The Muslims who shaped America – from brain surgeons to rappers

What Republican presidential Donald Trump thinks of Muslims in American apart from murderers and the one who tries to destroy its values?Well, Trump needs to grasp the history of his own country to know what Muslims have done for the US.The Guardian in a wonderfully articulated report listed some of the leading Muslims from innovators, brain surgeons, scientists, politicians, soldiers, engineering professionals to sportspersons and comedians who play a part in shaping and building the United States look the way it does today.

Building its cities

The US wouldn’t look the way it does if it weren’t for a Muslim, Fazlur Rahman Khan. The Dhaka-born Bangladeshi-American was known as the “Einstein of structural engineering”. He pioneered a new structural system of frame tubes that revolutionised the building of skyscrapers.The result was a new generation of skyscrapers that reduced the amount of steel necessary in construction and changed the look of American cityscapes. Islamist terrorists may have blown up the World Trade Center, but without Khan’s innovation of the framed tube structure, the twin towers probably wouldn’t have been constructed in the first place. Nor would the John Hancock tower, with its distinctive exterior X-bracing (devised by Khan) or the Sears tower (also made possible by Khan’s variant on the tube structure concept, the system was the so-called “bundled tube”) both in Chicago. He also worked on the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado, where officers are trained. If it weren’t for this Muslim, arguably, the US air force wouldn’t be quite so good at its work that, as we know, sometimes involves bombing other countries, some of them populated chiefly by Muslims.

Living the American dream

Shahid Khan is the personification of the American dream. The Pakistan-born billionaire arrived in the US aged 16 on a one-way trip to the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. “Within 24 hours, I had already experienced the American dream,” Khan said, by which he meant he found a job for $1.20 an hour washing dishes — more than the vast majority of the people back in Pakistan earned at the time. He started a car-parts business after university. Now, the 65-year-old – best known in the UK for owning Fulham FC – is the head of the $4.9bn (in sales terms) auto-parts company Flex-N-Gate, the 360th richest person on the planet and three years ago Forbes magazine put him on its cover as the face of the American dream.

Treating the sick

Without Ayub Ommaya lots of people, some of them American, would be dead or suffering appalling pain. In 1963, the Pakistani-born Muslim neurosurgeon invented an intraventricular catheter system that can be used for the aspiration of cerebrospinal fluid or the delivery of drugs.He also developed the first coma score for classification of traumatic brain injury and developed, too, the US’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, which, as part of its mission, focuses on traumatic brain injury.“The United States wouldn’t look the way it does if it weren’t for a Muslim, Fazlur Rahman Khan. The Dhaka-born Bangladeshi-American was known as the “Einstein of structural engineering”. He pioneered a new structural system of frame tubes that revolutionised the building of skyscrapers”, The Guardian reported said after Trump’s now infamous call to ban the Muslims from entering the United States.

Helping Hillary to the White House

 The report also detailed the contributions of 39-year-old Kalamazoo-born Huma Abedin, America’s most powerful Muslim woman, a long-time aide to Hillary Clinton and was her deputy chief of staff at the State Department. She currently serves as vice chairwoman of Clinton’s 2016 campaign for president.

Muhammad Ali Clay

The report also described in details Trump’s meeting with Muhammad Ali Clay.“Now you remember. He’s the same guy you met in 2007 when he presented you with a Muhammad Ali award. In May, you posted a photo on Facebook posing with the great Muslim sporting hero and claimed then that he was your friend”, the report said.

Sports heroes

 Some more sports heroes: “Basketball icons Shaquille O’Neal and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the latter perhaps the greatest NBA stars after Michael Jordan. Hakeem Olajuwon, 52, Hall of Fame NBA centre. And yes, Mike Tyson, who set the record as the youngest boxer to win the WBC, WBA and IBF heavyweight titles aged 20,”

Advancing science

Ahmed Zewail won the Nobel prize for Chemistry in 1999, becoming thereby the first Egyptian-born scientist to do so. He is known as the “father of femtochemistry” and for doing pioneering work in the observation of rapid molecular transformations. Zewail, now 69, has spent most of his life in the US where he is now professor of chemistry and physics at Caltech and director of the physical biology center. He joined President Barack Obama’s presidential council of advisers on science and technology (PCAST), an advisory group of the nation’s leading scientists and engineers to advise the president and vice president and formulate policy in the areas of science, technology, and innovation in 2011. When he joined PCAST the White House hailed this Muslim Egyptian-American as one who is “widely respected not only for his science but also for his efforts in the Middle East as a voice of reason”. Postage stamps have been issued to honour his contributions to science and humanity.Article taken from:The Guardian