FyI not to detract from the article, but Maclean’s magazine is pretty much a right wing publication. I wouldn’t take it too seriously.

There are lots of Canadians here!

I wouldn’t hold the few cases in Quebec to be representative of the overall population. The issues in Quebec have largely been relegated to the small cities that are trying to feel important. Honestly, why else would anyone care about what’s happening in a city like Herouxville?

Larger cities are still doing okay, even in Quebec. Montreal has an amazing Muslim community masha-Allah, and with the exception of overt bigotry at McGill University, they seem to be doing very well for themselves.

Above all, having travelled throughout North America and the world, I still feel that Canada is one of the easiest places to practice Islam and be accepted as a Muslim, and I think we should appreciate the rights and freedoms we have. The veiled voting thing was just silliness that, again, isn’t very representative of the population at large. The soccer thing, again, was just Quebec silliness that the media chose to focus way too much time on. In the end, it really wasn’t a big deal.

I’ve spent time in most of the major cities in Canada, and honestly I’ve never felt out of place or targetted in any of them. Even my run-ins with CSIS were polite and courteous. So I don’t think the problem is really that bad yet, that we should be labelling Canada as a nation of bigots.

As an ontario resident i havent experienced any direct racism, even when i wear my thawb. The bigotry thing is over exaggerated in this article, and the quebec instances is just one of those newspaper selling themes. I believe ontarians in general are repectful of different faiths and the lineup of masajid in scarborough should be a proof of it.

I used to live in Ottawa and then I moved to the DC area alhamdulillah. I thought that I would experience more racism here in the US than in Canada but man was I wrong. I went to canada last summer and I couldn’t believe what ppl were saying and doing! subhanAllah, and of course I try to explain to my canadian friends that I dealt with more racism in one day in canada than in all my years in the US…no one believes me :-/

“I figure it has something to do with setting up a table with a bunch of pamphlets and talking to non-Muslims about Islam…”

This sounds like an excellent idea…if you want to be as despised as the Jehova’s Witnesses and Mormons. People don’t like having other people’s beliefs forced down their throats, especially when they’ve already demonstrated that they dislike those beliefs.

Also, since when has not being nice to muslims been ‘racist’? Last time I checked, ‘muslim’ wasn’t a race – one had to make a conscious decision to become one. If you makes a conscious decision to do something, you deserve all the criticism you get if that decision sounds moronic to the rest of the world. In most cases, (eg. this one), this isn’t bigotry, this is rational discourse. The only people calling this behavior ‘bigotry’ are either the targeted group in quesiton, or overly politically correct people who quake in fear at the prospect of offending people.

Perhaps my description was a bit exaggerated, but I stand by my argument. Many people, myself included, dislike the idea of having people preach their delusions on street corners – especially when the antiquated beliefs being preached involve the listener burning in hell for all eternity if he or she does not subscribe to them.

“Half the time they don’t even know what those beliefs are… one of the reasons for which there is so much hatred for Islam is ignorance of what it’s truly about.”

I know more about Islam than you’ll be able to fit into a little pamphlet, and the more I learn about Islam, the more I dislike it. Most people know enough about Islam (eg. that it’s a middle-eastern Abrahamic religion with a cooler heaven and more dogma than Christianity, and all its participants believe that we’re going to hell, which is a pretty bad place to be in for all eternity) to have formed solid opinions about it. You may argue that it’s all about peace, love, worshipping a benevolent creator, etc. all you like, but so long as you also hold the negative beliefs, people will dismiss you as inconsistent religious fanatics.

The ‘racism’ comment was directed more towards the other people commenting on this entry than you, ie. Seeker7 and talib. Depending on how one interprets your comments it could also apply to you as well – the sentence “she’s seen a lot more racism and prejudice against Muslims” is extremely ambiguous. (On a side note – if she’s shocked by the ‘racism’ against Chinese people in BC, she should try being a Chinese person in, say, Northern England).

Finally, I think that prejudice, against people due to their religion is justified. As I stated before, you get to choose what you believe (the same way you don’t get to choose what race you’re born into), and these beliefs say a lot about you. If you would rather have a Buddhist baby-sit your kids than a Satan-worshipper, you agree with me.

