VOA标准英语2010年-Taking the Pulse of American Muslims

Courtesy Akbar Ahmed
'Journey into America' chronicles the Muslim-American experience in the years since 9/11.

Even with so many practicing Muslims in their midst, most Americans know little about the Islamic faith.

News headlines have led many people to associate the religion with violence, intolerance and terrorism, creating tensions between some Muslims and non-Muslims in the United States.

 

American University professor and Islamic scholar Akbar Ahmed decided¹ to take a team of young researchers on a trip across the United States to take the pulse of the nation's Muslim community. Their findings have been published in a book and documentary titled, "Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam."

New challenges

Over the course of a year, Ahmed and his research team traveled to 75 American cities, visiting more than 100 mosques², Islamic schools and Muslim homes.

Along the way, the team conducted nearly 2,000 interviews with American Muslims, asking them to describe their experiences living in the United States.

What they found is that the deadly September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, carried out by a band of self-described Islamists, has made life for Muslims in America more difficult.

"American Muslims are generally considered with some suspicion, with some misunderstanding," says Ahmed. "There is some controversy³ about Islam itself. So there is a gap, the gap existed after 9/11 and so many years after 9/11. Unfortunately, there still remains⁴ a gap."

Ahmed found that many American Muslims feel nostalgic for the days before 9/11, when they enjoyed their constitutionally-guaranteed religious freedoms with relatively⁵ little public controversy.

The change in atmosphere since the 2001 attacks has affected⁶ even young Muslim Americans in their schools.

"We had some heart-breaking stories, one story in particular about a 10-year old boy in New York. That boy told us that when he goes to school he is beaten up because they consider him a terrorist. And his mother went to Pakistan and she was killed in a bus blown up by the Taliban. So he, in a sense, was pressured by both the extremists in the Muslim world and some of the prejudices that Muslims are facing in the U.S."

Misunderstanding gap

Despite such prejudices, Muslims in the United States are still pursuing their American dreams.

Many are excel in fields like medicine, science, business and even as members of the U.S. Congress. Their success, Ahmed says, brings with it a new challenge: to work harder to educate non-Muslim Americans about Islam and to correct inaccurate⁷ and misleading portrayals⁸ of Islam in the U.S. news media.

The quest to close this gap of misunderstanding is fueled by a deep patriotic⁹ urge.

"To refer back to the founding fathers, to refer back to those extraordinary men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and (John) Adams who all reached out to people of faith from any other religion in the world, including Islam," says Ahmed.

Islam also faces challenge when Americans look around the world at majority-Muslim societies and see mostly kingdoms or dictatorships, widespread injustice¹⁰ and a lack of respect for human rights. That grim picture fosters a negative bias¹¹ against Islam in America.

And that bias is reinforced, Ahmed says, every time there is a violent crime committed by someone in the name of Islam, like the recent lethal¹² shooting rampage by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim Army psychiatrist¹³ at the Fort Hood¹⁴ military base in Texas.

Finding common purpose

Toward the end of his book, Ahmed suggests one way these biases¹⁵ can be overcome is if Muslim- and non-Muslim Americans can find common purpose - and common benefit -- in helping¹⁶ to move the United States toward better relations with the Islamic world.

To do so, Ahmed says, the U.S. government first needs to develop better relations with its own Muslim citizens.

"Americans need to understand and really begin to empathize with the Muslim community in America because America is in a crisis right now on the global stage in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Muslims can play a very important role in acting¹⁷ as ambassadors between Americans and the Muslim world."

Ahmed hopes his book, "Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam," will encourage Americans from all backgrounds to see their Muslim fellow-citizens in a new and more sympathetic light, and to recognize, perhaps for the first time, that Muslims are an important part of America's rich social tapestry¹⁸.

1 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

2 mosques   

清真寺； 伊斯兰教寺院，清真寺； 清真寺，伊斯兰教寺院( mosque的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Why make us believe that this tunnel runs underneath the mosques? 为什么要让我们相信这条隧洞是在清真寺下？
• The city's three biggest mosques, long fallen into disrepair, have been renovated. 城里最大的三座清真寺，过去年久失修，现在已经修复。

3 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

4 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

5 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

6 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

7 inaccurate   

adj.错误的，不正确的，不准确的

参考例句：

• The book is both inaccurate and exaggerated.这本书不但不准确，而且夸大其词。
• She never knows the right time because her watch is inaccurate.她从来不知道准确的时间因为她的表不准。

8 portrayals   

n.画像( portrayal的名词复数 )；描述；描写；描摹

参考例句：

• And painters alluded to her eroticism in their bare breasted portrayals of the dying queen. 画家们把她描绘为裸胸垂死的贪欲的女王。 来自互联网

9 patriotic   

adj.爱国的，有爱国心的

参考例句：

• His speech was full of patriotic sentiments.他的演说充满了爱国之情。
• The old man is a patriotic overseas Chinese.这位老人是一位爱国华侨。

10 injustice   

n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利

参考例句：

• They complained of injustice in the way they had been treated.他们抱怨受到不公平的对待。
• All his life he has been struggling against injustice.他一生都在与不公正现象作斗争。

11 bias   

n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见

参考例句：

• They are accusing the teacher of political bias in his marking.他们在指控那名教师打分数有政治偏见。
• He had a bias toward the plan.他对这项计划有偏见。

12 lethal   

adj.致死的；毁灭性的

参考例句：

• A hammer can be a lethal weapon.铁锤可以是致命的武器。
• She took a lethal amount of poison and died.她服了致命剂量的毒药死了。

13 psychiatrist   

n.精神病专家；精神病医师

参考例句：

• He went to a psychiatrist about his compulsive gambling.他去看精神科医生治疗不能自拔的赌瘾。
• The psychiatrist corrected him gently.精神病医师彬彬有礼地纠正他。

14 hood   

n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖

参考例句：

• She is wearing a red cloak with a hood.她穿着一件红色带兜帽的披风。
• The car hood was dented in.汽车的发动机罩已凹了进去。

15 biases   

偏见( bias的名词复数 )； 偏爱； 特殊能力； 斜纹

参考例句：

• Stereotypes represent designer or researcher biases and assumptions, rather than factual data. 它代表设计师或者研究者的偏见和假设，而不是实际的数据。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• The net effect of biases on international comparisons is easily summarized. 偏差对国际比较的基本影响容易概括。

16 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

17 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

18 tapestry   

n.挂毯，丰富多采的画面

参考例句：

• How about this artistic tapestry and this cloisonne vase?这件艺术挂毯和这个景泰蓝花瓶怎么样？
• The wall of my living room was hung with a tapestry.我的起居室的墙上挂着一块壁毯。