Al-Faisaliya Tower, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
While I have the book out and while it\u2019s sitting to the left of my computer, I think I\u2019ll draw just a bit more from\u00a0James Zogby,\u00a0Arab Voices: What They Are Saying to Us, and Why It Matters<\/em> (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010):<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I should mention that not all Arabs are Muslim \u2014 or even particularly religious. \u00a0In fact, weekly mosque attendance rates in the Arab World closely parallel church attendance rates in the United States. \u00a0(100)<\/span><\/strong> \u00a0[James Zogby himself comes from a Lebanese Catholic family.]<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
When we asked back in 2002, \u201cWhat is most important to you?\u201d the most significant difference that appeared between the answers given by Arabs and Americans had to do with the importance of religion. \u00a0American respondents put religion near the bottom of their list (seventh out of eight personal-life categories), and Arabs put it third, after the quality of their work and family. \u00a0On the surface, Arabs and Americans would appear to have differing priorities with regard to religion.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nHowever, when we compared Arabs with Americans who were regular churchgoers, the rank order of values was quite similar. \u00a0Both \u201creligious\u201d Americans and Arabs care about their faith and listen to their preachers, but they care just as much about the economy, jobs, education, and the well-being of their families.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nThe similarities and differences were equally instructive when we asked both Americans and Arabs to prioritize the values they taught their children. \u00a0For both groups, the top three values \u2014 \u201cself-respect,\u201d \u201cgood health and hygiene,\u201d and \u201cresponsibility\u201d \u2014 were the same, as were five of the top six. \u00a0Once again, religion was higher in importance for Arabs than Americans, but it was still in seventh place (out of twelve) for Arabs. \u00a0And although I was at first struck by the low rank that Arabs gave to \u201ccreativity\u201d and \u201ctolerance for others,\u201d I couldn\u2019t help but notice that Americans also ranked both near the bottom. \u00a0(101-102)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I have to say that, as a Republican from the time that I could first vote until the night in 2016 on which Mr. Donald J. Trump accepted the party\u2019s presidential nomination, and as a conservative who commonly agreed with John Kyl, I\u2019m not proud of the event mentioned here:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Senator John Kyl, a Republican from Arizona . . . [hosted] the notorious anti-Muslim propagandist Geert Wilders at a Senate reception . . . \u00a0Wilders, a Dutch Parliament member, is under indictment in his own country for incitement of hate. \u00a0Among other quotes, Wilders is credited with saying, \u201cIslam is not a religion; it\u2019s the ideology of a retarded culture.\u201d \u00a0Wilders has also called the Qur\u2019an a \u201cfascist\u201d book and has tried to have it banned in the Netherlands because it \u201cincites hatred and killing.\u201d \u00a0John Kyl\u2019s Senate reception, it seems, was not arranged to celebrate freedom of religion or of speech. \u00a0(103)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I love the idea of calling a seventh-century book \u201cfascist\u201d and then, apparently without any sense of irony, attempting to ban<\/em> it. \u00a0I wonder whether scholars at the University of Leiden, one of the most venerable centers of Islamic studies in Europe \u2014 from which a member of my doctoral committee took his doctorate \u2014 would have to do prison time under Wilders\u2019s proposed ban if caught in possession of a Qur\u2019an. \u00a0And I wonder how many copies of the Qur\u2019an I have, between Arabic editions and translations into multiple languages. \u00a0At least thirty, I should think. \u00a0Maybe I would end up on death row, if the Dutch only had<\/em> one . . .<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 While I have the book out and while it\u2019s sitting to the left of my computer, I think I\u2019ll draw just a bit more from\u00a0James Zogby,\u00a0Arab Voices: What They Are Saying to Us, and Why It Matters (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010): \u00a0 I should mention that not all Arabs are Muslim \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[195,2328,9589,5487,8754,8868,11843,9433,996,1769,1718,999,8331,1914,743,8669,10850],"class_list":["post-85262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-arab","tag-arabs","tag-attitudes","tag-extremism","tag-extremist","tag-fanatic","tag-fanaticism","tag-james","tag-middle-east","tag-muslim","tag-muslims","tag-near-east","tag-political","tag-politics","tag-religion","tag-religious","tag-zogby"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>