If we’re going to argue semantics here, the Merriam-Webster dictionary describes ‘racism’ as:

1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2 : racial prejudice or discrimination

It describes ‘race’ as:

A category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits

And it discribes ‘Islam’ as:

1: the religious faith of Muslims including belief in Allah as the sole deity and in Muhammad as his prophet
2 a: the civilization erected upon Islamic faith b: the group of modern nations in which Islam is the dominant religion

Therefore, Islam is a religion, not a race. People only equate ‘islamophobia’ with racism because the idea of racism provokes strong reactions with people, while the idea of judging people based off beliefs that they freely chose doesn’t have quite the same effect. The two are clearly distinct, and any attempt (including those by the Journal of Sociology) to equate them with each other should be rebuked.

All this concentrating on semantics is, however, distracting from my main point – that there is nothing wrong with being prejudiced against people because of their religion. What a person believes gives very useful and deep insight into their character, and one should not have to ignore this source of information for fear of appearing bigoted. So, please. If you’re going to argue with me, argue with the points, and not over silly definitions.

She or he never said that everyone in Canada dismisses religion or religious people only that people, being of some amout, will dismiss religion of religious people, in this case Islam and Muslims.

And they do. Around 97% of Canadians aren’t Muslims. Many of those people are too young to make a choice and many just don’t care about the issue, and don’t make a definitive choice, either. But many do know what Islam is and they still reject it. Not because of ignorance, but because they disagree with it. Further than that, in moving beyond their own personal rejection of Islam, there are worries in Canada about growing Islamic identity in the public. According to Pew in 2005 (from http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?PageID=812 ):

“In North America, 50% in the U.S. and 51% in Canada perceive a growing sense of Islamic identity; on balance, both publics see this as a bad thing for their respective countries, though sizable minorities disagree.”

So a majority of Canadians not only reject Islam for themselves, but they see a growing Islamic identity as bad for Canada, according to Pew when they did that poll in 2005. It would interesting to see how things have changed in 2 years time, though; and things could have changed in any possible way.

Non-Muslims in Canada aren’t just this passive group that is sitting around in ignorance, primed and ready for Muslims to be active and convert them. Many just plain disagree with Islam, and many are actively opposing Islam, on theological, philosophical, and political, grounds. And though I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s arrogant to assume they are such passive beings, it’s certainly wrong.

Well that’s an interesting point. I mean, in one sense, it’s trivially obvious that most Canadians disagree with Islam: in that the vast majority simply choose not to be Muslims!

But you bring in another sense, saying that most Canadians don’t have enough information to adequately disagree with Islam, and so they can’t _truly_ disagree with it. Perhaps this is right, but this is not clear. And indeed one could say this about many other things.

For example, most Canadians have not read Capital by Karl Marx. Does that mean that most Canadians don’t disagree with Communism? A dubious conception, I would say.

Or, another, most Muslims have not read Nietzsche. Because of this would it be that they aren’t truly Muslims, because they haven’t looked at all the arguments against belief in God? Another dubious conception, no doubt.

Again, I think there is the same assumption here that I mentioned at the end of my previous post. An assumption that Canadians are this passive group that just sits around and has propaganda and dawah determine what they think — as if if there was merely more performance of dawah then Canadians would, of course, become Muslims! That secular capitalist ideologies are forced down Canadians throats — this isn’t true. No one forces Canadians to believe anything they don’t choose to believe, and, further, no one even forces Canadians to listen to anything they don’t want to. If Canadians disagree with CNN or Fox, they can stop purchasing those channels for their television sets altogether. A Canadian parent doesn’t have to send their children to public school, but can send them to a private school, or home-school them. And further, indeed, Canadians have the right to choose what public schools teach. If public schools teach secular ideologies (as you contend), then that’s because a majority of Canadians have chosen so through a system of representative democracy.

(Sorry if I double posted my last one to Talib, I got confused. Anyway…)

To Amad,

It’s funny how most people think most other people are like sheep. It’s like that old adage that more than half of people in a room full of people always say they are above average in intelligence. Anyway…

I think you’re right though, that most non-Muslim Canadians know little about Islam. But you also rightly note that this doesn’t mean that dawah is going to convert Canadians in any particular amount. Just like a widespread reading of Nietzsche among Muslims isn’t going to result in Muslims giving-up belief in God in any particular amount. And, I would say, both seem just as likely.

