Muhammad Fraser-Rahim, a historian of Islam who spent more than a decade as a counter-terrorism advisor, including at the Department for Homeland Security, said that at a time when Trump appears to be questioning whether Islam is compatible with American life, there is an appetite for more awareness of its place in the American story.
“Quite frankly, a lot of American Muslims are not that conversant in their own history. We’re a pretty diverse group: Economics, class, resources, access. There are so many things that divide American Muslims rather than necessarily uniting them. And I can give you plenty of examples of Muslims in corporate America with the name ‘Mohammad’ who have gone by the name ‘Mo’ because they haven’t been all that comfortable with being Muslim in a public space,” he said. “Now, people are thinking that they might need to be a bit more vocal in this current (political) context.”
American Muslims are raising their profiles and speaking out in different ways.
Former Michigan state lawmaker Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, Minnesota’s first Somali-American legislator, become the first Muslim women elected to Congress in the midterm elections this month. (Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn, became, in 2006, the first Muslim to be elected to the lawmaking body.)
Many articles about the “two Muslim women elected to Congress” have treated this election as a major event in American political history. But is it? There are still no Muslims in the Senate. And in the House, out of 435 members, now three are Muslims while before there were two — a gain of exactly one at the national level. And since Muslims make up 1% of the American population, one might have expected there to have been, out of 535 members of Congress (100 Senators, 435 Representatives) at least five Muslims at the national level. But there are only three. As for statewide offices, Keith Ellison was elected Attorney General of Minnesota, the first statewide office won by a Muslim. Almost all of the other posts won by Muslims around the country were for very local positions, on City Councils and Boards of Education. It would certainly be an exaggeration to claim, as many excited Muslims have been doing, that there is now a Muslim “wave.”
And at least 145 American Muslims, virtually all of them Democrats, ran for state or national public office this year, according to Jetpac, a Boston-based organization that works to increase American Muslim education and civic engagement.
Of these, 110 were first-time candidates who represent an unprecedented rise for a diverse Muslim community that is typically underrepresented in American politics.
Anyone can run for office; Muslims have clearly made a big push to do so. But what counts is who gets elected. Muslims outnumber Hindus in this country by 50%, yet there are three Hindu members of the House, and a fourth, Tulsi Gabbard, has a Hindu mother. In the Senate, Kamala Harris also has a Hindu mother. The former governor of Louisiana,, Bobby Jindal, was born and raised as a Hindu, but converted to Catholicism in his senior year of high school. Nikki Haley was born of Sikh parents, but is now a Christian. Three members of Congress are Buddhists, equaling the number of Muslims. But we have no excited stories about a “Hindu” or a “Buddhist” wave in American politics.
Away from politics, Moses the Comic — real name Musa Sulaiman, 33, from Philadelphia — has embarked on a “Super Muslim Comedy Tour” to break down negative barriers and narratives surrounding Muslims in the USA.
“It’s about going into public places and subverting the stereotypes by making people laugh,” he said. “Art and entertainment can combat ideologies of racism and bigotry. Not all black men only become Muslim in prison, something we are constantly told,” he said.
How many laughs does Moses the Comic get as a result of exposing the “ideologies of racism and bigotry” of those who for some reason are anxious about Islam? Is it a zany laff-riot to mock those who happen to know what is in the Qur’an about waging Jihad, killing the Infidels, striking terror in their hearts? Do those who have read Qur’an 2:191-193, 3:151, 4:89, 8:12, 8:60, 9:5, 9:29, 47:4 and as a consequence are now alarmed about the texts and teachings of Islam deserve to be made fun of? In what way are they “racists” or “bigots”? Should we make light of the fears of those who know that Muhammad said “war is deceit” and “I have been made victorious through terror”? What is funny about the reactions of ordinary people to more than 30,000 terrorist attacks by Muslims since 9/11/2001? What kind of jokes does Moses the Comic make about those “racists and bigots” who have been alarmed about terrorist attacks that in this country have taken place in New York (many times), Washington, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Minneapolis, Fort Hood, San Bernardino, Little Rock, Orlando, Chattanooga, and many other places? Is it “racism” and “bigotry” that explains that alarm or merely well-justified fear and horror?
No decent person could find anything funny, either, in the natural reactions of many of us to the attacks by Muslim terrorists in Madrid, Barcelona, Paris (many times), Nice, Toulouse, Magnanville, Brussels, Amsterdam, London, Manchester, Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Malmö, Turku, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Beslan. The humor of the Super Muslim Comedy Tour surely involves mocking overreactions by “racists” and “bigots” — you know, the kind who supposedly start to tremble at the mere sight of a peace-loving woman wearing a peace-loving hijab which only the “bigoted’ could object to — such as the “bigoted” governments of Denmark, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and a half-dozen African countries where Islam is the dominant religion, including Chad, Cameroon, Niger, Congo-Brazzaville.
