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Originally posted by Humanized:

Yet Americans continue to ask: "Why don't Muslims condemn terrorism? We keep waiting for the so-called moderates to speak out against violence and yet no one comes forward."

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It cos american is full of people like HoremB

quote:

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Originally posted by Mrs. Doubtfire:
The reason why, in my view, that "terrorism" is equated with Islam is due perhaps to a faulty perception that most people conjure up in their own minds.

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quote:

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The questions were pointed, thoughtful and challenging. "Did the US attack on the Iraqi city of Fallujah cause more terrorism?" "Are the recent bombings in Jordan related to the US Army presence in Iraq?" "What do you think of Ahmed Chalabi's visit to Washington?" "Is it true that Arabs teach hatred of Americans in schools?" One woman asked me what I thought of the statement made by the president of Iran about wiping Israel off the map. Another asked, "If there is an independent Palestinian state, will Gaza survive?"

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wonder if american condem that...

Posts: 2457 | From: U | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

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quote:

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Originally posted by Fran:
Why is it that only those Muslims who try to sell Islam to the Westerners are the ones who understand it?

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wrong conclusion as usual !

Expressions of Islam in America
Gisela Webb introduces Islamic beliefs and profiles America's Muslim communities.

The 1990s may be the last decade in which Islam is viewed as a "non-mainstream" religious tradition in America. At its current rate of growth, by the year 2015 Islam will be the second largest religion in the United States, following Christianity. There are approximately four million Muslims in the United States and 650 mosques. (1) Foreign-born Muslims and their descendants constitute about two thirds of those numbers; indigenous Americans (born in America), mostly African Americans, constitute the other third. (2) Islam is already the world's second largest religion, with 900 million members--about one sixth of the world's population--living in geographic regions that include, but extend far beyond, the Middle East. Islam is either the major religion or has large populations in such diverse cultural environments as Africa, Malaysia, and Indonesia, the former Soviet Union, Turkey, India and Pakistan, northwestern China and Europe.

Yet there is surprisingly little awareness or understanding of Islam in the American consciousness. What Americans do think about Islam tends to be formed by media images, specifically by the presence of one-sided negative imagery on the one hand ("Arab terrorists," "Islamic fundamentalists"), and by the absence of positive, or even neutral images on the other. American Muslims often express frustration over a situation that seems to be the last bastion of tolerated stereotyping. Clearly, the poor relationship between Islam and the "Christian West" has its roots in the confrontational and competitive history which Christianity and Islam have shared since Islam arose as a religious and political challenge to Christianity in the seventh century. The roots of confrontation also lie in the remembered history of the Crusades, in the relationship established during the colonial and the post-colonial periods (including the loss of Palestinian lands to Israel) and, now, in the heightened rhetoric and mistrust created by Muslims and "Westerners" alike, who would present Islam and "secular democracy" as polar opposites. Ideologues on both sides would like to present an image of a monolithic "Islam" with a unified agenda and clear leaders.

The reality is that the situation of Islam worldwide and in the United States, in particular, is extremely complex and shifting. Islam developed its forms of orthodoxy in the early history of the community. (3) There were, of course, different interpretations of basic principles derived from sacred scripture which led to a number of contending discourses in Islam (theological, juridical, philosophical, mystical, popular, political) as well as differing "styles" of Islam depending on the cultural milieu into which Islam was introduced. This complex reality is also the "process" of Islam in America. There have already been a number of stages in the development of an "American" Islam as well as a number of different groups and styles that constitute the Muslims of America.

There are three major constituents of Islam in America: immigrants, who bring Islam from their homelands; African-American converts to Islam; and the Sufi groups, the "spiritual confraternities" of Islam. This chapter will introduce the reader first to the central tenets of Islamic faith and practice and then to the historical development of certain segments of the Islamic community in America, namely, immigrant groups and African-American groups that see themselves as members of traditional or "orthodox" Islam. Sufism will also be treated in a separate chapter in this volume. It will be evident that there are a number of important issues facing American Muslim communities and individuals at this time, but they all point to the overarching question of how to define and manifest what "Islam" means in the midst of a secular, pluralistic, contemporary American culture.

