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Islam in Modern America

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Islam in Modern American

Islam has been around for over a thousand years. Its influence has spread amongst several continents and it has even reached many Americans. A recent study shows that there are roughly 7 million Muslims in the United States1. That equates to about 2.3% of the population. Even though that doesn’t seem like very much, it has been growing and continues to grow despite the events of September 11, 2001. On that day, very much changed for the Islamic people living in the United States. Although they American Muslims had absolutely nothing to do with the events that occurred on that day, their way of life was destined to change. The change that occurred was not in their religion or how they practiced it, it was in the no-Islamic population. Public eye was on the Muslims because the attacks from September 11th were said to be conducted by Muslim extremists. The media was, for the most part, the only place American’s would get any information about Muslims and they were not portraying them very nicely. In order to protect themselves from bad public opinion, American Muslim were faced with a challenge. They needed to improve their image in order to protect themselves from the growing number of people that were against Islam and they need to do it while staying true to themselves and their religion. In 2005, the Fiqh Council of North America issued a fatwa saying that the use of violence against innocent lives was forbidden under Islamic Law. This fatwa also encouraged Muslims to assist law enforcement in the challenge of preventing these sorts of attacks. This sort of thing shows how the Muslims in American are concerned about how they look to the public. Not only that but they are trying to improve their religion as a whole. Making it against Islamic law may actually prevent some extremist from participating in terrorist acts.

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