There are a number of issues that act as a barrier to further integration for Muslims in Western cultures. Chief among these is lack of education among Muslims about Western culture and society together with a lack of education among Westerners about Islamic culture and society. This lack of education often produces stereotypes and prejudices for both Muslim and Western cultures, making the road to further integration one paved with numerous challenges.
The biggest overall challenge to further assimilation of Muslims into Western cultures is the lack of education for both Muslims and Westerners regarding the cultures and societies of each other. Muslim youths are often indoctrinated with extremist, anti-West views from the time they are quite young. They are often subjected to the repeated narrow views and anti-Western drilling of the Madrassas that are past of Muslim communities around the world. As Lazur (2005) maintains, ôDenied any exposure to alternative training or experience, young Muslims are æhookedÆ for a significant portion of their life and for some, all their existent young lifeö (p. 8). It is such youth who often become attracted to the Muslim supremacist groups that promote violence as a means of undermining the West and its cultures.
On the opposite side of the dilemma, many Westerners remain ignorant of a deeper knowledge of Muslim culture and society. Extremist groups and terrorist factions often create negative images of Muslims for Westerners who, lacking additional education of Muslim culture, perceive all Muslims as violent and filled with hatred for the West. Even the media in Western nations often promote stereotypes of Muslims as irrational and backward, bent on undermining democracy through the use of violence. As Kamran Memon, editor of Islamic Horizons magazine, argues ôThis creates the impression that the growing Islamic community seeks to infiltrate American society, destroy Western cul...