My muslims and I

In my previous blog posts I explained the reasons why I decided to examine the muslim students at UNL as a specific cultural group. I put my research into context of intercultural relationships and spent some time talking to three muslim students at UNL about the fact how their religion influences concrete types of relationships such as family, friendship and romantic relationships. I also asked all of them to compare their customs to what they have experienced in the United States and I based my intercultural reporter project video on the most interesting moments of these interviews.



In this last blog I would like to focus more on my personal experience, my intercultural competence and the most important take aways from the interactions with muslim students or muslims in general.

According to Martin and Nakayama (2010), "Intercultural communication competence may rely on individual competence, but context is also important." Further, they point out that interpretive scholars define a good communicator as someone sensitive to various contexts. (Martin and Nakayama 2010). I believe that the concept of contextual perception in communication is very important especially when it comes to different religious groups. Religion often plays an important role in one's life and ignorance, in this matter, can easily cause some serious misunderstandings or an unconscious offence. According to my experience, muslims never get offended if you do not know about their religion and simply ask. (field notes) On the other hand, I suggest to be careful when you start questioning it. The choice of vocabulary I usually use while talking about Islam with my muslim friends would differ from what I would say to my atheist friends, simply because I try hard not to sound judgemental.




Juma'ah prayer in the City Union

Meryem brought up another issue while talking about the fact that Americans would not even approach her because of her explicitly expressing her religion by wearing a scarf. (personal communication, November 10, 2011) This made me think of another interesting concept - "communication comfort zone". According to Martin and Nakayama (2010), "people have a natural preference for predictability; uncertainty can be disquieting." It seems that people choose rather not to talk to Meryem at all instead of dealing with cultural differences, only because her culture is so obviously framed. In my opinion, this behaviour is caused precisely by their limited "communication comfort zone". While talking about this "comfort zone", I need to say that I chose to work with muslim students because of the fact that they are part of "my communication comfort zone". I know how to communicate with them, how to approach them and I was sure that they would not let me down and would be willing to help with my project. It would have been harder for me to interact succesfully with an American group of students in the beginning of the semester.

My personal experience proves that the most effective way to become a good intercultural communicator is to travel, talk to people and experience their culture from their perspective. Traveling tought me not to use the words like strange, odd or weird, but use different or interesting instead. Traveling tought me to feel comfortable while interacting with people from various backrounds, cultures or ethnic groups, to ask questions and be excited about the answers. Traveling tought me to always want to see more and meet new people.

All that I mention above works for relationships with muslims as well. Muslims are individuals from many different countries, cultures and social backgrounds and one needs to keep that in mind while communicating with a muslim. Remember that a modern muslim will always be tolerant to your opinions and ideas and usually will not try to convince you that he or she is right. Muslims will most likely love your family and friends and will want to know everything about them and in the first place, they will always be there when you need friends. (field notes)

Relationships in Islam

"Intercultural relationships are relationships that are formed between individuals from different cultures." (Martin & Nakayama, 2011, p. 382) Since I have experienced various types of intercultural relationships in a muslim environment, specifically in Turkey, I have decided to examine this concept while interviewing Amar Shoaib,a muslim student from Saudi Arabia, and to compare the outcome with my personal experience. Amar and I spent hours discussing Islam and not only how it influences his views on friendship, family and romantic relationships, but also Amar's experiences with intercultural relationships after coming to the United States.
"People often mix religion and tradition, which is a big problem in my country," (personal communication, October 28, 2011) says Amar in the beginning of our conversation, explaining that not everything we hear about muslim countries is due to religion. I think this is worth mentioning as I am going to compare two completely different muslim worlds - Saudi Arabia and Turkey.



Friendship
Even though the Koran states that people should be nice to each other, smile all the time and try to help those who need it, this does not usually happen in Saudi Arabia according to Amar. "It was easier to make friends in the US than it is back home. People are much nicer and everybody is always trying to help me, especially in Nebraska,"(personal communication, October 28, 2011) he says. In my opinion, it is really hard to tell if this is a matter of religion, context, or luck, but in Turkey people were always extremely nice to each other. I have experienced many situations when a friend of mine would start talking to a person in a shop or a coffee house and after tem minutes they would exchange numbers, simply because they liked each other, came from the same part of the country or wanted to talk about business later. When I asked Amar if there was a specific notion to describe friendship in Islam, he responed instantly: "A friend is like a brother to me."(personal communication, October, 28, 2011) I remember my ex-boyfriend talking the same way about his friends in Turkey and I have come to understand what it means. In Islam, friendship has a much deeper meaning than in most Western cultures. Friends spend a lot of time together, completely trust and support each other, do not judge each other and never lie. (field notes)

I asked Amar if he had to change something in his behaviour in friendships when he came to the US and he replied, smiling, that kissing a man on cheeks would really seem weird here. "Internatinal students in the United States often remark that U.S. students seem superficial" (Martin & Nakayama, 2011, p. 396). Amar admitted that it took him a while to adjust to the way Americans say hi, asking him how he is doing even though they do not really care. "In Saudi Arabia this is considered rude. When you see a friend, you usually stop and talk to him for a while, ask him questions about his family or his job." (personal communication, October 28, 2011) My experience from Turkey was the same; people kiss on cheeks when they meet and whenever we saw someone we knew in the street, we usually ended up talking to that person for at least twenty minutes. (field notes), which definitely differs from the United States.

