TruthBook Religious News Blog

RACHEL ZOLL
September 10, 2009

NEW YORK (AP) — There is the dread of leaving the house that morning. People might stare, or worse, yell insults.

Prayers are more intense, visits with family longer. Mosques become a refuge.

Eight years after 9/11, many U.S. Muslims still struggle through the anniversary of the attacks. Yes, the sting has lessened. For the younger generation of Muslims, the tragedy can even seem like a distant memory. "Time marches on," said Souha Azmeh Al-Samkari, a 22-year-old student at the University of Dayton in Ohio.

Yet, many American Muslims say Sept. 11 will never be routine, no matter how many anniversaries have passed.

"I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach every year," said Nancy Rokayak of Charlotte, N.C., who covers her hair in public. "I feel on 9/11 others look at me and blame me for the events that took place."

Rokayak, a U.S.-born convert, has four children with her husband, who is from Egypt, and works as an ultrasound technologist. She makes sure she is wearing a red, white and blue flag pin every Sept. 11 and feels safer staying close to home.

Sarah Sayeed, who lives in the Bronx, said that for a long time, she hesitated before going out on the anniversary. The morning the World Trade Center crumbled, she rushed to her son's Islamic day school so they could both return home. The other women there warned that she should take off her headscarf, or hijab, for her own safety. She now attends an interfaith prayer event each Sept. 11, keeping her hair covered as always.

"There's still a sense of 'Should I go anywhere? Should I say anything?' There's kind of that anxiety," said Sayeed, who was born in India and came to the U.S. at age 8. "I force myself to go out."

The anniversary brings a mix of emotions: sorrow over the huge loss of life, anguish over the wars that followed, but also resentment over how the hijackings so completely transformed the place of Muslims in the U.S. and beyond.

A poll released this week by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 38 percent of Americans believe Islam is more likely than other faiths to encourage violence. That is down from 45 percent two years earlier.

Please click on "external source" for the complete article

Labels: 9/11, emotion, fear, interfaith, Islam, Muslims, Pew forum on Religion, Rachel Zoll

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, July 31, 2009

Book Review: Almost Eight Years Following 9-11 A New Book Warns Ignorance of Islam Threatens America's Freedom

Pittsburgh, PA (PRWEB) July 29, 2009 --

Almost eight years following our experience of 9-11, Americans remain dramatically conflicted about the religion of Islam, practiced by 20 to 25 percent of the people of the planet. In a new book just released, Journeys into the Heart and Heartland of Islam, written by Marvin W. Heyboer, Ph.D., published by Dorrance Publishing Co., Inc., Pittsburgh, the author urges readers to answer the vital question: In the wake of terrorist attacks and threats of jihad, how do we and how should we relate to Muslims? Heyboer asserts that it is not a problem of identifying good Muslims and bad Muslims. Rather it is a matter of understanding the teachings of Islam regarding terror so that we can understand whether acts of terror are an aberration of or are consistent with the principles of Islam as taught by its prophet Mohammed.

In the end, Heyboer provides an answer to the question: Why do Muslims hate us so much? He concludes it is because the Judeo-Christian civilization refused to believe Mohammed was the fulfillment of the prophecies of Moses and Jesus. He sets forth his belief that our concern should not be about what each Muslim does or does not do but about what Islam instructs all Muslims to do. He believes that because of our ignorance of and refusal to openly discuss and critically study Islam, we are on a collision course with Islamic holy law and that America's freedom is at jeopardy. This opinion is hardly politically correct or perhaps even charitable, but the stakes are too high to ignore this well researched and thoroughly documented work.

Please click on "external source" for the complete review of this interesting book.

Labels: 9/11, America, Journeys into the Heart and Heartland of Islam, Marvin W. Heyboer, Mohammed, Muslims

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Former New York Times reporter looks at growth of interfaith movements

Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times

Page one of two: Please click on "external link" for complete article

INSIGHTS: Arguing that interfaith understanding is crucial, Gustav Niebuhr says: "Religion is to the 21st century what ideology was to the 20th."

