I really enjoyed the readings assigned for this week.  I particularly enjoyed Mercy The Stamp of Creation because I made some very interesting points about Islam.  I thought it was very interesting because in America total domination is expected and rewarded.  However, in Islam mercy is to be applied to anyone and everyone.

In an article on CNN, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta states that the Dr. who helped the US raid the building where Osama bin Laden was staying should be released from Pakistan authorities.  He has been held captive due to treason because he helped give DNA samples to the CIA to verify that bin Laden truly was in the building that they had suspicions about.

In response to bigdaddy1414, I live in Michigan and some of my really good friends live in Dearborn.  I’m not sure what McDonald’s you’re refering to that employees and everyone in the restaurant wear full traditional Islamic wear.  I’ve been to Dearborn many times because 1). the food is great and 2). it’s about a half hour away from my house so I’ve been exposed to the culture many times.  I’d say there is a good size population there that has been ‘Americanized’ and don’t wear the traditional Islamic wear.

As a Shia Ismaili Muslim, there are many practices that vary, and often times may not make sense to many other Muslims. From Jummah prayer on Friday evenings to only praying three times a day to having an altered form of namaz called our Du’a, I’ve never been able to fully relate to common Muslim practices. However, in theory we are all one, and I have used that mentality to never shy away when relating myself into the bigger ideas and morals of Islam.

With that being said, there are many values that every Muslim needs to integrate into his or her own life, certain benchmarks that every devout Muslim should have infused into their minds. I often feel like I either miss these benchmarks, or skim through them. Even though I try not to compare myself to others, it embarrasses me sometimes to have an answer to a seemingly-easy question.

That is why I’m taking this class. I have no intentions of feeling proud of myself that I know most of the material being taught. In fact, I’d be upset at myself for every having that mentality. In reality I want to face my insecurities of the values I’m not pinpoint about, and have Mozaffar be able to guide me through the process all over again.

I don’t want to exaggerate; I’m fairly confident with my Ismaili practices. In fact, I even teach a religious education course at my mosque (called Jamat Khana) and I think I’m a pretty raw teacher. But it’s time for me to be the student and reevaluate my foundation, so that when I am being judged in the eyes of Allah, I can tell Him that I gave it an honest attempt. Game on, Mozaffar.

The readings we had to do were by Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah in his essay One God Many Names and Mercy the stamp of creation. Loved reading them both because I do believe we all share one God and that is what is so great about God- we are the same. Yet, our religions fight so hard in proving they are different and better then each other. We also learnt about the paradiams of Islam (showing the similarities of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam). I found it fascinating that Islam sees prophets and messengers as two different entities therefore, Mohammed is the prophet who is chosen by God to call all nations to God. He is also the messenger of God who received scripture from God.

In the news today I was reading that violence in Syria is still continuing and there is more bloodshed.  Government troops attacking targets in the central cities of Homs and Hama and the northern city of Idlib. I honestly do not understand why President Assad is so egger in staying in power under the regime and not just step down.

In response to wclark1 on Al-Jezeera: I honestly believe that they do a  good job in reporting world news because they are non bias but when it come to Middle Eastern news they do tend to be bias, where they will show the horrors being done against the Middle east. Therefore, showing it in their point of view because European news would not show it in that way and I actually like it. Anyways that is how I feel.

So for the first class we had no reading but we were asked a question based on the movie, which was: Are the sympathetic characteristics shown in the movie good because of religion or despite religion? To answer this question I think the characteristics shown were good despite religion because, Khan having Asperger’s syndrome was something one could be sympathetic too. Seeing how hard it was for his family to figure out and understand why he was so different was sad. Therefore being Muslim had nothing to do with my sympathies towards Khan.

On the news it should an articles of Iranians being up in arms over nude images of movie star Golshifteh Farahani. She exposed herself in a photo in French magazine Madame Le Figaro. She posed topless for the magazine. Iranians are outraged and say this is nothing but completely immoral. Honestly that is why I sometimes don’t understand religion when it comes to choices that we as females should be aloud to make and not have to worry about being labeled as being “immoral.”

In response to ‘ilovegoodread’ I also don’t understand the conflict between Sunni and Shiva Muslims. A teacher told me that their conflict or disagreements are similar to that of Catholics and Christians. Crazy because even with those two religions they both believe in God and Jesus Christ why fight? So with Sunni and Shia it’s the same thing when honestly the difference stems from when the prophet died. I wonder what he would say about this?

Readings: In the “One God, Many Names” reading, I was brought to think about an aspect of Islam, and my own religion (Catholicism), that I’d never really thought about. The article was interesting because it talked about the similarities between Islam, Judaism and Catholicism, which are more obvious because of their common origins and mentions of them in the Qur’an. What I enjoyed the most, however, was the comparisons to the less “main-stream” religions.

Islam: I am excited to take this class. Last semester I took “Into to the Qur’an” class, which the same wonderful professor. While I enjoyed that class as well, I felt like, because I was unfamiliar with ISlam in general, that sometimes I was in the dark. If I could re-do it, I would take Intro to ISLAM before Intro to the Qur’an. I’m excited to take what I learned last semester and apply it to this class!

Response: In response to the Iranian nuclear scientist murder. It’s such a shame, though not all that surprising, that religion is soo tied up in all aspects of life, especially in governments. There is so much going on in the Middle East, and while know that religion is at the center, I wonder what would be accomplished if it were taken out of the equation.

