hello DBNetters,
The Muslim Student Association of the University of Texas sponsored a workshop in 1995, in which some pretty interesting topics were debated and discussed.. of these, i found one particularly interesting and relevant to Muslims today in America, considering the considerable negative portrayal of Islam in America, in the present times.
iqbal
In the name of Allah, the Gracious the Merciful
THE CHANGING PERCEPTION OF ISLAM IN AMERICAN PLURALISTIC SOCIETY
by Mubashar Ahmad
In America, the news media is a major source for information about Islam. The image of Islam, as projected by the news media is often fragmented and clouded by the fast moving political events and crises in the Middle East. The perception of Islam, at times, is painfully distorted. Khomeini, Qadafi, and Saddam Hussain are seen as inflated demons with dark shadows reaching America. Sometimes, a selective and unfamiliar aspect of a particular Muslim country's social behaviour is projected as if it were a universally practiced tradition of Islam. During the Gulf War, for example, Saudi Arabia's restriction on Muslim women's driving privilege received a good deal of publicity in American press.
The entertainment industry, especially the film-makers in Hollywood, with very few exceptions, have shown deep bias presenting Arabs or Muslims of the Third World countries as uncouth, uncivilized rogues. Thus, ridicule is added to an already blur and dismal perception of Islam in the United States.
An average American is unaware of the fact that every fifth person on earth, i.e. almost one billion people in total, are Muslims; more than 40 countries are predominantly Islamic, Arabs being less than 20% of the total Muslim population.
The largest number of Muslims, 150 million, are Indonesians. Then there are 20 million Chinese, 55 million Russians, 100 million Indians, 95 million Pakistanis, and 90 million Bangladeshis. And millions upon millions Africans who live in Nigeria, Mali, Sudan, Algeria, and Morocco and adhere to the religion of Islam. Islam is a global phenomenon, embracing in its fold over 4000 ethnic groups.
It is unknown to most Americans that Muslims were the torch bearers in the fields of arts, sciences, medicine, agriculture, architecture, philosophy, literature and mysticism, while a greater part of Europe was submerged in the Dark Ages. The American public rarely comes to know the closeness of Islam to Christianity and Judaism; and the commonalities among the three major monotheistic religions are seldom brought to light.
Therefore, to allow ourselves to form a dreadful or disgraceful image of Islam, as most often the case is in America, would constitute an extremely unfair and regrettable attitude towards the second largest religion on earth. It would be as if some one tries to understand Christianity by reading the news of what is happening politically and religiously in Northern Ireland or of apartheid in South Africa. It would be like attempting to understand the teachings of Jesus Christ through reading about hundreds of tragic and bloody wars fought among the European Christian nations. It would be highly inappropriate to dwell on racism, lynching, witch-hunting, and The Inquisition in order to understand the true teachings of Torah and the Gospels.
It would be like finding fault with Christianity and Judaism by reading news about the horrible stories of murder, rape, child abuse, incest, teenage pregnancies, AIDS, alcoholism and drug abuse - the evils that infest Judeo-Christian modern Western societies.
The problem of Islam being misunderstood in America has its deep roots in the anti-Islamic attitude taken by the Western medieval writers and clergymen. Dr. Philip K. Hitti, a foremost Arabic scholar, historian and a former chairman of Princeton's Department of Oriental Studies, writes in his book "Islam and the West" that in medieval literature "the prophet (of Islam) is generally displayed as an imposter, a false prophet, the Koran as his pretentious fabrication and Islam as a licentious way of life, both here and the next world." Dr. Hitti further states:
"Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and other less highly developed religions were never subjected to such a barrage of abuse and condemnation as Mohammadanism was.
They posed no threat to the Medieval West and offered no competition. It was therefore primarily fear, hostility and prejudice that colored the Western view of Islam and conditioned its attitude. Islamic beliefs were enemy' beliefs and, as such, suspect if not false."
(ISLAM AND THE WEST : pp48-49, Philip K. Hitti: 1962).
In concurrence with Dr. Hitti's evaluation of Western attitude towards Islam, Dr. George N. Malek, a United Methodist minister, writes in his article entitled "Confessional Theology: The Way to Dialogue between Christianity and Islam",
"The Christian West has traditionally seen Islam through Dante's eye: "The Inferno".
