...Discrimination The difference between Muslims and Arabs is ethnicity and religion. Arab defines the ethnic group and Muslim defines the religion practiced by an individual devoted to that particular belief. Arab people do not always practice the Muslim religion and not all Muslims are Arab. According to research and news reports within the past 2 years, the only policy I found pertained to racial profiling that announced citizens of countries considered terrorist active countries would undergo additional screening at airports (Voice of America, 2010). President Obama has been involved in discussions with Arab and Muslim American groups, but no true progress has occurred to limit or stop the discrimination. Two characteristics of Orientalism are lumping Arab & Muslim people into the same category with no distinction for the ethnic and religious differences and the general stereotype that Arab and Muslim people are not modern. Orientalism and prejudice contributes to hate crimes against these people because of the misunderstanding of the difference between the distinct differences in the cultures of the ethnic group and the religious beliefs of the ethnic groups. Such a vague definition of people living in the Orient can lead to confusion about the different fanatical religious groups inhabiting land in the Orient. Individuals can promote tolerance and reduce prejudice in their towns and cities by educating children early in life about the differences in cultures within...
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...religion and ethnic groups other than your own? I am a African American who practice Christianity as a religion. I have choose to research Islam and Whites, which is the European descent. The information that you are about to read in this content is unique and will become familiar within your own religion and race. There are somethings that maybe slightly different as comparison to other religions. There are three major groups in this world that has been created. Islam happens to be one of the major groups. The other major groups are Christians and Judaism. Islam belief, is that there is one God. God is the higher power who created the world. Islam believe that we as people should surrender to the higher power, which is God. Islam is God. In the Islamic religion, if you follow God, you would be considered a Muslim. In Arabic, Muslim is defined as, one who surrenders to God. Allah is the Arabic name for God. Muslims are considered equal before God. Islam provide a sense of loyalty to God that connects their race, nationality, and differences with other religion. Islam is originated from Arabia. Islam begin to Syria, North America, Spain , India, and Egypt. In the 10th century they began to spread east, north, and the south. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. Islam is open to new members, so this is the reason why it grows rapidly. If you are a Muslim, when your children are born, they would be Muslim also. Muhammad is the founding prophet of Islam. Muhammad started...
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...the attackers to Muslim refugees (BBC News). Xenophobia is the irrational fear of things perceived as foreign or alien. Though attaching the suffix “phobia” to anything seems to dramatize its meaning, there is no exaggeration in this diagnosis for North American society. Since 2016, hate crimes have risen at an alarming rate, most notably religious hate crimes targeting Jews and Muslims; slanderous and fear-mongering rhetoric, specifically regarding Jews, Muslims, and immigrants, has also increased in the past two years (FBI). American society...
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...Comparing Major Religions With regards to religion, there are many different characteristics across various cultures. One major difference is how they interpret divine beings, or Gods. Some, like Christians, are monotheistic because they believe in a single God. Other religions are polytheistic, because they believe in many different Gods such as India where there are millions of Gods. This influences praying rituals and sub groups that may focus more on one single God rather than others. Rites of passage are also important. These are transitional periods from one social status to another. Within Judaism, the Bar Mitzvah transitions young boys into men where they have to take on other responsibilities and society views the, differently. Within African cultures, each village or tribe may have their own local religious rituals as well. Despite these sharp differences, there are also some similarities. One major similarity is that most religions have some sort of organizational structure. This means that it is an established institution that exists separately of the people involved. Leading these organizations are clerical members and priests. Priests join the ranks by either going through training programs or apprenticeships. While the exact rituals by which religious leaders are initiated or conduct their work may be different, the main element of having a core infrastructure with designated leaders is still present throughout various cultures. Another major set of commonalities...
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...events that influence American life. Their perception, however, has had an even greater impact on society’s current views. According to the renowned historian, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., “the historian surely brings to the observation and analysis of events a perspective different from that brought by a non-historian” (10). Nonetheless, it is evident that perception is crucial when determining the public’s perception as a whole. One specific event in American history in which historians’ perception impacted the Arab and Muslim group in society was the terrorist attack that occurred on September 11, 2001. Abu-Lughod, a professor of Anthropology and Women’s and Gender Studies at Columbia University...
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...Britannica Online, “the Arabic term Islam, literally ‘surrender,’ illuminates the fundamental religious idea of Islam—that the believer, called a Muslim, accepts surrender to the will of Allah (God)” (Mahdi, Rahman, Schimmel). In Islam, Allah is considered the only God, and it is believed that humans must submit to his will. The Prophet Muhammad is considered the last Islamic Prophet, and the one to whom Allah had revealed sacred scriptures known as Qur’an. Although Muhammad started with a small group of followers, they quickly grew in number and his teachings started spreading rapidly “through the Middle East to Africa, Europe, the Indian subcontinent, the Malay Peninsula, and China”(Mahdi, Rahman, Schimmel). Today, there are about 1.6 billion Muslims in the world which makes it 2nd largest religion of the world. However, Islam is perceived to be radical and contradictory religion by many non-Muslims. Moreover, due to the terrorist attacks which had been associated with this “religion of peace,” Muslims call it, Islam had been viewed as a “bad” religion. Since America is the “melting pot” of different cultures and religions, non-Muslims should strive to learn about the Islamic religion, its teachings and interpretations, its differences and similarities with Christianity and Judaism, and how to improve their interactions with Muslims (Mahdi, Rahman, Schimmel, 2014). In order to become familiar with Islam, one has to learn about its teachings. The faith is practiced through “Five...
