Throughout my blog I was able to grow in knowledge of my topic of the expressions of anti Muslim feelings in the United States. Although I am a Muslim living in the United States, I didn’t realize the extent of which anti Muslim feelings are expressed until I researched the topic and found many events that expressed these sentiments. In the beginning of my research I thought that ignorance was the cause for this prejudice against Muslims, but after researching the issue I learned that there are many factors that have caused people to feel a hatred towards Muslims, including to a lack of education that I had thought to be the only factor. Some of the causations of this feeling are political influence, fear of an unknown religion, believing in misleading stereotypes, and the affiliation of Islam with terrorism. Being from a Muslim community did have an effect in my biased thinking in the beginning of this blog. It was challenging to talk about the hardships and hate crimes that my community faces without emotionally favoring one side of my argument. After I did a lot of research I learned how to minimize my natural biasness by supporting all my arguments with evidence. Throughout the blog I tried to approach this issue by addressing the problem and provided examples of expressions that have been caused due to anti Muslim sentiments. I then provided some reasons to how these feelings have developed and attempted to address these causes with hope of ending them. For example, one of the causes was a misunderstanding of Islam, to help individuals better understand this religion, I wrote a post solely about Islam. I was able to achieve addressing my blog in this manner because of the research I conduced that not only allowed me to gain more knowledge about facts but also to gain more incite from what others thought about this topic.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Class Links
I personally enjoyed reading this blog because it was very informative of the current problem the U.S. is facing with illegal immigrants. The blog effectively displays both sides of the argument providing an unbiased source of information. I think this blog is worth looking at because the effect of illegal immigration touches everyone living in the U.S. in some way. I major problem that was mentioned in the blog was the spending the U.S. on illegal immigrants who don’t have health insurance and need health care or for those illegal immigrant who are arrested and live in a jail. The money for this spending come straight from our tax dollars so it was interesting to know that we are actually indirectly sponsoring these immigrants with our tax money. I like the way the blog and argument was set up and the writer had good theories of how this problem could be resolved. I agreed with the majority of the theory, now we will have to wait and see the actions our government will take to solve this issue.
I enjoyed visiting the blog SSB Tax because it discussed the proposed tax of sugar sweetened beverages that I didn’t even know about. I drink sugar drinks yes, but I didn’t know that they could be taxed. I don’t agree with the tax but I found it interesting to learn why the tax was proposed. The fact that the tax is actually a tool to help people drink less SSB due to the high intake of calories was something I found to be very genius and insightful about the motives of the tax. I feel like this blog is worth visiting because it talks about an issue that affects many people on a daily bases. Also the topic of SSB tax is something we don’t hear about a lot in the news so this is a great source of information for it. Also another reason why I like this blog is because it enlightened me to something I had no clue about, FRESHMEN FIFTNEEN!! I didn’t even know there was such a thing as freshmen fifteen and I’m a freshman in college, I just found out about it because that is the name of the url of this blog!
Current Holy War
Current Holy War
I enjoyed this blog for many reasons; first of all I was interested in the topic before I started reading this blog so hearing more information about it was very refreshing, also the blog was able to present the topic in an unbiased manor form a strictly educational stand point. I applaud this blogger for attacking such a difficult topic that even political leaders in our world struggle to find a solution to. From reading this blog it’s evident that the blogger put a lot of thought into the blog and did a lot of research to be able to have a strong foundation of information on the topic. I think this blog is worth reading because it offers great incite to the Arab- Israeli conflict.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Links
This link is from the website of the council on American-Islamic Relations, it was very useful to me because it discusses a lot of unbiased information about Islam and Islamophobia amongst people in the U.S.
This news article from the Sacramento Bee News was useful because it addresses the current rise of anti-Islamic feelings and their causes.
This news paper article from Today’s Zaman was useful in providing information from a Muslim point of view and discussing the political attempts made by U.S. presidents to support Muslims against Muslim prejudices.
This article from the Huntington Post helped me in creating a post on one of the current expressions of anti-Muslim sentiments, the Ground Zero Mosque controversy.
This blog helped me learn about Republican’s role in creating anti- Muslim sentiments by creating in accurate stereotypes to further scare American citizens.
