A huge influx of Muslim orientated blogs are sharing and reporting on the many hidden realities of the Muslim lifestyle. By 2009 more than 133 million blogs[1] were calculated, so we do really need more? Yes. More Muslim blogging platforms are being created with the banner of "muslimness" to perform the role that mainstream media has neglected. One new project called {My Best Friend Is Muslim}  is portraying real Muslim friendships, ambitions and the intimate relationships of an altruistic faith which 'Western' news ignores. I love MFBIM for promoting interfaith friendship with a real personal message.

I asked MBFIM founder Ateqah Khaki how the My Best Friend Is Muslim blog started up and why. This is what she had to say in a Muslimness exclusive interview.


Firstly, tell us a bit about yourself. Where did you grow up, what's your Muslim community like?
My family has roots in Gujrat, India. My parents were both born and raised in Tanzania. I was born in the UK, but I've lived in America for most of my life. I grew up in a quiet suburb outside of Seattle, Washington, and went to a small liberal arts college in a town called Walla Walla (yes, it's a real place!) where I studied sociology. From elementary school through college, I was one of the only Muslim kids in my community. My family is quite religious; in fact my parents are the founders and leaders of a religious community. My parents raised me to be proud of my faith and culture, and so I never felt weird or out-of-place as the only Muslim around, and I was always happy to answer my friends' questions about my religion and my roots. Today, I live in New York City, and work in communications for a national civil rights organization.


What are your reactions to Muslims in the media?
I dream of a day when Muslims in the media aren't recognized as "Muslims in the media." Most of the time, when you read or hear about someone in the news, their religious views are not mentioned, because they are irrelevant to the story. These days, it seems to me that regardless of the topic, if the subject of a piece happens to be Muslim, this piece of information will be prominently featured in the story. I hope that one day, unless the fact that someone is a Muslim is truly "part of the story," the media is able to look beyond this one-dimensional characterization of people who happen to be Muslim.


I presume you wouldn't agree then that Muslims and Muslim youth are represented fairly by any form of journalistic media?
As stated above, I feel that Muslims are too often portrayed as one-dimensional characters in the media. Thankfully, we live in a day and age where anyone can create their own media or source of information, and there are some great efforts out there to more accurately depict the diverse Muslim community (including my project! Which we'll get to soon!)

(1) Show the world what it means to be a Muslim through your actions. I think the best way to counter negative perceptions about Islam or Muslims is simply to break the stereotypes through example.

(2) Even though it can be annoying to answer the same old questions about Islam and Muslims, be patient with those who want to learn and try to answer their questions as best you can. Although I get tired to answering questions about why some Muslim women wear hijab (and why I don't) or why we fast during Ramadan, I always try to give an honest and informative answer. It takes a lot of courage to ask a question, and at the end of the day, I would rather a curious friend or colleague have my take rather than something they read on a bogus website.

(3) Tell your own story. If you are frustrated with the way that Islam or Muslim youth are portrayed in the media, use the many informational tools that are available to us today and do something about it. Write a blog or a note on Facebook that presents your point of view. Create a photo essay or a short film that shows what Islam means to you. Host a gathering of Muslims and non-Muslims to have a dialogue about faith and spirituality.


What do you think the global Muslims communities really need right now?


Critics might not see the impact of your blog, tell us, what do you hope to achieve? 



"I'm In Love With A Muslim"

The response has been phenomenal! When I started the project, I did think that the project would have some traction, but I have been blown away by how much positive feedback I have received. Within its first week, the site was visited over 5,000 times with over 10,000 page views, and the site is currently receiving over 1,000 visits each weekday. I hope that this is just the beginning.

From Pew Research Centre

According to the latest report, the number of Muslims in Europe "has grown from 29.6 million in 1990 to 44.1 million in 2010." The Pew Research Centre has projected a Muslim population growth to a whopping 58 million by 2030 (can you say, insha'Allah!) Critics have immediately taken the extremist card thinking that Islam is being forcefully spread. Great assumptions has been published that just because Islam is growing, everybody else is supposedly shrinking. However, by 2030, and with the larger Muslim population, Islam may still be the second fastest growing religion behind Christianity.

More Muslim Statistics

"Muslims today account for about 6% of Europe’s total population, which is up from 4.1% in 1990. By 2030, Muslims are expected to make up 8% of Europe’s population. Although Europe’s Muslim population is growing, Europe’s share of the global Muslim population will remain quite small. Less than 3% of the world’s Muslims are expected to be living in Europe in 2030, about the same portion as in 2010 (2.7%).

