 I volunteer with the OLLI program committee. I'm happy that so many of you are here today. Before I introduce our speaker, Janet Clar as the director of the senior center and has a couple things she'd like to tell you. Hi, everybody. Welcome on this spring rainy day. So glad to see the room fill up today despite the rain. And I just wanted to thank everyone for another wonderful season of partnering with Osher Leif Longwearing. It's always a pleasure for us to bring these wonderful quality and well attended lectures to senior activity and make them more accessible to more people. If you aren't aware, we also have a lot of great programs starting next week. We have our spring summer quarter beginning. We have over 80 wonderful classes. About half of those are in movement. Some of them happen right in this very room, but there's also a studio next door where there's lots of yoga, so we've got strength training. There's also foreign language. There's also more classes. Lots of wonderful classes. If you'd like to learn more or sign up, our newsletter's here. We've got lots of forums downstairs. Feel free to stop by the office when you're done here. And we also have a special event coming up this weekend, which is our annual rummage sale. Very different from everything else happening. But that's Friday and Saturday. And I also wanted to let you know that with Osher not running through the summer, we have new lectures and presentations. And if any of you have something to propose, I would be really happy to receive proposals from anyone and share them with our program committee that reviews them. So feel free to get in touch. And thanks again for coming. Thanks Osher for your wonderful partnership. And thank you guys for coming. And thank you, Jennifer, all your help was set up. It's right here outside this room. There's also water. And I'll be right downstairs. Let me know if you need anything. Thank you. Just two short announcements before we get to the program at hand. Next week, this is the last of our lecture series. And there are three weeks of films with Rick Winston and the topic that they're generally related films. And the topic this year is Cross-Cultural Encounters and Collisions in 21st Century Film. This takes place at 12.30 on Wednesdays at the Savoy Theater. So there are copies of our brochure here that list what each week's movie is. One last thing on the 12th week, as probably most of you know, Ali is a strictly volunteer organization. And we need more volunteers. So, I mean, we need some help. And it doesn't mean meetings. It doesn't mean lots of work. It means helping out where needed. We need help with setup. If Bob were not here, if his attendance record was not what it was, we would be in big trouble. You know, we need some backup. So it doesn't mean a huge commitment, but if you're interested, please let us know. And there is a meeting. It's our program planning meeting on April 12th, what day is it? Thursday. Thursday, a week from tomorrow at the library, the Kellogg Hubbard Library, at 1.15. And everybody, anyone is willing to go and is willing to, is welcome to come. And if you can't come, don't want to come, but are interested in either giving us program ideas or volunteering. Please see Bob, Marge, me, anybody. A lot of people here are involved. Grace. Okay. Grace, of course. Right here. Stand up, Grace. See, never mind the other one sitting next to her. Okay, as I said, a lot of people involved. All right, let's get to it. Esma Alkhuni has a degree in political science from Georgia State University, where she was the recipient of the university's 2016 Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award for her work on behalf of groups often marginalized by society. That's particularly meaningful today, what she does. You know. Alkhuni has worked as an intern at the Georgia State Assembly and was the community outreach director for the Council on American Islamic Relations in Georgia, the largest Muslim civil rights organization in America. As a volunteer with Georgia Close-Up, a non-partisan educational organization, she helped educate students, teachers, and citizens about public policy in Georgia. She also volunteers her time with other grassroots organizations. Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson invited Alkhuni to be his guest as parenthetically as a form of protest at President Trump's first address to Congress in D.C., where she spoke to the press on why she continues to fight oppressive regimes. And last, and this is cute, you'll like this. Last year, a newspaper named her The Giver of All Dams. You give a damn, right? Give her peace for Atlanta's best. Alkhuni is featured in the new documentary produced by Atlanta's Center for Civil and Human Rights, telling stories of six female activists in Georgia. She was among the contributors to the updated version of the new appeal for human rights in Georgia, and most recently she helped change the policy in Atlanta to allow Muslim women to wear their mandated hijab at the Atlanta Detention Center. Alkhuni has recently moved, thankfully for us, to the upper valley where she resides with her husband. I give you Asma. Thank you. Gosh, thank you so much. I am so honored to be here today. I want to thank the Vermont Asher Lifelong Learning Institute, ED, and all those who made today's presentation possible, including the Mont Peler Senior Activities Center for opening their space for us. So I want this to be a safe space, so that means I want you to feel comfortable enough to ask me questions. I will answer as many of your questions as possible, and I think we'll just go ahead and start. So this is the agenda, and the first thing I'm going to do is I'd like to ask the audience what your goals are, what you would like to get from the, what questions would you like me to address, and then after that I'll address stereotypes where they come from and their consequences. I'll go over the demographic of the Muslim community and also Muslim belief and practices. Thank you, Grace. So kindly prepare to take on the next slide, which is your goals. She introduced you specifically. Yes, exactly. Today is your part in today's presentation. I'm going to start, yes. Okay, so I'd like to know from you guys, what do you want me to address today? So just raise your hand that I'll call on you and we could just write on the board right there what you'd like me to talk about, what you'd like me to address, yes. I'm interested in the posters on the blackboard. Okay, so the posters, yes. I'm interested in the garment and why you wear it. The garment, okay. Garment or head covering, all right. Yes. I feel woefully ignorant about Islam in general and if you can give, I know that's a very deep topic, but if you can give some broad strokes, how being a Muslim in America may be different from being a Muslim in America. Ooh, yes, okay. So how being a Muslim in America may differ from, yeah. And also Islamic beliefs and practices? Sure. Okay. Yes. In every other religion, there are progressives and fundamentalists. There are people all over the, so it's almost ridiculous to ask what do Christians think about something because they're all over the place. So I'm just assuming that's the same thing within Islam, but if you want to talk something about the variety of ways. Yeah, so diversity in Islam. That sounds like a good, somebody mentioned something here. Yes. I just came from a Spanish group and they were discussing there's over 4,000 Arabic words in the Spanish language. Wow. Can you talk a little bit about how the language is, are there quite a few Arabic words in English also, or that would be interesting. Okay, so the Arabic language. Related words. Related words in Arabic that we may be familiar with. Okay, anything else? Yes. We'll just sit in the role of women and write some women. Okay. So the role of women. May I ask what are the role of men that women don't have? What are the role of men? Oh, the role of men. First women. Okay, yes, yes. Okay, so Muslims regard Jesus as a prophet and they also practice in the religion of Abraham as do Jews. Yet, Jews do not accept Muhammad as a prophet nor do Christians. So how do Muslims discuss the fact that they regard the heads of the way things go in Judaism and the way things go in Christianity as a prophet to them. And yet, their prophet is not so regarded by the others. There's a continuation of some tradition. How do they discuss this? Okay, that's a good question. That's a deep question. Okay, that's good. All right, I think we could get started. Okay, so what does the average person think of? What comes to