This Super Muslim Comedy Tour leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Perhaps along with the self-pity — Muslims having to endure “racism” and “bigotry” — Moses the Comic might actually come up with something funny to say about Muslims and Islam. But as of this writing, he still seems not to have done so. Perhaps the task of making the ideology of Islam or Muslim behavior funny is impossible. After all, the Ayatollah Khomeini himself famously insisted that “there are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious.” I’m inclined to believe that Khomeini knows Islam a bit better than Moses the Comic.
Normalizing Islam is something Muhammad, of the museum, also strives for.
When USA TODAY visited with him [Amir Muhammad] in early September he kept getting interrupted every few minutes by a group of school kids, ranging in age form 6-16, loudly knocking on the museum’s front entrance. Because there was no one else in the building, Muhammad had locked the front entrance to conduct his tour, but these kids were here to collect snacks as part of an after school program the museum runs for neighborhood children.
Muhammad said that while a few of the kids from time to time might express interest in the museum and its exhibits, which he was grateful for because there was “nobody else, literally nobody else” to share this history with them, they mostly came for the snacks.
These two tiny museums, dedicated as they are to making large and novel claims about the duration, scope, and achievements of the Muslim presence in America, leave much to be desired. Figures and “facts” are plucked out of the air. The exhibits “prove” that Muslims arrived in America in 1700, or in 1600, or even before that, in 1492, when — we are told — a Muslim was a member of Columbus’ s own crew, as a “navigator” or, in an alternative version, that the Pinzón brothers, who were the captains of the other two caravels, the Niña and the Pinta, are suddenly being described as Muslims, though neither they, nor anyone who knew them, ever before considered them as such.
jihad3tracker says
For those of us who have not been following the antics of Ilhan Omar, Google her name + “some people did something” + 9/11.
mortimer says
What’s this? “…exposing the “ideologies of racism and bigotry”. Will unfunny comic Musa Sulaiman expose Islam?
Islam is, in fact, an ideology of racism and bigotry. Examples provided:
Tabari II:11 “Shem, the son of Noah was the father of the Arabs, the Persians, and the Greeks; Ham was the father of the Black Africans; and Japheth was the father of the Turks and of Gog and Magog who were cousins of the Turks. Noah prayed that the prophets and apostles would be descended from Shem and kings would be from Japheth. He prayed that the African’s color would change so that their descendants would be slaves to the Arabs and Turks.”
Tabari II:21 “Ham [Africans] begat all those who are black and curly-haired, while Japheth [Turks] begat all those who are full-faced with small eyes, and Shem [Arabs] begat everyone who is handsome of face with beautiful hair. Noah prayed that the hair of Ham’s descendants would not grow beyond their ears, and that whenever his descendants met Shem’s, the latter would enslave them.”
Tabari IX:69 “Arabs are the most noble people in lineage, the most prominent, and the best in deeds. We were the first to respond to the call of the Prophet. We are Allah’s helpers and the viziers of His Messenger. We fight people until they believe in Allah. He who believes in Allah and His Messenger has protected his life and possessions from us. As for one who disbelieves, we will fight him forever in Allah’s Cause. Killing him is a small matter to us.”
Bukhari: V9B89N256 “Allah’s Apostle said, ‘You should listen to and obey your ruler even if he is a black African slave whose head looks like a raisin.'”
mortimer says
So I go through lists of slaves’ names that are 300 years old. I find a handful of Arab-sounding names, assume they are all Muslims, then, I declare victory. Why not assume instead that those slaves adopted Christianity in captivity which practically all slaves did.
James says
Well, in general Muslims would probably be happier not knowing anything about their history in America, there is not much to be proud of. Unless they like the Muslim slave traders and the Barbary Coast Pirates. Or perhaps they like jihad destroying Christian and Jewish communities all over the world. Or Muslims destroying the history of other countries and cultures. Generally Muslims would want to destroy the non-Muslim history of America and destroy all its monuments. So what if they do not know much about their history in America. They only want to know about Islam, destroy all the achievements of other cultures, destroy libraries, monuments, cemeteries. Poor hurt little Muslims!
gravenimage says
Hugh Fitzgerald: A Tale of Two Museums (Part Seven)
………………
Even most virtue-signalling Leftists feel queasy about voting for Muslims.
As for this “comedy”, the common theme seems to be slamming Infidels for being scared of being murdered by Muslims, and to try to make them feel guilty about it.
Vadym Vozovyk says
When the author mentions Moscow (Dubrovka) and Beslan – Putin’s terrorist, but not jihad.
E. Maria says
I would like to know what ‘we Americans,’ are going to do about this instead of just writing about this? I’m sick and tired of these Terrorists invading our Country then now, slowing taking it over like they’ve done in Europe! We need to call/write our Rep’s in D.C., mass protests to get these Terrorists OUT Congress and their inept Socialist leader, PELOSI…!!!!