Beliefs and Practices

The Islamic religion had its historic origin in the figure of Muhammad ibn Abdullah. Muhammad was born in the Arabian city of Mecca in 570 C.E. and was a member of the Quraysh tribe. According to traditional accounts, Muhammad was in the trading business, Mecca being a crossroads for many of the overland trade routes of the day, and was married to Khadija, his former employer who was fifteen years his senior. He was a reflective man and often meditated in a cave near Mt. Hira. From 610 through 632, when he died, Muhammad experienced a number of visions and "hearings," which he came to understand as true revelation (wahy) from the one God, Allah, which was communicated through the angel Gabriel. (4) These "revelations" began as warnings directed at the Meccans for their forgetfulness of God, for their polytheism and idolatry, and for the social and economic injustices of Meccan society. The revelations also warned of an inevitable judgment that all human beings would experience at the "Final Hour," an idea which was alien to the prevailing view of life and death in Arabian tribal culture. Muhammad understood his role to be that of the final prophet and messenger of God, and his message of submission (islam) to God's will as the same message that had been revealed to Abraham, Moses and all the other prophets of Jewish and Christian Scriptures as well as to the "prophets" of other peoples from the beginning of time. Jesus was seen as a prophet, born of the virgin Mary, and a special model of sanctity; but Christian claims of Jesus' divinity and "sonship" were rejected. The collection of Muhammad's revelations is the sacred book of Islam, the Quran. Muslims traditionally accept it as the authoritative word of God which "preexisted" eternally with God.

Muhammad began to preach in Mecca and, as a result of persecution, emigrated with a number of his followers to the city of Medina, where he established the paradigmatic "Islamic" community. The emigration (hijra) to Medina in 622 C.E. marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar. Muhammad eventually returned victorious to Mecca, clearing the Ka'ba--the pilgrimage site used by the many Arabian tribes of all idols in a symbolic act of reviving the original intention of the Ka'ba, which, according to tradition, had been built by Abraham and his son Ishmael to worship the One God, Allah.

The Quran and the example (sunna) of Muhammad became the main sources for the development of belief and practice in Islam. The Quran established the main articles of belief and practice, which are known as the Five Pillars of Islam. The first pillar is the shahada, the affirmation that "There is no God but God (La ilaha illa Allah), and Muhammad is His Prophet." The shahada is normally understood as stressing the utter transcendence and distinction of God "above" all created orders, although the Sufis would traditionally interpret the shahada as affirming that ultimately only God can be called "the Real." The shahada is also seen as affirming the authenticity of God's prophets and holy books, the angels, the jinn (invisible creatures created out of "fire"), and the final judgment of one's deeds and consignment to heaven or hell. The five pillars also include the basic duties of Muslims. Thus, the second pillar consists of the salat, the liturgical prayers said in Arabic five times daily, facing Mecca. On Fridays, Muslims gather in mosques for congregational recitation of prayers. The salat prayers create the basic orientation of time and space for Muslims. Arabic became the sacred language of Islam and an important unifying element for Muslims throughout the world. With the third pillar, the zakat, or charity tax, Muslims are required to pay a yearly tax of 2.5 percent of one's holdings for the care of the society's poor. The fourth pillar is sawm, or fasting--refraining from all food and liquid--from sunrise to sunset each day during the lunar month of Ramadan. It is a time of inner reflection and training of the nafs, the "lower self," as well as of experiencing something of the hunger of the poor. Finally, Muslims are required to make the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca once in their lives so long as it is not a financial burden. The primary ritual of the hajj is the circumambulation of the Ka'ba, which is seen as a reenactment of Muhammad's "clearing the idols" as well as symbolic of the ideal of the "unity of humankind" that has attracted so many marginalized peoples to Islam. Muslim men and women arrive in Mecca from virtually every race, class, and ethnic group, shedding their outer garments for a plain white shroud-a symbol of equality as well as the Muslim death shroud-and begin their common "journey to the center."

