Nowadays, it has almost become the habit of international media which is mainly controlled by the western world to misinform the masses about Islam. As I was surfing through news sites, I had a chance to peruse some of the comments posted on the commentary forums concerning Islam. It is therefore based on this that I have tried to tackle one of many questions commonly asked by the non-Muslims.
If Islam is a good religion, why is it that it has many terrorists and fundamentalists? Queried another non-Muslim on one of the news sites’ forums. I did not respond to that but I had already figured out that the individual was probably one of the victims of the anti-Islamic stereotypes. The idea that Islam has a lot of terrorists was new to me, so I looked up the meaning of the word ‘terrorist’ and here is what I found;
‘someone who uses violence such as bombing, shooting etc to obtain political demands’-that’s according to Longman dictionary.
The Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary explains that a terrorist is ‘someone who uses violent action, or threats of violent action, for political purposes’.
Now if we classify terrorists using the above quoted criteria, then undoubtedly America, Israel and their allies are the ‘best’ terrorists ever to exist on the face of the Earth. Yes, it was America that had created ‘al Qaeda group’ to use them fight the Russians. Interestingly, that time, al Qaeda fighters’ were branded the name ‘freedom fighters’ by the American government itself. The American government even funded ‘al Qaeda’ by giving them weapons and military training.
It is just recently that the same American government exchanged the name ‘freedom fighters’ with the word ‘terrorists’. All this happened because of a ‘mysterious’ 9/11 event. Not even a single Muslim has been convicted of 9/11 by courts using tangible evidence, yet the American government is continuously terrorising the middle-east region in the name of ‘War on Terror’.
I can’t believe how they lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Many Muslims were killed and those who tried to form groups to defend themselves were automatically called ‘terrorists’, ‘fundamentalists’ and the ‘Jihadists’. On the other side Israel was doing what it has always been good at or accredited for—demolishing and reducing the Palestinian structures to rubbles. They terrorised everybody regardless of their age or gender, yet the democratically elected and poorly armed faction-Hamas- was portrayed as the ‘terrorist’ group in the western media as usual.
I do not claim that all Muslims are 100 percent clean, no! Of course there are some Muslims who form groups and fight for only financial and political powers. Unfortunately, some hide behind the ‘beautiful veil’ of Islam.
Strange to see that almost all of the western media deliberately tag fighters who happen to be Muslims to the noun phrase ‘Muslim terrorists’. This habit (so I think) is responsible for over 90 percent of Islam’s misconceptions.
There has been a massive terrorism carried out by non-Muslims all over the world, but the western media rarely dares to connect such terrorism to the doctrines of those particular religions (Yes I am ready to give the statistics). Personally, I hate that… Yes, I hate it when the media purposely brand a religion a ‘name’ that is the exact opposite of its doctrines just as they do with Islam.
I sometimes wonder and laugh when I see my fellow Muslims getting red in their faces when they hear someone calling them ‘fundamentalists’. In fact, I encourage Muslims to be proud when they are called fundamentalists rather than being sad.
The Babylon English dictionary defines the word fundamentalist as ‘one who strictly follows a system of beliefs (especially religious)’.
So what’s wrong with a Muslim following his/her religion strictly?
On the other side, a Muslim should check up his Iman (faith) whenever a non-Muslim calls him/her ‘Modern’. I don’t have to dig up this terminology –modern, because by now, I hope you have understood everything the non-Muslims try to mean when they use this word.
Frankly, I am not completely surprised to see the non-believers trying hard in their efforts of demonising Islam….
Allah informs as that “They want to extinguish the light of Allah with their mouths, but Allah will perfect His light, although the disbelievers dislike it”
Quran 61 verse 8.
Wallahi!, i deal with this question from the Kuffaar, "why is it that muslims are the majority of those accused of terrorism?"… To me it has become very upsetting that even the university educated professionals don't seem to understand that the western media is so biased that even when it comes to portray to the world what Africa is really like, we get the ugliest picture of places I have never seen or may never see in my lifetime……despite all that, the non-believer can't to smell the rat. Good article sheikh. keep the coming.