The Islamic Movement Of The United States And Western Countries Essay

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.

The history of the Islamic world has been one of weak state institutions and state underperformance, coupled with a high prevalence of violence, both by the state and by individuals. A major reason for these negative trends has been the role of political Islam in privileging homogeneity over diversity, in stifling dissent in public and private life, and the societal stagnation that follows such rigid controls. Malaysia and Indonesia have been notable exceptions to the underperformance of Islamic cultures.

There is not much information on when Muslims first arrived in America, but there has been evidence that some of the slaves were Muslim, but didn’t have the ability to practice their religion freely, they also tried to accommodate their faith with Christianity, but others were converted. It was about twenty percent of the slaves in the US were Muslim. One of the first known Muslims in the United States, was a slave from Morocco, named Estevanico, who was shipwrecked with Spanish Explorers near the where the city Galveston, Texas is. After that there weren’t many Muslims coming into the United States until the twentieth century. This is shown by the evidence that one of the first mosques was built in North Dakota in 1929, and while the mosque was demolished a Muslim cemetery still stands near the spot of that mosque. Islam started in the 7th century with a prophet named Muhammad. It is an Abrahamic religion, like Judaism and Christianity, but Muslims believe that Islam is a step further than the other two religions.

The religion of Islam garners large amounts attention. Many believe it is a violent and backwards religion. Since 9/11, "Islamic reform" has become an all-purpose phrase: equally a western impulse to protect itself from Muslim violence and a humanist notion aimed at assisting voiceless Muslims (Eteraz1). Extreme displays of Islamic faith such as the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 have generated negative stereotypes about Islam as a religion. These stereotypes of violence and backwards thinking have been further perpetuated by even more recent examples of extremism by Muslim terrorists. Although most Muslims are peaceful and do not endorse the violence of their Muslim brethren, there are some who believe it is their

I think the one and only reason why there is extreme Islamism is because when it was a bad time for the economy the Government promised many things about having a better live with more jobs and more opportunities. But because that didn’t happen the people made up a group to fight against the Government. The reason young British Muslims join ISIS, Cameron claimed, is ideological. It is an Islamist extremist ideology. One that says the West is bad and democracy is wrong, that women are inferior, that homosexuality is evil. It says religious doctrine trumps the rule of law and the Caliphate trumps nation state, and it justifies violence in asserting itself and achieving its aims. So I think that the West didn’t really change anything from the

Introduction “What Went Wrong: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response” a novel written by Bernard Lewis, outlines how the Islamic world has failed to keep up with modernization due to Western power and dominance over certain regions. Lewis’ book acknowledges the differences between Islamic and Western culture and gives distinct examples of the many years Islamic regions have failed to come up with efficient solutions to get back their global position. In means of political, economic, and military development the Islamic world has fallen way behind where they once stood in centuries past. Lewis gives examples of different Islamic views regarding their history and the cause and effect of major inciting events that have regressed the Islamic culture. One major theme I found in Lewis’ book is that ethnocentrism has made Islamic ideology very foggy and unrealistic in terms of progressing in all areas.

Throughout world history there has been a pattern of one unfortunate group of people being pit against the rest, this people being persecuted and discriminated for their religious beliefs, political ideology, and even the color of their skin. In the United States it was the Native Americans, then the Chinese and the Irish, to now present day hostility to Latinos. The same can be said in every region of the world. The perpetuation of the “Us versus Them” binary is an occurrence that in some form or another inevitably comes to become apart of the social, political, and economic fabric of every country, region, and continent in history. Europeans are no exception, and currently, their biggest “nuisance” are Muslim immigrants moving to their countries.