[...]

The number of Muslims in Europe is expected to grow by about the same amount in the next 20 years as it did in the previous two decades. From 1990 to 2010, the number of Muslims in Europe increased by about 14.5 million. In the next 20 years, the number of Muslims in the region is forecast to increase by roughly 14 million, albeit from a higher base. - Pew Research Centre

[...]

Europe’s Muslim population will continue to grow at a faster pace than its non-Muslim population, which has been decreasing. As a result, Muslims are expected to make up a growing share of Europe’s total population."

Countries in Europe
Spotlight on Russia:

Russia has the largest Muslim population in absolute numbers in all of Europe. The number of Muslims in Russia is projected to increase from about 16.4 million in 2010 to about 18.6 million in 2030.

Russia will continue to be the European country with the largest Muslim population in the next 20 years. The number of Muslims in Russia is expected to grow from 16.4 million in 2010 to 18.6 million in 2030. Muslims are projected to make up 14.4% of Russia’s total population in 2030, up from 11.7% in 2010.

Muslims In Britain

The United Kingdom is expected to have the largest increase in the number of Muslims in Europe in the next 20 years. This is also part of the great conversion rate to Islam by British men and women.

The number of Muslims in the U.K. is projected to almost double from 2.9 million in 2010 to 5.6 million in 2030. By 2030, Muslims are expected to make up 8.2% of the U.K.’s population, up from 4.6% in 2010. 

The United Kingdom is forecast to have roughly the same number of Muslims as Germany by 2030.

• France’s Muslim population is expected to climb from 4.7 million in 2010 to 6.9 million in 2030. 
• Germany’s Muslim population is expected to increase from 4.1 million to 5.5 million during this period. 
• Although Italy, Sweden, Spain, Belgium and Austria have smaller numbers of Muslims than the U.K., Germany and France, their Muslim populations are forecast to grow significantly in the next 20 years. 
• The Muslim populations in Italy and Sweden are projected to more than double in size, while those in Spain, Belgium and Austria will likely increase significantly.

Though Ireland has a relatively small Muslim population, it is expected to have the largest percentage increase in Europe in the number of Muslims. Ireland's Muslim population is projected to increase by almost 188%.

Other European countries expected to have percentage increases of more than 100% include Finland, Norway, Sweden and Italy. Countries projected to have percentage increases of 50-100% include the United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium, Austria and Switzerland.

The Republic of Macedonia is projected to have the largest increase in the portion of its population that is Muslim. By 2030, Muslims are expected to make up 40.3% of Macedonia’s population, up 5.4 percentage points from 2010 (34.9% Muslim). In Sweden, the Muslim share of the population is projected to increase by five percentage points, from 4.9% in 2010 to 9.9% in 2030."

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From The Muslim Link Paper | 23rd Dec 2010

“Hard of hearing people people have been able to do more to be religious...but as deaf people...[we] are not able to hear anything. We must sit there and act as if we understand—but we really don’t.” said the the president of Global Deaf Muslim, Nashiru Abdulai through an ASL (American Sign Language) interpreter at a fundraising dinner held in Herndon,VA on December 11.

In hopes of making the audience realize how cut-off deaf Muslims feel from the greater Muslim community, Abdulai illustrated the frustration he and others felt so often when trying to take part in Islamic gatherings, “when I go, I would like to be able to understand but, instead, I have to ask other people what’s going on and a lot of times I just decide I won’t go because I really won’t be able to understand anything.” He recalled how he and deaf Muslim college friends would skip events they had originally planned to attend because they would lose hope of ever being any more than outsiders looking in. Isolated and unable to benefit from the knowledge and camaraderie of hearing Muslims, they would sit with each other to hold on to their Muslim identity.

As perhaps many who hear do not realize, lip-reading is very difficult, and many deaf have not mastered it. Written text can also be hard to follow because most deaf do not develop a strong reading vocabulary. Unable to hear words, even their own, speaking properly is also a great challenge for the deaf.

Most are comfortable with sign language, a system of hand movements and other gestures to communicate thoughts. There are many sign languages throughout the world. American Sign Language is dominant in the United States and Canada. ASL is also used in other parts of the world.

