While a Senate Subcommittee plans to hold hearings next week on how to protect the civil rights of American Muslims (following last week’s hearings by Congressman Peter King on investigating radicalism among Islamic peoples in the U.S.), the questions of “racial profiling” and ”Islamic identity” again dominate the airwaves and print media.
However, Islam, like Christianity, does not refer to any ethnic group or nationality. And, like Christians, Muslims come in all shapes, sizes and colors.
As largely promoted by Hollywood, the “typical” Muslim male is depicted as a Middle Easterner or South Asian with a skin complexion ranging from olive to dark brown (plus the obligatory moustache and beard), dark brown/black hair and dark brown/black eyes. Also, he wears “typical” Muslim headdress, ranging from anything from a turban to a Mufti.
He also speaks in a funny foreign accent.
The typical Muslim woman wears a hijab or perhaps a veil covering her entire body and shuns anything too Western or liberating.
While there are indeed many Muslims who fit these descriptions, they are hardly exclusive to the practitioners of Islam.
Indeed, there are Black Muslims, there are Muslims who have blonde-hair and blue eyes, and there are even Chinese Muslims.
Thus, the very notion of “Muslim identity” would seem to be ludicrous.
Here are some photos of Muslims from around the world who don’t “fit” the stereotype:
A Kurdish grandmother with her grandchild in Qatanya, a village in Syria near the Turkish border. Kurds are mostly Sunni Muslim and live in a contiguous area of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Armenia and Syria.Creative CommonIslam has existed in the far northwestern parts of China for at least 1,000 years. The government estimates at least 20-million Muslims live in the country. The most prominent group of Chinese Muslims are the Uighurs, who live in Xinjiang.Creative CommonThis young woman and her family emigrated to Finland to escape the war and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. The vast majority of Albanians are Muslim, perhaps as much as 80 percent of the population.Creative CommonsThis is Haifa Wehbe, a former Miss LebanonCreative CommonIslam arrived in Nigeria as early as the 9th century. Muslims now account for about half of the African country's huge population.Creative CommonThe Kashmir Valley, long disputed by India and Pakistan, is dominated by Muslims.Creative CommonMuslims account for about 40 percent of the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Muslims in this area are believed to have descended from Slavic peoples who converted to Islam in the 15th and 16th centuries. Islam was brought to southeastern Europe by the Ottoman Turks.Creative CommonTurkey is overwhelmingly Muslim. This is the actress Asli Bayram, who was born in Germany to Turkish immigrant parents and eventually became Miss Germany. Creative CommonThe largest Muslim nation in the world is nowhere near the Middle East – it is the Southeast Asian country of Indonesia. Almost 90 percent of Indonesia’s 205-million people are Muslim. There are also sizable Muslim populations in Malaysia and Phillipines.Creative CommonThe Hemshin peoples are ethnic Armenians who live in the province of Rize in Turkey. They can be either Muslim or Christian.Creative Common
