How the world views muslims:

During a time when my mother needed to find a doctor for her consistent chronic arthritis, it was difficult not only because of the lack of doctors nearby, but also the worrisome of finding a good doctor close to our home. We needed a doctor that would give us the time to actually understand what she’s going through and provide the right treatment without making her feel worse about herself. Once we found an orthopedic doctor just a few bus stops away, it was a relief. Yet, not knowing the personal bias my mother would face in that clinic on her first visit would shatter her confidence. She was neglected, the front desk would let people who arrived after my mother to go inside. She arrived earlier than her scheduled appointment, she’d asked with her broken english, “Why you not call me yet? The other lady goes inside and she come after me.” The women would just fan her off as if she was a fly and told her to wait. My mother, as patient as I tell her not to be with other people, waited for more than an hour. The same woman ignored her again when my mother confronted her for the second time, the woman would be on her phone throughout the time my mother was speaking to her. My mother left that clinic.                      

When having to deal with constant mistreatment, it becomes difficult for some people, especially muslims, to want to help others because the mentality is that others will still view muslims as the threat, rather than taking in consideration their kindness. That is why there’s so many misinterpretations on muslims. People just assume that if one muslim doesn’t feel comfortable near or want to help them. However, many muslims have gone through their way to be public and to demonstrate the goodwill muslims really have to give from their religion. Many have been part of podcasts, new channels, interviewers and being in work fields that people thought muslims couldn’t be in. Some people would think that muslim women cannot work as a business owner, an engineer and many other male dominated careers. 

When talking about muslim girls, they are immediately misjudged, assaulted and labeled  as “being oppressed”. Yet, we don’t realise it’s not only because they are girls. It’s because of their race, religion or are immigrants. Muslim girls are easily identified by non-muslims by if they’re wearing the hijab, being around a muslim community, speaking arabic or any middle eastern country language. Why do people assume all muslims are born muslims? Not all muslims are born into the religion, some converted, like my mother. Muslim people who don’t speak arabic are immediately told, “you’re not a real muslim”; however t now there’s so many translations of the Qur’an for everyone to feel free to read about Islam. 

When there’s an intersectionality, the public reacts by giving many forms of judgement because of the many identity factors that overlap. As stated in Erentzen’s work, “One key approach emerging from this literature is the double jeopardy hypothesis, which explains that having multiple stigmatized identities increases one’s experience of disadvantage (e.g., Reid, 1984).”, (Erentzen et al., 2025). Many people view these types of identities as being frowned upon, that it´s not a way to enjoy life. Some people normally turn towards Christianity and determine that, “it doesn’t make women feel oppressed”. This would be the common statement I would hear many times. Why, though? Well, by common religious stereotypes by people outside of the faith of Islam and Christianity. 

Muslims are seen as “bad, strict, rude, terrorist, […] oppressors of women, violent, radicalized and cruel…”, (Erentzen et al., 2025). These labels that have been placed over the muslim community have impacted how the world judges muslims, negatively. On the other hand Christians are seen as, “warmer […] loving, charitable, moral, loyal to family, conservative, generous, passionate…”, (Erentzen et al., 2025). People around the world recommend muslims to turn towards christianity as a form of “freedom”. If one culture mistreats women and is demonstrating negative labels, it doesn’t represent all of the muslim community around the world. It’s how some men manipulate the words of god to be able to prove the stereotypes true. However, it’s not true that all muslims are within the stereotype and people shouldn’t be quick to judge based on what the media says. 

Not only are young muslim women easily misjudged from society. There is also a misjudgment with the social expectation within Asian families, it is hard for Amy to be able to change what she wanted to do with her life from on track to the health industry to doing what she felt comfortable in and loved (Tan). She is an Asian with an immigrant family with health issues, she’s the bridge for her mother. Her many characteristics of her self identity forms a major role within the high chance of facing injustice or disapproval. Even though her own teachers didn’t support her because of the language barrier and also the social expectation that all Asians go to engineering or health industry fields (Tan). This means that was her form of disapproval from those around her and it made her struggle to find herself. Amy Tan was having to overcome the disadvantage of picking between her Asian expectations and her own self development goals. Most Asian parents would feel ashamed of their child if they weren’t a doctor, an engineer or any highly regarded careers that are expected to make a huge amount of money (Tan). Yet, she chose what she most believed suited her and it was her passion, writing. Her intersectionality resulted in the discrimination of her teachers and tried to steer her further away from English. They wanted to lead her towards math and science. 