Family
"Muslim people are extremely family oriented" (personal communication, October 28, 2011) Amar claims when we start talking about family. He sees big differences between Saudi Arabia and the United States and he states a few examples such as the fact that in Saudi Arabia people usually live in their parents' house until they get married or that he speaks with all the members of his family at least once a week. I was interested if there are some specific patterns of behaviour in family that would be directly connected to Islam. As Amar said there are several rules to follow written in Koran: never say no to your father, take good care of your parents when they get older and honor your mother more than your father. (personal communication, October 28, 2011)

Turkey is much more modern than Saudi Arabia, but you can still feel the importance of the family in the culture. It happened to me in one instance where I arrived to Turkey really late at night and woke up the next day at 1 pm to realize that my boyfriend's family had not even had breakfast --they were waiting for me to eat all together as a family. Honestly, that cannot happen to you in any Western culture. (field notes)

Romantic relationships
When it comes to romantic relatiohships, the most significant differences occur. In Saudi Arabia dating is basically "prohibited" but Amar explains that he lives in the only liberal city in the country where dating is normal. Yet, it is not the dating we know. Couples usually keep their relationship a secret and meet when no one is at home or in special coffee houses where everyone goes to date. He also talks about the traditional way when parents arrange the wedding, in this case the couple normally has a year to get to know each other and to find out if they really want to be together. "This is purely traditional and it has nothing to do with religion, though" Amar specifies. A muslim can marry anyone he wants, but Amar does not think that it would be easy. He adds that he would not have a problem marrying an American or anyone of a different faith, but on the other hand he sees the potential problem when it comes to children, as he would want his children to be muslim.(personal communication, October 28, 2011)

On the other hand, romantic relationships in Turkey work exactly the same way they do in Western countries. Couples can hold hands, kiss in public. And my experience is mostly that Turkish women actually love young couples, especially gossiping about them. Meeting my boyfriend's family was also an extremely pleasant experience because I immediately became part of their traditions and participated in everything they would do as a family.(field notes)

I am almost sure that there is no universal advice how to interact with a muslim because his or her attitude will most likely depend on the country of origin as the rigidness of Islam varies from country to country. I would recommend, though, to be respectful to their culture and leave the stereotypes at home. I have mostly met very nice muslims from several different countries and our successful communication was always based on mutual respect, honesty and a willingness to learn.


Reference page:

Martin, J. N. & Nakayama T. K. (2010). Intercultural Communication in Contexts: Fifth Edition. NewnYork: McGraw-Hill.

Muslim students at UNL

I have been fascinated by Islam since the first time I travelled to Turkey when I was 18. I have never felt good in churches and I thought it would be the same with mosques but I was wrong. All the colourful paintings, thick carpets on the floor and voice of imam seemed just magic to me. However, I realize that all the magic might be simply due to the fact that I do not understand Arabic. Unfortunately.


Blue Mosque, Istanbul



Anyway, I can say that I have really good muslim friends with whom I have spent hours discussing Islam, its roots and traditions. Yet, I have always been concentrated on Islam in Tukey, which is quite specific area, and that is why I think that my views and experiences are quite limited. To extend my knowledge I have decided to focus my Cultural Reporter Blog on Muslim Students Association at UNL because its members come from various muslim countries as well as from the United States. Muslim students, obviously, form a unique culture at UNL as they share religion and most of the patters of behaviour and attitudes connected with this religion.

Muslim Students Association of the U.S. & Canada (MSA National) was established in 1963 on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by a conference of Muslim students from around the U.S. and Canada. Nowadays we can find MSA chapters at many universities around the United States and Canada. These chapters became more and more interested in seeking how to integrate and institutionalize Islam and Islamic culture into American life. They are dedicated to establishing and maintaining Islamic societies on college campuses in Canada and the United States.





I would love to understand more about this fascinating religion and to do so I have already contacted the MSA at UNL and I start by attending their next meeting. I plan also on interviewing the students and discussing their religion, the differences in traditions across countries, current issues they need to deal with being young muslims in the U.S. and their feelings connected with being a minority in conservative Nebraska.








Reference page:

Muslim Students Association - Our history. Retrieved September 25, 2011 from http://www.msanational.org/about