A Study On The Construction Of Muslim Immigrants In The Middle East And South Asia

It has been more than 100 years since Muslim immigrants began to come to in 1870. The population of Muslims in America has reached about ten million in more than a hundred year, the number of the American Muslims has increased rapidly in the latest six decades after the change of the American immigration law in 1964, and American Muslims become the largest number of ethnic minorities. For American Muslim immigrants the process from immigrants to citizens is the process for them to obtain ethnic identity, religious identity and national identity, and it is also the process of the cultural exchanges between the Islamic civilization and the Protestant civilization. This paper studied the full range of this process.Firstly, the paper introduces the population, the geographical distribution and the origin of the Muslim immigrants, and then explores how Muslim immigrants obtain ethnic identity through establishing the communities, obtain religious identity through practicing religious belief in public square and obtain national identity through political participation in three chapters. After 60 years With the increase of polulation, immigrants began to establish communities since 1960, and the function og the community is to guide the Muslim immigrants in America by holding conference and publishing journals, to help Muslim immigrants fight discrimination, to establish contact with the other religious organizations in order to expand their influence and hold various activities to promote the image of the Muslim immigrants. However the diversity of the origin has limited the further development of the community, and it has become a big obstacle of its growth. With the flow of petrodollars, magnificent mosques have been established in America since 1970, but the mosques in America is very different from the mosques in Muslim world, and its functions are more like other religious congregations in America. The mosques are not only sites for prayers but also provide Islamic education and other social services for members and other Muslims, in addition they sometimes even participate various external activities to propaganda and obtaine a considerable number of devotees. The Muslim immigrants have follow the America tradition to begin a conversation with other religious believers, although Muslim immigrants are not good at religious dialogue, and there are many problems to be solved, but the dialogue did bring many benefits---- to help Islam win a space in American religious denominations. With the leading of the new generation of Muslim leaders, Muslim immigrants began to participate in American politic, including political donations, or even directly involved in the election, but because of the activities have been carried out too late, it is still in the initial stage, and so many problems unsolved, especially a serious shortage of representative.Based on the analysis of cultural exchanges between the Muslim immigrants and American mainstream society in the process for Muslim immigrants to obtain American identity, the paper divides the process into four stages, stresses that the influence of 9/11 to Muslim immigrants will fade gradually with the time passingby, and communication is eternal, conflict is temporary. In leading and guide of the Muslim elites, Muslim immigrants will involve into America society and become the citizens of Americanor eventually. At the same time the paper analyzes the characteristic of the cultural exchanges between the Muslim immigrants and American mainstream society, and points out that the Muslim immigrants, American society, the Muslim world and even the whole world are connected, they are all in the in the process of human cultural exchanges.The paper analyzes the process of Muslim immigrants to construct the America identity, discusses the ethnic identity, religious identity and national identity simultaneously, and points out the significance of cultural exchanges, so it has multiple meanings and values. The paper not only enriches the domestic research on Muslim immigration in America, expands the domestic research on Islam and Muslims, but also helps to understand the theory and the practice of the cultural exchanges deeply, as well as helps to further determine the evolution trend of the American domestic ethnic conflicts, terrorism policies and the different factors affecting America political power, thusit is very useful for our country’s foreign policy.