putmeincoach:

* Japan is the only nation that does not give citizenship to Muslims. * In Japan permanent residency is not given to Muslims. * There is a strong ban on the propagation of Islam in Japan. * In the University of Japan, Arabic or any Islamic language is not taught. But barely any of you know this because the Japanese are “people of color” and should never, ever be painted in a negative light.

LITERALLY ALL OF THIS IS FALSE. ENTIRELY UNTRUE.

1) The University of Japan is not a university. There is no university in Japan called “The University of Japan” - there are many Japanese universities: the University of Tokyo, Osaka University, the International University of Japan, but there is no “University of Japan”.

2) “Japan doesn’t give citizenship to Muslims” - hah, try again.

The Japanese Constitution states that

“第１４条

すべて国民は、法の下に平等であって、人種、信条、性別、社会的身分又は門地により、政治的、経済的又は社会関係において、差別されない。

Article 14:

All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin.”

There is no place on the written online application for citizenship to state one’s religion. However, given that there are many Egyptian, Pakistani, and Iranian-origin naturalized Japanese citizens, and that many of these people come from Muslim-majority countries, it is highly likely that, yes, they are also Muslim. There are also many people coming from countries with significant Muslim minorities, such as India and China, that have permanent residency or citizenship in Japan. It took me about 1 minute to find lawyers who specialize in Indonesia-to-Japan immigration - Indonesia is the largest Muslim nation in the world! How funny is that?

3) Permanent residency is not given to Muslims in Japan - so false! So amazingly false!

Let’s back that up with numbers! Here’s a link to a veritable WALL of immigration stats published by the Japanese Ministry of Justice!

http://www.moj.go.jp/content/000108878.pdf

Unfortunately it’s all in Japanese - well here’s an English article about the DOZENS of mosques in various parts of Japan.

http://www.japanfocus.org/-kawakami-yasunori/2436/article.html

But that’s not a very “scholarly” article. Okay, try this one from the English journal “Japanese Journal of Population” Kojima H., 2006

http://www.ipss.go.jp/webj-ad/webjournal.files/population/2006_3/kojima2.pdf

Go ahead, read it. I’ll wait.

The cherry on top: here’s a link to the Arabic studies department at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies: http://www.tufs.ac.jp/english/education/ug/studies/arabic.html

They also teach Urdu, Persian, Indonesian, Malaysian, and Turkish, if that’s enough Islamic languages for you.

Signing off with a picture of the BEAUTIFUl Kobe mosque, which my friend Amy and her girlfriend visited last autumn.

Egg out.

(via biswals)