Who knows a Muslim personally?

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tundramom

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I’ve “met” a lot of people in real life and on different forums that have certain perspectives of others without actually knowing what that other person is like personally.

There is a man who is a part of my family who is Muslim. He is an amazing person. He has been welcomed into my home for many occasions and I would welcome him at any time.

Do any of you who have an opinion of what a Muslim is, or does, actually know someone personally** who is a Muslim?

in Christ
Steph
 
Dozens, possibly more than a hundred, many of whom are personal friends. Next door neighbours are Muslim, as are a few of my students and assistants.

I often think the same thing as you.

Peter
 
I live in a (religiously/racially diverse) country where more than 15% of the population are Muslims. I interact, dine, chat and maintain good friendship with them on a regular basis.

The Muslims in my country are generally moderate Muslims. There a few bad seeds (like Mas Selamat and friends) who have planned (unsuccessfully on various occasions) terrorist attacks. These guys are in-cahoots with the Bali bombers, Jemaah Islamiyah, Al-Qaeda.

They have also in the past (mid-60’s) involved in a racial/Muslim riot with the Chinese majority. But honestly, it was the Chinese’s fault for throwing beer bottles at Muslims and chanting racial slurs during an otherwise peaceful Ramadan procession.
 
Plenty, but I’m not sure of your point. I tend to shun bigoted Orthodox, so I would expect I tend to hang with the best of mulims.😛
 
I have known four Muslims well. One is a colleague at the college where I work who teaches accounting and management. He gave me a copy of the Koran after 9/11 when I realized that I really needed to have some direct acquaintance with this text. Two of the others were very secular Muslims who where in the oil business (they owned an American gasoline station franchise). We have been to their home on occasion and came to really appreciate Middle Eastern cooking with their help. We had some casual discussions of Islam as a way of life and on the reasons they left Syria to emmigrate to the U.S. The fourth is local African who is a pious Muslim active in various community causes. All are serious and devout believers and none would buy into the Islam of the radical Jihadists.
 
I work with a lot of Kurdish Muslims, some are great and will talk to you and then there are others who will just ignore you.
 
tundramom said:
I’ve “met” a lot of people in real life and on different forums that have certain perspectives of others without actually knowing what that other person is like personally.

There is a man who is a part of my family who is Muslim. He is an amazing person. He has been welcomed into my home for many occasions and I would welcome him at any time.

Do any of you who have an opinion of what a Muslim is, or does, actually know someone personally** who is a Muslim?

in Christ
Steph
Click to expand...
I have worked with Muslim physicians for over 26 years at my Catholic hospital and have gotten to know some fairly well. Some were born in this country and some were from other countries. The lady who does my alterations is a Muslim from England. They are all hard-working, honest, and unfailingly polite, and I have never heard one word against our country or government from any of them, even when religion is discussed.

The radical Muslim fundamentalist faction that causes so much trouble in the world is a far cry from the Muslims I know, and it is a shame that their behavior stigmatizes them.
 
I have known quite a few Muslims in my life. They’ve all been nice people. I still believe their religion to be false. Kind of like the Mormons.
 
I know and work with about 40 muslims both male and female adult workers - my only interest in them is their ability to do their job to the professional standard required. To this end I have found every single one of them pathological liars when things go wrong and there has to be an investigation. It is a common response from the senior team that when an investigation has to be conducted that involves a muslim worker it will take twice as long as any other investigation we carry out. Examples from the last 4 weeks include a woman prosecuted by the police for driving with no licence, no insurance, and driving while being banned - who confirmed in writing she had taken her test and passed but refused to produce her licence. A totally unnecessary and time wasting investigation, not to mention costly, ensued and sure enough she was exposed as lying - both to us and the police - again!! A male worker, presented with photographic evidence of committing an offence against company property, admitted it was him in the forst photograph but not him in the second photograph taken 00.01 seconds later :confused: :confused:
These are but two of the scores of incidents we investigate every month and every month where muslim workers are involved, even when confronted with irrefutable evidence and witnesses, will lie to the bitter end.

Do I believe all muslims are liars - no, but the OP asked for personal experiences of muslims and my personal experiece is every single one of them that I know professionally lie, cheat and decieve and when caught with timesheet fraud, falsification of records or criminal damage will lie and lie and lie.

