An Introduction

Hi everyone!

My name is Hibah and this blog will be detailing my weekly experiences and findings regarding my Senior Research Project: “What Is In Islam”.

But first, a little about myself…

I’m 18 years old, I live with my loving parents and my two younger brothers and I’m a senior at BASIS Peoria. I don’t have a favorite color but I prefer teal over puke green.

(  vs  )

I love to read mysteries (Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes) and I looove learning languages. I’m not saying I’m good at it, but I like the idea of giving the people the comfort to speak with me in their native tongue…someday…once I’m fluent… or know how to say more than just “hello.”

 

And about my project…

To some “Islam”, “hate crimes” and “foreigners” might be a “taboo” subject, but not to me. As a female Muslim-American, with Pakistani parents, raised on the Navajo reservation, I know all too well what it means to be a minority. I lived a mostly sheltered life when I was a kid surrounded by kind ethnically diverse neighbors: European, Chinese, Native American, Pakistani, Indian, and American.

But now that I’m older, I see that the interactions between myself and my neighbors were ideal. The real world has many more conflicts and clashing ideologies than five year old me realized. Maybe because as neighbors, we asked each other questions. What do you believe? Why do you believe? And we listened.

Now the media is the people's only source of information. Rarely do they think to fact check all the information presented to them or perhaps view the story from another angle.

Through my project, I want to gain an understanding about the relationship between hate and fear towards Muslims. How much does the public (both Muslim and non-Muslim) know about Islam, how does this information or lack thereof contribute to the fear of terrorist attacks and what can be done to decrease the hostilities towards Muslims?

While interning with CAIR-AZ (the Council of American-Islamic Relations) I want to help educate the public about Islam and create awareness of Islamophobia (the fear of Muslims and Islam) in order to establish the start of an educated society geared towards toleration rather than hate or fear.