I view the Islam religion completely differently then I viewed it before last class’s discussion. The top 5 misconceptions that were given to us as notes were very helpful in erasing some of the misunderstandings I was lead to believe about the Muslim people. The number one misunderstanding I believed as an outsider was that Muslims worship a different God. I believed this because I had heard that they worshiped Allah, but what I did not know was the meaning of Allah. Upon finding out that Allah means God in Arabic, I now know that they worship the same God, they just have a different word then we use. I also did not know the difference between Islam and Muslim, I thought they were synonymous; therefore, they could be interchanged with each other. That was proven wrong once I found out that one they were not interchangeable and there is a difference between them. Islam should be taught to students at an early age, so they don’t think these fallacies and they are educated properly. Students are taught how a plant cell divides, but they are not taught a religion in which 1 in 4 people practice. This should be a required subject in middle or high school education because it is just as important as the quadratic formula or stoichiometry.
Jennie,
I was reading your blog and I was also surprised at how different I now see the Islamic religion. I completely agree with your point about giving the knowledge of this religion to kids at a young age. Teaching Islam to kids in school could clear up many misconceptions that occur in an early age. Discrimination and maybe even bullying in schools and life in general could be prevented The only problem is that religion is not allowed in most school districts and it could cause much unneeded conflict between parents who don’t understand the religion themselves and teachers. Otherwise I agree that kids having knowledge of the true facts of the Islamic religion is very important.