The relationship between stress, trauma, microaggressions, overt violence and life satisfaction has long been established in the literature. This online study sought to identify significant predictors of life satisfaction in a Muslim American sample (N=247) that was 74.5% (N=184) female, 60.7% (N=150) Arab American/Middle Eastern, 21.9% (N=54) Asian American, and 10.5% (N=25) White. The sample had a mean age of 34.21 years with 70% married (N=173). Some 51.4% were born in the U.S. (51.4%, N=127); and, among those not U.S. born, 15.8% reported their country of origin was Egypt (N=39), followed by Palestinian Territories (6.5%, N=16) and Pakistan (5.7%, N=14). And 19.7% (N=49) have lived in the U.S. for 26-30 years. Also, 35.6% (N=88) completed a bachelor’s degree, 64.8% were employed (N=160) and, 31.6% reported an annual household income in the $50,000-$99,000 bracket. This sample’s mean experience of microaggressions was 7.12 (SD=6.649, min=0, max=24) indicating low experience. While the mean exposure to overt acts of violence was 0.71 (SD= 1.457, min=0, max=9), indicating very low exposure. Regarding life satisfaction, 53.5% of the sample indicated a life satisfaction score of 8 or more (N=132). The mean perception to Islamophobia was 4.076, indicating a high ability to perceive Islamophobia. Using backwards stepwise regression, higher life satisfaction was significantly predicted by: being less likely to be depressed in the past year (B=-0.59, p=0.012); older age (B=0.038, p=0.001); better overall health status (B=0.361, p=0.001); better rating of quality of provider (B=0.351, p=0.001); lower perceived stress (B=-0.07, p=0.0); lower stage for coping and responding to Islamophobia (B=-0.17, p=0.025); higher use of “stop unpleasant thoughts” coping style (B=0.129, p=0.007) with R2= 0.584 (adjusted R2= 0.566; 56.6% of variance explained). Quantitative findings were augmented by emergent themes in the qualitative data. Case in point, living in a post-9/11 America and discrimination with subthemes including Islamophobia, acceptability of public discrimination, and destruction of personal property were found to be negatively associated with life satisfaction. Five overarching themes were found to be related to higher life satisfaction and ability to cope: feeling a sense of community, wearing hijab (headscarf for women), religiosity and Islamic identity, work, and financial stability.

Lee Sui Ting. / Thesis (M.Div.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-85). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract of Thesis entitled --- p.i / Acknowledgments --- p.iii / Introduction --- p.3 / Chapter Chapter1 --- The Root of Muslim-Christian Conflict and Overview of the Contemporary Situation --- p.4 / Chapter 1.1 --- Scriptural Reasoning between the Bible and the Qur'an --- p.4 / Chapter 1.1.1 --- The Bible and Qur'an --- p.4 / Chapter 1.1.2 --- How do Muslims Read the Bible --- p.7 / Chapter 1.2 --- Historical Background of their Complex Relationship --- p.10 / Chapter 1.2.1 --- The Emergence of Islam --- p.10 / Chapter 1.2.2 --- The Muslims Expansion from the 8th Century --- p.11 / Chapter 1.2.3 --- Traumatized Relationship --- p.12 / Chapter 1.3 --- Overview of the Situation in the 21st Century --- p.14 / Chapter 1.3.1 --- Europe --- p.14 / Chapter 1.3.2 --- Asia --- p.16 / Chapter 1.3.3 --- Africa --- p.17 / Chapter Chapter2 --- Survey of Different Christian Mission Approaches to Muslim --- p.20 / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.20 / Chapter 2.2 --- Christian-Muslim Interfaith Dialogue: The World Council of Churches --- p.21 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Starting Point --- p.22 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Theological Background: Ecumenical Considerations on Christian-Muslim Dialogue --- p.24 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Aim of Inter-Faith Dialogue with Muslims --- p.27 / Chapter 2.2.4 --- The WCC's Achievements --- p.28 / Chapter 2.2.5 --- Limitations --- p.30 / Chapter 2.3 --- To Make Disciples of Every Nation: The Lausanne Movement --- p.32 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Starting Point --- p.32 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Theology Behind: Uniqueness and Universality of the Redemptive Christ --- p.33 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- Aim --- p.34 / Chapter 2.3.4 --- The Lausanne Movement's Achievements --- p.35 / Chapter 2.3.5 --- Limitations --- p.37 / Chapter 2.4 --- Conclusion --- p.37 / Chapter Chapter3 --- A Case Study: The Love and Peace Society --- p.39 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.39 / Chapter 3.2 --- Background Information --- p.40 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Muslim Population in Hong Kong --- p.40 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Islamic Centres and Muslim Organizations --- p.41 / Chapter 3.3 --- The Love And Peace Society (LAPS) --- p.42 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- The Starting Point --- p.42 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Mission Statement and Missiological Approach --- p.44 / Chapter 3.3.2.1 --- Friendship Evangelism --- p.45 / Chapter 3.3.2.2 --- Ministry of Seed Sowing --- p.46 / Chapter 3.3.2.3 --- Conviction rather than Conversion --- p.47 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- Praxis --- p.48 / Chapter 3.3.4 --- Partnerships --- p.51 / Chapter 3.4 --- Theological Evaluation --- p.54 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- "Mission as ""Who They Are""" --- p.55 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- The Mid-Way --- p.58 / Chapter 3.4.3 --- Acceptance and Receptivity of Muslims --- p.60 / Chapter 3.5 --- Conclusion --- p.63 / Chapter Chapter4 --- Mission in another Sense --- p.65 / Chapter 4.1 --- Corresponding Theology --- p.65 / Chapter 4.1.1 --- Deadlock of Theology of Religions --- p.65 / Chapter 4.1.2 --- Comparative Theology as the Leading Theological Reflection --- p.67 / Chapter 4.2 --- Knowing Muslims --- p.68 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- The Prophethood of Jesus Christ --- p.69 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- The Divine Imperative: Da'wa --- p.70 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Theo -Centric: Human Surrender --- p.71 / Chapter 4.3 --- Rethinking the Problematic Traditional Beliefs --- p.72 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Supremacy of Christianity --- p.72 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Dialogue as Betrayal of Christ and Hindering the Authentic Biblical Mission ？ --- p.74 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- Conversion as Mission Accomplished? --- p.75 / Chapter 4.4 --- Mission in Context: Conversion in Another Sense --- p.76 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- Mission towards Muslims as well as to Ourselves --- p.77 / Chapter 4.4.2 --- Conversion of Our Entire Self: the Openness to be Converted --- p.78 / Conclusion --- p.80 / Bibliography --- p.81

