Do you personally know any Muslims?

[Bengalzona]

Do you personally know any Muslims?

Do you have any Muslim friends?

Do you work with any Muslims?


How about Muslims whose heritage is from the Middle East or Southwest Asia?

(Note: Military who have served in Afghanistan or Iraq need not answer. Obviously, you know Muslims.)

[*jason*]

I know one Muslim personally at the moment. He's a friend though I don't see him as much since I have a baby now. He's from Compton CA. When I was younger, I knew several Palestinians when I lived in Columbus. They were all just normal dudes. Very passionate about what goes on in their homeland. They were far from hateful towards Jews. They considered themselves Semitic people as well. I've had no experience with barbarian types when it comes to Muslims. I don't think those barbarians truly represent Islam.

[GMDino]

Not that I am aware of.

I'm not sure about the heritage of the couple people that would fit that description.

But then I know very few black or foreign people at all.  Haven't really met many since college.

[Bengalzona]

I don't have any close friends who are Muslim, but I have worked with quite a few as clients over the years. The ones I have worked with were generally first or second generation immigrants. I found the business dealings of the ones I have worked with to be very scrupulous. I've found that to be true of most first or second gens of any religious/ethnic group. It is almost always the longterm "native" born 'Muricans who try to play schemes, in my experience.

I have been particularly impressed with the business acumen and savvy of Muslim women. For a religion where the stereotype is of patriarchal dominance, the Muslim ladies I have had dealings with have been highly astute and outspoken. I get the sense that they generally run the business affairs of their family.

Would be interested to find out if anyone else has had this experience.

[Rotobeast]

A Muslim doctor lives a couple of houses down from me.
We wave at one another, but I do not know him.
My town is rather small and largely populated by "Murcia !" peoples.

[Benton]

(06-13-2016, 02:51 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: I don't have any close friends who are Muslim, but I have worked with quite a few as clients over the years. The ones I have worked with were generally first or second generation immigrants. I found the business dealings of the ones I have worked with to be very scrupulous. I've found that to be true of most first or second gens of any religious/ethnic group. It is almost always the longterm "native" born 'Muricans who try to play schemes, in my experience.

I have been particularly impressed with the business acumen and savvy of Muslim women. For a religion where the stereotype is of patriarchal dominance, the Muslim ladies I have had dealings with have been highly astute and outspoken. I get the sense that they generally run the business affairs of their family.

Would be interested to find out if anyone else has had this experience.

The only Muslim I really know well enough to call a friend is third a generation American. He works in the family business, but only because he hasn't found anything better. But he considers himself a Muslim in the way basksliding Baptists are Christians. I did know a cop growing up who was Muslim, he was an undercover guy, but I didn't really know him that well.

[Belsnickel]

While I wouldn't count them as friends, as they aren't really close enough to count them as such, I know many Muslims and have regular dealings with them. I do a lot of work with faith based organizations in our area as a board member for one and a volunteer for a couple of others. We work with our local Islamic Center/Mosque with these organizations on a regular basis. I've gone to events at their building to speak to them as a group, I've been invited to some of their homes for meals, I've helped them with some projects around their facility. The community here is made up of Muslims from all over the ME and SE Asia.

I also work regularly with students from countries in the ME that are here on scholarship from their country. We have around 40 students from Saudi Arabia that have their studies paid for and I meet with them on a somewhat regular basis to help them keep their financial situation in order while they are here. I also have students from Egypt and Oman. My wife teaches English composition classes for them as well, and so we both get to work with these students on a regular basis.

[masterpanthera_t]

I am good friends with a Muslim and he always shakes his head at how his religion gets hijacked by idiots and gets a bad name. He is also well read in the religious book of my religion maybe a bit more than me. I've known him to stand up to wrong doing in the world even if it might be dangerous to him. Like opposing thugs beating up on one person (the person was a different religion from my friend) and stopping the nonsense.

There have been other Muslims I've met in college, some who are of the American black muslim type, and others who were from different regions of the world.

[Millhouse]

One of my best friends in college was Muslim. Her dad was from Kuwait, and her mom from over here. She grew up in the UAE mainly though, and went to an American high school there. She came from a very moderate Muslim family, though there were things she had to hide like living with her boyfriend and smoking a ton of weed. I even went to Jamaica with her and her boyfriend (now husband). If the rest of the Muslim world could be as moderate as she was, as large chunks of it are not, then there would be an entirely different outlook on it by the west & countries like Japan.

