Islam In Focus

[Dion Worles]

Iwrote a whole book about this topic, called Stealing My Religion, that focuses on cases when individuals adopt religious practices without committing to religious doctrines, ethical values, systems of authority, or institutions. And I argue this exacerbates existing systems of structural injustice.

This excerpt argues these attempts at allyship did not always have the effect of supporting Muslim women. In fact, just the opposite: they contributed to the further racialization and subjugation of Muslim women.

Adopting hijab as a symbol of solidarity is orientalist in a way that is both gendered and romantic. During the colonial period, the veil became enmeshed in gendered orientalism, resulting in Muslim women being designated the bearers of Islamic tradition. Today, using gendered aesthetics to symbolize Islam in political movements relies on that same framing.

When white feminism employs a tactic of protest that involves religious appropriation, it reduces religious women to a token of diversity. This means that the appropriation of hijab recruited Muslim women, or at least their image, in the perpetuation of their own marginalization. Religious appropriation makes religious inclusion possible.

There are times when I recognize the importance of my job as a history teacher more than others. Now is one of those times. I am a teacher at a large, comprehensive public high school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I teach a semester-long course about global history with a focus on the modern Middle East. With a significant emphasis on recent conflict in the Middle East, I ask my students to grapple with the intent and impact of U.S. foreign policy decisions in the region.

Then we took these lessons and specifically applied them to our study of Islam. Most of those who live in the region we refer to as the Middle East today are adherents of Islam. Many of the countries we study are majority Muslim nations. And yet much of what students have heard about Islam and the Middle East more generally over the course of their lifetimes has largely been through the lenses of terrorism, war, and fear. Exploring Islam within its historic, cultural, and social context before diving into our study of contemporary conflict in this region becomes even more critical in this sociopolitical environment.

In an effort to deconstruct myths and clarify truths about tenets of Islam, students worked in focus groups to become more knowledgeable about different sects of Islam, veiling traditions within the faith as understood scripturally and historically, Islamic law, and Islam in different socio-political contexts. After our week of exploring religious literacy and its applications to Islam, I felt students had learned something. Many things, even. I asked them to share their takeaways with me. What I received from my students confirmed for me the importance of beginning our unit in this way. A few comments from the students:

After nine weeks of studying the Middle East, I feel more certain that my students have walkedaway with an understanding that this region and those who live there should not be understoodonly through the scope of war and terrorism. I think they understand that groups who carry outacts of violence in the name of religion do not represent the beliefs of everyone who identifieswith that faith. In our current political climate, where many rely on easy and facile explanationsfor complex issues around faith and politics, the importance of our roles as history teacherscomes into even starker relief. We are called upon to step up and to continue the work that hasalways been critical to historians: to put what has happened in the past and what is happening now in the proper and complicated historical context to become truly informed and engagedcitizens.

Rachel Otty is a high school history teacher at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School inCambridge, Massachusetts. She has been teaching United States and World History since 2005.She is passionate about global history and bringing diverse and underrepresented narratives intoher curriculum.

Our major is a special emphasis within the general Social Science curriculum. It is multidisciplinary in focus, designed to provide an effective understanding of the religions, languages, cultures, economies, politics, and histories of Muslim-majority societies and their diasporas.

Salim and Francoise Shah have been avid supporters of the Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies since its founding in 2000. They held fundraisers in their home and found community support, which made it possible to establish the center. The goal was to create not only an academic program but a hub for community outreach.

36 credits, including 18 credits in required core courses and 18 credits in pre-approved elective courses; students pursuing the degree with a concentration in Shi'ism take 18 credits in required core courses, 12 credits in required courses in the concentration, and 6 credits in pre-approved elective courses.

All students must complete at least four semesters of Arabic, which do not count toward the 36 credits required for the program. Alternatively, students may demonstrate competence in Arabic through examination. Depending on their focus of study, students also may be asked to take courses in other languages, which do not count toward the degree. In rare instances, students may substitute another language for Arabic, such as Persian, Turkish, or Urdu, if their research focuses on texts composed in one of these languages.

In the current 20th legislative term, the DIK is building on this foundation, continuing the flexible and open working methods and the involvement of a broad-based and diverse circle of participants from the previous phase. In terms of content, the DIK is drawing on the ideas and building on the progress made in various fields during the previous legislative term.

On this basis, and also in line with the coalition agreement for the 20th legislative term and as a result of a broad-based consultation process in 2022, the DIK is currently focusing its efforts on the following priority areas:

Muslims are an integral part of our country today. At the same time, the conditions under which they participate in society need to be improved, also as part of the DIK. Muslims are making a commendable contribution to our society, which should be made more visible. Numerous Muslim congregations are doing neighbourhood work and are recognised as civil-society actors in their local communities. The DIK helps other, mostly younger mosque congregations reach out to their local communities, make their services more professional, create neighbourhood networks and take part in shaping their immediate social environment.

To this end, the DIK introduced the "mosques for Integration" funding initiative, which runs from 2019 to 2023 and aims to make mosque congregations more visible as integral parts of neighbourhoods in non-Muslim environments, and adds to their recognition as social actors. The current DIK phase is to evaluate this funding initiative and develop it further. In addition, an institutionalised exchange of experience is to be added to the model project to enable local authorities to share their expertise and experience as regards cooperation with mosque congregations, learn about Islam-related issues and jointly provide new ideas.

The DIK, with its work in previous phases, has made an important contribution to the establishment of departments of Islamic theology at German universities, which is an important requirement for the practical training of imams and other religious personnel in Germany. Of course, training clergy is and will continue to be a matter for the religious communities themselves. At the same time, it is an important part of integration policy for more imams who have been socialised in Germany and trained in the German language to work in Muslim congregations.

A second, correlated field of action concerns phasing out the secondment of imams to Germany from abroad, primarily from Turkey. The DIK is in an intensive dialogue with the relevant Turkish bodies, specifically the Diyanet, the Turkish religious authority.

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The Nation of Islam (NOI) is an Islamic and Black nationalist movement founded in Detroit, Michigan by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad in 1930. His mission was to "teach the downtrodden and defenseless Black people a thorough knowledge of God and of themselves." Members of the NOI study the Quran, worship Allah as their God and accept Muhammad as their prophet, while also believing in notions of Black Nationalism.

In 1934, Elijah Muhammad succeeded Fard and the NOI began to gain popularity among African Americans during the 1950s and the 1960s with its message of racial independence, establishing mosques in urban areas, and converting incarcerated Black men to the religion.

Records held at the National Archives related to the Nation of Islam are mostly Federal investigations on their Black Nationalist activity across the country. Many of the investigative cases focused on the actions of individual members.

The electronic records in this series can be searched online via the Access to Archival Databases (AAD) system. The telegrams on AAD include only unclassified, unrestricted files which have been determined to be of permanent historical value. Please search for 'Nation of Islam'.

The MTS program is a two-year full-time degree with nineteen areas of focus that allow for diverse educational interests and vocational goals. Students may also design their own area in consultation with their advisor and the curriculum committee chair.

The program may be preparatory work for a doctoral program in religion or related discipline; the program may also inform another field or profession, such as law, journalism, public policy, education, arts, or medicine, from a perspective enriched by theological study.

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