an average person's mind when they hear the word Islam and Muslims? And I'm not talking about you guys because you guys are woke. You invited me here, so that says something about you that you're welcoming me. But what do you think the average person thinks about Islam and Muslims? Or what comes to mind? So I'm looking for words. Bomb. Bomb. Terrorist. Different. Different. Fear. Fear. Different clothing. Different clothing. Ottoman Empire. Ottoman Empire, okay. An average person. All right, so there was a study done. And I'm gonna give you the most popular answers to that study in the United States. And these are it. Who can read this for me? Raise your hand if you can really fast read what it says up here for me. Yes? Terrorist. Fanatical. Women oppressed. Women submissive. Women uneducated. Women can't work. Intolerant. Un-American. That's right. So this shouldn't be new to everyone. I mean, you probably are familiar with these stereotypes. And if some maybe you're familiar with all of them. Okay, so... They're all negative, yes. Were there no positive responses? There actually were a few positive responses as well. But the majority are negative. And we'll talk about why that is. Okay, Islamophobia. It's time to talk about Islamophobia and the negative perceptions of Islam and Muslims. So what is Islamophobia? How many people have heard this word? Raise your hands if you... Okay, so good. Who can tell me what they think Islamophobia means? Fear. You're here. You're here. Yes, exactly. So it's either fear or hatred of Islam or Muslim. And it results in prejudices. It results in the marginalization, discrimination, sometimes violent acts against Islam, against Muslims. But also those perceived to be Muslims. So Muslims aren't the only ones that are victims of Islamophobia. So these are the things that cause Islamophobia. So let me go over all of those. These are the driving factors. We have media representations. So most everything we see about Islam and Muslims in the media are negative images. Whether it's the news or movies. In fact, someone by the name of Jack Shaheen did a study and written a book about the negative perceptions of Islam and Arabs in the media, including movies, and he found that the overwhelming representations that we get are negative. So I want you to put that in context and you'll find out a little bit later that only less than 1% of the U.S. population are Muslims. So if you're not going to come in contact with a Muslim, most likely, and everything you see is from the media, you can understand why that fuels Islamophobia and there's no other positive images to counter that. The second, by the way, the word terrorism. How many times do we use the word terrorism when it comes to someone who's non-Muslim? So unfortunately, there is this size where a violent person who is Muslim happens to carry out an attack. We automatically will label him a terrorist, right? We never question intentions yet. But when someone, I don't know, a white or a shooter that's non-Muslim does something we oftentimes will call them shooters with mental problems, right? We don't want to label them terrorists. So there's that. Political rhetoric. Politicians oftentimes scare people with Islam and Muslims because if you create fear in people and you make yourselves out to be the hero, right, that will relieve you of your fear, you're likely to win campaigns. So a lot of politicians will play a role of Islamophobia and increase this, you'll notice in the media that's when Islamophobia or the hate for Islam comes about, including our own president, right? He used Islam to fuel this fear, oh my gosh, they're coming to take over our country and spread Sharia law and violent extremists. So despite the fact that there are a few people that are Muslims that do acts, right? There are. We have our violent extremist that says any other faith, right? But despite that, we like to put responsibility on all Muslims for doing that. We don't do that to say a Christian person who's a white supremacist or a right person. We don't say all white people or we don't say all Christians but we tend to think one violent Muslim person really, all Muslims are violent, right? And so that brings into Islamophobia. American foreign policy, Islamophobia is often times utilized by our nation to justify foreign policies abroad. And we'll talk a little bit about this but an example would be Afghanistan and how we went into Afghanistan and we used we're going to save the Muslim woman in Afghanistan so let's go ahead and look at our military escapades there, right? U.S. Islamophobia Network, somebody asked me to discuss what these are and this is what this is. Basically there are people and groups who are literally making money off of creating hate towards Islam and Muslims. It's a multi-million dollar industry and so I thought it might be a good idea so you can see who these people are that literally make money off of creating hate and so you can maybe I don't want to waste too much time but later you can come up and actually see who these people are and so when you see them and people bring them all the time by the way in the media as experts even though they're very well known as semaphobes and bigots. And then last but not least knowledge from Orientalism and Orientalism was a body of knowledge that started in Europe, mostly England and France to gain knowledge about those they would soon subjugate and rule over through colonies it continues today through neocolonialism through economic and cultural hegemony and we'll talk a little bit about that shortly as well. Can I ask a question? Yeah. Has this Islamophobia happened after 9-11? I don't recall it growing up it just seems to be that that was the starting point is that true? That's a really good question and if you look in history we always have to have an enemy if you have an enemy it justifies putting money into our war machine and going abroad and so after 9-11 yes Muslims were the evil bogeyman right? Before that we know through history we have the Irish were considered evil at one time right? Jews and still are right? There's anti-Semitism today and they're Russians right? So we always have to have an enemy and I think today it's one of them is Islam and Muslims so I wouldn't say it started at 9-11 but it has exasperated like extremely after 9-11. Yeah. One question about the chart and the question without I know you're going to detail but I'm wondering is it mainly politicians or Muslim leaders? No, they're some lead organizations and you can come up here I'm sure you've heard of Robert Spencer Pamela Geller they have websites and it's just fueling hate they create activities and events and yesterday was punished a Muslim day though I don't think any of these people created this was something that somebody created in the UK but it was basically if you do these things some Muslims get points like right pull off a hijab you got 10 points kill a Muslim you got 200 points and so our community basically did send out just a warning to Muslims to be wary about their surroundings and because this is just it's horrible but right hate groups right okay so this is Laura Bush and Laura Bush is here I think this was in the year 2001 she addressed the radio and she basically said the fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and the dignity of women so making it okay for us to go into Afghanistan and do what we need to do right let me just see what else I want to tell you about that let's just go on here Edward Said is the father of critiquing Orientalism the word I introduced earlier Orientalism started out as a study of Eastern cultures by the West a way of seeing the world it assumes a huge difference between the East and the West Edward Said says there's a difference between knowledge and research to understand for coexistence purposes and then there's the opposite done to dominate right there and Orientalism is an institution for dealing with the Orients if you don't know what Orient means anybody know what Orient means and then the Occident would be its opposite the West right so sorry about that just want to make sure but basically an institution for dealing with the Orient dealing with it by describing it, viewing it, teaching it settling it, ruling over it in short Orientalism is a Western style for dominating structuring and having authority power over the Orient and that is his book this is his very famous book here called Orientalism and this picture here captures exactly what Orientalism is because you look at this picture and you think wait what is this what culture is this is it Indian, is it