Dante placed Muslim philosophers alongside Greek ones in the moderate punishment quarters of Hell. But to Muhammad, the Muslim prophet, he assigned the ninth of the ten ditches in Hell, leaving the Heart of Hell -- the tenth ditch -- to Satan himself. But it was upon Muhammad that the most sadistic punishment was to be inflicted, not Satan. Dante, as Christian history shows, advocated a more fierce struggle against Islam than against the "Christian" devil himself. Dante, then, and we, now, in the west, saw Islam not as a religion, but as a life of licentiousness ... It is in this context that Islam is still viewed by European attitudes, subverted by American misconceptions, to be heresy derived from Christian teachings, borrowed by Muhammad from the Monk Bahira. In the west, Muhammad's religious success is seldom ascribed to his divine revelation; it is more to his approval of "licentious living." Accordingly, for much of the past history, and up to the middle of the twentieth century, we, in the West, regarded Islam as a religion that also acknowledges the one true God; in fact the same (Christian) God, Creator of the Universe. But Islam distinguished itself by its denial of the Christian doctrine of trinity. In any case, Islam stands now, finally, acknowledged as a valid religion by Christian; in fact, Islam today challenges Christianity itself as a valid religion for the coming centuries."
For Muslims, therefore, it is always a great relief when American scholars or Church leaders attempt to correct the wrong done to the image of Islam. It is very encouraging to note that in America an undercurrent is gaining momentum towards better understanding of Islam. There are writers, scholars, clergymen, teachers and politicians who have recently started to appreciate the richness of Islamic heritage, strength of its moral structure, and validity of its doctrines. A positive perception of Islam is slowly but surely taking place, and it is gratifying to note that efforts are being made towards a redemptive process to remove the misgivings, fear and hatred of Islam.
I will attempt to identify some aspects of this healthy transition. In addition, the story of the growth of Islam on American soil, as Islam gradually became an integral part of our multicultural society, would also help to examine various shapes and phases of Islam peculiar to American experience.
America, despite its vast material advancement, is basically a deeply rooted religious society. Therefore, I would limit my presentation to the changing perception of Islam in various religious communities of America, particularly through the policy resolutions of Church leadership.
The attitude of Roman Catholic Church towards Islam took a definitive turn through the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). In its Declaration on the Relationship of Church to Non-Christian Religions (the section commonly referred to as "NOSTRA AETATE"), it declared the Roman Catholic Church's esteem for Muslims because the Muslims worshiped One God by seeking to submit completely to His will. The late Cardinal Pignedoli, president of the Vatican Secretariat for Non-Christians, made the following statement about Muslims:
"Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, and His virgin mother. At times they call on her, too, with devotion.
In addition they await the day of judgment when God will give each man his due after raising him up. Consequently, they prize the moral life and give worship to God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting."
As the Second Vatican Council fostered a reform mentality and intended to engage Catholicism in compassionate dialogue with the Muslim world, it had a revolutionary impact upon millions of Catholics living in America. One positive effect of this change of perception was that derogatory and biased statements about Muslims were immediately removed from textbooks used in parochial schools, and attempts were made to present an objective history of the Christian-Muslim relationship.
The National Conference of Catholic Bishops of America (NCCP), which has every bishop and archbishop in the U.S. as its member, established a Secretariat for Interreligious Affairs in 1987. It now provides a major source of leadership to the Roman catholic Church in its relationship with the Muslim community in America. Through this office, the Muslim religious leaders are asked to express their concerns directly to the highest level of Roman Catholic Church. About 23 percent of American people identify themselves as Roman Catholics, and thus, approximately 50 million members belonging to the largest Church in America are most likely to see Islam as deserving their respect and recognition.
Likewise, the National Council of Churches of Christ in U.S.A., which represents 35 Protestant denominations with 40 million members in the U.S. established its office on Christian-Muslim Relations in 1977.
The Nations Council of Christ (NCCC) encourages Christians to develop a common life with Muslims on the basis of mutual trust and respect and not to repeat the sad mistakes of the past. To foster this policy of openness, NCCC invites Muslims leaders to sit as observers to the meetings of its Governing Board and to the meetings of the Committee on Christian-Muslim Relations, with emphasis on Christians and Muslims working together to solve problems of injustice and inequality within American societies.
