Muslims in America: Beyond Stereotypes

Allah’s Promise

Sometimes, the news describes your people’s desire for a homeland as something objectionable. You fight to hold onto hope. You want to believe that nations will not allow the plight of your people to go on forever, but you are not certain. Each time you

are in that cage of despair, you hear your father’s voice quoting teachings from the holy book of Islam, The Qur’an…Your dad says that Allah is to be offered gratitude for the good—and for the pain and suffering.…“But how can one be thankful for suffering, Dad?” you ask impatiently. “Nothing meaningful ever happened without overcoming a hardship,” he says, “not a child walking, not a mother giving birth, not a people becoming free.” …But you cannot wait; panic invades all aspects of your life. When an opportunity opens, you leave for America.
Ameri-can

On the nineteenth anniversary of the Six-Day War, the event that overwhelmed your childhood, you see the Statue of Liberty for the first time from the plane window. She is a woman! She has what looks like a book in her hand. … Thanks be to Allah; she must love reading! She raises a torch and you see it as a symbol, a big pencil burning with desire for new knowledge. A fellow passenger explains that the torch is held up so that immigrants can find their way to the shore. You hide your eyes and weep thinking that she is there to welcome you too. You, the one who has never felt truly safe or welcome as a Palestinian anywhere on Earth all of your life, not even in your mother’s lap because your mother herself never felt safe. If you could embrace the Statue of Liberty, offer her a chair to rest while you carry her book and torch, as long as she desired, you would. The first thing you do in New York is buy a miniature statue and put it in your pocket. It is your first American passport. You think of the word American, which you hope to become someday. American ends with can. You also see the Am in the beginning of American and instantly turn your name to Ibtisamerican. Now you can do so much that you could not do before. As a Palestinian you come from a people obsessed with education as much as they are obsessed with liberation, so you know that you must do everything you can to enroll in graduate studies. The voices of your people are crammed in your heart, all waiting for you to breathe out and tell their stories.

Becoming Visible

You study journalism because you know it is a field where you can interview strangers and they will answer your questions. … You become visible. And there is democracy. It rests on freedom of speech, you are assured by many. You must learn a new language of responsibility, so you begin to conjugate new verbs: I decide. He chooses. They initiate. She leads. We vote. We have rights. Still, it is a jungle of new experiences. …fireworks of the Fourth of July send you hiding under your bed with images of war. Stylish army boots in shop fronts unleash hours of trauma. A helicopter transporting someone to a hospital takes you back to where helicopters flew to drop bombs.

UN-related

You find that many people have never met a Palestinian, never knew that Palestinians have a story. They don’t know that Palestinians were forced into diaspora to create the state of Israel

on Palestinian lands. You explain that great numbers of Palestinians now live in refugee camps rented with assistance from the United Nations and its largest agency dedicated to this one uprooted people, the United Nations Refugee Works Agency. Without the UN,

you would not have had the chance to go to school. If a person’s tears could run out, you would have run out of tears a long time ago on this journey to freedom. Because they

have never lived under occupation, most Americans tell you that they cannot relate to what you say. Some call your people terrorists. “What?” you ask. “Have you seen our lives? We are prisoners in our home.” You begin to expect discrimination from people with limited

views of humanity and little knowledge of history, those who do not seek a broader perspective. You expect discrimination like you expect harsh winters in Missouri: one wears the right clothes

and survives. Some insist that the word Palestine is controversial; others feel your sorrow, whisper that England considered George Washington a terrorist. You thank them for their empathy. Over time, many of your Middle Eastern friends change their names to sound Italian or Greek or American. But you cannot do so. To change your name would be comparable to no longer recognize yourself. You could not say Palestine growing up and now you would not be able to say Ibtisam! No, a big shout from the depth of your soul declares to you, Ibtisam I am, green cheese and lamb. Dr. Seuss can eat ham, but I am Muslim.
Hardship

… You seek friendships with people from varied backgrounds: Catholics, Protestants, and Mormons. They too have stories of war and displacement and have suffered for religious beliefs. You hear about the legacies of slavery from African Americans, and the astonishing losses on the Trail of Tears from Native Americans. You speak with Italians, Mexicans, Irish, Asians, and others and they tell you about their history outside and inside America. The stories repeat one thing: there is a Trail of Fear we create for one another in all places on Earth. Freedom is often defined as freedom from others, not freedom with others. You want to know why the Jews of Israel, who wanted freedom and have suffered much, put your people through captivity and exploitation in the name of God or in the name of their suffering. …

You and ME

We’ve come to the end of our walk, so I’ll take back my moccasins. I wish you happy travels and will leave you Fee Aman Allah, in the gracious protection of God. I hope that being Middle

Eastern (ME) for the space of this reading has enriched your experience, helped you see a bigger picture—one that includes everyone in the family of humanity.


