📘 ❞ American Muslims ❝ كتاب ــ Iqrasense اصدار 2009

عن كتاب American Muslims:
In July 2009, Rick Warren, a popular evangelical Christian pastor was the
keynote speaker at the ISNA (Islamic Society of North America) conference.
Pastor Warren’s speech was welcomed by many American Muslim
organizations, leaders and community members. This is because the
expression of friendship by such a leader in a conference attended by 45,000
Muslims was first of its kind in America. His speech was perceived by
American Muslims as a positive step in helping to bridge any
misunderstandings between Muslims and Christians of America.
However it can be easily argued that to many American Muslims, his coming
to the conference signified a symbol of their acceptance in the American
society. While Pastor Warren’s friendly presence may have sent that
message, the contents of his speech underscored how American Muslims’
efforts to position themselves in the American society may have been falling
short. This was clear from many of his comments. For example, during the
past few years American Muslim leaders’ mantra has been to demand
tolerance in response to the intimidation that Muslims have suffered on
various fronts. However, Pastor Warren reminded Muslims that “Tolerance is
not enough. People do not want to be tolerated, they want to be
respected. They want to be treated with dignity. They want to be listened
to.” This therefore was a clear wakeup call that American Muslims should not

have merely stopped at demanding tolerance, whereas respect and dignity
should have been a right that American Muslims should never have
compromised on.
American Muslims have also complained about the media’s bias toward them
in recent years. While American Muslims have been trying to fix that image,
their efforts surely have fallen short. Pastor Warren further validated this by
stating “And since today much of the press is actually clueless of what
you believe, and as to what I believe, and then there are frequent
mischaracterizations in the media, frequent ignorant generalizations,
generalizations are generally wrong, and frequent stereotyping, of all of
us”. This told American Muslims and their leaders about how far they are from
“clueing in” the media and others to prevent, or at a minimum curb such
mischaracterizations and ignorant generalizations.
Among other things, American Muslim leaders have also been focusing on
“Interfaith Dialog” as one of the avenues to bridge gaps with other faiths in
America. However, Pastor Warren’s suggestion that in such matters action
goes further than dialog was more appealing. He commented: “And I will tell
you that I am not interested in interfaith dialogue, I am interested in
interfaith projects. There is a big difference. Talk is very cheap. And you
can talk and talk and talk and not get anything done.”