In 1990, the United Methodist Church, which has an over 11 million membership in the States, also gave its support to religious pluralism in America and encouraged interfaith dialogue with Muslims. The United Methodist Church recognizes the existence of Muslims and their new neighbors in the United States, and the Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church, through its General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, passed a resolution stating:
"Today our Lord's call to neighborliness (cf Luke 10:27), includes the "strangers" of other faith who have moved into our towns and cities. It is not just that historical events have forced us together. The Christian faith itself impels us to love our neighbors of other faiths and to seek to live in contact and mutually beneficial relationships, in community with them. The vision of a "world community of communities" commands itself to many Christians as way of being together with persons of different faiths in a pluralistic world. That suggests that we United Methodist Christians, not just individually, but corporately, are called to be neighbors with communities of other faiths (Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and others), and are to work with them to create a human community, a set of relationships between people at once inter-dependent and free, in which there is love, mutual respect, and justice".
(The Book of Resolutions of the Methodist Church: 1980)
In January 1981, THE PLAIN TRUTH, an internationally popular monthly magazine distributed free of charge, printed in seven languages by the Worldwide Church of God, with its headquarters in Pasadena, California, published an article under the heading "Seeing the World Through Islamic Eyes" [written by Keith W. Stump]. It starts by stating:
"The middle East is in ferment. At the center is Islam. It is time to dispel widespread myths and misconceptions about this important religion, and to see what the Bible says about Islam and world future... From Morocco to Indonesia, Islam is re-emerging as political and religious force that cannot be ignored. Moslems are reasserting their faith - culturally, spiritually and politically. "God may be dead in the West", one observer has commented, " but He is very much alive in the Middle East!"
Few topics have created as much misunderstanding in the Western world as that of Islam. Most Westerners do not begin to comprehend the religion and culture of that important faith. Yet few topics are as vital to understand during this momentous quarter or the 20th century! Moslems are well aware of how Western cartoonists depict them, how Hollywood portrays them, how westerners write about them. The exaggerated and misleading stereotypes of the robed, hooked-nosed camel driver is well known - widely resented - throughout the Middle East. To fill this void we publish this article for our readers."
Then it proceeded to give a fairly accurate account of Islam as Muslims would like it to be seen by others.
In the November 1981 edition, the monthly magazine, COLUMBAN MISSION, a publication of the Columban Fathers, out of St. Columban, Nebraska, dedicated a major portion of its pages to Islam. It had the Ninety Nine names of Allah decoratively written on its cover with the Islamic creed "There is no God but God" superimposed on the front side. In its editorial, it observed:
"The word, Muslim, conjures up images of OPEC oil sheiks and rising fuel bills, terrorism, despotic governments that oppress women and Christians, frenzied crowds screaming death threats, internal violence in Iran, Lebanon and Philippines.
For the Muslims, the word, Christian, can produce similar repugnant pictures. These images cloud and obscure for us the true nature of Islam just as they hide from Muslims the truth about Christianity."
Then, it proceeds to describe the universalism of Islam, and defines Muslims as "the people who submit - who honor God under the name of Allah, and Muhammad as His messenger and prophet." The article continues: But who is this God called Allah, who is His prophet Muhammad? Allah ... is none other than the same supreme God worshiped by Jews and Christians - the Torah's "El" of Elohim, the Lord God Jehovah of Christians. And Muhammad, according to Muslims, is the last of His prophets or messengers in a line that commences with Adam and includes Abraham, Noah, Isaac, Jacob, Isaiah, King David, and of particular interest to Christians, John the Baptist and Jesus Christ."
To further facilitate the needed change in Christian attitude towards Muslims, COLUMBAN MISSION in the same issue printed excerpts from an article on St. Francis of Assisi, who was "for one moment in time ... a bridge between Islam and Christianity". This article states:
"We are convinced that to arrive at a more Christian understanding of our brothers in Islam, it is important for us to adopt the attitude adopted by St. Francis of Assisi and meditate on a phase of his life that has perhaps escaped a number of biographers and admirers; namely, the mysterious bonds that united the saint to the founder of Islam, the Arab prophet Muhammad."
