On the 11th Anniversary of 9/11, Islam & Muslims: An Overview

Eleven years ago, the world was shocked seeing planes flying into the World Trade Center towers. The chaos was overwhelming. People jumping out of top floor windows, in hope to escape imminent death to end up facing the same destiny, was nerve breaking. The shock of the 9/11 tragic events was startling. It was unbelievable, and irrational. It was and is wrong, didn’t and doesn’t make any sense, a crime by all measures. In my heart, I knew that even with such apparent evil, something good is going to come out. It is up to people to discover the wisdom behind why something as bad as this would occur.

The time was difficult on Muslim families. Women were worried of being harassed while in public. Some thought of taking off their scarves in order not to stand out as targets for angry individuals. In schools, children were called names as being terrorist.

My peers at Lucent were in a state of disbelief and had questions in their minds about their Muslim coworkers. “Where are these guys coming from? What goes in their minds? Why do you hate us?” They were not sure who are they dealing with on a day-to-day basis. There were some small group meetings to know what our position from the events was, and to answer those direct questions. My position was clear as the position of the sun in the middle of the day in a clear sky. Justice has to be served, regardless of who the culprits are. Compassion has no place in applying capital punishment–the Limits (Hudud which people tend to think it is everything about Sharia)–on those who kill innocent people. Hudud (the Limits) are the rights due to God installed to deter crimes, ensure security, social peace, and stability. The are conducted to bring piece of mind and heal the wounds in the heart of those whose rights have been transgressed against.

After recovering from the news, I sat down to compile my first presentation to my fellow Lucent engineers in Indian Hill campus in Naperville, IL. For the following weeks, I spent long hours into the late night, till my head drops, researching, verifying, compiling and annotating the text in the power point slides. I wanted to give a digestible, without too much details, end-to-end picture on understanding Islam and Muslims. It covers, as much grounds as possible, the essential and typical questions people ask. Over the following years, I revised the presentation, and would like to share with you today…”Islam and Muslims: An Overview,” in power point show format, and have it also in native (.ppt) format.

The main body of the presentation covers:

1. Basic terminology: What is Islam, Muslim, Allah
2. Sources of Islam: The Qur’an & The Sunnah
3. Brief History: The Roots
4. Islam as a System/Way of Life: Core Beliefs and Practices.
5. Statistics
6. Muslims population and distribution in the world and in America

It is followed by backup slides touching briefly upon:

• Islam an culture
• Gender Equity and Woman Rights in Islam
• Jihad
• Government in Islam
• Muslims in the Work Place

This presentation would be beneficial as a quick introduction to the topic. Links, references, and additional text could be found in the notes under each slide in the .ppt version of the file.

-Hope it’s helpful.