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Living as a "Muslim" in America (the West) (As appears on Helium, ranked # one)
By James McConnell, Sufi Celebrant

Let me offer a first hand insider view of what it really means to be Muslim in America. Perhaps some of you can benefit from my fifteen years of experience - attempting to find Islam anywhere, let alone in America.

What I can tell you would fill several books, so I will do my best to be brief.

I left Christian thinking because I was tired of the dogma - the endless con of manipulating jargon that normally ended in, "You have to have faith". No, I am never accepting anything short of certainty. The God I worship does not wish for there to be confusion in belief and I have come to have known that there is a level above believer called knower. It is not an easy road to travel, nor should it be easy. On another level, it is very easy, we make it difficult.

Real religion is the absence of all identity - who we make ourselves out to be is what divides us and it is the favorite trick of the devil to keep us fighting each other. I am a Muslim, I am a Christian, I am a Jew, I am a whatever sets us at odds with everything around us because we are effectively saying, "I am God". I am somebody important - then we set out to prove it, protect what is ours, fight for the truth we have created in our own minds.

I could elaborate on this for hours, but those are the basics to understand what I am going to tell you now. The vast majority of those calling themselves Muslims in America are the very worst representatives of what it means to be Muslim. They are among the most guilty for having assumed an identity that they believe is Islam, but is nothing more than their own foolish thinking. Emigrant Muslims in America have turned their backs on Islam and are chasing after the material life of the west. Their houses of worship are nothing more than cultural centers where they can exchange information on marriage fraud, immigration concerns, government benefits and programs, and experience the culture they left behind. Do not enter these places!

Again, do not enter these places. They are entirely on the Wrong Way!

I do not have time to express all the reasons why this is true, but I do wish to offer you a very clear warning, if you are searching to understand Islam avoid emigrant Muslims in America as much as possible. Yes, they can be sweet. Yes, they are very smart. Yes, they exhibit good manners on the surface - but these people, for the most part are on a downward spiral away from God, not running towards God. They have no business being in a non-Muslim land and in fact many scholars agree that immigration to a non-Muslim land is not allowed unless you have exceptional reasons - of which few Muslims in America qualify.

If you want to experience real Muslims you must look for them in traditional Muslim lands. Most traditional Muslims lands are anything but Islamic, but there are pockets of real practicing Muslims that can be found. My advice is to look in Sufi Darga's, as the Sufi's are the only real representatives of the teachings of Prophet Muhammad that I have found. Saying you are Sufi does not always make it so - like I said earlier - the road is difficult, but if you are really looking, you will find.

One place I can direct you like no other place on this planet is a small town in Northern Cyprus called Lefke. Here you will find the most accurate representation of Islam. If you go to the BrokenEarth.org site and click on the sun, it will take you to some wonderful pages about Sufism.

Posted April 11, 2008
Category: SOCIETY/RELIGION