Source:

Barakat, Ibtisam. “Being Me.” Oklahoma Humanities Council.

http://www.okhumanities.org/Websites/ohc/images/Being_ME_--_Ibtisam_Barakat.pdf


About Ibtisam Barakat

Ibtisam Barakat is a Palestinian-American author and poet who moved to the United States in 2016. She is also a translator, public speaker, artist, educator, and social justice advocate who focuses especially on empowering children and teens. Ibtisam’s first memoir in English is Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood. In 2016 Balcony of the Moon: Coming of Age in Palestine was published.

Voice 6: Ibitsam Barakat

Vocabulary

refugee a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.

Universal Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural

Declaration backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was

of Human Rights proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (General Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations.

Voice 7: Arsalan Tariq Iftikhar
“I Believe in Allah and America”

Myself included, there are over one billion humans on earth who call God by his Arabic name, Allah. Out of that billion, over seven million of us call America our home. Many of us are born as Americans, study in American institutions and go on to work and pay American dollars to our tax system. Like everyone else, we eventually find our better half, have chubby babies, go to zoos, get season tickets to the Chicago Bulls, go on our children’s field trips and fix the leak in our roofs. With all the growing pains in the life that we lead as normal Americans, everyday we turn our face to Mecca to pray to what our Christian brothers call God, our Jewish sisters call Yahweh and whom we call Allah.

Islam, Christianity and Judaism have exactly the same origin. We each believe in the monotheistic deity of Abraham, who was the father of all three of these noble religions. Islam's moral and ethical standards are equivalent, if not more stringent, than those of modern day Christianity and Judaism. We, as Muslims, believe in every prophet of both Judaism and Christianity. We believe the world began with Adam and Eve and great prophets, namely Moses, Aaron, Jacob, Joseph and Jesus (peace be upon all of them) were all divinely inspired by God.

We revere Jesus as a great prophet and the messiah of God. He is mentioned by name in the Quran 33 times. We equally revere the Virgin Mary as the mother of the Messiah. She is the only woman mentioned by name in the Quran and she is mentioned 34 times. Anyone who says Muslims don't respect women, read the entire chapter dedicated to Mary (peace be upon her). How many times was our beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) mentioned by name in the Quran? Five.

In Islam, a woman receives a monetary dowry from her husband, of which he has no legal claim. A woman is not obligated to change her maiden name. CNN happily broadcasts women being oppressed by the Taliban regime. Islam abhors the oppression of women. The Taliban says women are not allowed to work, yet the Prophet Muhammad's wife, Khadijah, was one of the most successful merchants in all of Arabia. Should we base our belief on a bunch of tribal warlords or the teachings of our Prophet?

In Islam, both men and women have to dress modestly. One aspect of this modest dress for women is the hijab (head covering). This is a religious mandate, but whether a woman decides to wear it or not, is an issue between her and Allah, because as the Quran categorically states, "there is no compulsion in religion." The hijab symbolizes empowerment, not oppression of women. It allows women to be judged on the content of their character, rather than the physical features that we men today objectify onto them. When we see a nun covered from head to toe in her habit, we commend her on her devotion to God. But when we see a Muslim woman wearing hijab, she is oppressed. In how many likenesses of the Virgin Mary, sculptures or paintings, is her hair not covered? Not one. Was she oppressed? Hardly.

Muslim American is not a paradox. As Muslim Americans we currently live in a diaspora having to deal with an attack on our, yes, our, country. We also have a dual anxiety because our way of life, which is not far different from our Christian and Jewish counterparts, is under attack.

I am a law student. I study international human rights. I have been to U2, Sarah Maclachlan, Dido and Outkast concerts. I have been a ball boy for the Chicago Bulls. I have owned a Ford Mustang. I pray for peace and have read Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech ninety-six times. I may be a dreamer, but I promise you, I am not the only one.

I am a Muslim and I am an American. I am proud of both and will compromise neither.


Source:

Iftikhar, Arsalan Tariq. “I Believe in Allah and America.” Taking Back Islam,

edited by Michael Wolfe, Rodale, 2002, pp. 225-232.

About Arsalan Tariq Iftikhar

Arsalan Tariq Iftikhar was born September 1, 1970 in Norfolk, Virginia. He is an international human rights lawyer and author of several books. He is the founder of TheMuslimGuy.com, the editor of Islamic Monthly Magazine and a professor at Georgetown University.

