Understanding Islam

The Islamic New Year 1429 A.H. (in the Year of the Hegira -- breaking off of relations) begins on January 10, 2008 C.E (Christian Era). The year 1 A.H. is the date that the prophet Muhammad departed from Mecca in 622 C.E.

Muhammad was a monotheist and preached against the polytheism of the Meccan religion. This aroused the hostility of the merchant leaders of his native city, who derived much of their wealth from pilgrimages to Mecca and its surrounding cities. Forced to flee from his enemies, Muhammad went to Yathrib (later renamed Medina), where he became ruler.

The Muslim calendar is a lunar calendar having 12 lunar months in a year of about 354 days. Because this lunar year is about 11 days shorter than the solar year, Islamic holy days, although celebrated on fixed dates in their own calendar, usually shift 11 days earlier each successive solar year, as measured by the Gregorian calendar.

Many Americans are not familiar with the Islamic culture and religion. This may be due to Muslims constituting only a small segment of the overall population of the United States.

However, a growing climate of prejudice, fear, and distrust of the Islamic religion and Muslims in general began after the events of 9/11. The 9/11 attacks were initiated by Islamic extremists who mainly came from Saudi Arabia.

When President Bush initiated the subsequent War on Terrorism to target Islamic terrorists based in Afghanistan and (it was originally thought) Iraq, anti-Islamic feelings seemed to increase among some Americans.

It is important for students to distinguish between the mainstream beliefs of each religion and its extremist wings. With that ability to distinguish, students will then be intellectually equipped to show the respect and tolerance that the mainstream beliefs deserve.

This is especially true of the religion of Islam. Teachers should take the occasion of the Islamic New Year to assign activities that promote religious tolerance and understanding.

SIRS Leading Issues provides the resources for students to learn more about Islam and debate the impact of Islamic Fundamentalism on world and U.S. events.

Pathfinder: Open SIRS Researcher > Under Leading Issues scroll down to Islamic Fundamentalism > Click the issue link

The unique SIRS five-step process ensures that students use multiple resources and critical thinking to support either side of the issue assigned to them. An alternative, or additional and related issue, is Terrorism.

ProQuest also provides four unique report/presentation models specifically tailored to the format of each Leading Issue. This coordinated approach to the five-step process make reporting and presentation easier and ensures organized critical thinking in each report. Teachers should explore these models to see which are most suited for their students. These unique resources include two teacher management versions and four correlated student model versions.

Pathfinder to teacher management and student models: Click Educators' Resources at the top > Select Educator Guides > Open Mini-Research and Mini-Debate > Click Student Guides > Access Research Paper, Mini-Research Paper, Mini-Debate, and PowerPoint