Muslim Students: What You Don’t Know About Islam and the Quran
These included a talk on Islam and politics, and a lecture that offered a counterpoint to mainstream media’s take on Islam and the Quran.
The Muslim Student Association invited Assistant Professor of Government Studies Barbara Elias to deliver a talk, "What You Don’t Know About Islam and Politics,” last Thursday evening. Elias specializes in international relations, Islam and politics,
counterinsurgency warfare, national security and U.S. foreign policy. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in political science.
Elias began her lecture by probing the crowd about what words they associated with Islam. Terms like "fundamentalism,” "terrorism,” and "foreign” echoed throughout the audience, highlighting the negative impressions Americans identify with the topic. However, as Elias illustrated, this negativity is misguided.
"The biggest victims of terrorism are Muslims, by and large, far and away,” she began. "That’s something to keep in mind when we talk about fear of Islam, because Muslims are really paying the highest price” when it comes to violence worldwide.
Elias went on to debunk the theory that Islam is the same everywhere. "Islam is a plural concept,” she explained.
As the second-largest faith in the world, with 1.6 billion adherents, Islam contains incredible heterogeneity. Headlines touting Islam’s connection with violence and extremism offer a narrow and distorted understanding of the religion throughout the world, where it is overwhelmingly a peaceful faith and a symbol of wholesomeness for many communities.
Source: community.bowdoin.edu
