Muslims+Misconceptions

Team Leader - Paige Ruderman

Group Members - Deng, Drew and Tyler

Deng - Organizations That Help and recent examples Tyler - Organizations That Hurt Drew - Scruitany of Islam Paige - American Misconceptions

Why many deem Islamic scrutiny necessary


 * September 11
 * After 9/11, online orders for the Qur’an rose 250%.
 * Many were curious about what could be in this text that could possibly drive a group to do this.


 * The beliefs that come from the Qur’an
 * Islam is considered to follow the Qur’an’s claims of:
 * Islam is the only purely God-given religion.
 * Every word of the Qur’an is God’s word.
 * The Qur’an contains all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, that humankind will ever need.
 * The Qur’an has authoritative answers to all human problems.
 * Pair this with the attacks on September 11 and the problems begin to arise.


 * Views of Orthodox Muslims
 * Orthodox (what we would currently consider extreme; eg. the Taliban) Muslims believe that after God gave humanity the Qur’an, He declared all previous religions null and void.
 * Orthodox Muslims will divide the world into two parts: Dar-al-Harb (lit. land of war) and Dar-al-Islam (lit. land of Islam).
 * Dar-al-Harb is the space of Earth not under influence of the Qur’an.
 * In the orthodox view, Muslims are obliged to infiltrate Dar-al-Harb, procreate until their numbers increase, and then engage in warfare to convert the land to Dar-al-Islam.

= American Misconceptions =


 * Misconception #1 - Muslims are Violent, Terrorists, or Extremists
 * Specific actions do not stereotype an entire race
 * Islam translates to "submission to god" - Differed root word means peace
 * Islam seems extreme in modern world because religion does not dominate everyday life in other places
 * Misconception #2 - Islam Oppress Women
 * Shari'ah (Islamic Law) does not state all women must be veiled - Many countries make up their own equality rights
 * Islam gives men and woman different roles and equality is written in the Quran
 * Divorce is not common
 * According to Islam, young girls can not be forced to marry against their will; although, suitable young men are suggested
 * Misconception #3 - All Muslims are Arabs
 * Muslim population is 1.2 Billion people - Only 18% live Arab
 * Many different races, and cultures follow Islamic faith
 * Muslim minorities live all over the world - Biggest is in Russia
 * 6 million Muslims in the United States
 * Misconception #4 - Muslims are Uneducated - First Link to Video
 * Traced back to early slave times, The most literate were Muslims
 * Perception formed by images from the media
 * Misconception #5 - Tight Knit Unity - True and False
 * False: American Muslims are not respected by Non-American Muslims - Controversy
 * "New vs. Old"
 * True: The group will always be behind an individual - Sticking up for their own
 * Misconception #6 - Muslims Hate America
 * "America is the best spot on earth to embrace diversity. We are trendsetters in the world on how to bring different people together and how to make a nation rise through benefiting from eachother...That is the spirit of America. God Bless America." - Muslim school teacher in Brooklyn, Lived in Jersey all her life, Kept true to Muslim faith

= Organizations Set to Help Muslims =


 * There are very few organizations in America set up to help bring awareness of Islam and prevent violence against Muslims.
 * The few organizations set up to help are small, or individually founded and created by Muslims themselves.
 * Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)
 * ====== ISNA is the largest Muslim organization in North American and was founded by Muslims in 1982. ======
 * ====== ISNA, affiliated and composed of other Muslim groups and organizations, is an organization created to bring awareness of Islam, supporting Muslim communities, and fostering good relations with other religious communities. ======
 * ====== Muslims Advocates Against Violence (MAAV) ======
 * ====== Small group founded July of 2008 by Muslim women ======
 * ====== Muslim Advocates Against Violence (MAAV) is an organization of Muslim women across the United States, who are committed to raising awareness and ending violence against women. ======
 * ====== Peaceful Families Projects (PFP) ======
 * ====== Small group founded by Sharifa Alkhateeb in 2000 ======
 * ====== PFP collaborates with Muslim leaders and communities across the nation to bring awareness of Islam and issues such as domestic violence. ======
 * America is not helping the Muslims at all

= Examples of Violence Against the Muslims =

= Organizations Which Hurt Muslims or Further Misconceptions =
 * Muslim Massacre: The Game of Modern Religious Genocide created in 2008
 * The only way to win is to kill all of the Muslims in the game
 * January 2009, Air Tran removed 9 innocent Muslim passengers and refused to allow them to fly
 * An innocent remark was taken out of hand and the FBI were involved
 * At first Air Tran refused to provide an apology and reimbursement until news of the mishap reached across the nation did Air Tran provide an apology and reimbursement to the 9 passengers
 * August 25, 2010, a New York taxi driver was stabbed after asked if he was Muslim
 * August 2010, a Tennessee Mosque construction site was burned down.
 * Protestors against the building of the Mosque said, "No mosque in Murfreesboro. I don't want it. I don't want them here...This is a Christian country."
 * Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, FL
 * Preacher Terry Jones teaches "Islam is of the Devil"
 * International Burn the Qur'an Day (Sept. 11th, 2010)


 * Al Qaeda
 * A terrorist organization which has planned bombings and terrorists acts around the world.
 * Almost all Sunni Muslims.
 * Has a big impact with their acts, so they seem larger than they are.
 * Represent about 2-5% of resistance in Afghanistan.
 * While no one knows exactly how many members are in Al Qaeda, the estimates are in the hundreds to low thousands which is a very small percent of muslims considering nealy 1 in 4 people in the world are Muslim.
 * News media centers in America and politicians
 * Stations like CNN, ABC & Fox try to show the American public there is a big war on terror
 * Very small percent of terrorists, yet we are led to believe there are many.
 * War is blown up to try and get people to support our cause.
 * People in America are now educated on Al Qaeda, however not much on what the rest of Muslims believe
 * "It will feed the fire of caustic rhetoric and appear as nothing more than mean-spirited religious intolerance. Don't feed that fire."-Sara Palin on building an Islamic community center in lower Manhattan.
 * Pastor Terry Jones wanted to burn the Quran on the anniversery of September 11th.
 * Palin's comments only further show America's ignorance, thinking that a group which practices peace, will bomb the U.S just because of this burning of the Koran.
 * The Taliban
 * Extreme brutality
 * One interpretation of the Quran
 * Represent only a small portion of Muslims.

Bonus Misconception (Food for Thought)


 * In 2008, LittleBigPlanet was released for the PlayStation 3
 * The game was recalled planet wide because a music track in the game had a vocalist chanting verses from the Qur'an.
 * This was the game's publisher's idea because they were afraid of Muslim retaliation.
 * This was the most recent of a surprisingly large amount of recalls for other games due to this exact reason in the past ten years.
 * None of the publishers were contacted by Muslim groups even once,
 * despite one of the games being out for two years before the recall.

Cites


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 * http://www.jannah.org/articles/misc.html
 * http://www.peacefulfamilies.org/index.php
 * http://maavblog.wordpress.com/
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 * http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/mirza_22_2.htm