human heart. God says, "That the heavens and the earth do not contain me, but the heart of he who has faith in me contains me."
The Qur`an is God's word, so potentially we contain it, but the extent of that unveiling is dependent upon the extent of our ability to have that pure approach and the linguistic openings, so to speak.
There are various degrees of good and bad translations, but if one wants to really see the mosaic, the transmittiveness of the terms and of some of the sentences, then we have to go to the Arabic of that time, not necessarily the Arabic that is spoken nowadays.
A lot of the terms that are in the Qur`an are now found in ordinary Arabic language and they are distorted, they do not mean exactly the same thing. In order to have that infinite vista we must go to the original Arabic, and it is not that difficult. It is not a difficult language, if one approaches it from this angle.
The Arabic of the Quran is exactly the classical Arabic used in every Arab country today!
The Quran or Last Testament is the only Testament that God promised to preserve for eternity. This necessitated the preservation of Arabic language and is exactly what happened. I listened to news on TV in Fes in the West to Damascus in the East, it is exactly the same Quranic Arabic. In fact nowadays there is Aljazeera TV that is followed by all Arab. It uses one Arabic understood by all the Quranic Arabic.
Please update your knowledge and do not spread incorrect
information. Thank you.
However, when it comes to the deeper meaning of the classical Arabic, to the average arabs,it is like another language.
Case and point the word "sama" is usually translated as universe, but it in classical arabic it could also mean: the sky, the lower heavens in our galaxy, the universe as a whole. (just to add the Quran gave another word for universe that is not to be found in any other Arabic writings)
The word "youm", normally translated as day, could also have several meaning that the average Arabic speaker not familiar with.
And incidentally, in Islam we are told that there were 124,000 of them, so we believe that there has been on occasions hundreds and hundreds of messengers in one locality.
It is these beings who awaken to that inner reality that there is one source that has created all this and that everything is returning to that source and it is sustained by that one source, and the purpose of creation is none other than to adore, or worship, or to know that source which is based on love and abandonment into it. Each and every culture, tribe and civilization had access to this sort of event.
Most of these civilizations and cultures had a prophet or a messenger or an awakened being. Now, the differences are amongst the people, amongst the interpretations; there will be no difference between these prophets; they will all be together having a wonderful time and acknowledging the one source that they are plugged into within themselves, but it is the people around them who will create the misinterpretations. It is because of the club-syndrome and the insecurity of man that we feel more secure with a certain backdrop, language, culture, diet or whatever.
ANSWER: (PART 3 OF 3)
There can be differences between religiosity and religious people, but it is we who create those differences, either because of cultural, historical or linguistic differences.
As you know, even now, if what we are speaking about translated or related by a third party it is bound to be, even with the best of will, somewhat changed, not necessarily completely distorted or relayed with different emphasis, but especially if that third party comes from a different culture and language, from a language that was not a prophetically revealed one and therefore not a transmittive teaching.
Differences were to do with the presence of that prophetic being, they were not factually, describable, physical events; they were transformative realities.
A being like the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) whose heart was beyond time and space and who functioned amongst people, to help them evolve to that inner reality is not something you and I can imbibe from a book or from a film made on him.
ANSWER: (PART 2 OF 3)
We all, as human beings, are inadvertently caught in what appears to be a contradiction and outwardly we are subjected to these opposites, and yet inwardly we seek a state that transcends these opposites. In your question you say there are differences in religions; there are no differences if they have emanated from the same source.
If they are pseudo-religions or manmade religions or manmade laws, then it is something else. If they have emanated from that same original unitive source, then there are no differences in religions.
QUESTION:
Regardless of our differences of religion, nationality, race, political beliefs, as people we have derived from one source and that there should be a link and goodwill among human beings. What are your views on this matter?
ANSWER: (PART 1 OF 3)
If there is any deprivation or any negligence on that unitive awakening it is because of our own lack of evolvement. In life we experience every physical or sensual situation as one of two.
Anything that manifests, or has come about, been born or brought about, created in time and space is one of two forces. There is always duality: man - woman, day - night, good - bad, healthy - unhealthy, breathing in - breathing out, sleep - awake, generous - mean; whether it is values or physical matters, such as hard - soft and so on. Whatever manifests itself is one of two opposites, and we constantly seek a balance, constantly seek to be in the middle, whether it is in health or wealth.