[6andcounting]

There is a pretty sizeabe number of international students from Saudi Arabia were I went to college. I worked as a tutor, so I helped a fair amount of Saudis. They talked with accents of course, but most were strong in English. Going half way across the globe to get a degree in a non-native language in a totally different as teen and into your early 20s seemed way more impressive to me than I think they generally got credit for. I couldn't imagine having done that.

In my international business course, a senior came in to guest speak. He was a pastey white international student from Poland, but was raised by a Muslim and athiest parent. He said he was atheist, but still took part in Muslim traditions with the other side of his family. He said when he was a freshman an upper classmen white chick tried to lecture him about being insensitive because he was drinking Starbucks. Them of all businesses were supposed to be being boycotted becuase of some perceived slight their brand did against the Muslim cultural. He had no idea what she was talking about and when he told her he was Muslim she told him how cool that was and akwardly ran away.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

When I worked, there were always Muslims of different races that I knew, talked to and worked with. 

Before school, I worked many different jobs.

When I worked at a muffler and break job, there was an African Muslim who was a mechanic but I don't remember the country he was from though. He was a nice guy and knew his job well.

When I worked for a convenience store, the owner was Indian Muslim. He was an ass but it was his store, lol.

I worked in manufacturing of rubber products and there were many Muslim men from Pakistan who worked there. All of them were nice but didn't talk much since they knew very little English.

When I worked for a metal shop, there were two Muslim women who worked there from Uzbekistan. They were very nice.

Now, I know not any since I don't get out much.

[Tiger Teeth]

My endocrinologist (diabetes specialist) is a Muslim. He's a very nice guy, and very personable.

[*jason*]

I just remembered that I met Kareem Abdul Jabar 5 years ago... Add him to my list in my earlier post.

[StLucieBengal]

(06-13-2016, 02:27 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: Do you personally know any Muslims?

Do you have any Muslim friends?

Do you work with any Muslims?


How about Muslims whose heritage is from the Middle East or Southwest Asia?

(Note: Military who have served in Afghanistan or Iraq need not answer. Obviously, you know Muslims.)

1. I know quite a few actually that I regularly deal.   

2. I have 6 colleagues who are Muslim and around 10 or so clients.   The traditional ones don't let yet women speak and if you speak to the woman they do get upset.    The ones who are "western" Muslim are actually quite pleasant because there is common ground in the way we treat each other.   

3. I do not have any Muslim employees.   It's nothing I have avoided it's just never presented itself when we were looking for people.   Almost everyone we hire is based off prior relationships or close referral.  

4. All of my Muslim clients were born in Egypt, Afghanistan, or Saudi Arabia.  We have a lot of Coptic Christians from Egypt as well.    As far as Colleagues go I am not sure where they are from because it's never came up. 

[StLucieBengal]

(06-13-2016, 02:51 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: I don't have any close friends who are Muslim, but I have worked with quite a few as clients over the years. The ones I have worked with were generally first or second generation immigrants. I found the business dealings of the ones I have worked with to be very scrupulous. I've found that to be true of most first or second gens of any religious/ethnic group. It is almost always the longterm "native" born 'Muricans who try to play schemes, in my experience.

I have been particularly impressed with the business acumen and savvy of Muslim women. For a religion where the stereotype is of patriarchal dominance, the Muslim ladies I have had dealings with have been highly astute and outspoken. I get the sense that they generally run the business affairs of their family.

Would be interested to find out if anyone else has had this experience.

They are good to do a deal with....  the traditional ones we can't have a woman involved in any part of the deal.   I had one freak out on me at a closing 4 years ago and yell that no woman tells him what to do...    It was a female closing agent showing him where to sign and why....  Ever since then we have a Muslim protocol, where no women are involved in any part of the deal.   

If they have been westernized then you get a chance to actually deal with women.   It's always makes the deal more pleasant.   

[*bfine32*]

Do you mean in the biblical sense?

[J24]

Not really but living in northern Virginia there is a steady Muslim population. I live in the Fredericksburg spotsylvania area where their trying to build a new mosque here and a lot of the locals are upset about it. It was a national story a couple of months ago.

[Brownshoe]

I know quite a few, and a lot of them are in prison.

Only 1 I know is a friend.

I used to work with a couple of muslims.