Islam is the most misrepresented, misunderstood, and the subject for much controversy in the United States of America especially with the women’s rights issue. This study presents interviews with Muslim Americans on their narrative and perspective of their understanding of women’s rights in accordance to the Islamic traditions. Utilizing a post-positive design, a qualitative data was gathered to compare Quranic text, and the Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad to daily practice of Muslim Americans in a Western democratic society. Participants acknowledged that although Islam as a religion has given women rights more than any other world religion and nation, practicing has not been implemented properly because of the cultural and interpretation barriers. Muslim Americans also acknowledge that the current political atmosphere in the United State has encouraged community members to become more vocal and practicing Muslims.

Even before 9/11, there has been a long history of attitudes and public policies that were biased against people of Middle East descent in the United States--regardless of whether or not they are Muslim. This research uses Status Characteristics Theory (SCT) and stigma theory to examine whether there is low status or stigma associated with the Muslim religion and Middle Eastern ethnicity in the United States. By doing so, the research expands upon previous studies of stigma to explore the social psychological processes involved during interactions between the stigmatized and non-stigmatized. This study used experimental data, survey data and qualitative data collected from samples of undergraduate students using designs conceptualized specifically for this research. I conducted an experiment and a Web vignette-survey using undergraduate students from a Midwestern university. The findings of the experiment showed that that European American subjects paired with the Middle Eastern female partner not wearing a hijab and the Muslim Middle Eastern female partner wearing a hijab were influenced more and held more positive perceptions of their partners than did the subjects paired with the European American female partner. In contrast, the results of the Web vignette-survey indicate that the European American target applicant is more likely to be selected for the leadership position than either of the Middle Eastern target applicants (with or without hijab). Furthermore, the results of the social distance measures indicate that knowing someone from the Middle East (e.g. previous contact with a Middle Easterner) decreased the likelihood of social distance from the Middle Eastern target with hijab and without hijab across the vignette conditions. This suggests that there might be less of a tendency for individuals who have had personal contact and interacted with people from the Middle East to take the "us versus them" perspective, which is necessary in order to carry out the process of stigmatization.

This dissertation explores two inter-related questions: a) how US born Muslim Americans (converts, second generation and African American individuals) negotiate national and transnational belonging in the post- 9/11 context and b) how competing discursive practices around the concept of umma (transnational Muslim community) influence the way in which American Muslims negotiate an American-Muslim identity. The research presented in the dissertation is based on in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork conducted in six ethno-racially and socio-economically diverse American Muslim communities in Boston and San Francisco Bay Area, including mosque communities, educational institutions and third-space organizations. By contrast to work focused on organized political movements, the interviews in this research focused on the way in which ordinary American Muslims give meaning to their identity as Muslims through everyday discursive practices and quotidian understandings of community, belonging, and identity. The 22 months-long data collection reveals that rather than primarily through saliently foreign policy related or “ideological” considerations, American Muslims negotiate transnational and national belonging through i) simultaneous considerations of inclusion and exclusion in the wider American religious landscape, ii) citizenship practices that respond to voices that seek to marginalize American Muslims, and iii) through the medium of cultural belonging and identity. The discourse analysis and ethnographic fieldwork suggests that American Muslims primarily utilize cultural notions of belonging an identity rather than political considerations relating to national or international developments in giving meaning to their dual identity. The dissertation also notes some differences across and within research sites in Boston, San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. American Muslims imagine themselves a particular micro-community with particular needs, priorities, and cultural outlook that is different from other Muslim populations, in both Muslim majority and minority contexts. On the other hand a hybrid set of factors, not simple political considerations, shape American Muslims’ understanding of transnational Muslim identity. This is also reflected in their internal debates about questions of inclusion and exclusion (gender- based or racial), and whether unity requires uniformity regarding contentious domestic and international developments. / 2018-02-01T00:00:00Z