Regarding the assigned material, I found both articles very interesting. I was actually enthralled at what I did not know and assumed I did know. For example, the idea of thinking that Allah referenced higher up than Christians using God. I always imagined it that way, but after reading this insightful article I imagine no difference.

A topic was brought up this week that directly relates to these articles and Islam. It was in my Christian Living Community group. One of the members brought up how Muslims reference to us Christians and Jews as people of the book and wanted to know more. Someone answered with “they do not mean it in a bad way just a clear way of putting it that we also believe in a god almighty and we have the same idea.” Its actually really coincidental and ironic since that was in the article One God, Many names and now I actually read about it and my thoughts have been cleared.

In reply to username-thedarklord I was not aware of the recent killing of the scientist. I looked it up and read it on the Huffington Post. It seems that the United States CIA was accused for being tied with the murder and having a big role in it. Such as planning and making sure the plan worked. Iran promises to have legitimate evidence regarding their involvement. Not sure if you read this article.

The essay One God, Many Names, brought up a question I had never really thought about. I had always just accepted the idea that the Judeo-Christian God and Islamic God were one in the same. I never thought about the semantics of Muslims saying Allah and Christians saying God. To argue that there is a difference is only bred from ignorance. (To be fair, the author quoted 2 people who are known for their outrageous statements. Pat Robertson claimed that the earthquake in Haiti was due to a deal with the devil 200 years ago).

One issue facing American Muslims, particularly teenagers, is the Christian centric education. Particularly in the month of Ramadan this becomes an issue. Christians have a month of school around a major holiday in their religion that really doesn’t require sacrifice (Christmas). Even during Lent. I never went to Catholic school, but it was very easy to observe “fasting” at school because there were always meatless options. Muslims don’t have the same amenities. In Saudi Arabia during Ramadan, night and day are basically flipped; making it easier to observe Ramadan (does this cancel out the point of fasting?).  In the United States, teenagers observing Ramadan still have to attend school for 8 hours a day and can only eat at night.

In response to wiseguy17, I don’t know if it is a fair assessment to judge the climate of the United States based on the articles in the New York Times. It is a news organization, and unfortunately we are still technically fighting what started out as the “War on Terror” in an Islamic country, so the news will be biased in that direction. I am not saying it is the apparent association is not an issue; just that this might not be the best place to look at it. For instance when you look up “Catholic” in New York Times there are many articles about Catholic’s desire to limit the civil rights of gay couples. This is not the feeling of every Catholic and not the association some want with their religion.

The article “One God, Many Names” emphasized the similarities between not only Islam and the Abrahamic religions, but also between Islam and the microreligions. I found Boykin’s opinion disturbing in which he said that his God was better than the Muslim God. His claim that the God in Islam was an idol emphasized his ignorance about the truth of Islam. If people with negative opinions on Islam begin to realize all the similarities between Islam and the other religions perhaps they will alter their opinions for the better.

Today, people often associate Islam and Muslims with the stereotype centered around extremism and terrorism. This is a wrongly held prejudice of Muslims and the article, “Mercy, the Stamp of Creation”, points out that Islam is a religion of mercy. There are both good and bad people in every religion and often the media highlights the actions of Muslim extremists which causes some people to associate the actions of a few extremists with Islam in general.

In response to biddaddy114, I agree with your reflection on the article regarding the niqab in Canada. It is saddening to read about how certain countries believe that their nation’s values conflict with the beliefs of a major religion. It is surprising to learn the extent of people’s reluctance to respect the religious values of others in such a modern society.

I am coming into this semester with my only knowledge of Islam through what I have seen on television, obviously a very biased source of information in the post 9/11 days. It is articles such as One God, Many Names that many Americans need to read to learn about the Islamic faith.  The article discusses the relationship between the Christian God and Muslim Allah.  Also, it shows that the two faiths are actually not as different as many might think.  Both consider themselves as followers of the God of Abraham.

When looking at Islam in the news I thought that the best place to look is Al Jazeera to provide a different bias than the seemingly anti-Islamic American papers.  This week there was a pair of car bombings in the Iraqi capital.  THe bombing were targeted at Shiite Muslims living in Baghdad.

In response to thethingstheycarried728, I do not know if I agree with the fact that the advertisers pulled out because it was bad television.  It seems that the show has received alot of attention.  This means that a great number of people tune in to see what all of the controversy is about.  There are many other types of bad television (Jersey Shore and the Bachelor) that advertisers pay alot of money to advertise during.  Many people watch All American Muslim, thus the only reason for pulling out of advertising would be because the company does not want to be associated with Islam.

The readings for this week were very interesting. I especially enjoyed reading One God Many Names because it really showed a different side to the three monotheistic religions and how they are actually very similar. I find that sometimes people lose site of just how similar each of us really our, regardless of our beliefs. This reading really did a good job of reminding that this is the case.

Responding to some of the other posts, I have been to Michigan as well, and it is quite amazing to see the large number of people of the same faith living in one community. The area is much like Chinatown in Chicago, the only difference being that religion unites the community in Michigan while Chinatown is more united through race. In this area in Michigan there are several great restaurants and bakeries as well, so you really get a feel for the whole culture, not just the religion.