How about this as a proposition: Just as most non-Muslim Canadians know little about the worldview of Muslims, most Muslim Canadians know little about the worldview of non-Muslims. Equal ignorance in both camps? Or do you contend that one group in more ignorant than the other, in total?

I had to look up ‘niqab!’ And I see it is something that covers women’s faces, and that it is a matter of dispute whether it is required or not.

As a western woman, my first impulse on seeing a woman in L.A. in a burqa was that she was oppressed – removed from ordinary life, perhaps forbidden to mingle with non-muslims.

I have learned since that many women choose it – so it is not my place to decide they are oppressed. But I still find it off-putting. For instance, often at a bus stop I have asked someone if they had the time. But I wouldn’t ask a woman wearing a complete face covering. The inference is that she does not mingle with the rest of us and doesn’t care to.

Many professionals – engineers, psychologists, writers – wear beards. Some men really look much better with one! Covers up a weak chin.
But it doesn’t hide a smile or turn people away – which a face covering does, it seems to me.

That doesn’t take a way from a woman’s right to wear such a thing, but it does get in the way of outreach, doesn’t it?

We could divide both people and topics that can be known about into either Islamic (Muslims and Islam) or non-Islamic (non-Muslims and non-Islamic things) categories.

So if Muslims know more non-Islamic things than non-Muslims know about Islam, as you say, there are two possible and mutually exclusive cases. One possible case is that Muslims know more than non-Muslims in total. The other possible case is that non-Muslims know more about non-Muslim things than Muslims know about Islam.

I don’t know, neither of those cases seems possible. In the first, we’re saying that Muslims know more than non-Muslims. That non-Muslims are uneducated and ignorant in comparison to Muslims. But in the second case we’re saying that Muslims don’t have as much expertise as non-Muslims do. That non-Muslims have better perfected their field of knowledge than Muslims have of their’s; that Muslims don’t understand Islam as well as non-Muslims understand non-Islamic things. Both of these situations would seem to be false to me, so I may have to disagree that Muslims know more about non-Islamic things than non-Muslims know about Islam, as you say.

I think Mollyfurie summed up my point in non muslims not knowing much about islam..her comparing the niqab to the burqa is a perfect example. I mean an assumable intelligent woman from california should be educated enough to determine the difference between the niqab (a face only cover) and the burqa ( a loose garment covering body head to toe)

Back to the argument with Pim. The counterculturalist era of the 60′s is not relevant in our main argument of canadians being uninformed about islam. However the issue of beard should be a point in which its a religious mandatory for muslims and the corporate environment should adhere to this issue and it should not effect the position the muslim male is applying to and its a clear discrimanation towards the applicant if its a religious issue he is not being hired for. Totally goes against the canadian muticultural multi-faith tolerance and respect ideology.

The 1982 canadian charter of rights clearly address this:-

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

(a) freedom of conscience and religion

(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other means of communication.

As muslims in canada its our duty to address issues that matter to our faith. The observance of the beard and hijab in all professional entities, the right to public funding to faith based schools whether islamic or others. This issue is underway to be addressed because of the clear discriminatory action of funding catholic schools and not others. We have to let it be known to non muslims, not to be put off by the simple constitutional rights we ask for as muslims and different racial and cultural groups ask for too.

Whats underway in ontario specifically is the issue of sharia law in certain issues the secular laws dont solve, also funding islamic schools, woman with religious attire not being discriminated against in the workplace, plus many more other faiths are demanding whether the sikhs or jews. And all this would not be addressed except through dawah and spreading the message of understanding different perspectives and why we should not allow the secular laws to be forced against us.

well i don’t think you need me Amad…just common sense that if you are subject to more of other cultures everyday that you would learn more….. Pim..it seems you have already made up your mind what Amad thinks without even reading or listening to his points. Excuse me if I am wrong, but I don’t know how I could come to any other conclusion.

You stated “That non-Muslims are uneducated and ignorant in comparison to Muslims.”