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...Eaton Professor of the Science of Government and Director of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. This article is the product of the Olin Institute's project on "The Changing Security Environment and American National Interests”. THE NEXT PATTERN OF CONFLICT WORLD POLITICS IS entering a new phase, and intellectuals have not hesitated to proliferate visions of what it will be -- the end of history, the return of traditional rivalries between nation states, and the decline of the nation state from the conflicting pulls of tribalism and globalism, among others. Each of these visions catches aspects of the emerging reality. Yet they all miss a crucial, indeed a central, aspect of what global politics is likely to be in the coming years. It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will be the battle lines of the future. Conflict between civilizations will be the latest phase of the evolution of conflict in the modern world. For a century and a half after the emergence of the modern international system of the Peace of Westphalia, the conflicts of the Western world...
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...that follow Islam are called Muslims, and a mosque is a place where Muslims gather to worship. The goals of a Muslim are to give in to God’s will and lead a life that will allow acceptance into heaven for eternity. The entire meaning of Islam is to surrender to God. As a Muslim searches for meaning in life he should follow the Qur’an and the prophets’ teachings within the faith. The prophets were sent to guide Muslims and ensure they understand what is asked of them by God and how to obtain the divine existence in heaven. Servitude of God is what Muslims believe separates them from others and what will help them follow their faith properly. Islamic beliefs about the Qur'an follow the idea that God’s word is directly translated and interpreted into the Qur’an. There is no difference between what was said to Muhammad and what is in the Qur’an. Muslims believe in an afterlife that will follow with a bodily resurrection. Based on their actions and beliefs in life it will determine if they are a part of this resurrections. The life of a Muslim is spent leading up to the afterlife and ensuring they have done all they can to be a part of heaven. Life is preparation of eternal life like Christianity. Islam has guidelines for the worldly and spiritual completeness of Muslims. Muslims are guided by the five pillars of Islam. The pillars are the beliefs of the Islamic faith. They are believed to be the most important guide for leading a Muslim life. They are as important...
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...Rdavis UNCG The Islamic World Islam and Terrorism: How do you see the relationship between Islam and terrorism? Many of us Americans do impulsively equate Islam with terrorism. I can’t say that this has always been true for me. Even before I started educating myself about the Middle East and the Muslim religion I would think twice before making those knee-jerk judgments. Being an African American women in a Christian based America, I have learned about racism 1st hand, the hypocrisy of the Christian church and that things are not always one sided. Growing up in the Heart of New York City also showed me how many races of people from different cultures and religions have lived amongst each other relatively peacefully. Islam is said to be the world’s second largest religion. If Islam equaled terrorism the U.S. and other parts of the world would have been under tremendous fire by the Muslims for many years. I don’t feel that Islam equates terrorism. We all have our differences but we are all human. With that said there are moral and immoral humans, there are moral Muslims and immoral Muslims. The violence we see today stems from a radical form of Islam and I believe this to be different from the mainstream beliefs of the Islamic community. There are differences between Islam and Islamism. Islamism is said to be a complex ideology of Islam. This ideology is often identified as radical and political. Islam is a religion...
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...uphold the law, not to break it. Although stereotyping is not against the law, police officers have taken an oath to protect all human beings, regardless of their race or religion and stereotyping based on religion should not take place. Just because an individual is of a certain race does not give us the right to stereotype them as a bad human being. Thus stereotyping one’s religious beliefs is wrong, and it goes against what America is all about, that everyone is equal. The book American Dervish is a perfect example of diversity and religion in the United States. The book is good but some of the characters the author creates who are practicing Muslims or depicting themselves as practicing are all mostly hypocrites and also called out as sheep who cannot think for themselves. I almost wanted to take offense to this and say that the author shouldn’t make Muslims look that bad, but I realized that Ayad Akhtar did not set out to tell us a politically correct story about Islam and Muslims....
