The religion of Islam

Introduction

This essay will discuss the modern menifestation and role of Islam after the terrible 9/11. The phenomenon of Muslims in the United States is not new. Muslims have been a part of American society since the first ships of enslaved Africans were brought to the American shores. What has changed, however, is the American non-Muslim public's awareness of them. In a program organized by the Division of United States Studies, activists and scholars explored the challenges that face American Muslims as they seek to define their communities within the context of U.S. society after 9/11.

On the fateful morning of September 11th 2000, in what at first appeared to be a 'freak' accident, an aircraft crashed into one of the Twin Towers of the Worlds Trade Centre in New York. Reality was far more shocking and horrifying than any disaster fiction Hollywood could produce. Minutes later another plane crashed into the other tower and almost simultaneously another slammed into the Pentagon in Washington, it was clear this was no accident. Within an hour and these two iconic symbols of global capitalism and he so-called 'free world' came crashing down like carded wool. Due to the design of these massive super structures there was no realistic means of evacuating the two and a half thousand people trapped in the multiple high-rise floors.( Ahmed, 236)

Discussion

The Muslim population in the United States is much more complicated than the one portrayed by the mainstream media. During her research for Mecca and Main Street, Geneive Abdo found that about fifty percent of the Muslim-American population attends a mosque weekly, about sixty percent have earned college degrees, and twenty-three percent hold professional or technical jobs. Abdo focused her research on the “mosque goers”: those American Muslims who go to the mosque at least once a week.

She found the mosque goers to be primarily the younger, native-born generation of Muslim Americans. Since 9/11, many have sought a greater understanding of their faith and have placed a greater emphasis on the role of Islam in their lives. Younger Muslims are attempting to wrestle with the question of what it means to live as part of a minority Muslim population in what they view as a secular nation. This contrasts with the older generation of Muslim Americans, who do not feel as great a need to explore their religion. Within religious Muslim-American organizations, such as the Zaytuna Institute in Hayward, California, Abdo found Muslims seeking to “intellectualize their faith” and articulate it to the public at large. Among the younger generation are female Muslim leaders, such as Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America, whom Abdo calls “neo-traditionalists” - women who maintain Islamic traditions such as the wearing of headscarves but follow professional careers and hold leadership roles alongside men. Much of the younger generation of Muslim Americans, Abdo explained, believes that Islam, properly interpreted, sanctions equality and pluralism.( Ahmed, 238)

The attacks of 9/11 encouraged Eboo Patel to explore the question, in Acts of ...