This is either intentionally misleading and trying antogonize or it is a horrible mis-reading of Amad’s post and points. Once again, he was refering to Muslims who live in Western countries or countries they are not the majority. I believe you either expected or you assumed that Amad holds the view that non-Muslims are ignorant. I believe you would be surprisd if you frequented this site more, the various viewpoints and the respectable debates that occur within this community. But its hard to have a respectable, honest debate when you come into the dialogue with your mind alrady made up what your conterparts feel or think..even if it is unwarrented.

Pim, I don’t think you understood us properly – we clearly stated that as a minority group, we do know more about the majority than they know about us. That goes for EVERY minority group. When you’re surrounded by something different, how can you not know about it? It’s a part of our everyday lives. The majority, however, are rarely as aware of the minority and of their lifestyles.
Really, you’re just repeating yourself and you don’t seem to have read and understood our comments properly.

Anonymouse:

I’m not saying that you’re not saying that it doesn’t go “for EVERY minority group” as you say I hear you on that on. That’s fair. It’s just that that it applies to every minority group is irrelevant to the argument I posted. All I’m looking at is the implication for Muslims and non-Muslims in Canada. But you could just as well extrapolate the argument for all minority groups as you quite rightly point towards. That’s fair.

So, I haven’t misunderstood you on that point at least. Is there somewhere else where I have misunderstood you? Could you answer any of the questions I raise along the way of the argument? For example, do you agree that those two cases I point out are the only two possible cases that speak towards the levels of knowledge for non-Muslims and Muslims in Canada, assuming your premise to be correct?

Pim,

Just to reiterate what Mouse said, I believe Amad and Mouse were talking about knowing about non-mulsim culture or dominant culture in that country/area they work in. It is why Amad also said Pakistani Christians probally know more about Islam/muslim culture thank Pakistani mulims know about Christianity…because they are confronted with it everyday. It really doesn’t have anything to do with education or intelligence. And Pim, if I came off I apologize. I have no stake or repsonibility to this site, other than i read it almost everyday. I guess when you do spend so much time, you do sort of view some people here as cyber/friends if that makes sense. The regulr posters here are subject many times to people who come on and either insult their religion or make derogatory remarks. This has happened repeatedly, and yet almost all of the posters and moderators have handled themsleves with class. So for me I am very inclined to defend the moderators from what I feel are unjustified comments or attacks..and maybe I misread your intentions…and if I did ..I appologize.

Thanks Sequoia, I think you said it perfectly! :)

No need for me to respond directly… Pim, just read what Sequoia said and take everything within it as agreement from me.

Sequoia:

We could apply my argument just as well to your example Turkey but with non-Muslims instead of Catholics. But we can’t refer in true analogy just to Catholics, because Catholics and Muslims aren’t the totality of people, and neither is Catholicism and Islam the totality of topcs that can be known. Whereas Muslims and non-Muslims are the totality of people and Islam and non-Islamic things are the totality of topics that can be known. Surely every person in the world is either a Muslim or a non-Muslim. But not everyone in the world is either a Muslim or a Catholic. Do you see from these considerations how your example of Muslims and Catholics in Turkey is not a perfect analogy to the example of Muslims and non-Muslims in Canada?

Back to the topic at hand – I’m not the only one thinking about bigotry in Canada! Our local radiostation is having an entire week devoted to the subject… this morning they were discussing experiencing “both cultures” – original ethnic culture (desi, Arab, Asian, whatever) and “Canadian” culture (basically, mass-media brainwashing).

I just remembered something that, while not exactly bigoted, was annoying nonetheless: my youngest brother was put into ESL without my parents even being consulted, simply because he’s a visible ethnic minority (he looks 100% desi) – ESL, of all things! English is the only language we speak at home!
Anyway, when my parents found out about it they were pretty mad… the school didn’t even bother asking them, they just put little Z. in ESL ‘cuz he *looked* like he didn’t speak English!

“And the conclusion it seems to be imply is that if X > Y (i.e. Muslims have more knowledge about non-Muslim customs than the reverse), then non-Muslims are henceforth deficient in some way!”