Parents of deaf Muslims often neglect their children’s religious education. And since the Quran and Sunnah are not translated into ASL (or any other sign language) nor are most Islamic events and Friday Khutbahs interpreted, deaf Muslim Americans have very limited access to Islamic teachings. Learning about Islam can be an even more daunting task for converts and non-Muslim deaf.

“So, many times we just go through the motions but don’t understand what is behind those motions” said Abdulai.

“Their knowledge of Islam is poor no doubt, to say the least” Dr. Muhammad Alvi told The Muslim Link. “For a simple reason—nobody tells them anything” he explained. Dr. Alvi teaches Islam to a group of 15 to 20 metro area deaf Muslims at Adams Center in Herndon, VA, many of whom attended the dinner.

Global Deaf Muslim is an advocacy group based in Bethesda, MD. The group organized the event to raise money for a project to present a video translation and commentary of the Quran in ASL.

“There are about 500,000 to 2 million people in the United States that are using ASL...so if we can produce the Quran in sign language, I’m sure it will reach lots and lots of hearts and they will come to Islam, too.” Dr. Alvi speculated.

GDF has global ambitions and a few high-level connections. It was announced during the event that Rashad Hussain, known as President Obama’s special envoy to the Muslim world, was working to set up a Global Deaf Muslim forum in Qatar for 2012. Another of GDF’s projects aims to analyze the sign languages across the Muslim world to create a universal hand sign system for Islamic words and concepts.

Many deaf people in the U.S. and elsewhere have developed their own culture due to their lack of full integration with the hearing world, separate system of communication and distinct views on deafness. “Deaf” with a capital “D” is preferred by those who embrace this culture. Most deaf people in the U.S. consider themselves a part of the Deaf community. GDF mostly presents the views and interests of Muslims who are a part of this culture. (We have mostly used “deaf” in this article for simplicity.)

“Deaf people have their own traditions” Maher Esghi, a professor at Towson University who teaches ASL and himself is deaf, told the audience. “We actually have a large culture. We have lots of jokes and humor and idioms within our language. But hearing people aren’t exposed to that.”

Prof. Esghi spoke, through an interpreter, about misconceptions hearing people have about the deaf. He said many deaf Muslims don’t think of themselves as lacking something or having a problem, “we accept deafness...Allah blessed me with this. We take it as a whole. It’s a different perspective.”

Several deaf Muslims could be seen throughout the evening energetically running the event in a sort of noble silence which was, however, frequently broken by those quick, coded hand gestures which inevitably make one long to learn sign.

Yet, you would not have been able to tell from their appearances that the deaf attendees were challenged by a disability. They are so often among us without our notice.

The bright-eyed, enthusiastic men and women—many young, some new to Islam and a few obviously not very knowledgeable on religious matters—sat together, signing away to each other throughout the evening. And, irony of ironies, one sometimes felt a yearning to be included in their circle.

The dinner seemed a success. Though a bit short of the stated goal, thousands of dollars were raised during a call for donations by Dr. Altaf Husain of the Islamic Circle of North America.

All speeches by the hearing were interpreted in sign. There were deaf panelists sharing their thoughts and experiences. It was an evening when deaf Muslims could tell non-deaf Muslims about their pains and struggles, their hopes and dreams. It was their night, their event.

At one point, guest speaker Daoud Nassimi called on all deaf to stand up to be recognized. And as they rose, surrounded by a crowd of their hearing brothers and sisters, it was as if close family members, long absent and nearly forgotten had, at last, come home.

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From The Age | 3rd Jan 2011 | By Daniel Flitton

As dreams go, Yassmin Abdel-Magied has one that is peculiar and very particular - to be the first female, Muslim, formula one racing driver.

"Everyone thought it was a phase," she says with a laugh. It wasn't. She got the bug for fast cars while watching a movie about six years ago and hasn't stopped dreaming about them since.

Ferraris are her favourite but any muscle cars will do. The 1960s Corvette Sting Ray, for instance. Anything fast, really.

"I just became enamoured with these beautiful machines, the capacity they have. It's just fantastic," Ms Abdel-Magied says.

She admits people are sometimes surprised to hear this kind of blokey passion from a conservatively-dressed Muslim woman who arrived from Sudan with her parents as a toddler and spent her early years at a Brisbane Islamic school.

But Ms Abdel-Magied seems to revel in breaking stereotypes.

"I'll pop up some random quote about cars, and people are like, 'Hang on, she knows what she's talking about'."

Now 19, and about to enter the final year of a mechanical engineering degree at the University of Queensland, she projects all the infectious - and at times daunting - enthusiasm of her generation.