This blog from CBS news helped me because it talks about the Ground Zero Mosque controversy and how Muslims have the right to its construction granted to them by the constitution.
From this website I was able to pull direct quotes form verses of Quran to help create a better understanding of Islam in my Islam post
The new article from this website helped me learn about another example of anti-Muslim Expression that took place in Murfreesboro Tennessee.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Tennessee
Hate crimes against Muslims has been a reoccurring problem in the city of Murfreesboro Tennessee. Expression of anti Muslims feelings can be viewed in the vandalism of property belonging to the proposed Islamic Center in Murfreesboro. Recently on August 27, 2010 an unidentified person trespassed on the construction site of the new mosque and set one of the construction vehicles on fire. They then drenched the other vehicles with gasoline and fled the site. John Green, a local attorney and supporter of the Islamic Center, believes that along with this being a case of vandalism it is also a hate crime. "I don't think there's any reason to suspect it's anything other than a hate crime," Green said. "John Ford, of Ole South Construction Company, has insurance on the equipment; it's not anything else but a vicious display of bigotry against the members of the center." The criminal was able to instill fear in the hearts of Muslims; since the attack some Muslims have been afraid to leave their house due to fear of being attacked. But these were not the only attack on the construction site. Earlier in January the sign at the site of the future mosque was damaged by graffiti writing sprayed on the sign saying “Not Welcome”. The sign was replace but in June the new sign was broken. Already existing mosques in Tennessee have to been vandalized. Al farooq mosque was attacked by Christian graffiti of crosses and writing saying “Muslims go home”. But what these terrorist individuals fail to realize is that being Muslim does not cancel ones’ citizenship, how does someone who was born here and grew up here, and knows the United States as his own country, to “go home” if they are already home. Organizations such as Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) condemns the ongoing religious intolerance in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and promotes freedom of religion, freedom of worship, and freedom of conscience for all of our fellow human beings. However there are many people who are against the construction of the Islamic center. Republican Lou Ann Zelenik has been one of the leading individuals oppose to the building, she argues: "our nation was founded on the tenets of the Judeo-Christian tradition; we have a right to defend that tradition.” But this act of intolerance is clearly opposed to the first amendment created by the forefathers of the U.S, and that is the freedom for religion. Construction of the mosque is still undergoing despite all attempts to prevent is existence
Friday, October 22, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Implications
What will happen if intolerant attitudes towards Muslims do not end? There is the potential for an increase in anti- Muslim sentiments amongst U.S. citizens. Islamophobia will manifest amongst those who are uneducated on the topic of Islam and are furthermore sensitive to stereotypes made by individuals who harbor anti- Muslim feelings. There has been a sustained, violent manner against American Muslims, which not only gives more examples of prejudice in the U.S, but also increases danger to the overall neighboring community. Attacks on people who resemble Middle Eastern people have been documented and these individuals were not at all Muslim. Some of these individuals were not even of Arabian descent. However, they were still threatened and some even assaulted. Violent attacks on Muslim owned property may harm individuals who use these stores. If Muslims continue to be persecuted, an excess of businesses may give way to failure and hurt the overall economy of the U.S. The potential for religious intolerance may develop to the level where intolerance of numerous other groups that resemble Islam arises. Anti- Muslim feelings can also affect the U.S’ foreign policies with other countries and the wars they fight in Arabian land. If more people support the anti Muslim position then they will be more likely to favor war with Arab countries with the justification of fighting terrorism. Although these are a few simple outcomes that may develop with the persistence of this problem one can already see that anti Muslims feelings have many negative influences that will only worsen with the increase of these sentiments.
