{"id":1709,"date":"2008-02-15T11:20:50","date_gmt":"2008-02-15T11:20:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/video-what-american-muslims-wa.html"},"modified":"2008-02-15T11:20:50","modified_gmt":"2008-02-15T11:20:50","slug":"video-what-american-muslims-wa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/video-what-american-muslims-wa.html","title":{"rendered":"What American Muslims Want to Tell the World"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fifteen years ago I hardly analyzed what it meant for me to be an American Muslim. I was Muslim, I was American, it was difficult at times being both. But hey, it wasn&#8217;t that big a deal. And when I declared my intentions to study journalism in college, the only redeemable thing my parents thought was that, in time, perhaps I could spread truth and objectivity about Islam. My response was, yeah, ok. That&#8217;ll be a goal waaaaay down the road.But here I am, Islam editor at Beliefnet, having spent the last seven years of my career as a journalist specializing in the coverage of Islam and Muslims. And who I present myself to be as an American Muslim is now very important in nearly every aspect of my life. So who am I? I am a Muslim who relates well to this fabulous music video from Lena Khan, &#8220;A Land Called Paradise,&#8221; which is a finalist in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.linktv.org\/onenation\/films\" target=\"_blank\">Link TV&#8217;s &#8220;One Nation, Many Voices: Muslims in America, Stories, not Stereotypes&#8221;<\/a> film contest.Lena&#8217;s video begins with this: &#8220;In December 2007, over 2000 American Muslims were asked what they would wish to say to the rest of the world.&#8221; Check out what came forth:<center><object width=\"425\" height=\"355\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/sbcmPe0z3Sc&#038;rel=1\"><\/param><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/sbcmPe0z3Sc&#038;rel=1\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" wmode=\"transparent\" width=\"425\" height=\"355\"><\/embed><\/object><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fifteen years ago I hardly analyzed what it meant for me to be an American Muslim. I was Muslim, I was American, it was difficult at times being both. But hey, it wasn&#8217;t that big a deal. And when I declared my intentions to study journalism in college, the only redeemable thing my parents thought&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-video"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What American Muslims Want to Tell the World<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/video-what-american-muslims-wa.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What American Muslims Want to Tell the World\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fifteen years ago I hardly analyzed what it meant for me to be an American Muslim. I was Muslim, I was American, it was difficult at times being both. But hey, it wasn&#8217;t that big a deal. And when I declared my intentions to study journalism in college, the only redeemable thing my parents thought&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/video-what-american-muslims-wa.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-02-15T11:20:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"dali\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What American Muslims Want to Tell the World","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/02\/video-what-american-muslims-wa.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What American Muslims Want to Tell the World","og_description":"Fifteen years ago I hardly analyzed what it meant for me to be an American Muslim. 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