Responses...

Here are two responses, both dealing with the topic of Americans assuming everyone in the Middle East is Muslim. It's amazing that Islam, one of the world's most influential and popular religions can be so misinterpreted.

The first blog comment is on Adam Tobin's page. He is concerned about the education of America's youth, and Lauren and Avery being up some important points as well.
http://adamtsblogspot.blogspot.com/2012/04/western-bias.html?showComment=1335638217075#c3557154246815860861
Wow...I never thought of it like that. It is one thing to be sheltered from the truth, but something worse to be led astray from real intentions. Many of the guys from my high school joined the military for reasons similar to ideas that everyone in the Middle East are, "evil fanatics who want to bomb America until no one there is alive."
Do you think that keeping America's youth ignorant helps the economy? (may be true, but it's not right at all.)




My second blog comment appears on Sebastian's blog. He talks about one of his favorite artists, Lupe Fiaso, and how his music was inspired by Muhammad. Many of his songs are about his faith.
http://swaldron1.blogspot.com/2012/04/muhammad-walks.html#comment-form

This is pretty cool. I've heard of Lupe Fiasco, but I've never listened to his music. Like you said, it's really cool that main-stream rap artists rap about religion like this.
I wanted to learn more about the holy war, or Jihad. Many people in our Western World are unaware of what Jihad really is. Like Prof. Silliman said, the holy war is an internal struggle to surrender to Allah. He compared it to the Dhammapada and the battle on the field of Dharma. There are those who take this holy war to be a literal translation, meaning slaughtering of those who are non-Muslim, but the majority of Muslims are advocates for peace.

This may be a bit of a stretch, but the chorus from Words I Never Said, "it's so loud inside my head, with words I should have said," reminded me of Muhammad and his visions. He was scared and afraid he was being possessed by a demon, but he was brave and was able to withstand the torment. He listened to the words of the angel and became a messenger of God. There wasn't much Muhammad could do to change the terrible living conditions, but by accepting to become the prophet, he was able to spread the message of God and give the people hope.
"I think that all the silence is worse than all the violence."
Keeping quiet and doing nothing about it is worse than freely allowing the violence to continue. Muhammad tried to make a difference in any way that he could.