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...However, discrimination against and persecution of those that don’t fit in or follow the rest of general society is quite a problem. When I think about this problem in our country, there are two groups of people that immediately come to my mind: Muslims and African Americans. Though these two groups are in completely different categories, they face many of the same problems in terms of discrimination in America. Within the scope of this essay, we will learn about some differences between Muslims, African Americans, and various other groups. We will also take a look at their overall experiences, as well as some specific examples of discrimination. Islam and Its Followers in America A Muslim is someone who follows the teachings of Islam, a religion believed to have originated in Saudi Arabia in the 7th century (Pecorino, 2001). What is interesting about Islam is that its roots are in the Middle East and it has stayed very influential there (Pecorino, 2001). Christianity, the predominant religion in America, also has its roots in the Middle East. However, Christianity isn’t nearly as present now in the Middle East as Islam. As a matter of fact, Christianity is now the predominant religion of America, with roughly 78 percent of Americans identifying with the group (Pew Research Center, 2007). Islam, on the other hand, only represents about one percent of the country (Pew Research Center, 2007). Comparison of Christianity and Islam...
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...The major difference between Muslims and Arabs is that Arabs are an ethnic group and Muslims are a religious group. According to the textbook (Schaefer, 2006) “many Arab Americans are not Muslims, and most Muslim Americans are not Arabs” (p. 285). Arab Americans are immigrants and descendants from Arab countries as well as non-Arab countries. Muslims are people who practice the Islam faith. Though Muslims and Arabs are significantly different, they do share some similarities. Both Arabs and Muslims experience orientalism, which prevents them from obtaining classification as individual groups. There are many characteristics of orientalism such as stereotyping of Islam, religious conflict, and misrepresentation of cultures among Eastern countries. Orientalism can contribute to hate crimes because it promotes prejudice. It does this by fostering the idea that everyone within an ethnic group is to blame for the actions and ideas of only a few. For example, Muslims and Arabs have experienced high levels of hate crimes and discrimination since the attacks of 9/11. This is most likely because orientalism helped foster the idea that all Arabs and Muslims are a threat to the country, just because a few were. There are some recent changes to the United States policies that may affect the treatment of Muslim and Arab Americans. The most recent change comes in the form of verbal support for Muslim Americans by President Obama in his State of the Union Address, January 25, 2011. Another...
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...American Cultural Beliefs Vs. Pakistani Cultural Beliefs In An American Brat,many cultural differences are evident. Feroza is a Pakistani and she and her family have divergent traditions. For example, Pakistan was as an Islamic nation and Islam continues to be the religion of approximately 95% of the population. There are also small groups of Buddhist Christians Parsis and Hindus. The Muslim religion was founded by the Prophet Muhammad in seventeenth century, when, according to the Islamic belief, he received messages from God and wrote them down in what became the Qur'an, the Islamic book that instructs Muslims on how to conduct their lives. Feroza explains how her family celebrates their religious ceremonies and how religion plays a mammoth role in Feroza’s life. Throughout An American Brat, Feroza explains her religious beliefs and her family’s traditions. Feroza covered her head with a scarf, daubed her eyes with water from a silver jar, and performed her kusti in the lobby, As she unwound the sacred thread girdling her waist and retied the knots in the front and the back, she asked Ahura Mazda’s forgiveness for every ignoble thought, word, and deed she was guilty of and prayed that she might have the good thoughts, the eloquent tongue, and the strength to...
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...becoming essential for Americans today. Presently there are nearly five million Muslims living in America. These Muslims face persecution by Americans as a result of the country’s present state of affairs. In their own communities Muslims are forced to defend themselves against their enemies. To be a Muslim is not just an individual activity it is a community identity and responsibility. Islam is considered a total way of life for the religious community. For many in America who are raised with the idea of the separation of church and state and the sense that religion is a private affair, Islam can seem confusing, especially since Islam does not have a “church” to preserve and promote its beliefs. There is a great diversity among Muslims as there is among other religious communities in America. Because America is predominantly Judeo-Christian it is sometimes easier for Christians and Jews to practice their faith. American schools do not recognize Muslim holidays. Even such a simple task as attending Friday congregational prayer and taking a break to perform the salat during working hours are often difficult. Muslim culture has become prominent in coutries other than Islam. Countries that have a large Muslim following include Australia, Canada, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, United Kingdom and United States. Accepting Cultural Differences in Muslims Since the tragedy of 9-11 a portion of American citizens are under the...
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...And even though it might seem like those feelings are diminishing people still feel a sense of insecurity when it comes to this issue even if they tend to hide it or refuse to admit it. Religious segregation is pretty much still alive in many parts of the world, even in countries that claim the right of freedom of religion. It has led many people to be treated unfairly and wrongfully judged just because they are the minority who practice a religion which is different from the public orthodoxy. In modern day, Arabs and Muslims in exact suffer from being labeled as extremists or terrorists especially in Western cultures. five out of ten Americans believe Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence, despite the fact that seven out ten admit they know very little about Islam. And yet Americans rank Muslims second only to atheists as group that does not share their vision of American society (Ghazal, 2008). Intolerance and discrimination against Muslims, or if you like Islamophobia, is not a new phenomenon. There are historical, cultural/religious and psychological reasons behind it.....
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