I thought our discussion in class on Thursday regarding the origin of most racism being stereotyping was an especially important conversation to have, and unfortunately, we often base our assumptions about a person or group on a particular encounter or story on the news and not actually thinking for ourselves. In my First-Year Seminar class last year, Women Writing the World, we read a couple of books from the Middle East and before we even started reading, we discussed some misconceptions or stereotypes we had about that area and the people there in order to get a better understanding and challenge these biases we had. I think it is also important to remember, as we mentioned previously, the historic diversity within Islam, despite the fact that some people have these negative stereotypes of Muslims and Islam as a whole. Because mainstream news sources do not always provide what is typical, we sometimes get the impression that certain parts of the world are possibly more dangerous than they really are as a result of what is reported and what is not. This being said, there is a need to challenge the biases we have and broaden our own horizons. I also thought it was interesting to talk about the topic of jihad, or the Arabic word for the struggle because I think many have an impression that this is associated a lot with violence, but because the Quran prohibits aggressive warfare, this is not about attacking anyone but rather, is about “uttering the truth in the presence of an unjust ruler.” Muhammad talks about this in Hadith 63 and this is seen to be courageous and the most excellent form of struggle.