Monday, October 18, 2010
My Theory
Anti Muslims feelings didn’t just spring up out of nowhere, they had to evolve over time especially to since it’s still a growing sentiment amongst U.S citizens. The 9/11 attacks hurt many individuals emotionally, mentally, and physically. People started affiliating Muslims with terrorism because the terrorist that attacked the U.S. where extremist Muslims. To cope with the wounds of the attacks many people accused all Muslims of supporting terrorism and thus they became subjected to hatred throughout the country. Although this is where the majority of Anti-Muslims feeling developed, there are many factors contributing to its spread. Islam is a misunderstood religion that is believed to be primitive and promotes irrational violence; it is also seen as a political ideology, in which Muslims are using to gain military advantage. The key theme here is perspective. Depending on one’s perspective Islam can be peaceful or violent. Islamophobia for example has developed a negative perspective of Islam. Another factor that has caused an increase of anti Muslims feelings is politics. It’s known that political leaders throughout history have used peoples’ fear of Islam to campaign for themselves. For instance the Republicans who tend to be a pro Christian conservative group use anti- Muslims feelings to persuade the public that Islam is an evil religion that can be controlled by the republicans if they were to be elected. I believe that a good way to stop anti Muslims feelings in the U.S would be to start by stopping falsified information regarding Islam. Educating the public with the true teachings of Islam will eliminate all the misleading stereotypes that are widely believed in our society.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Analysis Post
Within the last year there has been a rise of anti Muslim Feelings in the United States. One cause to what seems to have ignited the rise in discrimination against Muslims is the right winged Republicans. The upcoming U.S. Senate political elections have caused many Republicans to use anti Muslim sentiments harbored by the nation as a tactic to promote their campaign. There is no doubt that Muslims are the most negatively viewed faith in the U.S., as a result political leaders have been known to propagate anti-Muslims feelings to support their campaign. Consequently there has been a multitude of expressions of anti- Muslim feelings over the past year, a popular example in the media is the opposition of the construction of an Islamic Center near ground zero, also known as the “Ground Zero Mosque”. Although it’s been nine years since the catastrophic attack of 9/11, its aftermath still resonates amongst U.S. citizens. Muslims have fallen victims to this attack because it created a great extent of discrimination towards Muslims; the 9/11 attack is where the majority of anti Muslim feelings emerged. But within the past year Americans feel that they are becoming threatened by Muslims, this has caused an increase in Islamophobia, which is the fear and hostility towards Muslims that lead to acts of discrimination and injustice against them. A lot of terrorist who have attacked the United States happened to be connected to radical Muslims and from the Middle East. For this reason many individuals believe that the U.S. is at war with Islam, but it’s not. President Bush and President Obama have both tried extremely hard to point out that there is a difference between Islam and the radical Muslims. However this confusion has caused many to classify all Muslims into one group, refered to as terrorist. Thus essentially the anti Muslims feelings that developed towards all Muslims are due to the actions of a few radicals individuals.
If we take the Ground Zero Mosque for example, there are strong feelings against its construction because of its sensitive location near ground zero. One side of the argument is that Muslims shouldn’t build their mosque close to Ground Zero out of respect and consideration of the 9/11 victims who died in the horrifying attack. This side opposing its construction says allowing Muslims to build a mosque in this location will show terrorists that they have won the war. I respect the innocent victims that lost their lives due to the 9/11 attacks and thus support the Ground Zero Memorial on the actual land where the twin towers once stood as a place for victims to always be remebered and honored. Muslims are not trying to build a mosque there because they respect the memorial as a place to remember the nation’s loss on that day, which includes Muslims who also lost members working in these buildings. The proposed site for the “mosque”, as the media refers to it, while it is actually a community center open to the public, is a couple of blocks away from the Ground Zero. This highlights that there is no disrespect to the Ground Zero victims because the Islamic Center is not on the Ground Zero Memorial.
The argument that building an Islamic center is letting the terrorists “win” is also a poor argument. Unfortunately 13 Muslim terrorist attacked the U.S. on 9/11, but that does not mean that all Muslims are terrorist, in actuality these terrorist are extremist. Due to anti Muslim sentiments people just affiliate all Muslims with terror. So the argument purposed by those opposed the Islamic Center holds not true. The “terrorists” won’t have won anything because it’s not the terrorist who we are letting build this center but rather the American Muslims.
The right winged Christian Republicans has been the main force opposing the Islamic Center by coming up with discrimantory attacks against Muslims. As I’ve already mentioned both these opposing reasons do not make valid arguments against the Islamic Center’s construction, however the Republican goal seems to be to increase Islamophobia among U.S. citizens inorder to gain more support of those who are anti-Muslim. Republicans are conservative Christians so they are favored by individuals who don’t like the liberalism of Muslim activity in the U.S. So in a sense one major aspect of their campaign is Muslim tolerance. If they can persuade more people to become intolerant to Muslims by believing they are dangerous terrorists, then they will have more supporters voting for them when Election Day comes around. Although President Obama has mentioned several times that the U.S. is not at war with Islam and Muslims have the right to religious freedom, citizens are having a hard time believing Obama while Republicans are trying to distort the image of Muslims for their own political gain.
