Embrace Muslim Neighbors; They Are Not
The Enemy - Islamophobia Awfully Dark Before The Dawn
02 May 2011By Mark Pfeiffer
A Saudi engineering student shed a tear, but it took
three long years.
He was excited when he arrived in the United States,
having observed the country from afar through
television and movies. But his excitement faded. He
had been studying here for three years, and during all
that time had hoped to befriend a typical American
family.
He wondered whether life here is really like what he
sees on television. Now, after all these years, he has
finally received a dinner invitation from an American
family.
A woman in flowing robes and head scarf quietly moves
up and down the aisles at the local grocery store. She
misses her parents, brothers and sisters, and her
aunts and uncles back home.
She has come to this country, along with her husband,
in order to give her young children a quality
education and better life. But she is painfully lonely
— accustomed to either stares, looks of suspicion, or
worst of all, being ignored.
But today, she beams with joy, as a non-Muslim woman
looks her in the eye, smiles warmly, and greets her in
a way that reminds her of home and touches her heart:
" Salaam." Could this be the day she makes her first
non-Muslim friend?
Your Muslim neighbor may be a recent immigrant who has
left his home and family, the comfortable and
familiar, and is now struggling in a confusing and
complex new culture. Or she might have lived here 20
years, but while appearing to fit in, has never felt
accepted and a part of her neighborhood and community.
A Muslim doctor never experiences this. In fact, she
feels like no one truly knows her.
She enjoys the interactions with her patients in the
examining room and hallways of her office. Her
patients seem nice enough; no one is deliberately
rude. Yet when she returns home, she feels isolated
and ostracized by her neighbors.
Sometimes she wishes she could shout from the
rooftops, "I hate terrorism as much as you do!" She
knows the hallmark of Christianity is love. Why does
she so seldom experience it?
Although these are composite experiences of real
Muslims who live and work all around us, these Muslims
are "us." They are a part of "we the people." They are
not "the enemy."
If Christians are to love, bless and pray for those
who persecute them, a Christian can never really
consider anyone his or her enemy. Further, we are
taught to love our neighbors, and Jesus scolds us for
only loving those who love us. Thus, there is no group
of people that falls outside the category of
"neighbor."
Loving our neighbors does not mean simply bringing no
harm to them. It is not a passive matter, but a
command to act. If we are to obey Jesus' teaching, we
must embrace Muslims and through our lives minister to
them God's love, acceptance, encouragement, compassion
and comfort.
If we do not befriend Muslims for the sake of loving
them, then why not at least for the sake of enjoying
the experience of learning about someone who might
come from an ancient and fascinating culture? Why not
befriend a Muslim for the sake of enjoying the company
of someone who might prepare food in delicious and
unique ways, who views God through a different lens,
and who exhibits hospitality, genuine friendship and
loyalty in ways that might surprise you?
We have nothing to fear from the vast majority of
Muslims. Rather, let us acknowledge and welcome the
contributions they make to our communities, befriend
them, and enjoy the mutual enrichment we can bring to
each others' lives.
Mark Pfeiffer is adjunct professor of Islamic studies
at Baptist University of the Americas and director of
the Christian Institute of Islamic Studies (www.bua.edu/islamicinstitute).Embrace
Muslim neighbors; they are not the enemy.
Awfully dark before the dawn -
Leonard Pitts in Miami Herald
Granted, this would be considered self-evident by
most of us, but it has been a matter of great
controversy in the Tennessee town of Murfreesboro,
where 17 people went to court last year to prevent a
group of Muslims from building a mosque. On their own
land.
The need to defend this fundamental right was only one
of the ordeals visited upon the Muslims of
Murfreesboro, who have also faced threats, vandalism
and arson. As recently, vividly illustrated
inUnwelcome: The Muslims Next Door, a troubling CNN
documentary, the antagonists here are a clownish band
of bigots scared witless by the prospect that a new
mosque will be built in their community by a
congregation that has already worshipped in said
community for 30 years.
Seriously. You can't make this stuff up.
The 17 had contended Muslims have no constitutional
freedom to worship because Islam is not a religion. So
the statement at the top of this column represents not
just self-evident truth, but an actual ruling last
week by an actual judge in an actual court. Again:
seriously. Chancellor Robert Corlew, the
aforementioned actual judge, was obliged to verify
that Islam — which has survived 14 centuries and
claims a billion and a half adherents — is a religion.
As reported in the Daily News Journal of Murfreesboro,
in throwing out most of the plaintiffs' case, Corlew
also dismissed claims that "Kevin Fisher, an
African-American Christian, would be subject to being
a second-class citizen under Sharia law, Lisa Moore
would be targeted for death under Sharia law because
she's a Jewish female; Henry Golzynski has been harmed
because he lost a son fighting in Fallujah, Iraq, by
insurgents pursuing jihad as dictated by Sharia law."
Maybe you're tempted to turn away in disgust. Yield
not to temptation. We need to see this. This is what
it looks like when a country loses its mind.
It looked like this in Germany in 1938 on
Kristallnacht, in Rwanda in 1994 when the Hutus
savaged the Tutsis, in America in 1942 when the
Japanese were herded behind barbed wire.
My point is explicitly not that Muslims face mass
vandalism, genocide or internment. Lord only knows
what they face. Rather, my point is that the
psychological architecture of what happened then is
identical to the psychological architecture of
Murfreesboro now. Once again, we see people goaded by
their own night terrors, hatreds, need for scapegoats,
and by the repetitive booming of demagogues, until
they go to a place beyond reason.
And in that place inevitably lies a dark night of
malice, destruction and awful deeds that seem like
good ideas at the time. When it passes, like a fever,
we — the doers and those who simply observe — are left
shivering in a cold dawn as reason reasserts itself,
wondering how barbarism overtook us, what broke loose
inside us and vowing that it will never happen again.
Never again.
Me, I don't fear Muslims. I fear Muslim extremists. I
fear extremists, period. And that group in
Murfreesboro, make no mistake, is extremist.
Against their extremism, I find bitter succor in the
inevitability of that cold dawn. Yes, there will come
a morning after.
But first we must learn how dark this night will be.
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EsinIslam.Com
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