Khalid Ibn El Waleed

Islam, a religion of people submitting to one God, seeking peace and a way of life without sin, is always misunderstood throughout the world. What some consider act of bigotry, others believe it to be the lack of education and wrong portrayal of events in media; however, one cannot not justify the so little knowledge that America and Americans have about Islam and Muslims. Historically there are have been myths, many attacks on Islam and much confusion between Islam as a religion and Middle Easter culture that is always associated with it. This paper is meant to dispel, or rather educate about the big issues that plague people’s minds with false ideas and this will only be touching the surface.

It answers, as far as it can, questions as “Is Islam against the West?” and “Who defines moderate Islam post 9/11?”. In one of the case studies presented in the book, the author discusses the impact of 9/11 has had on British Muslim Identity, giving an overview of the presence of British Muslims, then looks at 9/11 and the impact it has had on the British Muslim community.

Document B is by Ibn Al-Athir and talks about the First Crusade. It is a short document that describes a lot of the First Crusade.

William the conqueror in the battle of hastings. September 27 is when things started going William’s way, the wind shifted and started moving them right into England. Directly after reaching shore William decided to make his move and as stated in the document "William I." “William rallied the fleeing horsemen, however, and they turned and slaughtered the foot soldiers chasing them. On two subsequent occasions, William’s horsemen feigned retreat, which fooled Harold’s soldiers, who were then killed by their opponents. Harold’s brothers were also killed early in the battle. Toward nightfall the king himself fell, struck in the eye by an arrow according to Norman accounts, and the English gave up.” (par.1) this quote shows that William knew what he was doing and did the right thing and also that he wasn’t scared. William was about to become a ruler of another country.

Imagine being one of the most powerful and richest ever in the entire world, that was the case for Mansa Musa. Additionally, Musa was an emperor of the wealthy West African Mali Empire in which he was and still is, the richest man in the world with an estimated four-hundred billion. Moreover, he was devoted to the religion Islam and made a pilgrimage to Mecca from West Africa to worship. Therefore, Mansa Musa’s had reasons that demonstrated his devotion to Islam, which are his pilgrimage to Mecca, his elected religion while though his empire, it was populated by a mixture of people with different religions, and with money since he did not need to have a religion or follow one with power and money like he had, yet he believed in it and stayed with it until death.

“I am God ‘s slave and sultan of this world,. By the grace of God I am head of Muhammad’s community. God’s might and Muhammad’s miracles are my companions.” “I am Suleiman…and I conquered the land of Moldavia”

Beowulf took his army of men with him on the journey to fight Grendel. The battle with Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the dragon, are all the battles that Beowulf fought tirelessly with his army standing and waiting for orders alongside him. In similarity, today, the Army is made up of more than 700,000

Wallace used guerrilla warfare to attack the English and it worked very well. Because of his great accomplishments as a warrior, William was knighted in 1298 by a Scottish nobleman. One of the biggest battles that William fought was the battle of Falkirk. King Edward put together a massive army to take down William and his soldiers once and for all. Wallace’s army hid from Edward’s forces for a while to gain an advantage.

September 11th holds many hard and upset feelings around the world today. The harsh actions of Muslim extremists unfortunately completely changed the way Muslims are treated, especially in the United States. These events, exacerbated islamophobia. Unfortunately, “the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, connect Muslims and Islam to terrorism within the geographical borders of the United States.” (Byng) Although it has been over a decade since the attack, many still feel racist and discriminatory attitudes towards Muslims. Muslims are the targeted minority in the United States, “the 9/11 terrorist attacks shifted the social and political context for Muslims in the United States. Terrorism within the geographical borders of the United States carried out by Muslims places an identity at the center of national and global politics.” (Byng) The blame of the horrible terrorist attacks, rather than be placed on terrorists or religious extremist, has been placed on Islam in America. After September 11th, hate crimes towards Muslims skyrocketed, “the most dramatic change noted by the report was a more than 1,600 percent increase in reported hate crimes against Muslims -- a jump from 28 hate incidents in 2000 to 481 last year.”

“Float like a butterfly, sting like a be.” - Muhammad Ali. This was a great saying that not only did Ali follow in the ring but also outside the ring with his political activism. During my research I was able to fully understand of the heroic characteristics Ali had dedication, hard working, and being courageous is why he is one my biggest heroes and why I so greatly admire him.

Equally important is the way that these men carry themselves in the midst of battle. Gilgamesh is an impatient warrior that is known for carrying his side kick Enkidu with him to battle. One can witness his anxiety for battle in the literature when he confronts Humbamba, the sentinel fiend of the Cedar Forest. However, Beowulf is a patiend and independent competitor. In his battle with Grendel, a hellish, Dane preying monster, Beowulf practiced patience by waiting until the monster tried to eat him to attack. He displayed independence in battle by ordering his gang of thanes to remain on the barrow as he set forth in his final battle with a flame hurling dragon.

Instead, from its onset, Islam spread as a conquering power and remained that way for some time. Explaining it this way, the reader gets a sense of the psychology behind Islam and why, besides being a religious task, spreading Islam is such a goal. By showing the issues Islam faces today in the context of past Islamic traditions, Lewis paints a much clearer picture of the skewed view today’s radicals have and the way they use history to manipulate. He examines influential Muslim voices like Saddam Hussein and Usama Bin Laden, who have used history to give Islam victim status or to claim the continuance of a predecessor’s mission to not only justify terrorist activities, but also to recruit followers. He tells the history of Bin Laden’s statement referring to the “humiliation and disgrace” Islam supposedly has suffered. What Bin Laden was referring to was the defeat of the Ottoman sultanate in 1918 and the imperial presence of Westerners on sacred Muslim lands. Lewis explains the offense many Muslims take to the desecration of their holy lands by foreigners. He describes how the discovery and exploitation of oil in the Holy Land of the Hijaz has exacerbated the growing resentment many Muslims

While the events of September 11, 2001, cast the Islam religion in an unfavorable light, this has not dampened the enthusiasm of the Muslim members, nor has it

The connection between Islam and terrorism was not intensified until the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center that pushed the Islamic faith into the national and international spotlight (Smith, 2013). As Smith (2013) articulated, “Many Americans who had never given Islam a second thought before 9/11 now had to figure out how to make sense of these events and relate to the faith tradition that ostensibly inspired them” (p. 1). One way in which people made sense of these events was through the media channels that influenced their overall opinions by shaping a framework of censored ideas (Yusof, Hassan, Hassan & Osman, 2013). In a survey conducted by Pew Forum (2012), 32% of people reported that their opinions of Muslims were greatly influenced by the media’s portrayal of Islam that depicted violent pictorials and fundamentalist Muslims. Such constant negative depiction is likely to lead to the inevitable—prejudice and hate crime. For instance, in 2002 alone there were approximately 481 hate crimes that were carried out against Muslims (Smith, 2013). Ever since the 9/11 attacks Muslim people have been the target of “suspicion, harassment and discrimination” (Talal, n.d., p. 9).

For about fifteen hundred years, Saudi Arabia’s history has centered on one major theme: Islam. Muhammad, the founder of Islam, was born around 570 A.D. in the city of Mecca. Early in the 7th century A.D., according to Islamic belief, Muhammad, while meditating in a cave on Mount Hira, was visited by the angel Gabriel. Gabriel