Crescent Ascends

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Jan 1, 2001 | by Larry Witham

The Ramadan fast has helped Muslims in America overcome ethnic stereotyping.

American Muslims have become a remarkably well-organized religious minority with increased visibility in the United States. Advocacy groups point to Ramadan, the month of fasting now under way, as having generated favorable news stories about Islam and its adherents.

"The fast is performed to learn discipline, self-restraint and generosity, while obeying God's commandments," according to the "Ramadan 2000 Media Kit" circulated nationwide by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Ramadan ends Dec. 27 on the feast day of Eid ul-Fitr.

"U.S. Muslims have become more visible at a variety of levels of society" says John Esposito, director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. As a relatively new minority, Muslims do well financially in the United States, especially among Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants who make up most of the estimated 6 million followers of Islam here.

In the nation's capital, an Islamic crescent now stands with the Christmas tree and Hanukkah candelabra on The Ellipse, and the U.S. Postal Service will issue a stamp for Eid ul-Fitr next year. Some 3,000 Muslim schoolchildren wrote letters promoting the stamp, note Muslim leaders. "This is a giant step forward for a growing and vibrant Muslim community," says Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.).

Muslims have become more active in political affairs, as well. The American Muslim Council in Washington sponsored one of the largest U.S. protests over the recent violence in the Middle East, and Ramadan is being portrayed as an occasion for U.S. sympathy for Islamic concerns. "During this time of crisis in the Holy Land, the fast of Ramadan offers people of all faiths an opportunity to learn more about Islam and about the Islamic community in America," says Nihad Awad, executive director of the CAIR.

Muslims also have mobilized for elections. Two weeks before Election Day, the American Muslim Political Coordination Council endorsed Texas Gov. George W. Bush and a postelection poll found 70 percent of Muslim voters took its advice. "Muslims have been reasonably successful in voter registration and in identifying election issues that concern them" says Esposito.

Some critics complain that American Muslims, while decrying discrimination against them in the United States, rarely scold Islamic governments in the Middle East for harsh discrimination against Christians and Jews. "Muslims are flourishing and in some cases are privileged," says Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum, a critic of U.S.

Muslim political advocacy on Middle East issues. "My impression is that the leadership asks for these privileges, not ordinary Muslims."

Privilege is evident in the easy ability of Muslims to win legal disputes with financial penalties, payments from corporations who offend Islam, retractions from newspapers and favors from government, argues Pipes. "I don't see any Hindu stamps," he adds, "and I don't see Hindus filing so many complaints."

In a recent article in Commentary magazine, Pipes lists the successes of American Muslims, including Senate and White House resolutions against discrimination and the Muslim median household income of $69,000. "This is not to deny that some degree of bias against Muslims does exist," Pipes says. "But no immigrant community or non-Protestant religious group wholly escapes such prejudice."

RELATED ARTICLE: Muslims, Others, Urge More Study of Religion

The study of religion is widely included in public-school curriculums but still does not get the emphasis it deserves, according to a first-ever review of standards for teaching religion in public schools.

"Despite religion's secure place in state and national standards ... teaching about religion in U.S. public schools' social-studies programs is in fact limited," states the report, Teaching About Religion, issued by the Council on Islamic Education (CIE) and the First Amendment Center, two academic groups. "It is questionable whether the topic is being pursued with much seriousness or depth."

The groups based their findings on a two-year review of curriculum conducted by Susan L. Douglass of CIE and analyzed with Charles C. Haynes of the Freedom Forum (which funded the project). They examined seven national standards and those in nearly all 50 states.

Compared with the 1960s.and 1970s, when religion was excised from curriculums to avoid perceived legal and sectarian conflicts, the subject has made a comeback. Since the late 1980s, religious and educational groups have produced 18 guidelines for teaching about the history, beliefs, values and customs of world faiths

The report found that most religious Content -- mainly about holidays and customs -- is presented to students in the fifth through eighth grades. Teaching about religion is best accomplished in the "era" approach to history. This method, now used in 20 states, looks at events around the world in the Roman "era," the Middle Ages or the era of exploration, to cite a few examples.