In 'Beyond Tolerance,' Gustav Niebuhr examines the ways various religions are reaching out to one another. But obstacles remain as many faiths preach that they are the one true way.

By Steve Padilla, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 30, 2008

Conflicts between religions continue to rock the world, but when Gustav Niebuhr looks out on the religious landscape, he sees what he calls the "possibility of community."

Niebuhr, an associate professor of religion at Syracuse University, detects an encouraging (he calls it unprecedented) trend: people of faith reaching out to those of other faiths.

* L.A. church exhibit offers a personal look at AIDS orphans in Africa

*
O.C. man makes personal connection with Pope Benedict
*
Harvest Crusade at Angel Stadium takes on new urgency after the death of pastor's son

This is not to suggest conflicts between religions will end soon, if ever. Just this week, Hindu mobs destroyed more than a dozen churches and attacked Christians in India.

But in Niebuhr's work as a professor and, before that, a reporter on religion for the New York Times, he began noticing that, bit by bit, Christians, Jews, Hindus and Muslims were making efforts to learn about other faiths. Niebuhr explores the trend in his new book, "Beyond Tolerance" (Viking), and came to Southern California this month as part of a book tour.

He argues there is urgent need for interfaith work, given the way religion now sometimes splits, and endangers, the world in the way the Cold War once did. "Religion is to the 21st century what ideology was to the 20th," Niebuhr said.

The title "Beyond Tolerance" conveys one of Niebuhr's principle themes, and he discussed the work on a recent weekday before he spoke at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. Groups can tolerate one another, he noted, without really getting along. A lack of conflict doesn't necessarily mean cohesion.

"Tolerance is not enough because there's no educational component to it," Niebuhr said. "Tolerance doesn't bust down stereotype. Tolerance doesn't put a face on faith."

Niebuhr argues, with anecdotes and statistics, that thousands of believers from a wide variety of faiths are trying to reach across religious divides. He cites a 2000 study of 14,000 U.S. congregations by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research.

The report, "Faith Communities Today," found that 7% of American congregations had participated in some interfaith activity, such as holding a joint religious service. It also found that 8% had collaborated with another congregation on a community service project.

That may not sound like much, Niebuhr writes, but with an estimated 335,000 churches in the United States, that translates to 20,000 to 25,000 congregations teaming up for such work.

"But the original survey provided a baseline for a second, more intriguing one five years later," Niebuhr writes. "This time around, the institute reported that the number of houses of worship participating in inter-religious worship had tripled to more than 22%, while the number that joined in community service had risen more than fourfold to 38%."

Niebuhr concludes: "A cultural shift had taken place." In the interview, he put it this way: "People are not beyond redemption. People can learn. People can cooperate."

What's prompting the shift?

Mass communication has made it easier to reach out beyond one's own group. He notes that in the 1990s, Hindu temples on the East Coast began holding open houses so their neighbors could learn about them.

This practice has been taken up by many mosques and for some has become a yearly event. This month, "Open Mosque Day" was observed by many Islamic congregations in Southern California. Look at many mosque websites, Niebuhr said, and you'll often find an option called "take a tour."

The interfaith movement -- and "Beyond Tolerance" -- were not prompted by 9/11, but the terrorist attacks helped shape them. Niebuhr was in Manhattan that day and reported on the World Trade Center attack for the New York Times. "You were in the presence of a crematory," he said.

He found himself thinking of religious tolerance and acceptance -- ideas already brewing for years -- and decided that if "tolerance is all we can manage," the victims of 9/11 deserved better.

As Niebuhr researched his book, he encountered a variety of efforts to reach out. He ran across a nun who organized discussions of about six people from different faiths; it was a small effort, but it was her way of building understanding.

He also frankly describes the difficulty of reaching out. Niebuhr writes of an effort by a group of Buddhists and Roman Catholics to forge ties in Los Angeles.

He quotes from a report by the group: "It challenged us to articulate to one another what we took for granted among ourselves."

Labels: 9/11, Gustav Niebuh, interfaith, religion, Steve Padilla, tolerance