Due to politics Republicans have been trying to destroy the image of Muslims in order to achieve success in their personal political agenda. By deliberately increasing Islamophobia there will be more anti Muslim expression thus there will always be discrimination against Muslims in the U.S. Its politics that are creating the stereotypes and hate crimes that exists today. This can be depicted with the fact that the construction of the Islamic Center has been proposed for a while, but its debate didn’t actually start till recently. Why is that? Possibly because its election time and republicans are trying to get more supports by stirring up anti-Muslim feelings in the nation. Whats worse is the lack of education about Islam has led people to accepting false facts presented by the Republicans.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Islam
Many people harbor anti-Muslim feelings because they don’t understand the teachings of Islam. Ignorance of its teachings has caused people to denounce the reality of Islam. It’s a monotheistic religion of the worship of God, in Arabic Allah. The word Islam means submission, thus a Muslim is one who submits to God. Muslims believe in all the prophets and that Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was the last prophet who received the revelations of the Quran, holy book, and spread Islam. There are 5 basic duties of a Muslim known as the 5 pillars of Islam: monotheism and accepting Muhammad as God's messenger, daily prayer, alms giving, fasting the month of Ramadan, and pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Most people think Islam is a violent religion, but in actuality it teaches one to live in peace with our neighbors and respect them regardless of their religion or race. Islam does not teach Muslims to violently force non-Muslims to convert, the Quran says “Let there be no compulsion in religion. Truth has been made clear from error. Whoever rejects false worship and believes in Allah has grasped the most trustworthy handhold that never breaks. And Allah hears and knows all things” (2:256). This verse highlights that Islam teaches that no one should be forced into submission and that to be a Muslim is by complete will. People also accuse is Islam of promoting war, but the Quran says “Allah forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) Faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them: for Allah loveth those who are just” (60:8). In the Quran it mentions that God hates war and the only reason Muslims are allowed to fight are when they are being exiled from their land or when someone raises war on you because of your faith. Unlike most negative stereotypes would leave one to believe, peace is highly looked upon in Islam.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Pastor Terry Jones
Pastor Terry Jones plans to have an international burn a Quran day at his church in Gainesville, Florida, on 9th anniversary of 9/11. He believes that Islam is the devils religion and that the Quran only leads individuals to hell fire so thus he will burn it in the fire because that’s where he believes it belongs. Also interestingly enough another protest Pastor Jones is leading is against Gainesville Mayor Craig Lowe for being a homosexual and taking up a leadership position. This man I believe is a Christian extremist who needs to realize several things about the United States especially. First of all in the US people have the freedom of religion, meaning that anyone can practice any religion they choose, even if it means they choose to worship the devil. That being said he also needs to educate himself about religions before he starts falsely accusing them. Islam does not teach its followers to be violent but in fact the opposite, it teaches one to live in peace even with their non-Muslim neighbors. It is those Muslim extremist that have interpreted the Quran wrong and believe it’s necessary to kill non-Muslims. But why should the Pastor criticize them if he himself is a Christian extremist, this is quite hypocritical. Secondly in the US people have the freedom to be any sexual orientation they choose. What sex you prefer does not prevent individuals from living the American life and pursuing happiness. Although these events have affected the Pastors happiness, they are rights to every citizen to practice any religion and sexual activity they preferred. From these two examples it’s evident that the Pastor not only has a strong hatred for Islam, but in fact he despises anything that is not Christian. The Pastor’s dreams of a conservative Christian U.S. is intolerable especially since this is “home of the free”.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Ground Zero Mosque