Iraqi, is it it's a whole bunch of mumbo jumbo stuffed in a picture and called the Orient and that's how a lot of people viewed the East Lila Abul-aroud I'm sorry if you can't see her name there she wrote a book called Do Muslim Women Need Saving it's an excellent book where she talks about the perceptions people have of Muslim women but pretending to be rooted in the language of human rights she critiques how no one really cared if these women were dying because of the war or that they were still struggling even after the West has emancipated them right so her critique goes very much hand in hand with saving brown women from their brown men kind of like the white man's burden Jack Shaheen which I talked about earlier who did the research on how Muslims and Arabs are presented in the media he basically boiled it down to the three B's the billionaire, the belly dancer and the bomber oh what this is? Aladdin who would like to sing the opening song of Aladdin who would like to sing that part oh I come from a place from a far away place with the caravan camel's room where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face it's barbaric but hey it's home these were real lyrics it's a movie this is McCain if you recall in 2008 he was running for president and a woman gets up and what does she say? Obama is an Arab we can't have Obama as president he's an Arab right? and what does McCain say? he says no ma'am he's a decent family man a citizen that just happens to have who I just happen to have disagreements with so what is that really saying? he thinks he did something great here but what does that mean to someone like me or a Muslim child that hears him it basically says that Muslims aren't decent family people they can't be citizens they're un-American even though he got a lot of credit for this some Muslim community wondered how is this a good thing this is Obama when he was running people called him a terrorist people called him Muslim and he responds to the claims that he's a Muslim and a terrorist by insisting that he's Christian and ignores the opportunity to challenge the association of Arab Muslims that they're terrorists basically accepting the logic and only challenging his faith that he is Christian so of course Donald Trump and we all know he's done many many things I just put three things up there so I think most recently is the retweets of anti-Muslim propaganda videos that the UK had by a hateful group called Britain First they're fake videos of Muslims being violent and he retweeted not once not twice but three times three times these videos on his Twitter and then also he stood up against refugees he said oh if we bring in refugees they're going to be violent and not one refugee in the United States there was no violent act by one refugee in the United States so it's really interesting the other thing is the Muslim ban I did not tell you my parents are from the country of Libya I was born there I came to the United States when I was two Libya is one of the countries that are on the Muslim ban from coming to the United States so what are the consequences of these perceptions so there's an increase in hate crimes so I told you I worked for CARE Georgia the Council on American Islamic Relations one of the largest civil rights organizations in the United States and what we found is this year alone the amount of calls we've received on anti-Muslim biases was the highest since 9-11 and if the trajectory continues the way it does it'll be the highest since 9-11 so it's really bad right now discrimination in the workplace is another problem that we found they don't want Muslim women to cover their hair or they won't allow people to pray or just being mean and not allowing beards or criminalization of Muslims and there's so many ways Muslims are criminalized in the United States through policies FBI targeting the third highest reason why Muslims call CARE is because of FBI targeting so they have no association with any terrorist organization but simply because their family comes from a different country or they visit a different country the FBI keeps targeting and bullying the Muslim community surveillance, they're being surveillance they're on no fly list, secondary screening at airports of course we talked about the Muslim ban anti-Sharia laws if you don't know it's fake, it's fake it means law, religious law but there is no law that all Muslims agree with so it's something created to create hysteria within the United States and so they have these anti-Sharia laws ordinances keeping mosques from being built in Georgia we had to fight Newton County had an ordinance not allowing a mosque to be built because the community was just did not like Muslims and did not want that to happen so they create ordinances to ensure that Muslims don't create houses of worship and then Muslims feeling other and there's so many other things that happen including every single major airline has kicked a Muslim off a flight and so I can give you some examples of situations where that has happened let's see if I can get that quickly I may have lost that page but I can just tell you that every single major airline has kicked a Muslim out for simply talking in Arabic and somebody got scared and said they talked in Arabic so really silly things like that got Muslims kicked off of planes confused about what you said about anti-Sharia law what does the word Sharia mean? it's law, it's Islamic law but there's no there's no Islamic law there's no some people could say Sharia is giving charity to the poor there's no power behind it but there's many things in Sharia that people don't agree on it also comes in when people say somebody steals, cut their hands off but yet there's non-Muslim countries that really do that so it's fake and that's why I say when you hear that word in this country just know it's being done to create hysteria, to create fear within the community so when I say Sharia is fake, I'm saying there's no one Sharia that all Muslims agree on and what they're trying to do is trying to make it appear that Muslims are coming into this country to dominate it's not about just living like everyone else we all have an agenda if we have an agenda, we're coming to take over we want to take over the government we're trying to convert everyone it's just this crazy idea how Muslims are dealing with islamophobia some people are speaking out against it I don't know if you're familiar with the lady on your left that's Linda Sarsour she is the leader of the Women's March on Washington so some people are speaking out against it some have created communities giving a sense of belonging so after school programs for Muslims so that they don't feel so othered others are taking it to the courts and challenging policies, for example some people are suing Donald Trump for the Muslim ban some are trying to educate the public about what to do if they witness hate and we'll talk about that so maybe you guys can have the tools to act once you see hate in front of you some are allying with marginalized communities in demanding equality and fair treatment and so you could see a picture that's actually me in the AJC paper and I was the sign basically says civil rights are for everyone America it's time and that was during a police shooting when an unarmed black man died and so we could see how Muslims are allying themselves with marginalized communities to seek their rights as well some are educating the public some are doing nothing because they're afraid that if they do anything they'll further be targeted so they're just laying low just trying to stay quiet about what's going on and we could talk about what you can do a little later okay so now we're going to get into some important words so, Islam Islam is the name of a religion it is one of three that are considered of the Abrahamic faith traditions the root word for the word Islam is s-l-m which means peace essentially achieving peace in self and on earth Muslims are people who practice Islam people are Muslims and the religion is called Islam Islam is the religion, its followers are called Muslims very good people mistaken that all the time okay so now the word Islamic Islamic is an adjective that's what that word is it's an adjective that describes things related to Islam there's a catch though this adjective cannot be used for people you cannot say someone is Islamic but you can say Islamic clothing Islamic art Islamic book Islamic architecture anything can be Islamic if it's related to Islam but you can't say he's Islamic he's a Muslim very good how do you get to be a Muslim? okay I'll show you that when we