The Reformed Church of America (RCA) has 350,000 members in 950 churches. In 1986, its Theological Commission made the following official statement:
"The Muslim community cannot be viewed at a distance by Christians. The Church and the Muslim community are related by history and by God as an expression and application of the covenant and promise with Abraham. Islam, therefore, has its place in God's purpose in election and creation. The Church has a bond, a relationship to affirm commitment to peace. One essential aspect of Christian peace-making is opening of the heart's home to sharing the nourishment of love and friendship on all levels of human interaction... It is a bold statement but true and compelling, that Muslims (and others) who avail themselves of the Christian offering and receive the Christian into their hearts as friends, receive Christ and avail themselves of him.
They eat and drink of that friendship and, through the faithfulness of their Christian friends, Christ is remembered in them".
In 1987, the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS) or Southern Presbyterian Church moved in a radically different direction from its past ways of dealing with Islam and Muslims peoples. Its General Assembly enacted the policy statement and called the attention of the Presbyterian Church to the presence of the Muslim community and to foster better understanding of Islam as religion. Muslims are to be seen as a people who believe in God's lordship over this world. The Presbyterian Church expressed its desire to seek common solutions to issues of social justice and order within American society.
Last year (1990), The Watch Tower Bible and Trust Society, i.e. Jehovah's Witnesses' published a book entitled "MANKIND'S SEARCH FOR GOD". This book has articles on eight major world religions, and carries a 20 page article on Islam. It covers the opening Chapter of the Holy Quran, The Prophet's calling, The Quran as a Revealed Scripture, The Sources of Islamic Teachings, Islam's Expansion and Divisions, Muslims Beliefs and Islamic concepts of Soul, Resurrection and Paradise. On the whole, it is a fair introduction of Islam to 800,000 Jehovah's Witnesses in North America. As a Muslim, I feel comfortable that next time when some Jehovah's Witnesses would knock at my door, they would not try to convince me that trinity is not a biblical doctrine. Hopefully they would know beforehand that Muslims have no dispute with them on that point.
Thus we find that there is steadily growing awareness, and increasing trust and expression of love with the spirit of cooperation and respect of Islam in many diverse religious communities in the United States. This trend is not merely due to the resurgence and reassertion of Islam all over the Muslim world, but this esteem given to the Muslims is also due to the fact that there is a dynamic increase in Muslim population within the United States and European countries. The news media tends to impart this information now and then, but still the total impact is not fully realized by many. In 1988, in its May 23 issue, the TIME magazine acknowledged the growing number of Muslims in America in an article entitled "Americans Facing Towards Mecca", and informed its readers that a growing number of Americans were accepting Islam as their own religion. On February 21, 1989, the "NEW YORK TIMES" printed a news item under the caption, "Mainstream Islam Rapidly Embraced by Black Americans" (pp.1, B-4) and estimated that about one million of the six million Muslims in the United States are African Americans, and close to 90 percent of new converts are blacks. The Wall Street Journal printed a front page article on October 5, 1990, under the heading, "Islam is Growing in U.S. Immigrants and converts Fight Fear and Stereotypes", and it stated:
"America's Moslem population is conservatively estimated at four million, which means that there are nearly twice as many Moslems in the United States as Episcopalions. More Moslems live in the U.S. than in Libya. And fueled by a steady influx of immigrants and smaller stream of home grown conversions, including many American blacks, the Moslem population may well surpass America's six million Jews before the decade is out."
Now this would be a very significant change. The birth of this new element in the pluralistic society of America contains far reaching implications. This would make Islam the second largest religion in the United States. This may lead to significant changes in U.S. foreign policies towards many Islamic countries, especially in the Middle East. This may start a trilogue among the Jews, Christians and Muslims living in America.
The politicians have already started to take note of this change. This explains the need for President Bush to offer each and every American Muslim his heartfelt best wishes on the Islamic religious Festival of Eid ul Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) on June 22 this year. In his televised message, President Bush mentioned that Abraham's example, who was ready at God's command, to sacrifice his own son, inspires three great religions:
"As children of Abraham, American Muslims gather today to honor their ancient faith. As Americans, your celebration affirm this nation's allegiance to religious freedom for all. The notion of religious tolerance lies at the heart of the American ideal. Many of our founders came here because the land promised religious tolerance."
