Americans: What’s your on Muslims ? (churches, Islamic, worship, quote)
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I’m Pakistani American and trying to understand how Americans in general feel about Muslims. Please talk from personal experiences. Not how they portray us in the media .. thanks
For me, they are people just like any other people, that includes the good and the bad, but certainly most are good.
I don't watch the media - it's worthless. I've always trusted personal Friendships above any projected stereotypes regardless of differences.
I’m Pakistani American and trying to understand how Americans in general feel about Muslims. Please talk from personal experiences. Not how they portray us in the media .. thanks
Your premise is flawed to begin with. There cannot be one answer for how "Americans in general" feel about Muslims. It varies, because not all Americans think and feel the same way. There are 330 million Americans, and some of them are Muslims themselves.
You get back on the right track with asking about PERSONAL experiences, and I will give you mine in a subsequent post.
Also, as a moderator, I can fix the title, which does not make sense. What is the missing word you wanted to use? Opinion? Thoughts? Feelings?
I work in IT, and have worked with some folks from India, Pakistan, China, and other countries. Some have been great folks, some have been absolute terrible people.
That said, we can vigorously debate if the religions are false or not.
As most people here already know, I worked in the World Trade Center for 20 years and was in One on September 11, 2001. One of the 15,000 or so who got out alive, obviously.
In my observation, we who were in the WTC are among the least like to hold prejudices against Muslims by virtue of the fact that our Muslim coworkers ran down those stairs for their lives right alongside us and then came back with us to rebuild the site and because of what it was like to work there.
The WTC was not some white, Christian, wealthy workplace. The very name should tell you that there were people from all over the world, of every race and culture and religion working there. Remember, people died that day who came from NINETY countries, even though most lived in New York and New Jersey.
Muslims are part of the scenery in the NY/NJ metro area. There are prejudices against them by some to be sure, but for the most part, they are just our coworkers or neighbors and by now most people are familiar enough with Muslims to know the basics of their cultural practices.
After my retirement from the public sector, I worked part-time for a couple of engineering firms, first for Satmar Hasidic Jews, and then for Pakistani Muslims, with whom I am still technically employed, even though I haven't actually done any work in nearly a year. It struck me funny that my Jewish boss, even though he was born in Brooklyn, did not learn to speak English until he was 18 years old because he wanted to go to a university outside of his community, but my Pakistani bosses, a husband and wife, both learned English as children in Pakistan, she in a private school called St. Paul's and he in a dirt-floor country schoolhouse.
Anyway, the people for whom I worked for those four years are two of the nicest people I've ever met. She is more devout than he, having made her hajj while I was working there, while he says he is only a good Muslim at Ramadan because he has a business to run and can't stop to pray five times a day. They are happy to be in the States and to have had the opportunity to build a successful business. They have a good rep in the NYC engineering community.
At one point I was asked to attend with them an event with the alumni association of the engineering school in Karachi, where both had gotten their first degrees. Part of the program was bestowing scholarships on young engineering students.
I was one of five non-Pakistani/non-Muslims in attendance out of about 100 people. I wished other people who have reservations and set ideas about Muslims could have heard as women engineers got up to speak about how the community must push their daughters harder to concentrate on math and science because women are still underrepresented in engineering, and to hear the president of the group stand up and say that next year they were opening the scholarships up to all engineering students and not just those in the Pakistani community as a gesture of showing their appreciation to the United States and the success they've enjoyed in this country.
Then there was a buffet dinner, and other people on the buffet line, seeing that we were obviously not Pakistani, explained which each dish was and what it was called. One of the people attending was my 9/11 "escape-mate", who at the time was also working for this firm, and at one point she started giggling and said to me quietly, "Is this what we ran away from that day?"
The people who committed the acts of September 11, 2001, were the people who committed the acts. We should never blame someone for what someone else has done based on a shared affiliation with the same religion, no matter what the excuse for the actions may have been.
The people who committed the acts of September 11, 2001, were the people who committed the acts. We should never blame someone for what someone else has done based on a shared affiliation with the same religion, no matter what the excuse for the actions may have been.
Excellent point.
We forget the good things that come of religion - such as sharing and kindness that are demonstrated on special religious occasions for all mankind. The Sikh temples feed anyone and everyone who is hungry every day. and they are one of the first to arrive with food at disasters. All religions have a system in place to act on these principles of charity, kindness, and universality of spirit.
The feeding of everyone at Iftaar.
Excellent point.
We forget the good things that come of religion - such as sharing and kindness that are demonstrated on special religious occasions for all mankind. The Sikh temples feed anyone and everyone who is hungry every day. and they are one of the first to arrive with food at disasters. All religions have a system in place to act on these principles of charity, kindness, and universality of spirit.