The correlation between Amy Tan’s and Erentzen’s texts is they both elaborate on how society labels them to their vision of what they are meant to be on a general view. Amy Tan’s text exemplifies how people view Asians, as super intelligent and rich in knowledge in mathematics and sciences. She gives the readers her experience in depth and how others can relate, even if they themselves are not Asian, but because we are all immigrants to the United States and have experienced injustice and double jeopardy by our stigmatized identities as Erentzen claimed. The opinion has historically negatively portrayed the whole Muslim community worldwide to non-muslims. 

After the 11th of September 2001, the aftermath impacted all the Muslims around the world and one effect was “Islamic terrorism”. This would lead to inequality, racial outcomes and their rights would not include them. The federal law enforced policies that were for the many Muslim Americans who were forced to accept search and seizure operations within their houses or work (Byng, 2008). There would be harsher registration policies that prevented Muslims in getting a green card or citizenship and the policy was used during World War II. The immigration policies would not allow Muslim countries to enter America because of the demographics indicating that more issues would arise from Muslims (Byng, 2008). Their daily lives would constantly make themselves feel isolated and indifferent from their community. People would stay away from muslims and believe the propaganda spreaded through the media.  

Even with all the different social expectations. Islam and Christianity have a shared roots, where they both lived together. In Kerr’s article he states that the history in Christian and Muslim encounter is able to find balance together, they were able to find that balance by living together within Andalusia (Kerr, 2025). If the Muslims and Christians were able to live together in solitude, then how are Muslims titled as “heartless” and “violent” if they were able to live with Christians, on the same soil? They had unity and that is how they managed to be together. “Their beliefs and institutional traditions differ, but these differentiations–significant as they are–remain secondary to the ‘cosmic’ issue: that faith, as a divine gift, unites Muslims and Christians in the very ground of their being.” (Kerr, 2025). Even with different forms of practicing a religion, whether it’s being a Shia Muslim, Suni Muslim, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant or other forms of Christianity, the level of faith in the religion helps them connect together stronger. It’s common for Muslims to have strong friendships with people from other religions, it provides an open mind and to be more respectful to all types of people. 

Muslims and Christians being able to get along is circled by the complicity of being strong in faith. Both religions share common concepts in, as Kerr puts it, “memory and hope”. Christians read their holy book, the Bible and Muslims read the Qur’an. Both holy books mention that the “memory” isn’t what you might think of as recalling an action or a part of your life. “Memory” is being remembered by God, such as being the “re-members” and returning back to God for guidance when averting away from him (Kerr, 2025). In the Qur’an it’s a good deed to give smiles as a form of respect and it gives hope to the one you smile to.

It’s a comforting feeling knowing a simple facial gesture such as smiling could have a profound impact on people’s thoughts, being able to demonstrate to them that kindness is a simple gift to share with everyone. It’s a whole form of giving a warm gesture without using the english language to communicate with peace to people. Slowly, people can move away from their biases and lean towards judging people’s characteristics before making assumptions.

Work Cited 

Byng, M. D. (2008). Complex Inequalities. American Behavioral Scientist, 51(5), 659–674. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764207307746 

Erentzen, Caroline A, et al. “The Gendered Nature of Muslim and Christian Stereotypes in the United States.” Nih.gov, 2025, 

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10665135/pdf/10.1177_13684302221138036.pdf. Accessed 25 Oct. 2025. 

Kerr, D. (2025). Shibboleth Authentication Request. Cuny.edu. 

https://research-ebsco-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/c/7o7b7t/viewer/pdf/guew3mt yvz?route=details 

Tan, Amy. Mother Tongue. 1990.