But, unfortunately, this professed religious tolerance was not demonstrated to millions of Muslims who were brought from Africa in chains of slavery. It is estimated that a fifth of all slaves brought to America were Muslims. As the slaves were stripped of their original names and cultures, freedom and human dignity, so was their religion snatched away from them. Their masters not only imposed their christian names upon them, but also got them converted to Christianity under duress.
This loss of identity, freedom, human dignity, equality and their religion played played a very important role for some of the blacks to respond strongly against Christianity and in favour of Islam. To quote from Frank Smith's article on "Black Muslims" :
"The Civil War offered hope for a while, but not for long. The Negro, freed from slavery, but by no means emancipated, was still at the best downtrodden; at the worst, tortured, lynched, burned. Negro Baptist and Methodist Church sprang up, in which the black man momentarily feel free and equal. But outside his church, he found himself in the same plight as before. In 1930 came the great Wall Street crash, and as the depression deepened, jobs hitherto considered fit only for blacks were taken by newly-poor whites. The Negro had to take his place at the very end of the dole queue. He was totally without hope, rejected and despised on all sides."
(MAN MYTH AND MAGIC, p. 280)
Under these circumstances Islam was introduced to them, though in somewhat distorted forms, yet it held the promise of giving everything back to them that they lost over centuries of slavery. The Moorish Science Temple and birth of the Nation of Islam or so-called Black Muslim movements were manifestations of an extreme reaction and protest under charismatic leaders like Drew Ali, Wallace D. Fard and Elijah Poole who paved the way for millions of black Americans towards the religion of their ancestors. But, unfortunately, Islam did not start in its pristine purity among the black Americans, and for more than half a century, Islam was perceived by the Majority of Americans as militant, seperatist, black nationalist movement. The Koran of the Moorish Science Temple was not the same Qur'an of the the Muslims world over. The names "Nation of Islam" and "Black Muslims" were both misnomers. The earlier teachings of the Nation of Islam or the Black Muslims differed form the mainstream orthodox Islam in many vital areas. For example, Divinity attributed to man, Wallace D. Fard, by his disciple Elijah Poole, later known as Elijah Muhammad, was categorically against the teachings of Islam. Similarly, Elijah Muhammad's claim that Wallace D. Fard made him the last "Messenger of Allah" was unacceptable to the orthodox Muslims. Moreover, to condemn the entire White Race as devil was against the teachings of the Qu'ran which invites all races of mankind to Islam and righteousness. To claim that the black race belonged to a higher order of humanity was to negate Islam's recognition of righteousness of the heart, and not the color of the skin, as the true criterion of nearness to God. It seems that Nation of Islam, by choosing the path of seperatist militancy, missed the essence of the message of Universal Islam, and thus caused a great misconception about the religion of Islam.
There were two foreign born Missionaries, Sheikh Daud Ahmad Faisal of Granada, West Indies, and Dr. Mufti Muhammad Sadiq from India, who represented orthodox Sunni Islam and the reformatory Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam respectively, and who had started their missionary works in 1920. Both these Muslim Missionaries had tried to correct the misunderstandings about Islam.
But it was later in 1960's, when Malcom X, the most prominent and articulate disciple of Elijah Muhammad traveled to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, to perform the pilgrimage of Hajj, that to his amazement he discovered a different Islam than that of the Black Muslims.
Malcom X and the Nation are credited with the primary ideological foundation that led to the development of the concepts of "black power", "black pride", and "black consciousness" which stirred black youth and reverberated all through the civil rights movement of the period. Malcom X was more deeply aware than many less controversial leaders that the struggle for civil rights and integration were meaningless if integrity and independence for black selfhood were drowned in a sea of whiteness. Malcom's biting critique of the "so-called Negro" and his emphasis upon recovery of an independent selfhood helped to change the language and vocabulary of an entire society from "Negro" to "black".
