Muslims In The US

The talk about women in Islam can be very tough for many reasons. Many of us don’t like to bring up the subject because it seems to be a never ending delama. In my opinion it’s more like the chicken and the egg theory. When I bring this subject up with my non Muslims family and friends  I feel like their main concern is not to listen to what I have to say but to shut me off by bringing up things that do not have anything to do with Islam.

Even though they don’t even know what Islam is all about they try to bring things up that make no sense. Sometimes they don’t even care about my feeling calling me names and undermining me just because I have chosen a religion different than what I was raised.

It takes a lot of courage and determination for American Muslim Women to wear the Hijab. On a daily basis they get harassed by people all over the country. In places that are a little more tolerant of Women wearing Hijab, many will still look at you like if you were their enemy.

I admit that I was lucky to have few understanding family members that love me for who I’m, they accepted my decision and did not care what religion I follow. They know that we all worship the same God and that us as Muslims still believe in Jesus and God’s other prophets. It is true that we do not believe that Jesus is God or the son of God but we do believe that he was sent by God to lead people to the right path.

Women that wear Hijab struggle to find jobs, many employers by fear of losing their customers refuse to hire Muslim women wearing Hijab. These last ones are always looked at with so much disrespect that they prefer not to be seen in public places. Many of them are so worried to be attacked by some stupid low estime that are not able to confront muslim men their size.

Because of the lack of education a large majority of Americans think all women wearing Hijab are from Iran, but did you know that Iranian women in the US are more likely to be seen without Hijab that any other Muslim Women from other countries.

When my older daughter was born, I was visited by a preacher when still at the hospital. He asked me if he could bless my daughter with some of his prayers, I did not mind at all that he did so, but wanted to let him know that we were Muslims just so we can avoid any conflict that may occur. As soon as he learned I was Muslim, the smile was wiped out of his face and his attitude changed suddenly. He started shouting at me and calling me names, he even claimed that was going to go to hell because according to him I betrayed Jesus.

I think that becoming a Muslim helped me more in accepting Jesus in my heart than when I was Christian. The reason behind that is because as a Christian, I was confused who Jesus was. Was he God, was he god’s messenger, or was he god’s son or what exactly. Islam made it clear for me that Jesus was God messenger and that he was sent to guide us to the right path.

Even if I did not wear a scarf on a regular basis, there has been some times where I had to wear a scarf to cover my head because my hair was not looking do great. One day while visiting my mom’s house, I had a scarf on my head because I was too lazy to do my hair. As soon as I entered my mom’s house and before I even know it, my mom snatched the scarf off of my head and started screaming at me. I was so hurt, I just went back to the car and asked my husband to take me home.

Another thing that breaks my heart is when family members disown you because you chose a different religion. It only occurs with families that do not have a great education or families that are too fanatic to accept other religions. Usually when a family is well educated and more open, they will love you and accept you for who you are and not for what you worship.

During the month of Ramadan, while visiting my family while I m fasting, they try to do anything possible to make me feel bad. My brothers and sisters start eating in front of me in way to make me crave what they are eating. What they don’t know is by doing so they are actually helping me build a very good self esteem and a better resistance to life’s appetites. They even make me stronger by standing up to what my body desires.

When my mom learned that as a muslim we were not allowed to eat pork, she did not accept that by any means. she even started doing her best to convince us that the pork she cooks was not pork. At many occasions she fed my husband and I pork meat and told us that it was dear meat. she even used pork juice to cook meals for us. The truth always comes up as you know. My husband starts losing trust in my mom in particular and my family in general. The trust will expand to other areas other that food.

Because of the acts and behavior of some Muslims extremists, many Muslim started seeing themselves as victims of hateread and misconduct. Women are as always among the most touched by this phenomena because people do not have enough guts to confront Muslim men.

If you are a convert women, your loyalty to the United States is also questioned. People think that because you have chosen Islam as a religion, you then accept the acts of extremist Muslims against the United States. Some will even perceive you as a foreigner just because you are dressed different.

I also believe that when Muslim women are harassed and attacked by others, media should be hold accountable for that, because as you can see, media always chooses to report negative images of Islam and Muslim.

The struggle of American Muslims women to ensure their civil liberties and protect themselves has made them amune to many acts that would otherwise hurt them.

viewed with suspicion

Our continuing striving to define ourselves as American Muslims is in fact a very challenging jihad

gender-based discrimination

Women often cannot achieve their highest potential in career or education

the media continually depicts women as sex objects and nothing more.

discriminated against by both non-Muslims and Muslims in America

physical safety is jeopardized

immigrants are blamed for most of the socio-economic problems n the U.S., and are harassed because of that

African-American Muslim population, and they face additional hurdles, because being part of a racial minority in the United States, they have had to deal with the problems of racism, discrimination, segregation and the vestiges of slavery. To that, add religious discrimination and gender discrimination, and these are some of the challenges that are generally faced.
Quran and hadith are taken out of context and used to justify certain behavior.

give voice to our sisters who have suffered wrongly in the name of Islam

domestic violence, abuse of divorce and child custody laws, abuse of the polygamy system, and isolation and exclusion from various aspects of Muslim life

illustrate and give life to the specific suffering of American Muslim women today

I admit that sometimes I get so confused, not because I can’t find things to write about but because I get so overwhelmed and don’t really know what subject to write about.

Islam in general and Muslims in particular are always the subject of many news channels newspapers, radio station and so and so.