In principle, there is no division between religious and secular law in Islam. All of life is to be oriented toward the Divine Will. The shariah, or Islamic law, was developed to provide specific guidelines for all areas of life, from religious ritual (e.g., requirements in prayer) to sexuality (e.g., no premarital sex) to political principles (e.g., rules of war) to dietary restrictions (e.g., no pork, no alcohol). Of course, the shariah is based on interpretation of the Quran, the remembered history of Muhammad's actions, and the cultural customs of the geographic regions in which the shariah developed during the eighth and ninth centuries. It is not surprising that a major area of contemporary discussion among Muslims is the issue of reinterpreting the shariah in light of considerations of modernity. The variety of Islamic "revival" and "reform" movements that have emerged in the contemporary Islamic world (often inaccurately lumped together under such terms as "radical" or "fundamentalist") (5) have tended to see the political, social, and economic ills of the Islamic world as indications that Muslims have fallen away-because of infatuation with the West or corruption of their own leaders from the moral and civic principles of the shariah, and that a return to an "Islamic" way of life, the shariah, would revitalize both Islamic society and, ultimately, the world community. However, it is this same activist spirit that has led to disagreement over "what," or "whose," version of Islam is correct, as well as how the shariah should be implemented. (6) The issue of interpretation is particularly crucial in the area of the rights and treatment of women. Muslim women writers, both in America and abroad, often point to the curtailed role of women in the post-Muhammadan community in comparison with the egalitarian thrust of the Quran itself and the more active participation of women in the early Muslim community. (7) Thus, the issue of "women and the veil" is symbolic of discussions that have become particularly important for Muslims in America. In addition to the shariah, many customs have spread throughout the Islamic world which Muslims see as rooted in the example of Muhammad, and which they feel incumbent to cultivate-for example, modesty, hospitality, and respect for teachers and elders.

Two major branches of Islam developed early in the community's history in response to the question of succession of authority after Muhammad's death. Sunni Islam and Shi'ite Islam reflect two approaches to politics and rule. Shi'ites believe that Muhammad's charisma--and hence, political and spiritual guidance--was continued in the bloodline of Ali (Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law) and his descendants, the Shi'ite imams (leaders). Shi'ites believe in the continued guidance from the final imam (although different sects of Shi'ites disagree on whether that was the fifth, the seventh, or the twelfth in the line of succession), and tradition maintains that he will return as the mahdi to usher in the Day of Judgment. About 20 percent of all Muslims, mostly from Iran and southern Lebanon are Shi'ites. (8) The other 80 percent, the majority of Muslims, are Sunnis, for whom selection of leaders is supposed to take place through representatives (originally the tribal elders) of the people. (9) Both Sunnis and Shi'ites are considered "orthodox."

Within both Sunni and Shi'ite communities of Islam there emerged spiritual confraternities, the Sufi groups, or tariqas, which were centered on the teachings of certain pious individuals. These charismatic figures taught a "subtle wisdom" tradition of interpreting the Quran and the traditions of the Prophet. The Sufi groups developed a variety of approaches to Islamic spirituality--ecstatic, contemplative, devotional, poetic, musical, chivalrous--the goal of which was both purity of devotion and attainment of a unitive experience of God. The Sufis contributed much to the development of the esoteric sciences of the medieval period (alchemy, subtle psychology), popular forms of piety, and the arts-literary, visual, musical, and poetic. While the Sufis at times strained the boundaries of "orthodoxy" with some of their teachings, their presence has been a historical constant in Islamic societies. They are recognized for their importance as transmitters of Islam to lands far from the original "heartland" of Islam. See "Sufism in America" in this volume.

The beliefs and practices of Sunnis and Shi'ites, of Sufis and non-Sufis, came to the shores of America with the arrival of immigrant populations, traditions brought by slaves, and popular Sufi teachers from "the East."

