The face of Muslims is now so far from Islam that it can only be a shameful perversion of the original Islamic teachings. One only has to read the Qur’an to see the glaring contradictions between the actual message and its application by some of today’s followers.
The ilk of Osama Bin Laden and his supporters know only judgment. They look at those with differing beliefs and sentence them to death, completely disregarding the Qur’an where Allah clearly states, “There is no compulsion in religion.”
The Qur’an preaches tolerance yet the face of the Ummah today personifies intolerance. If Sept. 11, and the subsequent terrorist attacks in Bali, Madrid and recently London, had never happened, would the misconceptions of Islam exist? Certainly. But would they have reached today’s levels? Certainly not.
So who is to blame for the misconceptions of Islam in the West? As easy as it would be to place the blame solely on the Western media and ignorance, it would lead to nowhere, and unfortunately for the so-called Muslims of today, I am a realist and blaming the West for our every ill is farcical.
The fact is that the Western media is biased. Christianity has never been blamed for Hitler’s holocaust and neither has Judaism for Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people. Yet Islam is blamed for the acts of a few.
Although there is real prejudice against Islam, this is not an excuse which Muslims can use as their defense for the misconceptions held by the West. Critics of Islam simply have to look at the ill-treatment of women in Muslim countries to get validation for their views.
It is disappointing to know that Israel, in its 50 years of existence, is now ahead of most Muslim countries. Some Muslims complain that Israel receives financial aid from the US and while that is true, it is yet another excuse for Muslim nations to use as a defense for their failures. While some Muslim countries are in desperate need of financial aid, countries such as those in the Gulf are not.
Whenever the differences between the Islamic world and the non-Islamic world are brought to our attention, the general consensus among Muslims is: “Don’t compare!”
My response to this idiocy is: “Why not?”
Britain was once an empire which included a great part of the world just as the Muslim community was once a mighty empire. So why is it wrong to compare? Why is it wrong to aspire to greatness?
Surely, one should always desire the best. That is not to say the West epitomizes what is best or what is great. On the contrary, there are many things which the West lacks but the truth is, so much Islamic belief is practiced in the West — such as the basic freedom of speech.
The lack of freedom found in so many Muslim countries combined with terrorism has made the last few years a PR disaster for Islam and unless Muslim countries change for the better then the image of Islam will remain distorted. Surely, the least we can do is re-capture the original face of the Ummah.
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— (Jawahir Al-Subaie is a Management and Information Systems student. She is based in Alkhobar.)
