1.
(http://www.muslimpopulation.com/asia/Japan/Islam%20in%20Japan_aq.php)
・If they are dark-skinned and bearded, then they may face more problems.
・Nevertheless, Muslims face some special problems, especially those who are more devout and public about their faith.
・As a result, the attitudes toward Islam that can be found in Victorian British sources exercised a disproportionately large influence on the Japanese understanding of Islam in its formative period. Even the efforts to create a pan-Asian, anti-Western alliance in the late 1930s and early 1940s made little headway against this overall tendency.
・For example, twenty-five years ago Abu Bakr Morimoto was able to write as follows: “modern culture, which is mostly Western, came into Japan almost wholly from the Christian world. Therefore, the bits of knowledge about Islam that found their way through this channel were greatly distorted for obvious reasons.
・In May 2001, there was a case in which a Japanese woman shredded a Quran in front of a Pakistani business in Toyama Prefecture, and this led to Muslim protests. Also, in June 2004, Al-Jazeera ran a story entitled “Japanese Muslims Face Fear and Doubt,” about a Moroccan named Samir who stated: “I used to have a beard and on one occasion a customer told me I looked like a terrorist… If I were blond and had blue eyes, I wouldn’t have any problems, but because my name is Samir and I have a beard, I’m a terrorist.”
・By and large, foreign Muslims in Japan do not suffer a particularly heavy degree of discrimination. There is absolutely no hint of physical danger for Muslims in Japan. Most Muslims in Japan feel themselves to be at no particular disadvantage beyond the routine forms of discrimination that all foreigners must deal with in Japanese society.
・Islamic prohibitions on alcohol and pork can easily conflict with Japanese expectations about proper behavior at a kangeikai (a welcoming party) or a bonenkai (an end-of-year party). The izakaya (Japanese bar) is an important venue for social communication, and any Japanese Muslim who strongly insists on following the Islamic prohibitions in such a setting could easily face criticism and doubt from their colleagues.
・Likewise, a Turkish imam once spoke about the problems faced by his Japanese wife as follows: “The other (Japanese) women, they keep their distance, like she’s someone from another planet.” In other words, a strictly observant Japanese Muslim can easily find themselves an outcast if they are not careful. Even talking about their faith to other Japanese can lead their colleagues to become nervous and begin avoiding them.
・At the same time as most ordinary Japanese remain uncomfortable with the notion of Islam, at the diplomatic level, the Japanese government has been trying to paint a different picture.
・The intellectual underpinning for these efforts seem to have been largely rooted in the ideas of the well-known scholar of the Islamic world, Yuzo Itagaki.
・In September 2003, the first event of the “Japan-Arab Dialogue,” was held in Tokyo. Then, in July 2004, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched the “Seminar Series to Understand the Middle East and Islam.” This lecture series traveled to various regions of Japan with the ostensible purpose of promoting Japanese public understanding of Middle Eastern and Islamic countries. Finally, Prime Minister Koizumi himself has recently participated in iftar dinners with Muslim Ambassadors, breaking the daily fast associated with the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
・Repeated calls from the small Japan Association for Middle East Studies (JAMES) and similar academic groups to expand educational programs have been met with official indifference.
・In the United States, the employee could probably have hired a lawyer and sued the company for religious discrimination. In Japan, however, the employee had no real option other than to leave the company or to stop performing what he regarded as his religious obligations. The employee left.
・He almost terminated the interview at that point, declaring that he would not hire a Muslim. The surprised Turkish man, who badly wanted the job, asked why. The boss told him the story of the Filipino Muslim. The Turkish interviewee then informed the boss that he was a secularized Muslim who did not pray every day or fast for Ramadan.
・Eventually she went to the embassy of a Muslim country and asked for work. Her interviewer was surprised when the young lady made two demands of her prospective employer: first, she must be allowed to wear her black clothes and scarf, and, second, she must be given time for her prayers. More amused than annoyed, the Muslim embassy hired the lady, and she stayed at the embassy for many years. Eventually, she married into an Arab family.
・Throughout the 20th century there were Muslim activists who claimed that Islam was on the verge of expanding rapidly among the Japanese population. Japan seemed to them to be something of a “religious vacuum” just waiting to hear the call of Islam. Christianity had made only limited inroads into Japanese society, but surely Islam would fare much better.
・The very word “Islam” is a derivative of the Arabic word “salaam,” meaning peace. Are not the Japanese just as much devoted to their “heiwa” (peace)?