Voice 7: Arsalan Tariq Iftikhar

Vocabulary

diaspora the dispersion of any people from their original homeland.

dowry property or money brought by a bride to her husband on their marriage.

ethical relating to moral principles or the branch of knowledge dealing with these.

paradox a statement or proposition that, despite sound (or apparently sound) reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory.

revere feel deep respect or admiration for (something).
Voice 8: Andre Carson
How did your difficult childhood shape your life and politics?

My mother suffered from schizophrenia so my grandmother raised me. My mother was a brilliant woman - she had a doctorate degree and was a devout Christian - but of course the illness impacted her judgment. But going through that difficult experience deepened my sensitivity to the less fortunate, to those who don't have home or shelter. Later on this complimented my Islamic belief in relation to almsgiving and helping the poor. That kind of experience should only shape a person to become a better humanitarian. It made me want to give back and make the world a better place.

Was there any kind of pushback from your Baptist family after you revealed you were converting to Islam?

Absolutely. There were some relatives who were told not to associate with me. However, my grandmother had a fondness and an appreciation for the religion, and she was wise enough to give me the space to grow and study, even though I was living under her roof.…

Your grandmother encouraged your move towards the faith?

She definitely encouraged me because she knew for me as a young African American male that as long as I was in the faith I was not getting in the kind of trouble that would have left me incarcerated. Still, some relatives were deeply disappointed. We laugh about it now but at the time where they were spiritually did not compliment my spiritual journey. It was good preparation though; rejection from loved ones hurts, especially as a teenager but I fell in love with the faith; it just answered questions for me.

Islam is often associated with helping the oppressed or giving to the poor. How do these religious tenets carry over…your work trying to improve standards of education?

It was the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, who stated explicitly in the Hadith that a man who educates his daughters is granted paradise….In the prophet's last sermon he said there is no superiority - white over black, Arab over non-Arab - words that were quite visionary and also applicable to our times today….

Do American Muslims need to become more entrenched in American society, particularly civil society and law enforcement? How do you encourage that?

… At 17, after I had started studying the religion, I was arrested because police officers tried to go into a mosque without probable cause. That arrest fuelled me into wanting to become a police officer, which I did. I managed to do that and I was assigned to homeland security, terrorism and counter-intelligence….

You and Keith Ellison are both from the Midwest. Observers would have probably predicted the first elected Muslims would have come from the more cosmopolitan areas, cities such as New York or LA?

I'm in the Bible Belt but what you'll find about Midwesterners is that they're less concerned about what religion a person is and more concerned with their value system and whether they'll deliver. What you are seeing from Representative Ellison and myself are Muslims that come from the African American experience. We are more concerned with civil and human rights, with education, with the global economy, creating jobs and how to repair broken infrastructure. These are issues Midwesterners relate to.

So Indiana constituents in 2008 didn't see a Muslim man, or they did but first they saw a former police officer, and then a man that had served in local government?

During the campaign there were a number of YouTube videos posted that tried to discredit me because of my religion. But the polling data we received stated that most people only really cared that I was a police officer and a former city councilor. It speaks to Midwestern sensibilities that folks are not so wrapped up in a person's faith….

Some Republicans, backed by campaign groups, are sincerely pushing for the US to adopt a more "Christian" worldview. Is this a concern?

I always respect a person's religion. I had a lot of support from the Christian community when I ran. There was a small group of Christian ministers that didn't want me to speak in their churches because they thought I was unfit due to my religion, but overwhelmingly more Christian pastors welcomed me….

The founders [of the United States] were very visionary when they said there should be no religious test to hold public office because there can be a danger when politicians use their public office to proselytize, and to ostracize people who don't feel the same way as them.

You're a vocal advocate of equal-marriage, an area most traditional religions have a problem with. Does you faith ever clash with your politics?

For me equal marriage is an issue of civil rights. If we believe we are all part of God's creation we should be careful about making these calls. The LGBT community is making great strides and I wouldn't be surprised to see a future president coming from that community.

But how can I as an elected official just represent one constituency? We represent all people. Muslims should be mindful that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We should have equality on all fronts.
Source:

“Muslim Congressman Andre Carson On The Bible Belt, Equal Marriage, Madrassas

And An LGBT President.” Huffington Post.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/11/20/muslim-congressman-andre-carson-_n_6189790.html?guccounter=1.

About Andre Carson

Andre Carson was born into a Baptist family in 1974, and converted to Islam at 16. Carson graduated from Indiana Wesleyan University with a Masters in Business Management, became a police officer, and transferred to a counter terrorism unit in Homeland Security. He was elected to represent Indiana's 7th district in 2008. He is the second Muslim to be elected to serve in the United States Congress.

