Christine Pomatto
Breezejmu.org
Jan 18, 2012

Saadia Khan was innocently standing at a bus stop when a woman drove by and flipped her off.

Khan, a fifth-year biology major, moved to the United States from Pakistan with her parents when she was 2 years old. But, there have been times where she felt she was not welcome in the country she has come to call home because of her faith.

It’s been more than 10 years since the terrorist attacks on 9/11, but Muslims today are still dealing with a lack of understanding when it comes to their faith.

Adebayo Ogundipe, a Muslim from Nigeria and assistant professor in the School of Engineering, said he feels stereotypes are common in any society; anything that’s different from the cultural norm will be misconceived.

“The misconceptions are overwhelmingly negative,” Ogundipe said.

In the current cultural climate, Ogundipe believes that society develops its perceptions of other people and their faith based on mainstream media.

Ehsan Ahmed, a professor and department head of economics, was born in Pakistan, but has spent most of his time in the U.S. Ahmed said that what’s portrayed on television is limited in scope.

“People don’t have time to read books or further educate themselves,” Ahmed said.

One common misconception about Islam is that it’s an ethnicity, not a religion.

“So, you can’t really look like you’re Muslim,” said Dalia Desouky, a Muslim and sophomore double major in international affairs and political science. “There are Muslims in seriously every country on this earth.”

According to the Council on American Islamic Relations website, there are an estimated 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, an estimated 7 million Muslims live in America.

Ogundipe said Islam doesn’t encourage extremists which Osama bin Laden exemplified, but he did not hold a great influence over the Muslim population.

“He was not a scholar, he hadn’t written any [theological] books, he was not a religious leader,”Ogundipe said. “He was nobody.”

Like people of other religions, Muslims come in different shapes and sizes.

As an African Muslim born in Nigeria, Ogundipe said he feels he hasn’t suffered the same slurs as Middle Eastern-looking Muslims have.

“I think it’s because [racism] is no longer fashionable [in the U.S.],” Ogundipe said. “It is harder to separate ‘Are you having this attitude because of my skin color or because of my religion?’ ”

With light skin, freshman accounting major Jake Rath has also never been a target of discrimination as a Muslim, but his friends and family have.

The son of a U.S. diplomat, Rath was born in Denmark and has lived in U.S. embassies across the world. For him, Denmark was one of the most intolerant places he’d ever been.

Once, he was out with his mother, who wears the traditional head scarf called a hijab.

“Someone called her a murderer on the street,” Rath said. “My mom just looked at the guy and walked away, and I could tell that she was crying and was really hurt.”

There is also the misconception that the hijab is a symbol of oppression for women, when in fact its meaning is the exact opposite.

By wearing a hijab, “You’re trying to make someone notice you not for your physicality, but notice you for who you are as a person,” Khan said.

Khan contemplated the idea of wearing a hijab for some years before she finally started at the end of her sophomore year in college.

“One of my favorite things before wearing the hijab was doing my hair,” Khan said. “But I liked the concept of, ‘Hey, let me step back from my physical appearance and focus on who I am as a person.’ ”

Khan is the only one of her three sisters who wears a hijab. Her mother used to wear one, but after 9/11 she, like other Muslims, decided to change her appearance for personal safety .

Before 9/11, Desouky didn’t feel different at all.

“I didn’t make any distinction between my family being Egyptian or my family being Muslim,”Desouky said. “I really just thought I was American.”

Source: breezejmu.org

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