Culture talk have often been used in the central media to give reasons and explanations about groups of people different from Westerns. Many scholars believe that using culture talk as an explanation buffers the root of the problem and actually layers more issues. In the anthropology reflection, “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving,” Lila Abu-Lughod critics President Bush for “saving Muslim women,” as the means to fight in the “War on Terrorism.” Abu-Lughod believes that culture talk creates binaries and power between the West and everyone else and instead people should recognize and respect differences (Abu- Lughod, pp. 784). In “Good Muslim, Bad Muslim,” a scholarship on culture talk, Mahmood Mandani brings to light about how people need to look beyond the western framing of “good” and “bad” Muslims and focus on how political Islamic came about in a historical perspective. Both Abu-Lughod and Mandani problematizes the assumptions made by culture talk by addressing historical context and correcting

the government and media. I believe that people running this country are Anti Islamic due to there view on things. Also this is a Zionist country, which is another reason that makes the media discriminate against the Muslim’s, due to the conflict with Palestine and other Muslim countries. The media has always portrayed Islam in a negative way. The reason the media is biased when it comes to Islam because they hate the Islamic structure and the beliefs. The majority of media conglomerate ownership is of people who

In our culture, we have the privilege and ability to implement critical debate with our opponents. We can criticize our own words, belief, and action in politics and religion and correct mistakes. Criticism in Islam rare because of the legal system indoctrinated with religion and culture. Islam, a way of life includes the legal, political, social, and culture. In the US where Islam a minority leaders of Islam prepared to address fault having the Koran at hand. Therefore; the study and knowledge about Muhammad essential to debate and successfully criticize. Yours Truly have noticed a few are armed with knowledge. Who is the man Muhammad and his

Marshall Hodgson was born in 1922 and was an academic in Islamic studies and a renowned historian at University of Chicago. He held the position of chairperson of the interdisciplinary CSTC. This book is a great piece of work that has received various honors since being published in 1975. It uses maps and charts to provide an interpretation of Islamic civilization’s development of history from the time Muhammad was born to the middle of the 20th century. A close scrutiny of this work discloses that it grew out of the course which Hodgson taught on Islamic civilization at the University of Chicago for various years. Arguably, the book is an unparalleled piece of work due to the author’s mastery of the subject and its demonstration of the way history needs to be written. In the course of his lifetime, Hodgson did not make many publications, but remains among the most influential historians because of this book. The compelling language he adopts can reconfigure the study of Islam. In addition, he provides a great definition of terminologies focusing on religion and the history of Islam. The most significant aspect is perhaps the way Hodgson manages to provide a distinction of Islamic and Islamicate phenomena. These were regional products where Muslims remained culturally superior. Through the book, Hodgson paints a global view of the history of the world whereby Europe’s rise represented the end-product of Eurasian cultural evolutionary development.

there are many positive signs that the muslim world are moving towards more liberal democratic societies. As communist development , islamic and secular governance fail to deliver solutions to growing social and economic needs, Muslim intellectuals started to advocate democracy and human rights. They did so not only to achieve modernity, development, and dignity, but also to ensure a better practice of Islam. The strong pressures toward liberalization, are caused by the media providing many endless alternative governing ways from other countries.

“examining the dynamics of Islamic feminism and its potential in the Muslim world. It is difficult and perhaps futile to put the emerging feminist voices in Islam into neat categories and to try to generate a definition that reflects the diversity of

In this context, Islam and the discourse of western Muslim intellectuals have gradually gained visibility through the continuing migration and the growth of new generations in the western societies. Western Islam also has emerged in the hearth of modernity; yet did not follow the same patters of classical modernization trends. However, it could not escape the hegemonic influence of modernity. As a result, American (western) Islam is emerging not only as a response to the challenges (premises) of modernity but also through a ‘transformative dialectical engagement’ with the ethos of modernity, which gradually pave the path towards the rise of Islamic modernism in the west. Hence, the multiple modernities thesis serves as a more adequate theoretical approach than the prevailing modernization or secularization perspective to understand the continued importance of Islam in the western context.

In past 20years, political role of Islam increased considerably which resulted in overgrown interest in finding the history of Islamic political ideas existing in medieval Muslim society. The evaluation of ideas enabled it to find out the development of mechanism known as ‘Muslim society’ and discover its functioning as an efficient government. Among many Islamic schools of ideas, Al-ghazali is also one of those renowned Islamic scholars who gave his ideas regarding efficient government and political system.