Yazeed K.

Abughaliah Nov 7, 2013 PROV 105-AC2 Assignment: Initial Thoughts and Beliefs Essay The Challenges of Practicing Islam the US The specific topic of this essay is going to be about the challenges that Muslims are facing here in the United States when practicing their religion. Abdulmohsen Alhamrani, Yazide Murad, and I are conducting research about this topic in order to be more knowledgeable about it. I am interested in this topic because I really love to know and gain knowledge about religions whether it is my religion or another religion. Also, I really love to know about the marginalized groups and how dominant groups treat them in their country, so I found this topic very interesting to me. In order to be more helpful for us to know about this topic, our group will have to interview some Muslims who have been here in the United States for a long time. Therefore, I am going to interview someone whose name is Abdulellah who is a member of the Muslims' Student Association at George Mason University. First of all, in my point of view, since the United States is a country that allows its people to be free in choosing their religions and its first amendment is the freedom of religion, I think that marginalized groups should not have any difficulties practicing their religion with any pressure from anyone else. My cultural beliefs, values and norms have really influenced how I personally view this topic. For instance, I was raised in a country that has only one dominant religious group, which is Muslims. Muslims there have never been persecuted, and they have the freedom to do whatever they want with their religion as long as they are doing the right thing, so that has affected me a bit since I came to America because I had not thought about the issue of facing challenges practicing my religion before coming to the United States. During my initial research, I visited all the websites that were provided in the instruction sheet, but I found that

pewresearch.org was the most useful. In the beginning, I thought that Muslims have been facing challenges only after September 11. However, when I was reading on the website, I found that Muslims have suffered from discrimination since the immigration wave, not only after the attacks of September 11. After the attacks of September 11, people in America have had bad stereotypes about Muslims. Many people have the image that all Muslims are terrorists, violent, and Islam is the religion of terrorism, which is the reason why they are currently prosecuted and facing challenges practicing their religion. Some of those challenges are, for instance, when Muslim women in the United States sometimes suffer from discrimination just for wearing the Hijab. Another example is that when Muslims want to pray in a public place, they will fear being called terrorists or violent, which is also a challenge. Those are some of the examples that might be current issues related to my topic. In conclusion, through this project, there are some learning goals that I would like to achieve. First, I always hear that Muslims in the United States are facing difficulties practicing their religion publicly, but I still do not know those challenges, so I would like to know more about that through this project. Second, I am considered as a member of this marginalized group in this country, so I would like to know how those Muslims are trying to overcome those hardships and challenges, which will help me in my life here in the United States. Finally, this project will help me build intercultural competence because I think I will find out that some people have prejudice against other people who do not fit the stereotypes, so I think this project will teach me not to judge people based on my preconceived notion of them or how they look like.