We constantly want to be in equilibrium. Therefore, outwardly there is a struggle, which is unavoidable and yet inwardly we seek peace, tranquility, calmness, love, serenity, centrality -- what we call beingness.
QUESTION:
You speak of the law, of opposites and complementarity. Would you elaborate on this law?
ANSWER:
It is basically based on faith and trust that there is one source, one essence from which every visible and invisible creation has emanated.
One essence which is beyond time and space, which encompasses experiential time and space and from that unitive source which is God, which is the divine essence, God.
This passage in time and the realization of the other dimensions, such as space, begin to occur and in it all creational, visible and invisible realities have come about. They are all encompassed in that unitive totality.
It is for that reason that we, even in our day-to-day existential experience, want to relate, interact, connect, and understand. Understanding is in fact a manifestation of the adoration of the unitive factor. We want to inter-link.
The fact that we do not understand is a deterrent; it is something we do not like, which means that what we like is that which connects, understands, knows and relates. We do not like disconnection, we like connection, and this is a proof of that unitive force at play at all times.
PART 2 OF 2:
The outer courtesy of it is to have every creation safe for Muslims who practice Islam to interact with the rest of creation courteously, harmoniously, joyfully, correctly, with barriers, not accepting transgression. It is not that everything is alright outwardly, everything is not alright outwardly, if I transgress, there must be containment and those containments are only in order to have nature and natural situations to take care of themselves for us not to transgress.
It's become necessary to try to educate the non-Muslim Western people on Traditional Islam, which has its roots firmly established in the Qur`an.
THE MEANING OF "ISLAM" AND "MUSLIM"
PART 1 OF 2:
The Arabic language is one of those unusual languages that can communicate things which are not easily communicable. It is not unlike Aramaic or Sanskrit and the root of most terms are made up of three letter clusters, and whoever takes up Arabic for spiritual awakening or enlightenment or for the unfathomable in the Qur`an, will find an incredible delight in its discovery. The word Islam usually is thought to have originated from the three letters: "sin, lam, mim", from "salama"; which means to be at peace, to be saved, to be wholesome, to be in a state of tranquil submission, acceptable submissiveness. It is the path of ease and of integration; it is the path of submission to reality because we are part of that reality, we are not separate from it. It is the way from time immemorial; it is not something that occurred some 1400 years ago. It is the "din", it is the only way to be, which has been expounded by every prophet, messenger and sage. It is how to integrate into physical beingness, visible beingness, and the invisible, because we have emanated from it. It means to know in order to unify with the occurrence as we experience it and as we interact with it.
In summary, the negative thinkers have their role to play on HP and the positive thinkers, especially those who live a form of Islam, have their job to do, by spreading positive energy on HP to counter the negative energy spread by the negative thinkers.
Sincerely,
tolerant
http://www.nuradeen.com
http://www.askonline.co.za/
http://www.shaykhfadhlallahaeri.com/
http://sufism.org/
http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/Public/authors/Seyyed%20Hossein_Nasr.aspx
http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/Public/authors/Martin_Lings.aspx
http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/Public/authors/Ananda_Coomaraswamy.aspx
http://www.scholarofthehouse.org/lecturetapes.html
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NOTE: I have posted as "tolerant" previously, but that ID no longer works.
Some people consistently post negative comments here.
I guess it is their job to dismiss the positives of Islam and focus on the negatives, except that the negatives they present are in many cases based on their severe lack of knowledge.
They have their purpose in life -- a life that has mandated to them that they must always think negative and must never take the time to do any scholarly research and reflection.
The most eminent scholar of our time, Shaykh Google, is their supreme teacher and the ultimate authority on Islam. Which is why they are not receptive to reading the books I often list.
Additionally, they have not tasted and experienced the Truth that lies at the heart/core of Islam, as it lies at the core of ALL religious traditions, for every tradition, according to the Prophet of Islam, has in its root Divine Revelation given to it.
As a result, their writings are remote and intellectual.
We Muslims here have to do our job.
While we recognize and acknowledge -- and reject -- some of the negative currents within Islam, we also point out the existence of positive currents within Islam.
These currents are authentic because their spiritual lineages can be traced back to the Prophet in an unbroken chain.
And at the heart of them is Islam's Revelation, the Qur`an, which is the Word of God, with an infinite levels of meaning.