Hostility, Loyalty and Change: What is the Future for Muslims in the West?

Salam usted Ramadan,

Listening to one of the point you made (you have actually talked about it in many lectures) a funny reminder of the past (2004) came to me.

I have always loved the French language so I studied it by heart. During a course lesson of French literature we were reading an article which was about religion in general. It was quite a difficult one for many of my class mates (apparently it had to do with the subject).

Once, the teacher asked the students: what does ‘les musulmans’ mean? Nobody knew. I raised my hand and responded: it means Muslims. We were reading further. Once, the teacher asked the students: what does ‘l’enfer’ mean? Again nobody knew. I raised my hand and responded: it means the hell. Again we were reading further. Once, the teacher asked the students: what does ‘Dieu’ mean? And again nobody knew. So again I raised my hand and responded: it means God. The teacher looked at the students and asked: who of you do believe in God? Nobody believed. I raised my hand and responded: I do believe in God. It was quite funny to see all the surprised faces at that time. Suddenly another question came: who of you do believe in the hell? Again, nobody believed. So I raised my hand and responded: I do believe in the hell. Oh my God, I still remember all the strange faces looking at me at that time as if I was coming from another planet or something. I knew why many were surprised more: there was no visibility on which one could judge, faith was inside the heart.

Whell this was at that time. It was quite funne as for me it was just normal to respond in that way. So one can imagine more strange reactions of today with all the contemporary confusions, created fears and wrong perceptions about religions. Especially and more recently about Islam.

Greets from the Netherlands

May God always guide you, protect you, love you and may God make your prayers and whishes reality.

Loves, Hakima

I am a Muslim revert and I would simply like to say that I am very grateful to lecturers like Tariq Ramadan who represents a very good living example of my definition of a muslim.I am not a judge; I leave this job to God, the Almighty. However, the picture Tariq Ramadan projects is very respectable. He is very inspiring.
I totally agree with him as for Islam and the numerous cultures revolving around it. I am myself a French Muslim who never felt that Arab muslims were superior or understand Islam better than I do. I very much agree with the idea of not integrating but contributing. The more identities we have around us the richer we must feel. I also do believe that we must follow the rule of the country in which we live. This is an important componants of the Islamic religion.

I wish Tariq Ramadan a long life, so he could make more speeches and write more books to influence the people in the right way.

A big thank you

Valerie

Maybe it´s true that some muslims try not to stand out too much as muslims, but there are also many young muslims who out of a kind of rebeliousness say they are muslim but don’t act like it. I have had many questions from non-muslims asking me if certain behaviour is islamic because muslims have them. It has become a strange mixture of youthculture and a misplaced sense of muslimidentity. It’s really difficult to explain that they may feel like muslims because they come from a muslim background but islam doesn’t play a role in how they behave.