get to it on the sides okay so here are some more words Arab is someone whose origin is from the Arabian Peninsula or comes from an Arabic country countries around the Arabian Peninsula and also in North Africa like my country Libya Middle East Middle Eastern refers to a person or a custom from a geographical region including Southwest Asia but often times leaves out North Africa so there is another term called Mina if we can have Grace write that this is actually quite important and I should have put this up on the slide it's M E N as in Nancy A Mina and that describes the area of North Middle East which stands for Middle East and North Africa Mina Middle East and North Africa it's more of an inclusive term because again my country is not in the Middle East even though people consider it but truly not it's not in the Southwest Asia so that's a better term to use for those Muslim majority countries Mina Sunni is one of two major dominations within Islam and the percentage of Muslims belong to this group Shiite is the other major domination the word Shiite is an English term Shi'a is the Arabic term so if I say Shi'a it is because I'm used to saying Shi'a but it's literally the same thing as Shi'ite Shi'ite is the other major domination Iraq in Iran Bahrain and Azerbaijan Bahrain our majority Shi'a or Shi'ite the main difference is in the way both see leadership in Sunni Islam leadership is not hereditary so whoever is best fitted to lead will lead and in Shi'ite it is hereditary so today Sunnis do not have a leader there's no one Khalifa you probably heard that term Khalifa there is no Khalifa in Sunni Islam there's no longer empires so some Shi'ite do have leaders like in Iran they follow someone in India they follow someone as well there are some religious differences but not much I'll give you an example of a religious difference because I'm not going to stand here and say there's no difference except in leadership there's some slight differences so for example Muslims pray five times a day in Shi'a Islam they split their prayers up into three times a day and Sunnis split it into five but if you ask a Shi'ite they'll say well we pray five times a day it's just during three different parts of the day so they're combining prayers so it's still five times a day and also there's some slight differences in the words they say during prayer so there's that let's see here okay so this is an interesting fact if you meet an Arab in the United States they're not going to be Muslim most likely they're going to be Christian you won't know it because you know they're not going to be covered up right but in fact if you meet an Arab in the United States they're most likely going to be Christian the majority of Muslims in the United States are either black or south Asian so when I say south Asian I'm usually talking about Bangladesh India Pakistan and so they're the majority of Muslims within the United States so let's see how many Muslims do you think there are worldwide I want to see who has the best guess yes how many? okay so I'm looking for a number how many Muslims do you think worldwide how many Muslims yes 1.4 billion okay any other number? one more guess 6 billion okay so I want to know are you a professor? I did a little research before I came here there's about 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide okay let me ask how many people in the world are there that's just what it is right so 6. something billion I think it actually says it down there 6.8 billion people in the world so what is that is that every fourth person is a Muslim? every third? okay is a Muslim that's a really good question I don't know but it's definitely more it's definitely more yep yeah it's definitely more there's more Christians than Muslims for sure okay so in the United States how many Muslims do you think live in the United States? I'm just saying very few okay 3, 3, 1 3 people? okay okay yes absolutely right so how much would that be I guess you can do the math if you think 6 million so very good since there's no real census people have figured out ways to estimate how many Muslims and they say between 3 and 7 million so when you said 3 that's why I'm like 3 what? yeah it's 3 million Muslims again 1% of the US population I think there's 360 some million Americans I'm including undocumented that's the way I view things people living here residing in the United States the Muslim community is the most ethnically diverse American religious community so we'll talk about that in a second so here we are this is the demographic of the Muslims in the United States and we already kind of talked about does this have like a pointer? I don't think so sorry we kind of talked about how African-Americans and also South Asian make up the majority and so African-Americans 30% but if we include African with that that would be 33% South Asian again when we say South Asian we're talking about India Bangladesh that part of Asia if we're talking about Southeast Asia that's 2% you know China Japan down the other Indonesia as well I don't know that's a really good question I actually thought about that quickly when creating the slide but I can always find out and let you know can you tell me an interesting fact about Indonesia do you know anything special about there's something special about Indonesia yes it's a beautiful country okay how about religiously is there something yes it has the most Muslims more than any other country percentage wise so that's the interesting thing about Indonesia are they Arab? no this is just because this confusion happens all the time I don't need what percentage of Arabs are Muslim so in the United States 25% in the world I don't know but I know the largest populations are Indonesia but also India they're not Arab so they're not the most but I don't know exactly what percentage they are but exactly and let's remember Iran is not Arab a lot of people think Iranians yeah they're Persians in fact if you come up to an Iranian and say are you Arab some of them actually will get very offended they don't speak Arabic and they're not Arabs they may look like Arabs but again you know there are many people that look Arab right Spanish people like really just so yes so there's that within the Muslim community in the United States is there a conflict between ethnic groups like in Christian churches they tend to fall out very segregated by ethnicity so I think in the Christian church it's by denomination well yeah but they're still very segregated so segregated yes it's one of the issues within the Muslim community there are problems we're very segregated in the United States unfortunately so you'll have a black mosque you'll have the African mosque you'll have the Arab mosque you'll have the Pakistani mosque it is a problem that we're trying to work with people have voiced their concern about it because there are some communities that are more affluent than others and so on and so forth so we do have that issue um the way the mosques work I'll not answer that, that's a good question the way the mosques work is that the doors are open like they can't stop anyone from coming into a mosque so if I wanted to go into an African American mosque I can't and you'll see me use the word black and African American interchangeably and there's a reason some of my friends do not want to be called African American they refuse to they think it's an insult because we don't do that to but we don't say Irish American Italian American you're just American and so some of them refuse to take that and so they want to be called black and then I actually have friends who don't want to be called black want to be called African American so I use them interchangeably and so I can go to a black mosque in fact in Georgia I felt most comfortable in a black mosque going back to your question about separation that is more cultural than religious and so what tends to happen is in the black mosques they're usually in one room they're not separated I'm most comfortable being in a room with my religious leader and so I try to attend mosques that include women in the same space and then there's a lot of mosques that don't do that and that usually stems from a cultural practice within their own countries where they separate men and women and so they come to the United States and they'll carry out those traditions and so even though it's a religious house of worship but religiously there's no basis because during the Prophet's time men and women were actually in one room but it's become very much a part of so ingrained in the culture that for me to ask someone to make us in the same