My Life As A Muslim In The Grey Zone Analysis

Islam in two Americas is a delayed thesis argument about the state of Islāmic/American relations in the US, post 9-11. As a delayed thesis, the author, Ross Douthat, opens the debate with a brief explanation of the “two Americas” as he sees it. Within the current political climate that is America today, it would be hard to argue that this divide does not exist.

In the lecture “What It’s like to Be Muslim in America” by Dalia Mogahed, Dalia emphasizes how “Muslims are like canaries in the coal mine, we might be the first to feel it, but the toxic air of fear is harming us all” (Mogahed). This xenophobic behavior is what strives citizens to fear one another and find an excuse to polarize a certain ethnicity for their alleged affiliations with terrorist groups. This overwhelming fear causes the initial hatred towards some people but it ultimately ricochets onto the rest of society. Next, the abundant amount of fear proves to be detrimental to society due to the fact that it provokes disastrous behavior between citizens. According to Dalia, “ISIS has as much to do with Islam as the Ku Klux Klan has to

For this paper, I have chosen to interview an acquaintance of mine who is a devote Muslim and follower of Islam. For the sake of this assignment I will be referring to him under the pseudonym of Jack. I spoke with Jack about some wide-ranging topics discussing things such as, media, bias, stereotypes, and really in general what being a follower of Islam is like in this divided country right now. In our country, today it’s pretty apparent there is a type of fear of Muslims, so much so that 7 heavy populated Muslim countries are not permitted from entering the United States of America. I never had conversations as personal as this with Jack and I feel as if I gained a lot of insight into the types of things minorities, and especially Muslims

When discussing 9/11, the author writes about Post-9/11 America seemed determined: “Never Again.” Despite important differences, genocide and terrorism share one important feature, which is that both parget civilian populations. This led the author to ask, “To what extend is the mind-set of the perpetrators revealed by the way they frame their victims culturally (Mamdani, 11)?” The debate on this question turns around the relationship between cultural and political identity and in the context of 9/11, between religious fundamentalism and political terrorism. The ideas the author raised in the Good Muslim, Bad Muslim section, stuck out to me the most. Mamdani explained that President Bush moved to distinguish between “good Muslims” and “bad Muslims.” From the “bad Muslims” point of view, they were obviously responsible for terrorism and at the same time, Bush seemed to assure Americans that “good Muslims” were anxious to clear their names and consciences of this horrible crime and would undoubtable support “us” in a war against “them.” This doesn’t hide the central message of the discourse that unless proved to be “good,” every Muslim was presumed to be “bad.” All Muslims were now obligated to prove their credentials by joining in a war against “bad Muslims (Mamdani, 15).” This part of the reading really got me thinking about

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.”

According to Amin Maalouf, “It seems clear that the Arab East still sees the West as a natural enemy. Against that enemy, any hostile action-be it political, military, or based on oil-is considered no more than legitimate vengeance. And there can be no doubt that the schism between these two worlds dates from the Crusades, deeply felt by the Arabs, even today, as an act of rape” (Amin Maalouf). When reflecting on The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, this quote always sticks out as the most powerful piece of Maalouf’s work. As a growing college student this quote brings harsh reality to the world I live in. I believe as you grow through life, you become more and more aware of the world around you through education. In order to

According to Amin Maalouf, “It seems clear that the Arab East still sees the West as a natural enemy. Against that enemy, any hostile action-be it political, military, or based on oil-is considered no more than legitimate vengeance. And there can be no doubt that the schism between these two worlds dates from the Crusades, deeply felt by the Arabs, even today, as an act of rape” (Amin Maalouf). When reflecting on The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, this quote always sticks out as the most powerful piece of Maalouf’s work. As a growing college student this quote brings harsh reality to the world I live in. I believe as you grow through life, you become more and more aware of the world around you through education. In order to be aware you must

“Muslims, Bin Laden argues, must reverse a series of humiliations that they’ve endured since the Ottoman Empire, the last Muslim great power, was dismantled after World War I. Al-Qaeda’s 1998 declaration of a jihad, or holy war, against ‘Jews and Crusaders’ urges Muslims to attack ‘the Americans and their allies, civilian and military,’ supposedly as a response to U.S. policies that al-Qaeda feels oppress Muslims: the stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia; the backing of U.N. sanctions against Iraq; support for repressive Arab regimes; support for Israel; alleged complicity in Russian attacks on Muslims in Chechnya; and interventions in Bosnia, Somalia, and other Muslim regions that bin Laden sees as attempts to spread America’s empire. These Western policies, according to al-Qaeda, add up to a ‘clear

Ever since September 11, 2001 Americans along with the majority of the world’s population have been skeptical of Muslims. It’s a sad reality but it’s hard for people to think of a Muslim without linking them directly to terrorism. But these assumptions aren’t totally out of the blue—the Muslim’s religion, Islam, teaches a low tolerance for other religions and the Islamic government has no separation of church and state, so it’s only normal to assume that their government shall have a low tolerance as well—some however, immediately translate this into terrorism. Through the Islamic government and religion, relations with foreign countries, and separation amongst themselves it can be concluded that Islamic Fundamentalism is clearly a threat

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

In the days after September 11, 2001, American leaders rushed to portray Islam as a peaceful religion that had been "hijacked" by a fanatical band of terrorists. One hopes that these assurances were merely tactical—that nobody was meant to believe them and that they were meant to assure the Muslim world that the inevitable American

The objective of this work is to examine Islam, a highly controversial sensitive issue in today's world and specifically to examine the misconceptions, beliefs, and values of those of the Islamic faith. Most people think that the majority of Muslims live in the Middle East, while in reality there are more people of the Islamic faith living in Indonesia. Islam, just as Judaism and Christianity, is practiced in various cultures, serves to shape, and is shaped by those cultures. This study examines the perceptions of those of the three faiths in various countries and how they view one another and seek to answer how a level of threat is felt by those belonging to these three religious groups in various countries. Countries examined in this study include those of the United States, Great Britain, India, Pakistan, and the Middle East. The depth of understanding or the teachings of Islam among the various religious groups in these various countries will also be examined in terms of how these understandings impact the ways that Muslims and non-Muslims interact and communicate with one another.

Since many religions have started in the Middle East, it has become the center for erupting conflicts. For instance, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been in the news for many reasons. Both groups want control of the God given land that they both claim is theirs, according to God, and what had happened in the past. The result of the conflict is religious terrorism (PBS, 1). Continuing, some Middle Eastern politics have been in conflict, even dividing communities of the

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).

This survey reveals that the problem with the Islam faith is not racial: The Muslim people are welcomed, the Islam faith is not. The violence that has been perpetrated against America, whether executed or planned, has brought to fruition religious persecution not seen since the persecution of the Jews in W.W.II. This “trust no Arab” attitude has brought shame to the Constitutional intentions of freedom of religion intended by our forefathers, and has set religious tolerance back 200 years. Looking at media representation of Muslim Americans prior to 9-11, it shows religious diversity in America, depicting Muslim America as just another religious community seeking to advance and protect their interests, not unlike other Americans. After 9-11 the media portrayed representations of threat and fear, creating boundaries between Muslims and other Americans. Such depiction transforms the identity of Muslims and American religious pluralism (Byng, M. pg. 3).