In Oklahoma a sharia Law did not pass the legislation here and American Oklahoman Muslims feel very bad about that. Today They are going to court to repeal this law. Muslims here are so dedicated and are spending a lot of time and money trying to get things right.

Many American Oklahoman Muslims feel betrayed and think that Oklahoma is leaning more toward the wrong side when it comes to issues concerning Muslims’ affairs.

What do you guys think? do you think that Sharia law should be used in Oklahoma, or should it be prohibited? and why do you feel the way you do?

Your input is very important.

Today I want to tell you about an Islamic Magazine that is published and sold in the United States.

The name of the Magazine is “Al-Jumuah” which means Friday in Arabic. I encourage all of you that are eager to learn about Islam and the Islamic life in the United States to read this magazine and may be buy a subscription.

I had the opportunity to read few articles and was very pleased with the content. If you are a Muslim in the United States then this magazine is for you.

Al-Jumuah talks about a lot of issues that concern the Muslim American life, on their website you can even join the discussion and contribute with your ideas and information.

The people behind the Magazine are very open minded. They will accept and consider your contribution. this is a great way for many of us to voice our opinion. We should definitely encourage and support publications like this. By doing so we are actually supporting ourselves.

What are you waiting for, give the folks of Al-Jumuah a click, check out their website at: “http://www.aljumuah.com”

Thank you

I like this verse a lot. It gives me peace of mind when I read it

This is a verse from the Chapter Al-A’raaf which means The Heights. This is the number 23 verse of this chapter.

This is a very simple though powerful nasheed about the simple message of Islam.

Enjoy

Often dictators and politicians use the name of Islam for their own purposes. Many will even make up their own Hadiths to lead people to believe what they have to say or offer.

Because of this behavior, the name of Islam has been altered. Enemies of Islam have found ways to attack this religion basing their attacks on the acts of a few so called Muslims.

Islam does not tolerate Violence; it does not encourage the killing of innocent people just like any other religions. I personally don’t think anyone will follow a religion if they think that religion encourages them to hurt innocent people. Some people go back to the Quran and find verses that talk about battles and wars Muslims had with other nations and try to use these verses out of context.

What bothers me the most is when the media uses the religion of an oppressor or a criminal only if he is Muslim, if he is from another religion, no one will even know what religion he is.

The Internet has been very helpful, especially when it comes to exposing the enemies of Islam. As a powerful way of communication the truth comes out no matter what. People that try to hurt the reputation of the Islamic religion find themselves facing well educated and well informed people that help reveal their motives.

As I said before when Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah federal building, accusations were made toward Muslims first, some so called eye witnesses have even testified seeing Middle Eastern men leaving the scene of the bombing a few minutes before the bomb exploded.

These fictive Middle Eastern men were automatically referred to as Muslims. It’s funny how people are able to figure out your origin faster than you can say your first words. Another gentleman originally from Jordan was even arrested and harassed by his interviewers because he was traveling the same day to the Middle East and because they found in his language some plumbing materiel.

The poor guy did not know what hit him. He was on his way to Jordan to see his family and help his dad fix a sink in his house; He was detained even after they found who the real bomber was. It took them a few days before they released him, no apologies were made. This same gentleman still lives in Oklahoma. He occasionally attends the same Mosque where we pray.

What’s so bad about this incident is that after he was released, many Muslims in Oklahoma City were scared to be seen with him, because they were afraid themselves will fall victim of the system.

The image the west has of Muslims is an image of a guy with a long beard, white robe a turban on his head carrying an Ak47 in his left hand and the Quran in his right hand. Even cartoons show the same character to young kids, instead of the Ak47 they add a sword and they substitute the Quran with a sac full with a lot of gold and riding a camel. This image implements fear, tyranny and confusion in the hearts of the little ones. Characters such as Popeye and others from South Park have played a role in supporting this.

This is a verse from the Chapter Al-A’raaf which means The Heights. This is the number 10 verse of this chapter.

I came accross this great video on youtube that I wanted to share with you. Please let me know what you think.

I admit that it made me cry couple times

Enjoy

When I first started learning about Islam, it was a little hard for me to put most of what I believed before on the side and try to embrace the Islamic religion. Although there are a lot of similarities between Islam and Christianity, the way Muslims worship God is different from the way Christians do it. We all seek the same things from God but when it comes to asking him we use different methods.

Even If my mom was not very religious she made sure we all went to church. As a kid I found a lot of peace and serenity while in church. My mom was so proud of us she made us sing worship songs to our uncles and aunts when we came back from church.

As a kid I don’t recall interacting with people from other religions. I admit that I did not know about Islam until I was almost 14 or 15 years old. Our school system is built to where we do not focus much about religion. Not only religion was taken out of school, talking about it was considered a breach of the school rules.

I first learned about Islam from watching movies and shows, but as a kid I never paid much attention. One day mom rented the movie “Not without my daughter” that movie made Islam and Muslims look bad. Even if that movie had a lot of impact on me as a teenager, I did not seek to learn more about Islam. I think that the reason was because growing up as an American we do not pay too much attention to things that do not concern us much. We only focus on things that are a perpetual relation with our way of life.

After I met my husband and decided to marry him, my mom started making us watch that movie at least once a week. She was so worried that what we have watched on that movie will happen to me. I don’t blame her at all, she did not know any better. The way the movie was made, and maybe the main reason behind the movie was to stop American Women from marring out of their religion.

If you read the book “not without my daughter” you will be surprised how different it is from the movie. The movie maker dramatized the subject 10 times more to make the movie more interesting. The same tactic is used by many other movie makers no matter what the subject is.