room is offensive to some Muslims so there's a middle ground the middle ground that I think that should happen is that in the same room we should create a space to allow them and if they want to be in another room and I've literally come across some woman who said no I want to be in a separate room do not come into my mosque and demand things that we don't want and I realize that is perception or perspective that I need to respect and so it would be great if they created a space for those women that don't want to be in the same room and then making sure that they're right to have the same access as men to their religious leaders because what happens when you remove access to women they can't reach out to the leaders they can't tell them hey I'm being abused or this is happening or these are some things that need to be on your radar if you tell people that they can also say well we'll give opportunities for women we give women classes they can always write us they can always make an appointment but again that lack of access Is this a Sunni Shia difference? Oh no matter of fact the mosques that I went to they're Sunni they all pray together and then there's Sunni mosques that separate so no it's not a Shia Sunni Shia So in Maryland can they do separate? I think the majority of mosques separate yep unfortunately but that's why again I like to go to the African American mosques because they don't do that there's an Argent they've been here longer there's almost like an American Islam and we'll talk about that Islam looks very different in different countries so if we go to Saudi Arabia the way they practice Islam is going to be very different than the way they practice in I don't know, Pakistan even their clothes are completely different and so I may have more in common with someone from Saudi Arabia from someone from New Jersey I grew up in New Jersey right from someone in Saudi Arabia just even though we have the same religion I grew up here most of my life it's just the cultures I'm more culturally American and so I may have more in common with Aenon Muslims right so that's important so you talked about diversity we talked about diversity this is a really important slide Muslims are very diverse in fact this is the most important point that I want to come across today if you get anything from this presentation please get this we are so diverse educational backgrounds socioeconomic statuses different professions we speak different languages different in the way they practice their faith and we just talked about one aspect prayer and and so they're not a monolithic right there's no monolithic way of being Aen Muslim right there's no one way there's no Sharia law Muslims agree how we should live right and so now we'll talk about Aen Muslim so before we do that yes I think what I'm just going to ask was if you have to say what are important core values, practices across diversity and thank you so much yeah I'm actually getting there thank you so much for that question because I am actually getting there but I do want you to notice the picture Muslims are very diverse right so we have a woman two women covering their hair one that doesn't right just we'll talk about that in a second okay so, Islam as we mentioned earlier Islam is one of the religions that are considered Abrahamic faith traditions Muslims see their religion as a continuation of Judaism and Christianity the Quran refers to Jews and Christians as the people of the book it's intriguing to me when I tell people that we share a lot of the same stories or the prophets that are mentioned in the Quran or also mentioned in the Bible they get surprised like what? I thought it was something so totally different but they don't see that really Muslims view their religion as just a continuation of the very same Judaism and Christianity they also believe in Jesus they revere him very much but the major difference between Christianity and Islam is actually the way Muslims view Jesus as a prophet as opposed to being divine so that's where they differ so he's considered one of the most respected prophets but they don't consider him to be divine Muslims also share practices with Jews as well like Jews for example there's dietary restrictions Muslims can't eat pork in clothing some Jews will also cover their hair also taking time off during the day to pray five times a day and some Jews do that and we know some Christians as well right before going to bed and going to church it also take time during the day to pray so yes when I was growing up I was raised Catholic and in those days women did not enter a church without their head cover wow thank you thank you for mentioning that yes yes I appreciate you mentioning that yes and we'll get up to the head covering so I'm glad you added that bit there okay and so now we'll talk about beliefs okay we talked about how diverse Muslims are but there are there's a string that goes along Islam that brings Muslims together so what are they they are the beliefs now there are five major beliefs in Islam Muslims believe in a one god it's a monotheistic faith Allah is just the Arabic word for God so who knows how to say God in Spanish yes okay very good how about in French yes dear oh wow you guys are okay in Hebrew okay alright so in Arabic it's Allah that's simple as that okay and then Muslims believe in angels so angels are creation by God Muslims believe that they do not have free will they just merely serve God Angel Gabriel is the angel that is believed by Muslims to have given revelation to Prophet Muhammad and other prophets according to Islamic tradition the next thing is Muslims also believe in prophets they believe God has sent prophets throughout time to show and tell people how to live a righteous life some prophets mentioned in the Quran Noah Moses David Jacob Adam and others as well Muslims believe in other revealed scriptures including the original Bible and Torah Muslims believe in an afterlife so that one day the world will come to an end and everyone will stand before God and be judged according to the way they live their lives and last Muslims believe in a divine decree basically it means that God knows what happened in the past God knows what will happen in the future and it's all of part of one big divine plan that we just need to trust in God so any questions before I move on so those are the major beliefs what is the word for God Allah is God male or female and according to Islamic tradition God is not male or female you'll also notice just before I move on speaking of Allah you'll see Muslims don't usually draw God there's no images of God usually and I say usually because Muslims are so diverse so if you go into books maybe you'll find a picture or two right but for the most part you won't find images of God they think he transcends all things that we can see right okay so the practices okay so these are the things that hold up Islam the way pillars hold up a building these are called the pillars of Islam so the first one is Shahada Shahada is a declaration of faith this is how someone becomes Muslim and hope that answers your question it's basically saying that there's only one God and that Muhammad was his final messenger and by doing so one is declaring the belief in all the other prophets before Muhammad as well Muslims pray five times a day Is there a special ceremony for the testimony of that? There just needs to be two witnesses so as long as there's two witnesses usually what tends to happen is people go to a mosque in order to get those two witnesses in front of everyone to let people know the reason why that's important this doesn't have to be but what people tend to do is because they'll need a sense of community and if you're not reaching out to people letting them know hey I'm Muslim the people won't know and people won't invite you over to their house not to say that they don't invite non-Muslims but it's just to say that they'll kind of take extra care of this person okay thank you so there's no like baptism thank you that's a really good question no like for example I was just born into the faith I didn't have to officially in front of everyone say my Shahada like I didn't have to but I'm constantly saying it in prayer and so I say a lot but no there's no like official formal ceremony if that's what you're asking but you are, your parents are you are not necessarily so some people have converted out of Islam and became something else so that's very possible as well but it's really I think it's more important the belief inside right saying that there's only one God and that Muhammad is a messenger but formally the