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W HAT A MERICANS K NOW A BOUT I SLAM

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If many Jewish and Christian Americans don’t know much about Islam, many Muslims are themselves trying to figure out how they fit into American life. Should they blend in with “main- stream” society and risk losing their Islamic identity, or should they keep to themselves and perhaps be misunderstood by other Americans? What Muslims have discovered over the years is that neither blending in nor isolating themselves is an effective way to promote understanding—blending in makes Islam invisible and isolation makes it seem strange to others. Because of the diversity of backgrounds and approaches in the Muslim community, find- ing a middle ground has been challenging. However, over the last three decades, Muslims have made it a priority to develop a way

There is no inherent contradiction between being a devout follower of Islam and being a patriotic American. However, over the past two decades Muslim Americans have reported facing discrimination and sometimes even physical attacks due to their religious beliefs. This is because some non-Muslim Americans have come to equate Islam with terrorism due to the actions of extremists affiliated with groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or with terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah. These Muslims participated in a march during Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2016, which began at the site where a Muslim had been assaulted a few weeks earlier in Brooklyn.