The feeding of everyone at Iftaar.
Years ago (decades, actually) I belonged to a small church that was part of an "Interreligious Coalition for the Homeless". I believe the organization still exists with a different name.
It came about because someone in that wealthy northern NJ county became aware that there were a lot of homeless seeking meals in the city that was the county seat but they had no funds to provide for them. So the person in the county government sent out a letter to six local churches asking if they could help.
It eventually grew to 60 different houses of worship taking turns to provide a meal for 125 people every day. There were all manner of Christian churches, but also several synagogues and one Sikh temple. I think that was the first time I realized there were Sikhs in the area in which I lived.
The Muslims I have known socially have been great (although that's not to say that's not without differences of viewpoints on many topics). A young Pakistani man who worked for me treated me as his American father, and he and his wife and I were very close. Their Muslim friends were also very nice to me.
On the other hand, I hated parent conferences with Muslim fathers. Quite unpleasant.
I’m Pakistani American and trying to understand how Americans in general feel about Muslims. Please talk from personal experiences. Not how they portray us in the media .. thanks
Your question is too complicated for a simple yes/no poll.
As a "regular" American, I have worked with dozens of Muslim coworkers, and have been around Muslims since way back in college 40 years ago when I had Muslim teacher assistants.
My view.
Most Muslim people are reasonably good with all of the usual temptations and potential vices as anybody else. Human nature never changes. I never had a problem with most of my Islamic co-workers. They all seemed mainstream and none were radicalized. They were generally good people who worked hard and wanted the American Dream like everybody else. Collectively, they ran the gamut of good to bad and hard work to lazy, like everybody else. Most were somewhere in the middle. Human nature never changes.
My problem with Islam and Muslims is this...
There seems to be a tipping point when the percentage of Muslims gets sufficient large vs the population overall, that radicalized Muslims emerge. These radicalized fundamentalist Muslims then demand Sharia Law be imposed over the rest of the Muslim population. These redicalized fundamentalists are small in number, but very large in impact. They wind up controlling things and the vast majority of Muslims being mainstream, for whatever reason, are cowed by them and allow the small fringe to impose Sharia Law.
So when a neighborhood or city has less than 10% of Muslims, things are fine and they coexist with the other 90% of non-Muslims just fine.
When a neighborhod or city has around 40% to 50% Muslims, a significant body of radicalized fundamenalist Muslims hijack the Muslim community and shame them into accepting elements of Sharia Law. As the entire Muslim proportion grows larger well above 50% of the whole of the neighborhood or city, Sharia Law becomes codified over the whole.
You see this in all the "no go" zones in Britain and France and Sweden, & etc.
America allows freedom of religion. Sharia Law does not. Societies with large Muslim populations gravitate toward Sharia Law, banishing all other regious practice.
For this reason, I have no problem with relatively small numbers of Muslims living in America or any American city, say below 10%. I am wary of having significant numbers of Muslims gathering in any given American city, approaching say 25%, and I would be opposed to it happening.
Maybe I am totally wrong on this, but as an old man, I have seen news regarding European cities go from complete religious freedom to strict Sharia Law "no go zones" whereever Muslim populations rise to relatively large minorities. For this reason, I am dead set against allowing Muslim immigration to any large degree.
Hispanics are 20% of all Americans. If Mexico were Muslim, and we had 20% Muslim Hispanics, I am convinced we would have Muslim "no go" zones all over America, as is the case in France.
This is sad and may be biased, but that is how I see it.
Fundamentalist Islam is 100% intolerant of any other religion and is badly in need of reform. Christianity was intolerant all through the Dark Ages up to the enlightenment, when it underwent a refom. Islam needs such a reform to tolerate other religions. I don't see it happening.
It is not enough that radical Islamic fundamentalists are small in number, when the mass of the non-fundamentalist Muslims are so easily cowed and browbeaten by the small but aggressive radiacal group.
I don't blame them. I would be cowed by a violent group of extremists in my neighborhood or city too. Who wants to cross people who are ready and anxious to die for their cause?
This is not dissimilar to America's many gang controlled inner cities. It is the same. A small group of violent extremists can control entire neighborhoods with their threat of violence. So we already have what I am talking about in the poor inner cities of America. These are often "no go zones" already. Adding large groups of Muslims in America would just create many more "no go zones", just of a different kind.
I like freedom. I don't want Sharia Law and "no go zones" in America, therefore I am very much against mass Muslim immigration. I wish we could solve our problem with gangs. We did NOTHING in the 1980s when the problem was small and localized. Solvable. Now it is too late.
Last edited by Igor Blevin; 06-10-2022 at 11:32 AM..
I’m getting lots of responses from fellow New Yorkers ! I’m also looking forward to hear answers from people who live in other states
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