scholars this is just their opinion you have to have two witnesses if you are coming from another faith into Islam so do kids pray five times a day or do they how is that when does that start that's a really good question actually there's a slide on prayer and I will get to that and if I don't address that please do just raise your hand remind me and I'll make sure I address that okay so we talked about how Shahada we talked about praying five times praying five times a day this is supposed to connect people to God and I'll go over the movements really quickly so I think this is important so the reason why I do this let me turn this off for a second is in case you see Muslims you'll know what they're doing and I don't want what tends to happen I also get cultural sensitivity training to police officers in Georgia and the reason why I do that is it's important for people to know what prayer looks like so when they see it they don't think because literally people are calling the police when they see Muslims pray because in movies when Muslims pray they're about to commit a violent act forgetting that Muslims pray five times a day so let me just show you so this is this is not my magic carpet this is my prayer reg speaking of orientalism okay and so basically they have to pray in a clean place I'm actually just going to quickly take off my shoes just to make it easier this is the first movement just so that you know the movements I'm not going to go over everything but this is the first movement we say some things this is the second movement you go up and then this is the most famous picture that you'll see is Muslims will put their forehead to the ground so my knees are on the ground my hands and my forehead and that's prostration like that we say three things God is glorious and God is glorious and then we come up again say some things to ourselves and sometimes out loud depends on if we're in congregation praying together do this God is greatest God is greatest and then again forehead to the ground during the day the amount of a set we're going to call this a set from me standing to my head on the foreground I'm sorry I'm going to get to my mic so you can hear me okay can you hear me we call that a set where I was standing and then my head goes to the ground and that differs throughout the day so in the morning it's two for the hood prayer it's four asa prayer it's four, mulut prayer it's three sets ashad prayer it is four sets and so Muslims also have one day that's a holy day that they will go to the mosque similar to how Christians will go to church Sunday and then the religious holiday for Jews is Saturday and so Muslim holy day is Friday they'll go to the mosque and they'll pray congregational prayer okay so that's prayer prayer look the same across all the different groups yes it's the same exact movements there is slight difference between the shia just I didn't show you at the very end after I prostrate we sit and I should have showed you that movement because again we have to know but it looks like just me sitting down like this and then we say some things and then to end we'll do this for shia it's just a little different I know they do something with their hands slightly different so there's slight variations but basically it's the same thing and you'll see it in pictures and yes like my mother so my mother actually uses a seat so if you can't do all that you can sit down and you're still lightly doing some of the movements so for example like this to bend when I was bending like this and then where my forehead is to the ground she'll just go a little further so that's a really good question because not all people can do all the movements some people have bad knees I'm sorry yes oh my gosh so before prayer there is something called wudu and it's a ritual wash and it is washing the hands mouth nose face head ones ears and then feet three times and so I don't want to get into too much detail but basically it's done before prayer it doesn't have to be done before every prayer if you're purified and that means if you didn't go to the bathroom and you didn't pass gas and it's time for the next prayer then you don't have to do the purification the purification so that's that you ask and I answer how long does each oh thank you that's a really good question so it takes about three minutes to do prayer yeah between three the most five minutes if people really want to get into it real slow it's not like you can just choose your words you actually have specific verses from the Quran that you say during prayer so the first is like a mandatory verse from the Quran and then a chapter rather from the Quran and then you could choose any other chapter from the holy book to say but again you can't choose it I mean you could choose the chapter but you can't say whatever you want to say and then after prayer when people are sitting down and you usually see them do this that's when they're saying whatever they want to say and they're asking God for whatever so I think well I'm not even going to get into it let's just keep it this I know it's them and I'll stick with it I don't want to say the Christians do this when they pray you can compare it to that but in Islam it's like this yes pre-dawn I think there's a slide on that we'll get into that too so we got up to praying and then Muslims give charity so though you can give charity any time of the year any time in your life Muslims actually require to give charity of their savings so if you're saving money aside by the end of the year you have to take 2% and give it to charity that's mandatory you can also give extra charity that's fine but it is required that people give 2% of their savings so I think that's important because people get shocked and like I have to give 2% of my wealth it's like no only what you've saved for the whole year untouched money for the whole year 2% of that has to go to the point is that connected to I have an idea that I don't know where I got it Muslims are extraordinarily hospitable yes that's got to be so ingrained there absolutely is a connection I can't even if you go to where my parents are from their doors are always open there is no such thing as calling someone when they come over you can't ask them to leave you can't say oh I have to go somewhere it's suddenly everything it will be put on hold you take out the food it's very hospitable and very giving so that's that any other questions and then we talked about charity Muslims fast once a year during the holy month of Ramadan which we'll talk about that in a second and Hajj Muslims have to make a pilgrimage to Hajj once in their lifetime so Hajj is in Mecca in Saudi Arabia and here it is take a look at that picture those little specks are actually people every year 2 million people make their way to Saudi Arabia Hajj that building there is called the Kaaba it commemorates the trials and the journeys of Abraham and his family it is believed according to Islamic tradition Ishmael built the Kaaba and then it's been rebuilt many many times but just the thing that you have to know is that when Muslims pray they face this building here and so that's important and the other thing you have to know is one time during their lifetime they have to make this pilgrimage and that is if they can afford it there are some people who can't afford it and so people are not forcing them to but if they can afford it they have to once in their lifetime this is the basis of the numbers that you are quoting here only a very small fraction actually you are able to do it it's very expensive I have yet to do it and it's a shame because I actually lived in Saudi Arabia I went to visit this but when it was time to make the Hajj there is a certain quota what they do is they don't just allow anyone to come in they know there is not enough space for everyone it has to be in the single digits and they accept like a certain quota from every country for people to come but like you said it's really expensive so there are many people who have not done the pilgrimage and so there are attempts to make sure that those who haven't maybe people can donate to help those who haven't actually make the pilgrimage is this at a certain time of the year yes it is during a certain time of the year they don't know what they are doing but what they are doing is they are going around the Kaba seven times and what's interesting is the men are all in white they have two pieces of cloth and this is to basically create the sense of equality so if you are rich you are not wearing your special it's literally to create a sense of equal before God the men and women