A controversial topic that has been streaming the news lately is the construction of the ground zero mosque. Due to the attack of 9/11 many individuals believe that Muslims are affiliated with terrorism and thus it would be unthinkable to build an Islamic center in this “sensitive” place. These same people who oppose the construction justify this by saying it would show that the terrorist have won. Already many things here have to be addressed. First of all not all Muslims are terrorist and people who believe that should educate themselves about Islam. Second of all the media has spread false information about the ground zero mosque which, quite frankly I myself would oppose its construction if these facts were true. For instance, “Ground Zero Mosque” is highly inaccurate for several reasons. It’s not being built on ground zero, which would be highly unthinkable; instead the proposed building is going to be two blocks away from ground zero on a private building block of an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory. Also this is not a mosque, it’s an Islamic center, so yes there will be a place of worship but there will also be other facilities like a gym and basketball court that will be open to the public. Lately I’ve been pondering why its construction is even controversial, it shouldn’t be at all. The constitution’s first amendment has granted all American citizens freedom of worship. This means “there is no way for President Obama or any other president to put a stumbling block in the way of the free exercise of religion without violating the sanctity of that freedom”. The constitution is what makes America “the land of the free” and thus its laws must be obeyed. If the law says every citizen has the freedom of religion, then we can’t legally stop people from obeying the law. I want to know how you feel about this so post your comments and also take the poll on my blog.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Islamophobia
It’s been nine years since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the United States and yet its impact can still be seen till today. This attack has affected many people like the innocent people who died, the families that lost their loved ones, the war on terror, and Muslims. Muslims have fallen victims of the 9/11 attack and have been affected to many different degrees. One way that this attack affected Muslims is that it increased Islamophobia amongst U.S. citizens. Islamophobia is when "fear and hostility leads to discriminations against Muslims, exclusion of Muslims from mainstream political or social process, stereotyping, the presumption of guilt by association, and finally hate crimes” (http://www.cair.com/Issues/Islamophobia/Islamophobia.aspx). So who should we blame for the extensive growth of Islamophobia? Well we can start with the biased media’s portrayal of Islam. Newspaper and news reports show pictures of Muslims protesting and taking violent actions, but they never explain that such actions are due to discrimination and injustice. I believe that it is completely wrong for the media to be targeting Muslims because this will only cause more dangerous situations. More non-Muslims will become scared of Muslims and this way peace will never be achieved. It’s gotten to the point where the majority of U.S. citizens have accused their own president Barak Obama of being Muslim. Why you might ask? It is merely because he supports freedom of religion and supports anti-discrimination. In a survey conducted recently about 52% "of Republicans believe that President Barak Obama 'sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world'" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/30/obama-islamic-fundamentalist-gop-polled-majority-says_n_699883.html) Not only that but they also accused Obama for being Muslim because they questioned his integrity when he traveled to Arab countries in an attempt to promote peace. So clearly these two accusations are not true and yet they are believed to be true due to the Islamophobia that is instilled in their minds. Just because the president is supporting Muslims, like he supports Christians and Jews, does not in any way mean that he is going to suddenly become Muslim or even a terrorist. Yes, the U.S. is at war with Muslim extremists but not all Muslims are extremist just like not all Christians are extremist. Thus people should not be Islamophobic because, if anything, Islam teaches peace not violence and the majority of Muslims are not “evil” like the media portrays them.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Welcome to the Beginning
Hello everyone and welcome to my blog where I will be discussing anti- Muslim feelings expressed within the past year, especially as tensions of Muslims in the United States is on the rise. Being a Muslim myself, this topic interests me because there has been an increase in discriminatory acts towards Muslims throughout the last year. The significant increase in Muslim hatred is extremely noticeable especially with movements such as the burning of the Quran, denial to build a Mosque near ground zero, vandalism of Muslim property, and much more. The increase of anti-Muslim feeling has been unjustly supported with false accusations against the teaching of Islam. As a result of September 11 the United States has been at war with Muslim extremist who are terrorists, but somehow people have been associating all Muslims with terrorism even thought this is highly inaccurate. My goals are to correct these accusations made against Islam and to justify Muslim rights as citizen in the United States. I will be discussing some of the most recent expressions of hatred towards Muslims and how these acts can be classified as religious discrimination. Personally I believe that the problem to anti-Muslim feelings originates from ignorance and a lack of knowledge about Islam and Muslims. By simply bringing awareness of basic principles and ideal behaviors taught by Islam to individuals, I hope that Islam’s inaccurate affiliation with being “evil” and the devils religion will diminish.
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