None of these, as far as I know are radical or fundamentalist so where this pathological propensity to compulsary lie all the time comes from I have no idea.
 
tundramom said:
Do any of you who have an opinion of what a Muslim is, or does, actually know someone personally** who is a Muslim?
Click to expand...
I worked for 4 years with a Muslim, Abdul. He was my direct supervisor. We shared a trailer as an office with a secratary and others and for about 3 years of it we worked together daily. He was not a religious Sunni and did not observe the requirements of its faith. A very nice man, dedicated, educated, reliable and trustworthy. We had some great conversations and have visited each others homes on a number of occassions sharing meals. Born in Syria and educated in Iraq and Syria who also worked in Iraq for years before coming to the US. We talked politics more than religion but discussed both in some historical concepts. We had differences. I consider him a friend.

Another Muslim man, Osama, that often worked with us from Sudan. He was quiet and kind. Knowledgeable and reliable. I did not know him as well excpet he was a religious Sunni. He would discuss engineering and the Masters he was pursuing but not religion. The few topics of news we did discuss on occasion over that time (2000-2004 at a large airport) gave me insight to that of a more traditional Muslim man.

Subtle institutional/governmental efforts to maintain a normalcy with respect to Muslims after 9/11 were obvious still. It made me curious. They both were as shocked as the nation was on that day and I can’t really say much changed after except to note a formality had laid upon the work environment not there before. Abdul and Osama acted different around women with Osama being much more reserved. Abdul integrated himslef and Osama adapted to America.

Other than that but to include the casual relationship with the many people I encountered in my daily routine the individual Muslims I know personally were unremarkable in society. I would note the hurried step of the industrious, the downturned face and who makes eye contact in both immigrant workers and US citizens, Muslim and non. I see many Muslims where I now work as well though I recently started here. Again I work with many different nationalites and diverse people. There are no obvious by dress, Muslim women, but I think by name and appearance a few of the men could be.

I have never been to a Muslim nation but I have been in other cultures and countries around the world to be able to draw some reasonable conclusion of what life is like in one by things I have read and seen through domestic (Islamic) films. The dominate culture prevails like here in America which is very different from the Middle East Muslims. Both Osama and Abdul agreed it was a widely different culture but disagreed on their preferred.
 
Well, I live in country where the majority of people are Muslims.
So, ofcourse I know some of them personally or even some of them will tell me about some muslims are bad too.
And ofcourse I know which muslims are moderate or fanatic or extremist etc. There are a lot of kind of muslims.
 
I guess I’ve lived a sheltered life. For the first 20+ years I only knew one person who wasn’t Mormon. Now that I’m out of Utah, and 20 years later, I only know one Muslim personally and he is precious to me. He’s been nothing but honorable in my home and we have discussed just about everything from religion to politics to family values and so forth.

Speaking to my ex-husband a few months ago, I was astounded that he held such prejudice views although he knows no Muslim personally.

Here in my part of the world there are a lot of Christians, some Jewish people, some Buddhists, and the regular run-of-the-mill person who just doesn’t have a particular belief. I’ve never had the opportunity to know someone other than this man who is not only Muslim, but knows why he believes as he does and can articulate it without being argumentative or belittle me.

in Christ
Steph
 
I was fortunate enough to work in the pure land of Islam aka Saudi Arabia. I was sent there by the US government to work as an adviser to the Saudi military. I met all kind of Muslims there. There’s a small group of Muslims who won’t use or consume anything made by the American companies i.e. Coke, Pepsi, MacDonald, etc. Majority of them love anything American like GMC truck, Chevy Impala SS (Aussie import), Hummer, fast food, etc. You could see the hatred in some of the fanatics.

It was fun working with the Saudis. Everything moves at a very slow pace. If you don’t like tea, you have to start liking it because businesses is conducted over cup tea.

The Bangladeshis, Indians, Sri Lankans, and Pakistanis are very hard working. Most mosques are full of them during pray hours. I guess they need allah more than the rest of them because they are really at the bottom of the totem pole.

Here are some info that I’d like to share with you.

Infidels get paid if they convert into Islam. Westerners are the top prize, but not too many of them take the bait.