Muslims in America--Immigrant Communities

About two thirds of all Muslims in the United States are immigrants and their descendants. (10) Muslim immigrants, both Sunnis and Shi'ites, arrived in waves beginning in the late 1800s, the first groups coming from what are now Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine. Communities began to form in the industrial centers of the Midwest-Toledo, Cedar Rapids, Detroit, Michigan City, and Chicago. Most of these immigrants were uneducated and unskilled workers who sought economic opportunities in the United States. The extended families of these immigrants became the founders of the first mosques in North America. These first mosque communities functioned primarily to maintain social bonds, offer solidarity in this new land, and provide community space for rites of passage. (11)

Another wave of immigrants arrived between 1947 and 1960 and included Muslims from the Middle East as well as from India, Pakistan, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union. Some were children of ruling elites; some were refugees; many came solely for higher education. (12)

The individuals comprising the last wave, from 1967 to the present, have come for both political and economic reasons. Many, especially Pakistanis and Arabs, are educated professionals. Substantial numbers of Iranians came prior to and after their country's revolution. A number of other countries are represented in this wave: Yemen, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Turkistan-Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. (13) The most recent arrivals are from the Sudan, Uganda, Guyana, Bermuda, and the former Yugoslavia.

Development of Islamic community life in America corresponded to the political and social concerns of particular immigrant groups. Earlier Muslim immigrants saw mosque life mostly in terms of social needs, and imams (leaders) of local congregations were not always trained as religious teachers. Thus, little emphasis was placed upon strict observance of traditional mosque functions. Adaptations were made to conform to American church patterns, such as scheduling congregational prayers on Sundays and allowing "mixed" (men and women) social functions, such as dances.

Later groups of immigrants brought the heightened religious and political self-consciousness that has been part of the legacy of the loss and occupation of Palestinian lands. (14) These Muslims came with commitments to a variety of religio-political ideologies and with more religious training, usually more conservative, than their predecessors in America. Tension points developed in some of the earlier mosque communities as more recent and conservative Muslim arrivals attempted to correct their more Americanized brothers and sisters in areas of Islamic practice and custom.

In general, Muslims in America who have been raised in traditional Muslim cultures speak of the tension they experience in trying to remain close to linguistic, cultural, ethnic, and religious roots while trying to develop a sense of belonging in their adopted home. American societal patterns are often at odds with needs of Muslim life and practice: Work schedules do not easily allow for the five-times-daily salat prayers or Friday congregational prayers. Institutional eating facilities (schools, prisons, military) are not set up for Muslim dietary practices. The pervasiveness of alcohol in America and the cultural acceptance of sexual permissiveness and immodesty (in clothing and comportment) are seen as negative influences on the faith community, particularly on its young people. (15) The shariah, however, continues to be held as the ideal pattern of life to be striven for, somehow, in the midst of contemporary American culture.

Mosque governance in America appears to be taking the pattern of some Protestant denominations, such as the Baptists, in which each community has autonomy in deciding its local leadership and ideological orientation, but in which each member and each community shares a commitment to sacred scripture as the ultimate source of guidance in areas of belief and practice. (16) American mosques, unlike mosques in Islamic countries, are self-supporting, and therefore they must rely on membership contributions or fund-raising activities. The imam of the American mosque often finds himself in a role that goes beyond the traditional function of reciter of prayers. He may assume additional roles, common to American pastors, such as administrative and counseling responsibilities.

There are a variety of styles and emphases in mosque communities of the United States. Some mosques function in the way of America's small, urban ethnic churches, in which ethnic ties are emphasized, cultivated, and preserved. These communities function as centers for learning and sharing information about surviving in America as much as they function as centers for prayer. Other mosques, while being centers for prayer and social activities, also emphasize "outreach," utilizing the Islamic cultural tradition of hospitality in order to establish communication and goodwill with the surrounding community. (17) Mosques in the Midwest, such as the Islamic Center of Toledo, Ohio, are known for this approach. More recently established mosque communities, such as the Islamic Society of Central Jersey, have taken this approach as well, particularly in light of escalating fears of Islam and Muslims. (18) The focus of their work is in correcting misunderstandings about Islam by inviting non-Muslim groups to their facilities and by offering lectures and programs. Finally, a new trend has emerged in America: the large "mega-mosques" that serve the needs of large, rapidly growing, racially and ethnically diverse communities, such as in the Los Angeles area. (19) These mosques most clearly reflect the historical pluralism within the Islamic community as well as the continually widening ethnic pluralism of the United States.

There are a number of active Islamic organizations that exist alongside the mosque communities. In the middle of this century, the Muslim population was still small and dispersed over the continent. The need for a unifying organization led second-generation Muslim immigrants to form a federation of mosques that would provide a pooling of resources and contact with other communities. (20) It was originally called the Federation of Islamic Organizations; today it is the Federation of Islamic Associations in the United States and Canada, and its headquarters are in Detroit.