No, I did not make that conclusion. I said that, if the premise is true, EITHER that is the conclusion OR the conclusion is that non-Muslims aren’t deficient because they make up for X > Y by having more knowledge of themselves then Muslims have of themselves. You only listed the first half of my conclusion as if it was the whole thing!

I don’t think I’m applying analytical formula any moreso than you are when you say that X > Y, which is what you were the first to contend. In that relation you say that knowledge can exist in amounts and so can be bigger or smaller than other amounts of knowledge, which is all that I’m saying. If knowledge can’t exist in amounts then certainly X cannot be greater than Y, as they are defined here!

Let’s continue using symbol systems because actually I like symbolic logic, even if it is not formal.

Let’s keep the X and Y you have. So X > Y.

Say M is the average knowledge that Muslims have in total. Say N is the average knowledge that non-Muslims have in total. Say P is the average amount of knowledge that Muslims have of themselves. Say Q is the average amount of knowledge that non-Muslims have of themselves. And, as you defined, X is the average amount of knowledge that Muslims have of non-Muslims and Y is the average amount of knowledge that non-Muslims have of Muslims.

So M = P + X. And N = Q + Y. Would you agree?

But, you say that X is greater than Y. In that case wouldn’t you agree that in order for M and N to be equal, then Q would have to be greater than P?

That is:

If M = N and M = P + X and N = Q + Y and X > Y,
then Q > P. ?

Could you possibly contend otherwise? And that is what I’ve been contending.

But we can agree to disagree, that fine with me. Obviously any discussion has its expiry date.

Umm Reem: I do believe you, but Judaism and Christianity aren’t the entirety of non-Muslim topics which is what we’re comparing Islam with here. I don’t know Arabic, but certainly quantum mechanics, fugue, computational theory of the mind, Esperanto, and many other non-Muslim topics, which are central to the lives of many non-Muslims, aren’t mentioned in the Quran or Hadith? I would say in Canada there’s more involvement with topics like gadgets, cars, movies, television, celebrities and video games than there is with Christianity, but none of those things are talked about in Islam are they?

Okay, so you hold that Muslims in Canada have more knowledge than non-Muslims in Canada (M > N).

Which was one of two positions I was trying my darndest to wrench out of this board. I feel like I’ve gotten what I wanted, and I’m very happy now.

I’ll just say in ending that I don’t suspect that this is true, though. I suspect that both peoples have equal knowledge, though differing types, and that neither is ignorant. But I guess I could be wrong.

Just happened to read through the comments of this old and dead thread, but I really think PIM brought some very interesting points.

I would argue his conclusion B is correct actually. That is Non-Muslims know more about Non-Muslim things/culture than Muslims know about Islam.

This is actually quite obvious (but PIM not being Muslim didn’t think so), Muslims themselves know more about Non-Muslim things than they know about Islam. Many Muslims can name more celebrities than they can name Sahaba for example. Since a Muslim is living in a non-Muslim society he is forced to learn a great deal about that society, but as he maintains his own identity and religion he still does not have as much in depth knowledge and experience with the non-Muslim society as a Non-Muslims would.

Let me put it into Islamic terms because that describes it best. Knowledge I will say is of 2 forms, Dunya (this world) and Akhirah (afterlife, but more generally islamic for our purposes).

Total knowledge = Dunya + Akhirah. So the equation is simple, the non-Muslim knows more Dunya than the Muslim because the Muslim spends more time on his akhirah than the non-muslim. However, non-muslims spend more time on Dunya than Muslims spend on Akhirah because Muslims by necessity need knowledge of Dunya to live , but non-Muslims need not seek knowledge of Akhirah to live.

I think this conclusion is obvious yet profound. However the more profound thing is I would say the vast majority of Muslims nowadays know more about Dunya than they know about Akhirah (which is something within our control unlike the conclusion that Non-Muslims will always know more “dunya”)

I will end my post with this Hadith from Sahih al Jami that illustrates why Muslims knowing less about dunya is not a bad thing, but in fact good (although not sure if anyone will read this thread anyways…).

1879: “Verily, Allah the Exalted hates everyone who is knowledgeable of the worldly life, but ignorant of the Hereafter.”