are not segregated here and Saudi Arabia doesn't have an issue with men right? I can also imagine that the airlines and the hotels bump up absolutely just like they would for any exactly and unfortunately there has also been accidents as well and when accidents happen many many people die as well yes I understand that the Kaba contains a meteorite oh yeah so there is a black stone it was a meteorite they try to touch it but it is so hard to get to I'm a astronomer so I have to ask oh yeah they believe that came from the heavens and they try to touch it and they try to make a special prayer but with this amount of people I guarantee you not everyone is touching it I was able to I didn't make the hajj but I lived in Saudi Arabia for two years no ten months to visit this but not during the hajj season you talked about you can't just go and make the pilgrimage it's only one time a year a certain time I went when it wasn't that time even though I lived in Saudi Arabia I wasn't allowed to go so they didn't allow me to because they have a certain quota they allow people from certain you know areas and so I got to touch it and it was amazing and this thing right here this building this gold stuff that you see is actually real gold and they change this this material so but yeah it's quite an amazing site okay okay fasting during the month of Ramadan which is the ninth month in the Islamic calendar people have to abstain or Muslims rather have to abstain from food and drink from when the sun comes up to the sun comes down so it's important to mention that the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar it's not like our Gregorian calendar that just means that days are the months are 11 days earlier every single year so Ramadan may fall in the winter one you know one year and then years later may fall in the summer because every year it's 11 days earlier and so during this period of time the reason why this is a significant month is Muslims believe that that's when Muhammad received revelation from the angel Gabriel that he is a prophet and that this is the message from God and so what Muslims tend to do during the month of Ramadan is read the whole Quran they try to go to the mosque and they're praying and during their prayers they're reading verses from the Quran until they try to finish the Quran so that's something you should know and they're very extra charitable during this month and they're also inviting friends over and there's a lot of visits during this month so what happens is I wake up before the sun comes out I eat as much as I can and then no eating no drinking and in case you don't know there's also no marital affairs which means literally sex right no sex either and then when the sun goes down usually oh I know where your mind's going when the sun goes down people usually break their fast with dates so you always see picture I decided to use dates for the month of Ramadan because they usually break their fast with dates the prophet ate a lot of dates and so people will that's the month where everybody goes and buys dates they break their fast with milk usually and tamar, tamar is the Arabic word for dates and then they have a big huge feast now if you are a Muslim and you cheat what some Muslims have done is they'll sleep through the day and then they'll wake up and then just literally stay up and unfortunately in countries it's really they create the environment to be able to do that they're like oh but it's fasting that's why I don't have to come to work right so that's not what's supposed to happen the reason why people fast is so that you're supposed to feel how it feels to be hungry and not be able to eat you know that's the one time that those who can afford to eat all the time finally experience real hunger pains and that's one of the reasons why they're more charitable during the month of Ramadan right yes this is where our expression go out on a date came from right okay let's see I think that's good for Ramadan that's good for Ramadan after Ramadan I can say this is sort of a joke back I lived in Kuwait for a while and the streets in midnight were probably down to a poppin that's what I'm talking about so you literally experience what I actually just said everything is so different during and yeah they have special series on tv like certain soap operas people are like it's very different it's not the way it's supposed to be but people have created their own little way of doing things so in the month of Ramadan there is a major holiday so there are two Muslim holidays during the year the first one is called which is breaking of the fast and then the second one is called they celebrate the same way so I'll tell you quickly how they celebrate it they'll wake up they get very special dressy clothes on the best clothes it's usually new clothes they go to the mosque pray and then after that so Aqaa is the festival of the sacrifice and it commemorates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son and then God sending it around in his place so that's that second Muslim holiday yes the only fast one the whole month the whole month one whole month called Ramadan it's actually coming soon in May and how many days is it 30 days it's a lunar calendar so we have to look at the moon so you have to cheat no so it's not cheating when you're actually eating so when the sun goes down what's supposed to happen is you wake up early you don't eat during the day the sun goes down, you eat but then you sleep, you don't stay awake and then take advantage of the night time and just eat away you're supposed to live your regular life so I'm so happy during this month because I usually lose at least 5-6 pounds I'm like the belly that I'm so worried about is not here anymore so yes actually Muslims read it throughout the year and if you hear it it's almost like a song and they have competitions and people memorize it and 3 memorize how many chapters not 30, oh 10 so the book is divided into 30 they memorize 10 of the 30 so it's an honorable thing to memorize the Quran the Quran is in Arabic there are translations in every language but it's only considered holy and the word of God if it's written if it's read in Arabic I'll be honest my Arabic is horrible I am Arab I know but I was raised here and unfortunately there were no schools that taught me Arabic but we learned the Quran in Arabic and I'll say my prayers in Arabic including converts they'll learn it in Arabic because it's only holy only God's words if it's in Arabic so whenever you read the Quran you pull it off the shelf and you're reading verses it's actually someone's interpretation of the Arabic so that's something that's important to keep in mind thank you that's an excellent question ok so here are more important words you probably heard this word this is the Muslim greeting when Muslims see other Muslims this is the first thing they say how much time do we have ok so I better hurry up Assalamu Alaikum means peace be upon you Allahu Akbar is a very important word because it's taken out of context it means God is greatest I say this whenever I'm happy my son scores a goal Allahu Akbar it does not mean I'm going to bomb something like they say in movies inshallah means God willing alhamdulillah means praise be to God and this word jihad it's a really important word you have to understand it actually means to strive it does not mean holy war like everyone wants to translate it as it actually means striving and so the prophet said the greatest jihad the greatest striving is to strive to control yourself your nefs your desire to do whatever it is that you want to do right and so can it mean fighting yes to strive to defend yourself so it can mean that but it really just means striving but it's always taken out of context in our country so let me go on research oh this is actually do you want me to go over this I'm almost done but just as any faith in secular groups there are violent Muslims as well statistics show that the majority of violent attacks in the United States are carried out by non-Muslims yet Muslims are the ones associated with terrorism people confine justification and texts for their political agenda just as they can in any holy book by taking verses out of context research shows that the group that carries out the most violence in the US is the alt-rights framing their language around surviving extinction so though the threat is not as widespread as our society makes it out to be Islamic terrorism there are Muslims who do go out and do horrible horrendous things just as there are people in all faiths and so are there Muslims fighting this yes they're