TWIN FALLS -- Since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the words Muslim and Arab have become increasingly common in American vernacular. However, common does not necessarily mean well understood.
"Intention counts very big in Islam," said Audrey Shabbas, a scholar and teacher in the field of Arab and Islamic studies.
Several teachers and students from around the Magic Valley came to the College of Southern Idaho on Thursday with the intention of gaining a better perspective about the religion of Islam, its followers and the region of the Middle East.
Seminars like the one at CSI are part of a larger project sponsored by a grant from MacNeil Lehrer Productions, producers of the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and given to Idaho Public Television. The project, called By the People, fosters discussion on America's role in the world. Its Web site, www.by-the-people.org, offers ideas for lesson plans for teachers.
"In current events, we're always discussing what's going on in the Middle East," said Carol Hollifield, who teaches seventh grade geography and reading at Robert Stuart Junior High.
Shabbas does not claim to be an expert on all of the Middle East, only the Arab region. She is the founder and president of Arab World and Islamic Resources and School Services. Shabbas published her first guide to teaching about the Arab world in 1978 after becoming frustrated with the materials available for her middle school social studies class. In the same year, Shabbas formed Arab World Consultants with friends. Shabbas has been asked to present her seminar at colleges around the world including Notre Dame, Harvard and Yale.
Middle East
Shabbas first wanted to set her audience straight about the various people of the Middle East. Too often, Americans get a muddled idea of the Middle East by the media mistakenly mixing up terminology, Shabbas said. Not all inhabitants of the Middle East are Arabs.
Americans often perceive Middle Easterners in a black and white world -- they are either good or bad depending upon whether or not their country is a friend of the United States at the moment.
"We're going to define the people of the Middle East, and we're not going to define theme as good guys or bad guys," Shabbas said. "We're going to let them define themselves. The people of the Middle East have been defining themselves by the language they speak."
An acronym of PATIO can help distinguish the different languages and peoples of the Middle East:
P -- Persians reside primarily in Iran and speak Farsi (Persian). About 60 million people in the Middle East fall under this category.
A -- Arabs live in 21 or 22 countries and total 270 million in the Middle East. They speak Arabic.
T -- Turks speak the Turkish language. About 66 million Turks live in Turkey.
I -- Israelis reside in Israel and speak Hebrew. There are about 4 million Israelis.
O -- Other groups living in the area speak Kurdish, Berber, Armenian and Aramaic.
Although many people in the Middle East speak several languages, they are most often defined by their native tongue.
"It's a given that everybody in the Middle East speaks at least one European language regardless of economic status," Shabbas said.
Islam
Islam could be considered another chapter of the Jewish and Christian saga. The religion holds many of the same premises as both Judaism and Christianity.
"We see a lot of the stories that are in Christian or Jewish tradition in the Quran," Shabbas said. "The bottom line is that our value system is not different."
The teachings of the Quran, the primary source for Islam, come from the teachings of Muhammad. Muslims believe that God spoke to Gabriel who revealed God's teachings to the last prophet of God, Muhammad, over a 20-year span.
The revelations, according to Islamic faith, were meant to clarify earlier teachings, Shabbas said.
"Not to be disrespectful of the faith, but it was like God said, 'Look I told you people once in the Old Testament, but you waited too long to write it down and made errors. So it was necessary that I tell you again in the New Testament, but there were still errors. I'm going to tell you one last time. Let's get it right this time,'" she said.
The faith encourages education and studies as a result of its derivation. During the ninth century, Muslims had extensive public libraries, a radical concept at the time, Shabbas said.
"What the Quran tells us is that we are to be educated Muslims," Shabbas said. "Our function is to build a just society."
To be recognized as a Muslim, one needs to observe the five pillars of Islam. The first pillar is to declare the following phrase in public: "There is one god and Muhammad is his prophet."
Prayer and fasting make up the second and third pillars. Charity or a social tax constitutes the fourth pillar of Islam. The hajj, a pilgrimage to Mecca, makes up the final pillar.
According to Shabbas, the observance of these pillars is flexible. Muslims are judged not necessarily on completing the pillars, but rather on whether they intended to complete them.
"Muslims believe very strongly in judgment day," Shabbas said. "We're either going to heaven or we're going to hell."
Muslim Women
One question often arises during Shabbas' seminars: Why do Muslim women cover themselves?
"The Quran tells Muslim men and women to dress modestly so that people's concentration is on the other person's character not on their body," Shabbas said.
Women often cover their heads and wear long black robes. Men also dress conservatively, Shabbas said.
"I think Muslim women fall into four groups," she said.
The first group of women believe that covering is a choice and they choose to cover. The second group agree that they have a choice but opt not to cover. The third set of women don't see covering as a choice and believe they have to cover.
The women who fall into the last group, however, represent the stereotype many Westerners have of Muslim women. These women have never read the Quran; these Muslim women cover because they are told to do so by their male family members. They are not the majority.
"Women who choose to cover tell you it's very liberating," Shabbas said. "You never have a bad hair day."
Under their robes, many Muslim women often wear clothing similar to that of women around the world. They wear their robes in public, but not necessarily in the privacy of their homes around even male family members, Shabbas said.
Shabbas admits "Muslim women are oppressed." But, she said, so are all women.
"We all live in patriarchal societies," she said. "There are no matriarchies."
However, in the prophet Muhammad's time, women were regarded as highly as men. The religion suffered backslides in women's rights due to patriarchal society.
"Is it Islam that oppresses women?" she asked. "In Muhammad's time, women were regarded as highly as men. None of that oppression comes from the Quran."
Among many countries in the Middle East, woman are still held in high esteem.
"In Middle Eastern culture, women carry the honor of the family," she said. "That's a lot of power."
This came as quite a surprise to many seminar participants.
"We have a whole different perspective on women in their religion," said Silvia Renova, a CSI student. "It's so wrong. They're pretty much the head of the household."
Radical Islamic groups
Although Americans hear much about radical Islamic groups such as the Taliban, the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia and Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, most Muslims dismiss them.
"They are at minimum an embarrassment," Shabbas said. "But they are really a perversion of Islam."
While Americans perceive they are the primary target of Taliban hatred, Shabbas argues that other "true" Muslims endure the Taliban wrath as well.
"The person they hate more than a nonbeliever would be a believer who is not a fundamentalist," Shabbas said.
Islamic teachings allow for other faiths, Shabbas said. When Islam was at its prime during the ninth century, tolerance of other religions wasn't preached. Rather, appreciation was encouraged.
"What Islam says about Islam is that it is the straight path," Shabbas said. "It acknowledges that there are other paths."
Shabbas' explanation of Islam and its practices contradicted much of what participants of the seminar knew of the religion when they began the day.
"Right now we're only hearing negative things about Muslims," Renova said. "I now have more perspective on the religion. You fear what you don't understand."
Times-News intern Michelle Dunlop can be reached at 735-3229 or mdunlop@magicvalley.com.
http://www.magicvalley.com/news/localstate/index.asp?StoryID=10925