While the federation of mosques was taking shape within the earlier ethnic communities, Muslim student organizations were forming on college campuses. In 1963 the Muslim Student Association (MSA) was created to coordinate activities of the student groups. The MSA symbolized the international diversity of Islam as well as the ideological concerns of a more activist Islam worldwide. For these students, Islam was a way of life, a mission, and the organization's goal was to help create an ideal community and to serve Islam. (21) The MSA is still one of the largest and most well-organized Islamic organizations, and it has led to the creation of a number of other service and professional organizations designed to meet the needs of Muslims beyond the student community. Among them are the Muslim Community Association, American Muslim Social Scientists, Muslim Youth of North America, American Muslim Scientists and Engineers, Islamic Teaching Center, Islamic Medical Association, and the American Muslim Mission. These and other groups are now under the umbrella organization of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). The groups have their own committees and boards, but their administrative, legal, and financial affairs are linked at the center by ISNA's legislative body, the Majlis al-Shura. (22) ISNA groups sponsor national, zonal, and profession-specific congresses, where members engage in social, business, and intellectual exchange while maintaining connections with the larger international Islamic community.

One of the most important developments that characterizes the current Islamic community in America is the movement in the direction of political activity in the United States. While ISNA's leadership always tended to be individuals with affiliation to or backing by politically minded "Islamist" groups, such as the Ikhwan al-Muslimin and the Jammati-Islami, (23) there was never agreement on the appropriateness or the form of political action in the United States. Some of the more "ultraorthodox" movements (such as the Salafiyya, comprised mainly of Gulf Arabs and some African Americans) and some of the African-American "utopian separatists" felt reluctant to participate in the kufr ("unbelieving") American governmental system. (24) Nevertheless, in trying to offer some balance to the influence of the many pro-Israel political action committees, a number of Muslim PACs have emerged since 1985, including ISNA's own ISNA-PAC. In addition, a number of Muslim groups, such as the United Muslims of America and the Islamic Society of Greater Houston have encouraged participation in such mainstream American activities as registering and voting in elections, actively supporting candidates, and even running for office. One of the results of this public visibility in the political system is that Muslim candidates sometimes find criticism coming from conservative elements within the Muslim community for such things as not using an Islamic name, dressing in an "overly Western" manner, or making other concessions to American secular culture. (25) There are a number of Muslim organizations and activities which are not specifically political. Among them are da'wa (missionary, education, ministry) oriented groups, such as the Muslim World League and the Shi'ite-based Islamic Societies of Georgia and Virginia; the Muslim "thinktanks," such as the International Institute of Islamic Thought, formed in 1982 to promote "Islamic" scholarship and methodologies; and the National Committee on Islamic Affairs, which has begun to utilize the media as a forum for Muslim discussion on affairs in the Middle East.

There are also many Muslim "activist-scholars" in America who are engaged in critical examination of a wide variety of issues and assumptions related to "tradition" and "modernity" in Islam. These scholars often find themselves caught between cultures: they find it difficult to take scholarship back home to countries where ideological concerns rule the academic discourse; but they also find it difficult to challenge ideological assumptions that exist in American academia.


The Islamic community in America includes the many mosque communities which are attempting to find ways to accommodate both traditional religious norms and changing constituencies within the cultural context of American society. It includes Muslim "conservatives" and "traditionalists," whose ideologies put them at odds with American secular values, and Muslim "modernists" who wish to be transmitters of Islamic values while working within the framework of the American democratic tradition. The Islamic community includes individual Muslim women and men in every American mosque community who are struggling with the tension between traditional practices and modern secular Western views about the rights and role of women. American Muslims include African-American groups who have chosen to be integrated in the larger Islamic community, but who seek affirmation and respect for their African-American cultural identity. There are those African-American and immigrant Muslim communities that are combining their resources to improve the conditions of recent immigrants and the marginalized poor of the inner cities. Finally, it is evident that the distinction between immigrant and indigenous Islam is rapidly becoming meaningless as "foreign-born" Muslims and their American-born children share mosque community life with growing numbers of American-born Muslims and their children. The Islamic community in America is becoming the major melting pot of the wide variety of racial and ethnic groups that constitute the "traditional" Islamic world. Islam has long been regarded by Westerners as the religion of "the other." Clearly, this perception of Islam will undergo revision in America as Muslim communities grow, and as America comes to re-define itself in terms of its increasingly multicultural and multireligious nature.