actually Muslims are working against violence within their own communities I'm one of them I'm the first of a group of cohorts that is in the Carter Center we have the study is right here but what we're trying to do is combat terrorism within our own communities and what we found is there's no way you can combat terrorism without combating a semaphobia they literally feed each other so the reason why these violent groups including Daesh which you know as ISIS I don't like to call them ISIS ISIS means Islamic State right we don't want to give them any legitimacy but the reason why they're able to recruit people is Muslims are being so othered that and when there's no communities to make them feel like they belong what tends to happen is they're doing an excellent job recruiting people online and so that's why I fight a semaphobia and extremism so that means on the Muslim end we create environments where they feel like they belong and at the same time we call out the things that we do here to make Muslims feel othered right and last slide women's dress this is quite important so if you take a look at the picture of the woman there there's a variety of ways Muslim women dress some may cover their hair dress in loose fitting attire a few women may cover their face called niqab some may not cover their hair at all some African American women may cover like the way that the black women in the top left hand corner is covered actually your last right and so really fast we all know that Muslims aren't the only ones that cover it and Bob was very kind to remind us that he remembers a time when people used to go into church and have to cover their hair we've all seen replicas of Mary whether in Christmas I don't sometimes I go into churches but you've seen replicas of Mary covering her hair you've seen Jewish women who cover their hair nuns you're all familiar with nuns but why is it that whenever we say Islam and Muslims all of a sudden are oppressive the main thing I want to gather of it is this is not necessarily oppressive the act of forcing anyone to dress a certain way is oppressive so when we have countries like Saudi Arabia who force women to cover that's oppressive when we have countries like France who force women to take it off that's also oppressive so where did the practice come from during pre Islam before the advent of Islam the only women that covered their hair were a certain class of women and it was to let those in the market know that they belonged to a certain family or a tribe and if anybody dared harm them or anything their tribe got their back so when Islam came it was to raise the status of women to these other women that nobody should harm or so it's not really linked to people wanting to make it out to be linked to a sexual like so women are not sexualized or whatever and some women will say that so if you ask why Muslim women cover my answer will be very different than someone else's answer some women do it just because it's culturally they see their parents do it and they're a part of a culture that does it and so they do it for that reason some women will say because it's prescribed in the holy book the Quran it says to tell the believing women to dress modestly and cover and so they believe that it is a part of their faith and so they'll do it for that some women do it out of protest because they've been colonized for so long and they say this is who I am and you're not going to tell me what I should look like or should dress like and so there's many different reasons why Muslim women cover and it's important if you want to learn anything it's that it's not oppressive it's what happens if it's forced it's oppressive right if it's removed like you're forced to remove it that's also oppressive so that's the thing that I want you to remember some people interpret the face covering modesty and they need to do that so you'll see some women also cover their face yes I heard a Muslim woman talk about it and we were saying how could you want to cover your face and she said I like it because they can't tell whether I'm smiling right and I'll be honest because I get this question a lot and then some a lot of times people will tell me oh but you're not like the other woman you know the woman that covered literally make a face the woman that cover their face you're not like that and I'm like well what do you mean I'm not like that I have Muslim women friends who cover their face and their lawyers they're way smarter than me they know a lot so like what is what does that imply I'm not like everyone else so I think it's important when we see people covered it doesn't mean that they're from a different country there are people that were born born and raised here right it just means that they do it for whatever reasons that they do it and we need to accept and respect their decision to cover if they choose to cover I think oh last slide which is quite important oh here we go what you can do okay so these are some things that I just wanted to make sure I share what you can do ask ourselves if I'm being biased by thinking about this person a certain way if we see someone there's stereotypes that come at us right so ask ourselves are we being biased by thinking that this person will have an accent and they may have an accent so what if they do does that mean they're less learned maybe they know more than us maybe they speak two languages where we only speak one right make a purposeful attempt to be kind to those with an accent or look different than us right and I've seen many people do this in the upper valley so I honestly that's one of the things that I appreciate some people literally go out of the way to be nice if you see a hate crime this is something that's really important if you see a hate crime and I've been a victim of hate crimes many Muslims have right and what I've noticed is people do nothing they freeze and it doesn't mean they're bad people but good people but they just don't know what to do right let's go back in history we interned Japanese and there were a lot of good people then too right so what I'm asking people to do what our organization my ex organization usually ask people to do is when you see a Muslim or anyone right discrimination or pretend to know that person don't engage the perpetrator just ignore that he's even there pretend to know the person and then just walk with them somewhere else so just take them out of harm's way but don't talk to the the perpetrator support organizations that deal with Muslim issues cares one of those organizations know that whenever somebody bad does something it's an exception it's not the general rule and so just like in Christianity you have the bad apples right somebody's like oh my god it's Christianity it's we know it's just a bad apple the same it's true for seven Muslims we have our bad apples and just know oh my god okay a Muslim did something horrible that's just him it doesn't mean it's his faith right speak out against bad policies and write to newspapers when they're so if a newspaper is always calling a Muslim a terrorist maybe write and say hey you know you're always using the word terrorists for Muslims can you also extend that to other terrorists they deserve it too and also why aren't there any positive images of Muslims are you telling me you can't bring a Muslim on and say some of the good that they're doing in the community especially I call it responsible reporting if you're going to put out a bad story it's gonna have a ripple effect right shouldn't you be responsible enough to have a counter story what Muslims are actually doing in within their communities so that people are not connecting all the negative stereotypes with Islamic Muslims and I think that is about it thank you so much yeah I also this is the Carter Center book that they did a study on terrorism only 9% of the terrorists like ISIS use only 9% of their rhetoric is religious in nature the rest is grievances Muslim grievances like the West hates you and they literally use 12% of their videos are real videos from the West politicians and also people in the media saying bad things about Islam to get people to join so this is a study this is the hate crimes report 2016 that care has done about hate and bias towards Muslims this is the book Orientalism and this right here is a pretty awesome gum called Islamophoban you can go to CARES website and order it but if you want to take pictures with it it's really cool so if I go to an airport and somebody is just being Islamophobic I'm like do you need Islamophoban so you can take pictures of this if you like as well thank you thank you