Muslims in America: In View of Church I attended Dr. Mark Hausfeld’s presentation at Wilson Institute on 9/30/16. The topic of his lecture was, “Islam in America: Understanding and engaging diaspora Muslims through the local church”. The lecture was based upon his mission work, he served as the second J. Philip Hogan Professor of World Missions, in 2007-2008. Currently, Dr. Mark Hausfeld, D. Min. is the President of the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, MO. He has been engaged in the ministries of both in the United States and abroad for the last 30 years. Dr. Mark and his wife Lynda has worked with Assemblies of God World Missions (AGWM) in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan from 1995 to 2001. His mission was to evangelize …show more content…
Since I am a Muslim, I just wanted to find out the worldview of Christians towards the religion of Islam. This is the first time I have heard the word “diaspora”, which means scatter or dispersion. In his speech he referred to the diaspora of the Muslims in America. My understanding is, by the word, “diaspora” he meant the movement of the Muslims from different parts of the world to America either voluntarily or involuntarily. He also compared this movement as “push and pull” forces. He compared the force of “push” with involuntary movement and the force of “pull” with voluntary movement. He has categorized them according to their respective situations. They might have been pushed out of their country and came as refugees, because of war and political instability, danger of life, natural disaster, exploitation of women and children, and human trafficking. Most Muslim immigrants like other immigrants have moved for political freedom, better opportunities, quality of life, education, better job, and to join their family members who have emigrated before and settled in this country. The estimated number of Muslim immigrants in America is between 2.5 million and 7 million. His philosophy behind the Muslims coming to America is that the God has purposely sent Muslims to America and he mentioned, “we must engage the Muslims God has sent to America with this wonderful plan for salvation, which He has entrusted us to share” (Hausfeld, M., n.d.). People from all over the world, especially the third world countries are attracted to America because of democracy, freedom of speech, human rights and freedom of
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.
Zeba Khan writes this article in response to the absence of Muslim Americans in politics and in an effort to remedy the issue. The author builds her argument and convinces her audience through the use of an anecdote, evidence and statistics, as well as rhetorical questioning and vivid language.
Muslims in America faced several difficulties as they tried to gain racial equality and religious freedom. When they entered America and began to form an Islam religion there was a vastly larger number of white Christians than there were Muslims, and as a result, one of the difficulties they faced was that they were outnumbered by other religions. Because of the Islam religion being outnumbered by other religions, there was much less knowledge on their religion than there was on Christianity, leading to them being a minority compared to white Christians. As a result of this, there were not as many organizations that helped to increase the number of Islam presence in America. One of the organizations that was developed to help the Islam religion in America was the creation of the Moorish Science Temple, which Noble Drew Ali founded because "African Americans were descended from the
The video “Being Muslim- American” by Dalia Khan is about what it means for her being a Muslim- American and all the obstacles and discrimination she had to face. Also, her experience on her first time wearing a hijab and instead of people showing hate they should show compassion and support to their fellow Muslim friends. I was really moved by the way she described everything about being Muslim- American.
There are many political, religious, and cultural factors that shape the lives of Islamic women many of them are completely different than factors in the lives of American women. Islam is one of the world’s fastest growing religions; however, Brooks argues that “Islam’s holiest texts have been misused to justify the repression of women, and how male pride and power have warped the original message of this once liberating faith.” The book also shows these factors have slowly been taking away women’s rights, rather than furthering them.
The themes that I thought connect to the texts and videos we have expanded on in class are Identity and Boundaries (barriers). In this essay I will group the readings and videos and explore the theme in each and relate it back to Identity and Boundaries. Then how we can perhaps use related topics to illustrate my point.
Dixie: I really enjoyed this seminar and talking about the wall that President Trump is going to build. I learned a lot from the discussion board. In chapter 10 on page 227. I learned about the Mexican American experience and what it was like coming to the United States. I thought this was great, as I am doing my final assignment for this class on Mexican American’s. In the book on page 226, it talks about the long history that Mexican American have in the United States. I have known that they have been here a long time. In the textbook on page 246, I got to learn about the Muslim Americans. Islam, with approximately 1.6 billion followers worldwide, is second to Christianity among the world’s religions (Schaefer, 2015.) I didn’t know this about
The issue of women in Islam is highly controversial. As a Muslim American living in the United States many times I get judged about my religion. People think that because I am a Muslim woman in America I am being restricted from many things and can’t be like every other woman in America. Islam has many similarities with other religion and it does have its differences. Being raised as a Muslim woman in America has made me the strong and independent woman I am today. I am going to be talking about my own religion that I’m well knowledgeable of. What the media shows and how people talk badly about the religion is truly ruining the religion and its true beauty. Woman in Islam are not being oppressed for anything there’s true beauty behind this
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
Islamophobia within the United States is an ongoing social issue that negatively impacts the Muslim-American community. Muslim-Americans are forty-eight percent more likely to have experienced discrimination and harassment in the past year compared to Protestants, Catholics, and Jews (“Islamophobia,” n.d.), thus confirming the fact that many non-Muslims within America view followers of Islam as worthy of being labeled as scapegoats and foreigners more than the followers of any other religion deemed harmless to American society. With regards to this social problem rooted in discriminatory profiling, this paper examines how the social conflict, structural functionalist, and symbolic interactionist theories can be used to examine the issue of Islamophobia in America.
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
What it’s Like to be a Muslim in America by Dalia Mogahed and A Tale of Two Americas and the Mini-mart Where They Collided by Anand Giridharadas, both talk about what life is like being the “other” in America. Being a minority and trying to live a normal life interacting with the majority is shone to be difficult. There are two worlds living in one country, but neither of them truly understand each other.
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
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).
As most of our readers know, I was greatly blessed to have the opportunity to travel to South Africa and engage in a series of six debates recently with defenders of the Islamic faith. This included two debates in mosques, and four at universities. My opponents were Bashir Varnia (in Lenasia), Yusuf Bux (in Johannesburg), Yusuf Ismail (in Potchefstroom) and Shabir Ally (in Erasmia and Pretoria). I also lectured at a number of locations, including Northwest University in Potchefstroom. This was the start of a very busy traveling season, as I just finished speaking at the Semper Reformanda Conference at Grace Family Baptist Church in Spring, Texas, pastored by Dr. Voddie Baucham, and I will soon be flying to Canada to speak at the Sola Scriptura Conference. This is, in fact, the busiest traveling month of my life, as my burgeoning frequent flier account and new status as a Platinum frequent flier can attest. I am very thankful for these wonderful ministry opportunities, and surely recognize how blessed I am to be able to serve in these locations.