In the Philippines, amok is often viewed as a form of homicidal behaviour to which Muslim Filipino or Moro men are prone. Various assumptions about contemporary Filipino perceptions of amok are challenged in this thesis. It is assumed that this perception corresponds with the actual occurrence of amok in the Philippines, and this is challenged by the demonstration that the perception is merely a construct. The perception of amok is assumed to be the culmination of attempts by Spaniards, Americans and Filipinos to discern the true nature of amok, and this is challenged by the fact that discrepancies exist between recognition of amok by the Spanish on one hand and the Americans and Christian Filipinos on the other. It is argued that contemporary Filipino understanding of amok is the product of two factors: the American drive to acquire information about Filipinos that would enable them to control their newly acquired subjects, and the conflict between Americans and Filipinos generated by this attempt at control. The association of amok with Muslim Filipinos is the outcome of the mistaken conflation of amok with the juramentado convention of the Moros, and the idea that the Muslim Filipinos were the most Malay of the Malay ‘subraces’ in the Philippines and thus most likely to run amok. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Zakat (almsgiving), sedekah (donation, giving) and waqf (religious endowment) are forms of philanthropy Muslims in Indonesia, as well as in other parts of the world practice. This thesis examines the historical development of Islamic philanthropy and questions how Islamic philanthropic activities have affected the relationship between faith and the state. It discusses a contestation between the state and Muslim civil society in managing Islamic philanthropy. / The thesis shows that the history of Islamic philanthropy in Indonesia is one of rivalry between faith and the state: between efforts to involve the state in managing philanthropic activities and efforts to keep them under the control of Muslim civil society which uses Islamic philanthropy to empower itself and to promote social change. Activities and efforts to modernise Islamic philanthropic practices have mostly been supported by Reformist Muslims in their aim to Islamise society and by Islamists who aim to Islamise the state. The interrelation between Muslim civil society and the state in the history of Islamic philanthropy in Indonesia is dynamic. It demonstrates a contested balance between private faith and the public realm, or between Muslim civil society and the state. From the time of the Islamic monarchs, through the period of Dutch colonialism and up to contemporary Indonesia, there have been different levels of development and interest in Islamic philanthropy, either from the rulers or from Muslim civil society. / Philanthropy is an indication of the strength of civil society. Throughout Islamic Indonesian history, there has been a balance between the efforts to either keep philanthropy under the control of Muslims or to institutionalise it under state control. When the state was weak, philanthropy developed powerfully and was used to challenge the state. When the state was strong and powerful, Muslim civil society tended to weaken but still found ways to use philanthropic practices in the public sphere to promote social change. In modern-day Indonesia this phenomenon is very much still the practice. / While state imposition of philanthropic practices, in particular zakat, has been contested, philanthropy remains a firm basis of civility. The thesis argues that although political circumstances influence the development of Islamic philanthropy, the state‘s capacity to control it is sharply limited because Muslim philanthropic practice is generated by the altruistic and reciprocal nature of people. For the most part, Islamic philanthropy remains in the hands of Muslim civil society, irrespective of the political nature of the state.

<p>This is a sociological study of religion that examines how gender and female Muslim identity is expressed during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan in the swedish paper <em>Dagens Nyheter</em> in the year 1951, 1989 and 2009. The aim is to see who creates the image of Islam and Muslims in general and in particular the image of the Muslim woman and whose Islam is given space in the article material. The picture has changed with the increase in immigration from Muslim countries and that we have gone from a modern to a late modern society in which other patterns shape our identity. The historical summary of the paper Dagens Nyheter illustrates how the Swedish society is formed in relation to Islam and Muslims. It provides a deeper understanding of the problems in the swedish multicultural society today.</p>

Thesis (D. Min.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2006. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 149-157).

Within the context of contemporary politics, Christian, Muslim and Liberal traditions have been, in many instances, at odds with each other regarding how humankind‘s social political future should be ordered. Such a conflicting condition has been aggravated by the global circulation of democratic ideals, which has significantly disseminated Western liberal values and made those ideals an almost universal desirable social commodity. In support of this argument, one can observe the unprecedented and controversial assumption that liberal democracy has become the ultimate form of political governance. It is in the context of these end-times liberal aspirations, whether self desired or imposed through external pressure, that some competing and conflicting elements are introduced into the political landscape of Christian and Muslim groups. By presenting itself as the universal and final solution for humanity‘s future, liberalism appears to create uneasiness among religious people who, indeed, see its secular and religious-privatizing tendencies as a secular eschatological competitor. Despite this perceived end-times conflict, there may be hope for a constructive dialogue among these groups.