There were no 5 thousand US military servicemen converting to Islam after the first gulf war.
 
Yes, I know Muslims. Not many, because they mostly keep to themselves, but they are the second largest out-of-country student population at the university in the town that I live in, so I have befriended some of them.

Muslims are like everyone else, capable of good and bad. I am not sure how many here rigorously practice their faith, since they are college students after all (and mostly from Saudi Arabia, so secular lifestyle of the USA must be quite a shock to them; according to local cab drivers, they get a lot of calls to pick up groups of Muslim guys outside of nightclubs after they’ve been drinking too much…I can’t say if that’s common or not, it’s just what the cab drivers have told me), but all those that I have personally interacted with have been very nice, soft-spoken people. We don’t really discuss religion as much as politics, and always respectfully. Maybe they are different among their co-religionists, but to me they’ve always be respectful.

I will start Arabic classes in September, so maybe that will help facilitate more communication between us, even if it is in MSA and not their dialect… (it’s a start, right?)
 
MugenOne said:
I was fortunate enough to work in the pure land of Islam aka Saudi Arabia. I was sent there by the US government to work as an adviser to the Saudi military. I met all kind of Muslims there. There’s a small group of Muslims who won’t use or consume anything made by the American companies i.e. Coke, Pepsi, MacDonald, etc. Majority of them love anything American like GMC truck, Chevy Impala SS (Aussie import), Hummer, fast food, etc. You could see the hatred in some of the fanatics.

It was fun working with the Saudis. Everything moves at a very slow pace. If you don’t like tea, you have to start liking it because businesses is conducted over cup tea.

The Bangladeshis, Indians, Sri Lankans, and Pakistanis are very hard working. Most mosques are full of them during pray hours. I guess they need allah more than the rest of them because they are really at the bottom of the totem pole.

Here are some info that I’d like to share with you.

Infidels get paid if they convert into Islam. Westerners are the top prize, but not too many of them take the bait.

There were no 5 thousand US military servicemen converting to Islam after the first gulf war.
Click to expand...
Yes, and thousands of Saudis who went the other way.
 
dzheremi said:
Yes, I know Muslims. Not many, because they mostly keep to themselves, but they are the second largest out-of-country student population at the university in the town that I live in, so I have befriended some of them.

Muslims are like everyone else, capable of good and bad. I am not sure how many here rigorously practice their faith, since they are college students after all (and mostly from Saudi Arabia, so secular lifestyle of the USA must be quite a shock to them; according to local cab drivers, they get a lot of calls to pick up groups of Muslim guys outside of nightclubs after they’ve been drinking too much…I can’t say if that’s common or not, it’s just what the cab drivers have told me), but all those that I have personally interacted with have been very nice, soft-spoken people. We don’t really discuss religion as much as politics, and always respectfully. Maybe they are different among their co-religionists, but to me they’ve always be respectful.

I will start Arabic classes in September, so maybe that will help facilitate more communication between us, even if it is in MSA and not their dialect… (it’s a start, right?)
Click to expand...
al-Hamdu lilaah. al-majdu lilaah. Btw, I’m an Arabic teacher.
 
🙂

I think I understood those phrases. Al-hamdu lilaah is something like “praise be to God” (I hear “alhamdulillah” every day, so I hope I know it!) and the other is…I think “glory” (this is “al-majdu”?). Maybe that is close! I haven’t actually started the Arabic classes, so I am just guessing based on what I have read in linguistics texts (my field) that use Arabic examples.
 
tundramom said:
I’ve “met” a lot of people in real life and on different forums that have certain perspectives of others without actually knowing what that other person is like personally.

There is a man who is a part of my family who is Muslim. He is an amazing person. He has been welcomed into my home for many occasions and I would welcome him at any time.

Do any of you who have an opinion of what a Muslim is, or does, actually know someone personally** who is a Muslim?

in Christ
Steph
Click to expand...
I’ve known a few. They are like Catholics. Some are good. Some are bad. Some know their religion well. Some are Muslim more for political/social reasons than for religious reasons.

One said that we got what we deserved on 9/11. Most, though, whatever their reasons for being Muslim, are more normal than that. 🙂
 
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