Muslims

Muslims

BELIEFS AND PRACTICES

ISLAMIC CIVILIZATIONS

SECTS OF ISLAM

MUSLIMS AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Muslims are the second-largest religious group in the world, after Catholics (Saenz 2005). The group is racially and ethnically diverse, but the Muslim identity has taken on racial connotations at various points in U.S. history, most recently after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon building near Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001. Although the racialization of a religious identity is not a new phenomenon—for example, Jews experienced an identity change during and after the Holocaust—the impact of this transformation and increased “otherization” of Muslims and Muslim Americans has profound implications for a group that is seen as both a religious and a cultural threat to the mostly white, Christian U.S. population.

BELIEFS AND PRACTICES

Currently, over a billion Muslims live in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America. There are roughly forty-four Islamic countries in the world today. Although Muslims vary in their particular religious practices and cultural beliefs from region to region, the majority follow the same basic tenets of Islam (Esposito 1998).

Islam is one of three Abrahamic religions, along with Christianity and Judaism, that trace their communities back to the biblical Abraham. The basic teachings of Islam were said to have been revealed to Muhammad (c. 570–632), the final prophet, and collected and recorded in the Qur’an. Muslims rely on the Qur’an for the fundamental Islamic teachings and guidelines for their lives. Aside from the teachings in the Qur’an, Muslims also believe that Muhammad led an exemplary life that all Muslims should attempt to emulate. These examples can be found in the hadith, the documented reports of the prophet’s life, which Muslims also rely on for spiritual and practical direction.

In addition, every Muslim is required to follow the five pillars of Islam—obligatory practices outlined in the Qur’an (Nasr 2003). The first of these is the profession of faith, where a Muslim declares, “There is no god but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God,” emphasizing the monotheistic nature of the religion (Esposito 1998, p. 68). In making this declaration, a person becomes a Muslim. The second pillar is prayer, or salat. Muslims are instructed to pray at specific times, five times a day. Prayers begin with the azan, the call to prayer, followed by an ordered series of recitations from the Qur’an in conjunction with bowing and prostrations toward the direction of Mecca. Zakat, the third pillar of Islam, is a religious tax required of those who have enough money to give to the poor and needy. Giving of alms is not voluntary, but rather a duty defined by sharia, or Islamic law. Fasting during Ramadan is the fourth pillar of Islam. Every year, Muslims are required to fast from sunrise to sunset during the Islamic month of Ramadan, based on the lunar calendar. According to John Esposito (1998), this is a time for Muslims to reflect on their spiritual beliefs and gratitude for good health and wealth, and to remember their duties toward those who are less fortunate than themselves. The final pillar of Islam is pilgrimage, or hajj. During the twelfth month of the Islamic calendar, Muslims who are physically and financially able are required to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca; this needs to be done only once in a person’s lifetime. Once in Mecca, Muslims perform a series of rituals such as circling the Ka‘ba (House of God) while reciting verses from the Qur’an. According to Seyyed Nasr “hajj signifies a return both to the spatial center of the Islamic universe and to the temporal origin of the human state itself” (Nasr 2003, p. 95).

ISLAMIC CIVILIZATIONS

Islamic civilization grew rapidly after the death of Muhammad in 632. Over the course of the century beginning around 600 CE, an Islamic Empire spread to occupy what was once known as Arabia, Central Asia, North Africa, and parts of Europe. Throughout the next few centuries, Islamic imperialism had a profound effect on the arts, sciences, and philosophy. Many scholars note that during this time Islam advanced beyond predominantly Christian Europe in many areas, including trade and commerce, exemplified by the urban centers that popped up all across the Islamic Empire (Turner 1995; Esposito 1998; Nasr 2003). Islamic scholars greatly contributed to the progress of math and science, expanding on Greco-Roman geometry and advancing algebra and trigonometry. Universities and academies flourished in Islamic countries. Nonetheless, although Islamic contributions were significant, they are often overlooked in Western cultures. The Enlightenment brought about a positivist view of the world that refuted religious explanations, ignoring the contributions of Islamic civilizations while promoting eurocentric scientists and artists.

SECTS OF ISLAM

Islam has never been a homogenous or unified religion. During the era of Islamic imperialism there were vast differences in Islamic practices and the development of Islamic cultures. The best known sects today are Sunni Islam, Shiism, Sufism, and the Nation of Islam.

Sunni and Shiite Islam Sunni Muslims constitute the majority of the roughly one billion Muslims in the world today; Shia comprise the second-largest Islamic sect. After Muhammad’s death a schism occurred over who should be the next caliphate, or leader of the Muslims. Abu-Bakr became the first caliphate after Muhammad, followed by Umar, Uthman, and then Ali (the son-in-law and cousin of Muhammad). The Shia believe that Ali should have been the first caliphate because of his blood relation to Muhammad. Sunnis practice a more decentralized version of Islam than the Shia, which does not require one religious authority, but relies instead on a community of learned religious scholars and the standard religious texts. Thus, Sunnis are more literalist than Shia when interpreting the Qur’an and hadith. Shia follow the Qur’an too, but they rely on imams, religious leaders, who they see as divinely guided by God to help them interpret the Qur’an. Thus, they follow a more authoritarian form of Islam compared to Sunnis, who are more communitarian in their practice.