The Young Queenslander of the Year in 2010, she coaches a soccer team for Muslim girls called "Shinpads and Hijabs".

She is a member of the Queensland Design Council and at 16 set up a network for community-minded teens, Youth Without Borders.

"I never get eight hours of sleep at night," she says. "But I'm all right with it, I enjoy being busy, I enjoy helping people … when you want to do things, you find time for it."

Ms Abdel-Magied was born in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum to parents who put a great store in education. Her father was an electrical engineer and her mother an architect.

But in Australia her parents' professional qualifications were mostly not recognised, so it meant they had to start over. It's an issue many new migrants must confront, Ms Abdel-Magied says.

"You see a lot of people coming from various countries with amazing qualifications, but they have to start again. There is a lot of wasted potential,'' she says.

"There is one guy who was essentially the Kerry O'Brien of Sudan - I mean he'd written books, he was a journalist - but he had to start anew. He was driving taxis for five years.''

But Ms Abdel-Magied has clearly thrived and learnt to traverse cultural boundaries. During high school, she switched from the Islamic school to a Christian college, becoming the first girl at the school to wear a headscarf.

This made her something of a de facto ambassador of her faith not long after the September 11, 2001, attacks, meaning lots of questions from fellow students.

But the experience also broadened her view of Australia.

"I'd gone to Islamic school for so long, it was a conscious decision for my parents - those sort of values were inbuilt in me, and in terms of my beliefs being shaken, that didn't really happen,'' she says.

''I knew who I was and I knew what I stood for."

Life now stretches out before her, with a year of university to go - and the prospect of an internship with a car company in Britain next month.

After that, she says, who knows.

"I'm planning to buy a whole bunch of tools and work on my own vehicle."

The fast track beckons.

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From Pew Research Centre | May 2007 | (Defend The Prophet)

Muslim Americans: Who are they?

The first-ever, nationwide, random sample survey of Muslim Americans finds them to be largely assimilated, happy with their lives, and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the world.

The Pew Research Center conducted more than 55,000 interviews to obtain a national sample of 1,050 Muslims living in the United States. Interviews were conducted in English, Arabic, Farsi and Urdu. The resulting study, which draws on Pew’s survey research among Muslims around the world, finds that Muslim Americans are a highly diverse population, one largely composed of immigrants. Nonetheless, they are decidedly American in their outlook, values and attitudes. This belief is reflected in Muslim American income and education levels, which generally mirror those of the public.Key findings include:

→ Overall, Muslim Americans have a generally positive view of the larger society. Most say their communities are excellent or good places to live.

→ A large majority of Muslim Americans believe that hard work pays off in this society. Fully 71% agree that most people who want to get ahead in the United States can make it if they are willing to work hard.

→ The survey shows that although many Muslims are relative newcomers to the U.S., they are highly assimilated into American society. On balance, they believe that Muslims coming to the U.S. should try and adopt American customs, rather than trying to remain distinct from the larger society. And by nearly two-to-one (63%-32%) Muslim Americans do not see a conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society.

→ Roughly two-thirds (65%) of adult Muslims in the U.S. were born elsewhere. A relatively large proportion of Muslim immigrants are from Arab countries, but many also come from Pakistan and other South Asian countries. Among native-born Muslims, roughly half are African American (20% of U.S. Muslims overall), many of whom are converts to Islam.


→ Muslim Americans reject Islamic extremism by larger margins than do Muslim minorities in Western European countries. However, there is somewhat more acceptance of Islamic extremism in some segments of the U.S. Muslim public than others. Fewer native-born African American Muslims than others completely condemn al Qaeda. In addition, younger Muslims in the U.S. are much more likely than older Muslim Americans to say that suicide bombing in the defense of Islam can be at least sometimes justified. Nonetheless, absolute levels of support for Islamic extremism among Muslim Americans are quite low, especially when compared with Muslims around the world.

→ A majority of Muslim Americans (53%) say it has become more difficult to be a Muslim in the United States since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Most also believe that the government “singles out” Muslims for increased surveillance and monitoring.

→ Relatively few Muslim Americans believe the U.S.-led war on terror is a sincere effort to reduce terrorism, and many doubt that Arabs were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Just 40% of Muslim Americans say groups of Arabs carried out those attacks.


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Three years on, have any of these American Muslim views and demographics changed?

Read in full on Hamza Tzortzis' blog.

Peace & respect ★