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| Brooklyn, NY |
Sunday, November 27, 2011
"Minarets on the Skyline: the culture of the Muslim community"
This article by Ilyas Ba-Yunus and Kassim Kone describes and compares how Muslims in American cities live. The article goes into great detail about the different Muslim communities found in different cities across the US. They are all, for the most part, happily engaging with American lifestyles while also maintaining their religious devotion that shows their sense of community bonding among their fellow Muslims in their neighborhoods. The communities might not all look the same or consist of the same geographically affiliated Muslims, but the sense of belonging remains the same. The most important thing to the people living in these cities, is their devotion to their faith, so their community helps them stick to that by surrounding them with like-minded people with the same devotion. The point of the community is to create a pure Muslim environment that encourages strong faith. That being said, these communities are not exclusive, but they are for the most part filled with Muslims. This kind of environment is conducive to healthy religion and interaction with those who are outside this community of believers.
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I agree Brittany's viewpoint, because the point of the Muslim community is to encourage faith and devotion through conducting/praticing in healthy religion which creates a pure Muslim environment. Conducive interaction with those who are non-Muslim believers outside of the Muslim community are engaging in a sense of exceptance and affiliation.
ReplyDeleteIts definitely a good thing that people of a common religious tradition can live together and form communities for support, especially a misunderstood religion like Islam. I think it says a lot about American culture that these people feel as though they have to live together for support, that they might not be widely accepted outside of these communities. However, I believe that visibility and interaction are important, especially when Islam is regarded in the West to some degree as "the other." In fact, I believe that part of the reason there is so little trust of Islam in America today is because of the lack of visibility that these communities are receiving. So I hope that these communities provide a place for non-Muslims to go to learn, but I also hope that these communities begin to incorporate themselves into larger communities, and not remain as just a Muslim version of Chinatown, so dialogue and understanding will follow.
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