Voice 8: Andre Carson

Vocabulary

Bible Belt those areas of the southern and midwestern US and western Canada where Protestant fundamentalism is widely practiced

doctorate the highest degree awarded by a graduate school or other approved educational organization

humanitarian concerned with or seeking to promote human welfare.

incarcerated imprisoned
Infrastructure the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g., buildings, roads, and power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise

ostracize exclude (someone) from a society or group

pastor a minister in charge of a Christian church or congregation

proselytize convert or attempt to convert (someone) from one religion, belief, or opinion to another

schizophrenia a long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation

Voice 9: Haroon Moghul
Growing up in New England as a first-generation Pakistani-American, Haroon Moghul was taught that practicing his Islamic faith would make life his better. What he didn't anticipate was how challenging it could be to be Muslim in America.
In 2001, Moghul was the student leader of New York University's Islamic Center when the Sept. 11 attacks occurred. Shortly thereafter, he was called upon to be a spokesperson for the Muslim community in New York — a role he describes as both a "civic responsibility" and a "tremendous burden."
"It's really hard," he says. "Being Muslim can be a limiting factor where you're shackled to what people do in the name of Islam in different parts of the world, including here in the United States."
Moghul has continued to advocate and explain Islam since then, but he acknowledges that he has also grappled with the more personal aspects of his faith. …
When I was growing up, mosques were pretty much the reserve of men of a certain professional and ethnic background, of a certain sectarian affiliation. The sermons were often barely in English, hardly comprehensible and usually completely irrelevant to the concerns of the time.

I was deeply dissatisfied by that. And when I got to NYU ... it was the first time I had ever encountered a large group of diverse Muslims, and I thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if all of us could find a place where we'd feel at home, where being Muslim was something that we got to define for ourselves and not have imposed on us from without?" So we set ourselves to the task of building this really cool, this really dynamic and this really fun institution. And I think it took off precisely because a lot of people were invested in their religious identity, but they didn't have a place where they could express it.

I've often felt myself to be torn in half between who I believed I was supposed to be — often through the input of parents and elders and religious authorities — and who I thought I wanted to be, which emerged from within myself…
[This] was reproduced in the aftermath of Sept. 11. ... Suddenly there were two parts to me that a lot of people believed were not only incompatible, but mutually hostile — that I was an American and I was a Muslim. And there are a lot of people, and probably an [increasing] number of people, who think that that conjunction is impossible.
… when the attack happened, I was in a place in my life where I thought I would leave the Islamic Center behind, because it felt suffocating and I felt a hypocrite and a fraud. And when the attack happened, I was [the] leader of one of the largest Muslim communities in proximity to ground zero, and one of the few [communities] that was able to talk to media because it was conversant in English and composed of people who had grown up here and had the ability to speak to wider American audiences. And suddenly this task of community building and community organizing — which was only ever supposed to be for a university campus — became part of a national, even international, conversation, which I felt like I had to do, and felt completely and totally unprepared for.
Every time something bad happens you're called upon to apologize, to explain. It means that your entire identity is pegged to events in other parts of the world — usually and almost exclusively negative events — and your entire religious life becomes the articulation of why your community is not a problem or should not be perceived as a problem to wider America.
The tragedy, I think, of contemporary American Islam is that externally we're defined politically — we're defined as a national security threat, we're defined as the "other" of Western civilization. But internally, we've begun to reflect that rhetoric and we've begun to talk less of ourselves as a spiritual tradition and a religious worldview and more and more as an ethnic community whose boundaries are political. I think that's the tragedy here.
When I dropped out of law school at the age of 23, I was pretty sure that it was the end of my life. I was so raised in the suburban Pakistani milieu that I believed if I didn't become a doctor and I didn't become a lawyer, I literally would have no future. …and so it only confirmed in me this feeling that I had somehow come up short. ... I thought that what I was going through was either something exclusive to me, or a product of my inability to live up to being Muslim….
The way I was taught Islam when I was growing up was a set of practices that you do so that you don't go to hell. There was almost nothing there of the idea of actually transforming yourself or having a personal and intimate relationship with God. And what I began to find in Dubai, including at that mosque, was this idea of spirituality as a practice and as a struggle to reach a different point in your life.
What I found so moving about this imam's prayers was that he very openly and candidly expressed, in beautiful Arabic, his insufficiencies, and I had never encountered that kind of vulnerability in religion. ... He was talking about how he'd come up short, and how time and again he had failed as a Muslim, and I had never experienced that kind of frank, open conversation about spiritual shortcomings. I had always treated religious leaders as people who had somehow figured it out and reached a point where they didn't have any doubt, they didn't have any questions, they didn't have any insufficiencies, and that moment, that night in the mosque ... was transformative. ... It gave me permission to be myself, to accept that just because I don't pray as often as I should doesn't mean I can't have a connection to God or that I can't be Muslim, and it also meant that I had to find a spiritual practice that worked for me.