{"id":309,"date":"2009-04-21T15:54:54","date_gmt":"2009-04-21T15:54:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2009\/04\/islam-in-hawaii.html"},"modified":"2014-07-01T08:58:39","modified_gmt":"2014-07-01T12:58:39","slug":"islam-in-hawaii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/04\/islam-in-hawaii.html","title":{"rendered":"Islam in Hawai’i"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am attending the ISMRM<\/a> conference in Honolulu this week, which is why I’ve been understandably distracted these past few days \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

I was rather curious about the muslim presence here in paradise, and it turns out that Hawai’i has a very vibrant muslim community. In hindsight this should have been obvious, given that Hawai’i is culturally and georaphically as connected to Southeast Asia as it is to the mainland United States. Due to its crossroads status, there is a tremendous diversity here, even more so than muslim communities in large cities on the mainland, because of the infusion of culture from east as west. In fact, this diversity has actually been a source of conflict, a microcosm of the cultural and religious dfferences of the global Ummah itself. An intriguing article by Mona Darwich-Gatto for the ISIM<\/a> discusses these conflicts in detail:<\/p>\n

Hawaii’s Muslim community offers the perfect human lab to test the
\nbelief that the Muslim community (ummah) must be united regardless
\nof individual ethnic background. Yet, based on the case of the single
\nmosque in Hawaii, Muslims appear to have been unable to build a local
\numma within the larger Hawaiian social community. Many members
\nof Hawaii’s Muslim community identify multiple conflicting cultures in
\nthe Islamic Center as one of the reasons they do not communicate effectively.
\nLanguage serves as the principle initial barrier, as many Hawaiian
\nMuslims choose to speak their native language, rather than the
\ncommon language of English. Secondly, some fear that by interchanging
\ncultural traditions and customs they risk jeopardizing their closely
\nheld ethnic identity. While mosque members meet for social events
\nsuch as potlucks, the unspoken norm is to stick to one’s own ethnic
\ngroup; and there is generally a sense of individual members competing
\nto maintain their own ethnic roots by refusing, or lacking the will, to
\nlearn the customs and traditions of others.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s quite an interesting read. In a sense, the community is a victim of its own success, which saw a huge jump in converts after 9-11<\/a>, especially women and military personnel. There’s an active muslim association here, though their website<\/a> seems to be broken. However, an interview with the president of the association<\/a> shows Hawaiian muslims, like their mainland counterparts, to be normal and patriotic citizens. I suspect that the diversity of the community is a bulwark against extremism, in contrast to european communities.<\/p>\n

*I have saved a copy of the article here since ISIM has lost its funding as of Jan 1st and it is uncertain whether their content will remain online indefinitely: conflict_Hawaii_muslims_ISIM.pdf<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Un<\/i>related – my photos at Flickr<\/a> from this trip thus far. Enjoy\u00a0 the colors \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am attending the ISMRM conference in Honolulu this week, which is why I’ve been understandably distracted these past few days \ud83d\ude42 I was rather curious about the muslim presence here in paradise, and it turns out that Hawai’i has a very vibrant muslim community. 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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2274,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions\/2274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}