Understanding Islam and Muslims

Mohammad, the Orphan Who Adopted the World

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This year, 2013, on January 24th falls the 12th of Rabea Al-Awal (First Spring) of the Arabic lunar calendar. It is the birth date of Prophet Mohammad peace be upon him (PBUH). This article is an “Ice Breaker” to introduce Prophet Mohammad to the American people. You will know about his birth, lineage, childhood, youth, life prior to his ministry, how he looked like, his personality, his family life, his message, a sample of mentioning of Mohammad’s forthcoming in previous scriptures, as well as what others said about him.

This article goes in parallel with the thread posts of “People Who Made a Difference”, for the American readers to see some aspects of the integral personality of Mohammad and connect with people they can relate to. It contrasts with “Bigots to People are as Vaccines to the Body” to refute false allegations of fanatics. It links to “As Jesus, the Son of Mary Said to the Disciples” to indicate the oneness of the divine message to mankind that people deviated from, as well as envision the unity of humanity and its mainstream path throughout history that many either tend to forget, unaware of, or don’t even think about.

Mohammad, born orphan to his father, then mother, then grandfather left to the world a role model manifested in an exalted character that summons that of the previous prophets before him, an example of integrity and high spirituality, an example to follow in all aspects of human life in the personal and public arenas, and the capstone of the divine message, completing the mission of the Messengers before him to all mankind. A character and a message full of mercy and compassion to every creature on earth, that, as he prophesized, will enter every household on earth. As such, he is indeed “The Orphan who Adopted the World”[1].

With this introduction, I hope it will enable the American people to connect with Prophet Mohammad’s persona, beyond the media propaganda. I trust it would broaden the foundations of religious tolerance, as well as the establishment of legislations that exercising the rights of free speech does not mean the freedom to smear religions, and mock beliefs. Rather, to ground the understanding that the respect of people’s convictions—regardless a monotheist, polytheist, or atheist—is a God given right to mankind whether they believed in Him or not. To Him is their return, judging them for what they differed about.

This post is available in pdf format in the Documents page. A subset, previously developed by Lucent college Amgad Saleh, is available in pps, and ppt format.

Bigots to People are as Vaccines to the Body

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Bigotry, extremism towards other’s concepts or cultures, serves as emotional, intellectual and citizenship vaccines to people. A vaccine, injected into a body, gets the immune system alerted and instructs cells to fight back to defend the body. At the end, the body becomes healthier, and more immune from disease, while the vaccine cells are consumed and flushed out.

This is in short the essence of the analogy, and my prediction of the outcome from the last two week’s events that were inflamed by the crude, less than amateur, and profane video on Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him (PBUH). In the global village we are living in, the resulting inflammation will heal to better multi-cultural understanding, while ideological extremism and its promoters will run down into the history drainpipes.

To support my hypothesis, in this post, I’ll address the stimulus, the reactions, what would Prophet Mohammad do if he was present, the rationale behind these frequent disturbances, combating extremism at grassroots, how to talk about Prophet Mohammad, and conclude with how bigots helped the world get better.

The article in PDF format could be found here Bigots to People are as Vaccines to the Body.

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

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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.

In this post, I would like to share with you some of our personal experience in the aftermath of the event. For the following weeks, I spent long hours into the late night, till my head drops, researching, verifying, compiling and annotating the text in a power point slides to create my first presentation to fellow Lucent engineers in Indian Hill campus in Naperville, IL. 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.