People usually associated culture and tradition with religion. They have a perception that the religion defines the culture and the culture defines the religion. But this notion of some people is wrongfully constructed. When we go around and see the world, there are many people, living on the opposite sides of the globe, having the same ideals, and belief system. There are over 1.7 Billion Muslims living in this world (Hatch et al.), and not all of them are living in the same place. Some are living in America, some of them are living in different parts of Europe and the rest of them occupy the lands of Asia and Africa. When we go and look around these places, no culture or tradition is similar to another. These people are living in different parts of the world with a different understanding of life. The culture of the Subcontinent is very different from the traditions of Turkey. Muslims living in Egypt have a different culture than those who live in Afghanistan. There is a glaring difference in the lifestyle of Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. This all has to do with the fact that every region has its own way of celebrating festivals and every celebration of events is different. People sometimes unconsciously conflate and confuse religion and culture. Muslims are living in parts of North Africa such as Nigeria, Egypt, and Lebanon.
Then there are those Muslims who are living in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. There is a majority of Muslims living in Central Asia and Middle-East. Countries including India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq etc. There a Muslims living in every part of this globe, but the interesting thing to note is that they do not share the same thinking and, the tradition and culture of every region are different from other regions. They only have one thing in common and that is Islam, other than their religion, none of these aforementioned countries have anything in common with each other. For instance, India is a secular country and Pakistan calls herself as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. But these countries have similar culture and tradition, but their culture is very different from the Muslims living in Nigeria. The point to emphasize here is that religion and culture are two separate entities. They do have the tendency to mold one another and make an amalgam out of it, but largely the culture is made by the people. Spain was under the Muslim rule for about 800 years, but when the Europeans came and conquered the land, the culture and tradition changed.
People living in America can love both; Islam and America. There have been American Muslims who fought and died in wars (www.huffingtonpost.com). There is no religion on this planet earth that teaches violence and corruption. Every religion teaches peace and harmony. This is the common message between them. Just because of the actions of a few black sheep in the community, you cannot give a bad name to the entire community. Similarly just because of some fanatics, who are killing in the name of Islam cannot be the representatives of the entire Muslim World. Just as Ku Klux Klan (Alexander) cannot be the representatives of the Christian community, in the same way, ISIS (Cronin) and other military groups, killing innocent people cannot represent Islam. Jerusalem is the perfect example of underscoring the point that people from different religious backgrounds can live with each other in peace and respect other people’s tradition. Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived together in the past in harmony. Patriotism has nothing to do with religion. If a person living in America, he or she is patriotic about the country regardless of their religion.
Works Cited
Alexander, Charles C. The Ku Klux Klan in the Southwest. University Press of Kentucky, 2015.
Cronin, Audrey Kurth. “ISIS Is More than a Terrorist Group.” Foreign Affairs, 2016.
Hatch, Trevan, et al. “Prayer in Muslim Families: A Qualitative Exploration.” Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work: Social Thought, vol. 36, no. 1–2, 2017, pp. 73–95.
Saluting Muslim American Patriots. (2015). HuffPost. Retrieved 22 March 2018, from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-considine/saluting-Muslim-American-patriots_b_7039866.html