Sufism Sufis follow a very different version of Islam than Sunnis and Shia. Whereas Sunnis are more literalist in their interpretation of the Qur’an, the Sufis’ interpretation is more symbolic and allegorical, and their religious practices are often described as mystic. Sufism developed out of a desire to return to a purer and more spiritual version of Islam as a reaction to the corruption that Sufis felt had became rampant during imperialist Islam. Hence, Sufis embrace an ascetic way of life and reject materialism in an attempt to return to the lifestyle of Muhammad’s time. Sufism focuses particularly on God’s love and meditation.

The Nation of Islam The Nation of Islam is a newer sect of Islam, introduced to African Americans in the 1930s through Wallace D. Fard (1891?–1934?) and then made popular in the United States by Elijah Muhammad (1897–1975). Fard took passages from both the Bible and the Qur’an and preached a religion that encouraged black liberation, using messages from Islam about brotherhood and social justice to encourage African Americans to reject the domination of their white oppressors. Elijah Muhammad took over leadership of the Nation of Islam after Fard disappeared in 1934. He claimed that Fard was Allah (the Arabic word for “God”), and that he was his messenger. It was during Muhammad’s leadership of the Nation of Islam that the sect welcomed the most conversions, due to the popularity of one of Elijah’s disciples, Malcolm Little, or Malcolm X (1925–1965), and the racially charged climate of the 1960s in the United States. As the civil rights movement gained momentum, the Nation of Islam offered an alternative to African Americans who lived in mostly poor urban areas and who felt that their immediate issues and needs were not being addressed by the leaders of the mainstream movement. The Nation of Islam lost members in 1964 after the split with Malcolm X and the passage of the Civil Rights Act, and suffered a further decline in membership after the death of Elijah Muhammad in 1975. Elijah Muhammad’s son Warith Deen Muhammad (b. 1933) succeeded him and converted to Sunni Islam, taking many leaders with him and leaving the Nation of Islam under the leadership of Louis Farrakhan (b. 1933).

MUSLIMS AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

The events of September 11, 2001, had an impact on Muslims around the world. Since then, both Afghanistan and Iraq have been invaded by the United States with the support of a number of allies. In the Euro-American media, anti-Muslim rhetoric demonstrates a simplified and reductionistic understanding of Islam and its followers rather than depicting the various political and cultural particularities of Muslims from different Muslim countries.

Moreover, Muslims are often portrayed as a homogenous group fanatical in their religious beliefs, and either participants in, or supporters of, terrorism. Muslims in the United States face increasing racism through racial profiling and the perpetuation of negative stereotypes in the media. Jack Shaheen’s Reel Bad Arabs (2001) identified roughly 900 American movies from the 1900s through the early 1990s in which Muslims and Arabs have been negatively stereotyped. Because these images are so long-standing, they s eem to Americans to be “normal,” “natural” attributes of Muslims, and this has led to public and political support for the creation and implementation of racist laws and policies such as the U.S. Patriot Act, which has curbed the civil rights of Muslims in the United States and spurred military action against Muslim-majority countries.

The United States is not the only country where Muslims face racism and persecution due to misunderstanding of their culture and religious beliefs. In France, Muslim girls are forbidden from wearing the hijab (headscarf), and in 2005 a Danish newspaper published a political cartoon that depicted Muhammad as a terrorist. Acts of violence by Muslims are stripped of their political motivations and reduced to religious fanaticism; images of Muslims as violent terrorists perpetuate an already antiMuslim ideology that Islam is a threat to both modernity and a democratic world. In truth, Islam is not a monolithic religion; Muslims vary in their cultural makeup, political views, level of religiosity, and in the type of Islam that they choose to practice.

SEE ALSO Enlightenment; Fundamentalism, Islamic; Islam, Shia and Sunni; Jihad; Muhammad; Mysticism; Orientalism; Pan-Arabism; Racialization; Racism; Religion; September 11, 2001; Stereotypes; Terrorism

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Armstrong, Karen. 2000. Islam: A Short History. New York: Modern Library.

Bloom, Jonathan, and Sheila Blair. 2000. Islam: A Thousand Years of Faith and Power. New York: TV Books.

Curtis, Edward E. 2006. Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam, 1960–1975. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Denny, Frederick Mathewson. 2006. An Introduction to Islam. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Esposito, John. 1998. Islam the Straight Path. 3rd ed. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press.

Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. 2003. Islam: Religion, History, and Civilization. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.

Saenz, Rogelio. 2005. The Changing Demographics of Roman Catholics. Population Reference Bureau. http://www.prb.org/Articles/2005/ TheChangingDemographicsofRomanCatholics.aspx.

Shaheen, Jack. 2001. Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. New York: Olive Branch Press.

Turner, Howard R. 1995. Science in Medieval Islam. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Saher Selod

David G. Embrick