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This article originally appeared as Chapter 21 of America's Alternative Religions Edited by Timothy Miller Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995

Notes

1. "Mosque," the Muslim "house of prayer" is derived from the Arabic masjid, "place of prostration.'

2. Terms such as "indigenous" and "immigrant" are categories of differentiation that are currently under scrutiny as they become less helpful in describing sociological changes that have taken place in Muslim communities. "Immigrant' communities are becoming "establishment," children are growing and intermarrying, foreign-born Muslims are becoming American citizens, demarcation between the "older" immigrants and the new African and Asian immigrants taking on racist overtones. However, until there is a consensus in the scholarly community on this issue, these terms will be used.

3. The term "orthodoxy" is understood to mean the beliefs and practices that became normative in the community. However, in Islam there is no official body or council that defines "orthodoxy."

4. "Allah" is simply the Arabic word referring to "God." Christians whose native language is Arabic also speak of God as "Allah."

5. As John Esposito points out in Islam: The Straight Path (New York: Oxford Press, 1991), there are a number of variations of "fundamentalist"-or "back to the fundamentals"-movements in the Islamic world, from "moderate" voices who seek reconciliation of traditional Islam and certain aspects of the modern West, to "radical" voices who see the West as a major enemy of Islam with no reconciliation possible, and who condone the use of violence to bring about an Islamic society. See chapter 5.

6. See Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path, chapters 5 and 6.

7. See Fatima Mernissi, The Veil and the Male Elite (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1991) and Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).

8. "Twelver Shi'ism" is the largest of the Shi'ite groups; other sects include the Ismailis (the "Seveners") and the Druze. See Annemarie Schimmel, "The Shia and Related Sects," in Islam: An Introduction (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992).

9. Fredrick Denny, An Introduction to Islam (New York: Macmillan Publishing, Co., 1985), 135-36.

10.Yvonne Haddad and Adair T. Lummis, Islamic Values in the United States (New York: Oxford Press, 1987), 3ff.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid. Among the immigrants were a number of Palestinians who went to Puerto Rico. It is estimated that there are ten thousand Muslims in San Juan alone.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid., 14.

15. John Voll, "Islamic Issues for Muslims in the United States," in The Muslims of America, ed. Yvonne Haddad (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 205 ff.

16. Frederick Denny, "Emerging Forms of the Muslim Community' (paper delivered at the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies Annual Meeting, 1992).

17. Frederick Denny, Islam (San Francisco Harper and Row, Publishers, 1987), 111 ff.

18. At the time of this writing, the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade center had just occurred.

19. Frederick Denny, "Emerging Forms of Muslim Community" (paper delivered at the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies Annual Meeting, 1992).

20. Gutbi Mahdi Ahmed, "Muslim Organizations in the United States," in The Muslims ofamerica, 12.

21. Ibid., 14.

22. Ibid., 15-16.

23. Steven A. Johnson, "Political Activity in Muslims in America,' in The Muslims of America, 112. These are very ideologically oriented Islamic revivalist groups with roots in Egypt and Pakistan, but they have to a great extent become "mainstream" in these countries, renouncing violence as they seek their goal of creating a modern "Islamic" society. There are a small but clearly significant number of Islamic "extremist" groups who affirm the use of violence as a means of fighting "the satanic West." In light of the bombing of the World Trade Center, investigations are underway to locate possible formal connections between American Muslim individuals or groups with these most extremist of "Islamic" groups.

24. Ibid., 113.

25. Ibid., 114-19.

26. See Abubaker al-Shingiety, "The Muslim as the 'Other': Representation and Self Image of the Muslims in America" in The Muslims of America.