・the Japanese continue to view Islam with skepticism, as a half-civilized faith characteristic of poor and underdeveloped regions of the world.
・For many Japanese, they do not know about Islam, and do not want to know about it. Their views range from indifference to suspicion.
・In Shizuoka prefecture, an Afghan doctor gained the respect and affection of the locals for his dedicated service to the community.16 In Osaka, an Iranian man was elected president of the local PTA. Step by step, some individual Muslims are making a difference.
・Most Japanese are not comfortable with living in a multicultural society, and prefer to experience their foreigners in small doses. Muslims in Japan will continue to face the challenges of adversity and diversity.
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・Japan should not make the mistake of other first world countries in adopting an open door immigration policy.
・Japanese woman also is known for loyalty and serving the husband , marrying Japanese woman , she will provide handsome babies, will honor you, and work hard. It is why so many Pakistani or Indian men, when they come to Japan, they marry Japanese.
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3.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistanis_in_Japan)
・Pakistanis in Japan (在日パキスタン人 Zainichi Pakisutanjin) form the country's third-largest community of immigrants from a Muslim-majority country, trailing only the Indonesian community and Bangladeshi community. As of 2011, official statistics showed 10,849 registered foreigners of Pakistani origin living in the country, up from 7,498 in 2000.There were a further estimated 3,414 illegal immigrants from Pakistan in Japan as of 2000.
・The later Pakistani migrants in Japan largely come from a muhajir background; their family history of migration made them consider working overseas as a "natural choice" when they found opportunities at home to be too limited. While Pakistanis saw North America as a good destination to settle down and start a business, Japanese employment agencies commonly advertised in Karachi newspapers in the 1980s, when Japan offered some of the highest wages in the world for unskilled labour; it came to be preferred as a destination by single male migrants, who came without their families. The wages they earned could reach as high as twenty times what they made in Pakistan. Another attraction of Japan over other traditional migration destinations, particularly the Middle East, was the social freedom it offered to migrants; some young Pakistanis came not so much out of economic motives, but instead out of a desire to find freedom which seemed unattainable at home or in other Muslim countries.
Some Pakistanis were able to obtain legal resident status by finding Japanese spouses.
However, in the tightened security environment following the September 11 attacks in the United States, many were deported; the population shrunk to around 10,000 legal immigrants. ・In January 2010, two children born in Japan to a Pakistani father and a Filipina mother were ordered to be deported along with their parents because the latter lacked proper visas when they came to Japan 20 years earlier.
・According to 2008 Japanese government figures, 19.9% of registered Pakistanis lived in Saitama, 17.8% in Tokyo, 12.3% in Kanagawa, 10.4% in Aichi, 8.98% in Chiba, 7.59% in Gunma, 6.02% in Ibaraki, 4.44% in Tochigi, 4.21% in Toyama, 3.27% in Shizuoka, and the remaining 4.98% in other prefectures of Japan. Only an estimated 200 Pakistanis hold Japanese citizenship.
・Many Pakistanis in Japan run used car export businesses. This trend was believed to have begun in the late 1970s, when one Pakistani working in Japan sent a car back to his homeland. The potential for doing business in used cars also attracted more Pakistanis to come to Japan in the 1990s.
・Though many migrants come from a middle-class family background in Pakistan, because they often work at so-called Dirty, Dangerous and Demeaning (3D/3K) jobs, and because of their portrayal in the Japanese media, even their co-workers tended to misperceive their background and level of education.
・Many Japanese wives of Pakistani migrants have converted to Islam, and in fact form the largest group of native Japanese converts to Islam. They often send their children to mosques so that they can learn about their ancestral religion and study the Arabic language.
・In 2001, an incident of Qur'an desecration in Toyama, where about 150 Pakistanis lived, sparked protests from the community. At least one Qur'an was taken from a makeshift prayer room used by Pakistanis, with allegations that six others had also been stolen; someone later left torn Qur'an pages at a Pakistani-owned used car dealership. Hundreds of Pakistani Muslims marched in Tokyo, and nine representatives from the Pakistani Association of Japan met with officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to deliver a letter of protest.
・In 1989, the Islamic Center in Japan requested publishers, newspapers, magazines and broadcast stations not to translate or reproduce the novel The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie which it called an "anti-Islamic" work that "contains filthy remarks and ridicules fundamental beliefs of Islam". A leader of the Japanese association of Pakistanis joined the condemnations of Rushdie, saying he deserved to die because of the book. Subsequently, the Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi was found slain at a university northeast of Tokyo on 12 July 1991.
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