Have you ever heard a term called “Islamophobia“? Do you agree with those who believe in having fear of religion? Did you get insulted just because of your religion?!
If you are one or none of these, then you have the chance to help to spread awareness towards a world full of mercy away from fear and hatred. In this article, you are going to discover what is Islamophobia, the reasons behind it, and the reality.
Phobia means having an excessive and illogical fear of something. For example, if you have fear of animals so you suffer from zoophobia, and if you have fear of blood then you have homophobia, and so on. Nevertheless, having fear or hatred for a religion is the most illogical and the weirdest among them all.
Islamophobia is a term used to describe the fear or hatred against Islam and Muslims. This term emerged in the world, especially in the west, which brought out many racist and unjustified behaviors towards Muslims and Islam.
Why did islamophobia appear in the west?
There are many factors that contribute to the widespread “Islamophobia”.
1) The negative representation of Islam through:
The Media plays the biggest role in producing a certain image in the audience’s eyes by sending implicit messages to their minds. Many channels especially in the west tend to distort the image of Islam by showing the Muslim as a terrorist, an extremist, or even a killer.
Furthermore, these channels always associate Muslims with negative attitudes. They generalize these actions to all Muslims in the world, whereas maybe some extremists, who don’t represent real Islam, are responsible for these bad attitudes.
Moreover, some Media channels show Muslims as illiterate people who do barbaric actions. Which is the total opposite of reality? We can see lots of Muslims as doctors, engineers, and very educated in the west, successful in their jobs, and well known for good manners.
Eventually, they did not stop manipulating the truths, yet they started to distort the image of the Muslim prophet and their soul idol by drawing a mockery caricature, which carries many insulting messages about their prophet and beliefs.
Some Islam followers:
In Islam –just like any other religion- you can find good and bad people. Unfortunately, some Islam followers and extremists also contribute to distorting the image of Islam, by killing others under the name of Islam. Yet, they may be used as a weapon to fight Islam. Thus, we must separate the religion from its followers because not all of them could carry the right image of real Islam.
2) Racism:
One of the most reasons behind Islamophobia is that could expand inside any human on the earth when it comes to insulting or belittling others according to certain beliefs or whatever.
However, what do you think if this kind of prejudice extends to include an entire nation or its religion?! Does it make sense in human rights ideologies? An old and repeated term in the west in all of its forms, such as cultural, economic, and skin-color Racism and many others.
In the past, we heard many discrimination stories about slaves and African people in America. On the other hand, we heard about the violence in colonization led by the European countries of the Islamic world.
Nowadays, although the west has many scientific and political advancements, nothing changed at the moral level. We are still watching the same racist discrimination towards minorities.
Racism usually acted against minorities such as Muslim minorities in the west. Some people stereotype all Muslims and scorn them just because of their beliefs, which is also considered another form of racism. Thus, they consider Muslims as if they are barbers without even trying to deal with them or thinking about giving them a chance to defend themselves. Very similar to those past racist actions towards other minorities and even.
After all, Islamophobia is another face of west racism, and it is another reason and pretense for discrimination against Muslims at the same time.
3) Misconceptions about Islam
Another reason for islamophobia is that many people do not know much about Islam. Or, they have misconceptions and different facts to those that exist in Islam. There are several examples of these facts, but we are going to mention the most important ones.
It is worth mentioning that some people do not know the real Islam, yet others intended to take some parts of the Quran or Sunnah and leave other parts as half and distorted truths while any religion must be considered as a whole, not as divided truth.
Women’s rights in Islam
They claim that the woman in Islam does not have the right to choose her husband, work, or other life affairs. They also offense the Hijab which is nothing but a cover or veil for women’s heads in many religions other than Islam!
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Islam conquests
The west claims that Islam is spread by the sword. This is the total opposite of Islam’s instructions, which clearly demand from Muslim conquerors not to kill women, children, or the elderly, yet to kill just those who kill Muslims. Moreover, History has shown how non-Muslims converted to Islam just because of the good manners of Muslim traders and travelers.
Islam conversion is easy and simple
Do you know what it cost to be a Muslim?
It is not by going to church, nor by offering an oblation to God. Anybody can convert to Islam just by saying “there is no God but one God and Mohammad is his messenger,” and then you become a Muslim. No forces upon you and restraints as well.
It is not by going to church, nor by offering an oblation to God. Anybody can convert to Islam just by saying “there is no God but one God and Mohammad is his messenger,” and then you become a Muslim. No forces upon you and restraints as well.
Islam is the religion of charity
Do you know that In the Islamic holy “Quran “, it’s written that God commands Muslims to worship The Almighty God and the next command that comes directly after worshipping the sole God is filial piety?
You can rarely find sons to take their parents to the infirmary. Whereas there are many cases in the west in which sons take their parents to the infirmary even without pity.
Eventually, if we want to bring all shreds of evidence to prove that Islam is a religion of peace then the speech is never going to end.
Then how could religion be a danger while the word “mercy” and its derivatives are mentioned in its holy book more than 200 times?
After all, is it fair to judge people just by their religion and some followers of it who don’t follow its instructions?
Remember that we are still humans who commit mistakes and deserve others’ mercy.
Also remember that you are one of the world, your opinion matters. Stop hatred and do not judge a whole nation by generalizing some bad attitudes of some bad people inside it. Let us change this unjust world to a new fair and peaceful one.
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