Malcom X left the Nation of Islam in 1964 after getting at odds with Elijah Muhammad and was assassinated in 1965. It was 10 years later, at the death of Elijah Muhammad, that the Nation of Islam took a most significant turn under the leadership of Imam Warith Deen Muhammad, Elijah Muhammad's son, who adopted basic modifications and outright reversal in Nation of Islam's doctrines which were in violation of the spirit and letter of orthodox Islam. Warith Deen Muhammad began to dismantle the exclusive black "nation" by accepting whites into the movement. The NASHVILLE TENNESSIAN, in its June 19, 1975 issue captioned the news "Rule Switch Allows Whites as Muslims", and quoted Warith Deen Muhammad saying: "There is no black Muslim or White Muslim, All are Muslims, all children of God".
New names were also adopted by the group to reflect new directions. In 1976, it became "The World Community of Islam in the West"; in 1980 the name was again changed, and it was called "The American Muslim Mission".
In 1985, Imam Warith Deen Muhammad decentralized the group and gave directions to more than 100,000 of his followers, belonging to 300 mosques under his jurisdiction, to assimilate into the mainstream Islam, which, by then had already taken firm roots in America through more than three million Muslim immigrants.
Thus, starting with "pro-Islamic" movements of Moorish Science Temple of Noble Drew Ali, and the Nation of Islam of Elijah Muhammad, and passing through the hands of Malcom X, and presently Imam Warith Deen Muhammad, the perception of Islam has dramatically changed for Americans, especially African Americans.
Early Muslim immigrants came from various Islamic lands like Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, India, the Soviet Russia, Turkey, Yugoslavia, and Albania. These immigrants, who started arriving in the United States in early 19th century, were mostly uneducated, unskilled workers, and they usually settled near commercial and industrial centers in New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio, California, and Michigan. As their overruling motive was to improve their financial condition, no significant Islamic organization was formed. Most probably many of them lost their religion in the coming generations, in overwhelmingly Christian environment. A dramatic growth, however, in their numbers, activities and organizations has taken place in last 30 to 50 years. The pace of arrival the immigrant Muslims is now faster than the process of conversion of indigenous blacks and whites to Islam. As compared to one million blacks and approximately 75,000 white American Muslims, approximately three million Muslims have come from 60 different countries. Only in the years of 1986, for example, 2000 Muslims immigrated from Turkey, 3000 form Afghanistan, 6000 from Pakistan and more than 15,000 from Iran. At present 45% of total Muslim population in the U.S. is from North Africa, Middle East and other Asian countries and approximately 25% is from East European countries.
An increasing number of Muslim students are also being enrolled in American colleges and universities. For example, there were 28,000 students form Iran only in 1978. It is estimated that over 100,000 Muslim students enroll each year in American educational institutions. On completion of their studies, many of them go back to their homelands, but quite a few manage to stay here permanently.
In contrast to early Muslim immigrants who were menial workers in factories, mines and shops, most of the recent immigrant Muslims are well educated and professionals. There are, for example six thousand medical practitioners. Thus the need and awareness to train and educate their children in Islam, and to live in close association with Islamic religious institutions have also become acute. At present, there are more than 600 mosques and Islamic centers, scores of Muslim parochial day schools and several hundred weekend Islamic schools. Youth groups, women organizations and student associations are formed. Several printing presses, book distribution centers are run by Muslims; several Muslim newspapers, newsletters and magazines are regularly being published. Television and radio broadcasts, lessons, and debates are being circulated, and thus the awareness of Islam's presence and its growth in America is constantly and persistently expanding in various directions.
As in Christianity, proselytization is a deeply rooted Islamic tradition, yet it is in its infancy in America in comparison to the organized Church efforts to save the souls of non-believers. Christian institutes like World Vision, the Zwemer Institute of Islamic studies, and Center for Ministry to Muslims are aggressively engaged to take advantage of the presence of millions of Muslims now living in America, and they have developed programs to focus on American Muslims to win them over to Christianity. In response, several Islamic Associations and Societies are functioning with clear objective of winning the hearts and minds of Christians and Jews - the People of the Book - for Islam.
Who will win and who will lose, only God/Jehovah/Allah knows better. My hope and prayer is that the healthy process of advancement in mutual respect and trust, love and compassion should always remain the real winner among Christians, Muslims and Jews - all the Children of Adam and Eve.