27. See Prince-a-Cuba, "Black Gods of the Inner City," Gnosis Magazine, no. 25, (Fall 1992): 56-63.

28. Ari Goldman, "Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and Arabic," New York Times, 3 October 1992.

29. Kathleen Moore, "Muslims in Prisons: Claims to Constitutional Protection of Religious Liberty" in The Muslims of America, 150-51.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Denny, Frederick. An Introduction to Islam. New York Macmillan Publishing Co., 1985.

------. Islam. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987.

Haddad, Yvonne, ed. The Muslims of America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Haddad, Yvonne, and Adair T. Lummis. Islamic Values in the United States. New York: Oxford Press, 1987.

Haddad, Yvonne, and Jane Smith, eds. Muslim Communities in North America. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.

Prince-A-Cuba. "Black Gods of the Inner City.' Gnosis Magazine, no. 25 (Fall 1992): 56-63.

Posts: 817 | From: Egypt | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Mrs. Doubtfire:
The trouble is with Islam in America is that the religion is quite unsuited to the kind of civilisation which exists in the US of A. ....................................


which indeed they have done - Christianity.

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So the death penelaty is very advance ....
and it is accepted in christiany to electric people to death...
perhaps your reffering to the electric itself, how innovative it is in new technology


(explains american attitude in Iraq, what the typical americans are really like, when no laws and regulatoin are not there to supress them...)


Think before you post stupid post

Posts: 2457 | From: U | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

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Helloooo dumbA$$....

your stupid/pointless post r starting to annoy me

Destroy???
have you 4gotton about the frickin British empire and its effect on this countries, and how it virtually destroyed the world....

Really, I wonder where you are from, and what you look like, and how you can go around walking in the streets.....

you must be a coward who hides behind the internet to express these thoughts....
man, I would love to see you walking down my street one day

quote:

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Originally posted by Fran:
Everywhere Islam has entered, like bubonic disease it has brought death and misery. Iran was destroyed, Egypt was destroyed, Iraq was destroyed, Syria was destroyed, Arabia was destroyed. Arabs prior to Islam were a noble, free and tolerant people. Today they are the most bigoted creatures on Earth.

Look at Pakistan and India. 57 years ago they got their independence and thanks to one man's ambition, the traitor Jinnah, they split. Today India is on its way to become a world power while Pakistan is marching backwards. It is the most ridiculous country of the world that produces nothing but stupid people, terrorists and zombies.
During this 57 years there has been not a day of dictatorship in India while with the exception of perhaps a couple of years of failed democracy Pakistan has been always ruled by military dictators. (Which by the way is much better than democracy of the fools) Pakistanis and Indians are the same people. The only difference is Islam. In fact once the Pakistanis leave Islam you can see they are bright and intelligent people.

The same is true about Iranians. Those who have left Islam love mankind, consider themselves brothers and sisters to the rest of humanity and the Iranians in America have the higher per capita academicians than any ethnic group. But those Iranians who still believe in the Islamic gobbledygook, think about wiping Israel off the map, think of assassinations and are just animals. (I apologize to animals for the insult. I am not talking about noble animals like donkey and dog. I am comparing you to snakes, scorpions and crocodiles). Show me one Islamic country that is prosperous and its people are free and happy or its jails are not filled with dissidents. During the past 105 years, 1.2 billion Muslims have produced eight Nobel Laureates with the joker Yasser Arafat among them. That is one in every 150 million people. Less than twelve million Jews have produced 167 Nobel Laureates. That is one in every 72 thousand people. If you’re too lazy to do the math, it’s 2084 times more likely that a Jew win the Nobel Prize than a slave of Allah. Don't you think Islam has something to do in keeping Muslims stupid?

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Posts: 2457 | From: U | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ki$$7eaven:
So the death penelaty is very advance ....

and it is accepted in christiany to electric people to death...

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Posts: 2334 | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged | 

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Yes - Islam is definitely a religion that is suited to countries and mentalities that have not yet reached a certain level of civilisation

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And what has "un-civlisation" got to do with Islam....


you see, dalia, what I men by these stupid post by these "educated", "civilised" people..

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here...
[url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0955020700/qid%3D1133898517/026-7853042-0414807= Recommended...![/url]

Posts: 2457 | From: U | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged |