Bassam Tariq Analysis

Bassam Tariq started out his presentation explaining his journey to 30 mosques in 30 days. About 20 days into the journey, his car broke down and he was already behind schedule; so he googled mosques in North Dakota. He found one in Ross, North Dakota which happened to be the first mosque built in the United States. As Tariq was explaining about his younger life, he told of how he was embarrassed and ashamed to be a Muslim. In grade school he would tell his friends he was Jewish and that he was adopted by a Muslim family. It wasn’t until high school that he began to feel the pressure of being a Muslim. He began to feel as though he had to be perfect because if he screwed up, that would be how people viewed all Muslims. If he cheated on a test, all Muslims would be considered cheaters. Finding the mosque in Ross was the first time he felt actual roots in America to his Muslim religion. Throughout Tariq’s presentation, he talked about the media and politicians or prominent figures in society speaking about Muslims. One of the more infuriating examples was one from Fox News. The clip showed Muslims, or people that looked like Muslims,
I think people try to see Muslim culture through say Christian eyes. When doing this people automatically have a cultural bias which then creates hostility. This creates a snowball effect and leads to the judgment put onto Muslims. Tariq is almost participating in advocate anthropology, while he is indeed Muslim, he throws himself into cultures and other Muslim groups unlike his. Through this engrossment in others lives he learns and uses this information in is presentations, where he advocates for Muslims. Tariq may not be a professional anthropologist, but he does study small Muslim towns around the United States to learn how they live and what problems they face in everyday life. He then uses what he learns to show non-Muslims the real life of Islam, not the one portrayed on