By Mohammed Almalky, former ELP student, MS Biology graduate

My name is Mohammed Almalky. I came to the U.S in 2012 to learn English. I used to learn English in Saudi Arabia, but I was not effective because I did not use English often. I faced many challenges in learning English, yet I have found different ways to overcome these challenges. When I first came to the U.S.A, I would talk for an hour with a native speaker, and at the end of the conversation they would ask me, “What you are talking about?” As you can imagine, it was difficult to find a native speaker who was willing to spend time and talk with me. Of course, they would be more interested in talking with someone who they could have a smooth conversation with. Thus, to attract them to have a conversation with me, I invited them to parties and restaurants so they would come and enjoy the parties and meals and I would enjoy speaking with them.

The second challenge I faced was learning the meaning and the use of words. When I learned new vocabularies by translating them from English to Arabic and vice versa, I thought I got the meaning, but in fact the use of the words was different. For example, in Arabic the word “calendar” has two different meanings: dates and dental braces. So when I went to the dentist in the U.S., instead of asking for braces, I asked him for a calendar and he gave me a folder. I realized that he misunderstood me because of my English.

The third challenge and biggest challenge is learning English pronunciation. For instance, in English they have the two different sounds p and b while in Arabic we only have the sound b. One time I had an appointment with a native speaker and he called me and asked “Where are you?” I said, “I am outside.” When I arrived he asked me again, “Where have you been?” I said, “I was barking on Fifth Ave.” He said, “Why didn’t you come and bark here!” I did not understand what he meant. After three months he said, “Your English is getting better. Do you still bark?” I could then answer, “No, now I am parking”. After several semesters of studying English, my English greatly improved. I got admitted to study a Master degree in Biology. As a biology student, I now know words that many native speakers do not know, such as anastomose, decussate, osteoclasts, and lipolysis. After looking back at my experience, I can confidently conclude that you never fail until you stop trying.

By Saud Abdulsamad and Mohammed Lashram, ELP students

*Inspired by the “I have a dream” speech, Saud and Mohammed wrote a speech to those who are too quick to make judgements about Muslims.

Dear those who think Muslims are terrorists. Have you asked yourself what Islam means? Or why you are still alive so far even though there are more than one and a half billion Muslims (terrorists) around you? Think carefully; if all those Muslims were terrorists, they could finish up the world by throwing some stones on people.

Now, let me help you and define what the word Islam means. Islam means peace or peace in everything. Some of those people who consider Muslims to be terrorists do not know some basic information about Islam. For example, a famous politician claims that Islam was born in Saudi Arabia. Whoever said that does not have basic information, not only about Islam, but also about history. Islam started in 610 A.D. However, Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 A.D. Therefore, there is a 1322-year-gap, so this guy needs to learn some math. By the way, talking about math, a man named Al-Khwarizmi, who was one of the most famous scholars in the Islamic golden era, invented not only algebra, but also algorithm. Without algorithm, today, we would not able to have computers and anything related to computers.

People, I am not here today to illustrate to you what Muslim scholars did, but to show you something out of the box, the box that the propaganda creates. Since I came to the USA, many friendly Americans that I met have asked me one question: “Why, why does your religion treat women badly?” And they give me an example to try to convince me about their claim. The example is that women cannot drive in Saudi Arabia, and they conclude that our religion treats women badly. Now if you want to criticize the Islam religion, you have to bring an example that belongs to the religion, but this example is associated with our culture, way of life, and traditions, NOT religion.

I gave you this example to show you that before you judge Islam and Muslims, you have to read and know true information about them. We know about the Spanish Inquisition and Holocaust, but we do not consider Christianity a religion of violence because of some crazy groups of radical Christians. All in all, what I would like to say here think and think and think before you make a judgment.