Assignment 2: Report on Religious Field Research
Paul R. Gates

REL 212 – World Religions

I remember as a young adolescent growing up in a predominantly Christian-based community seeing men on a busy street corner dressed in suits and bowties selling their own publication of newspapers called The Final Call and women dressed in layered garments that covered everything from their ankles to their hair only revealing their face selling bean pies and various kinds of fruit. I later learned that these people were of the Islamic faith and commonly referred to as Muslims. At the time this is all I knew of the faith other than the fact that Muslims were not permitted to eat swine. Later, I learned that the Muslims selling The Final Call were Muslims in the Nation of Islam which is a sect of the Islamic faith. The Nation of Islam was considered a more radical group of Black Muslim which had gained more celebrity during the sixties and the Civil Rights Movement due to the teachings of Malcolm X. In this assignment, I chose to interview a member of the Islamic faith to get a personal point of view of understanding of the Muslim experience. This person is not a member of the Nation of Islam, but only a devout Muslim born of African heritage. His name is Mousa Adamou born in Karma Koira, Niger and was raised in Lome, Togo Africa. In preparing for our sit-down, I thought of what I already had known about the Muslim faith which was not as much as I thought prior to studying it in chapter 10 of our textbook. I did know of the ignorant and bigoted misconceptions that have plagued the Islamic religion especially after the September 11th attacks from Muslim extremists. Since then more people have educated themselves about the Islamic faith to become more aware of the beliefs, customs, and to also get a better understanding of the Muslim culture. I have met a number