December 3 2004

On Islam…

Our friend Soly recommended I take a look at a link, for this, I’m really thankful Soly. I read the articles, and must say that a lot of points mentioned were really misleading. As usual, wrong definitions of Islam, and a very destructive perspective that is spreading annoying clichés about the religion. I believe we ought to know what others think of Islam, and since the articles are in German, I thought I’d post a translation of the most important points, with my personal comments. Taking into consideration the articles’ lengths, I thought I’ll begin with the first, and others will follow later.
Comments on the article about Islam as a belief!

  • “Muslims don’t speak the same language, they don’t have the same skin color”… Are Muslims the only ones like that? On the other hand, Muslims should be proud that Islam is not limited to one skin color or one culture.
  • “Nothing unites them, except for the strive to fulfill the 5 basic elements of Islam: the proof of belief “Shahada”, the daily prayers 5 times aday, fasting in the month of Ramadan, donating money for the poor “Zakat”, and the pilgrimage “Hadj” to Mekka”… hmm, not so much to untie Muslims indeed!
  • “Mohammad on the other hand, caravan leader by profession…”… the prophet was a shepherd, and there was nothing wrong about it, coz Islam is not limited for certain classes of society.
  • “To the fundamentalists it’s not Islam that should become modern, it’s modernity that should be Islamic, and what Islamic is, is something fundamentalists will only determine”…I agree with you on the fundamentalism perspective, but just for the record, if you know Islam, you’ll be sure it’s a modern religion. On the other hand, your articles are to provide information about Islam and Muslims, all I can see is info about fundamentalists and their opinions! Fair enough huh!
  • “Khomeini said:There’s no fun, no laughter, and no humor in Islam, everything’s prohibited”…if with “fun” he was referring to getting naked, having premarital relationships, cheating on your wife, losing your money in poker, or torturing innocent people and taking pics of them, well, then I’m proud to say, yes, there’s no such “fun” in Islam. But I’m certainly against extremist thinking that prohibits clean,useful and peaceful fun, such as chess, internet and similar activities.
  • “Ayatollah said: Executions in Islam are a blessing of God”… Hitler said:Jews should should be all executed, does that make Christianity a brutal religion that sees executions as a blessing of God!
  • “The Islamic culture area which lies in the third world, suffers from discredited regimes, land fleeing, corruption, unemployment, and overpopulation (approximately 40% of the Arab population is under 15 years old)”… corruption, and unemployment are everywhere. As for land fleeing, I really wish they dig for the reasons before condemning. Answer is war, and their support to injustice. The population is young, something to be really proud of, better than ending up with a threat of vanishing and beginning couples to settle down and have babies like the case in most of the European countries, specially Italy.
  • “since September 11th, Islam has appeared only as an embodiment of destruction and death. All Arabic literature and traces of great Arabic works were buried under the ruins of the World Trade Center, just like 6000 innocent people” … I guess those 6000 are the only innocent ones buried, the thousands being killed for fun in Iraq, the millions that have been killed and are still being killed everyday in Palestine don’t count, for they belong to Arabs and Islam!
  • “Saying that Islam has nothing to do with fundamentalism, is as absurd as saying that Rabbis murdering Yitzhak Rabin has nothing to do with Judaism”… All I can say is, Islam is a moderate religion, and fundamentalism is an extreme, so it has nothing to do with Islam.
  • “Islamic civilization will never get a place it deserves as long as every progressive move and every non-religious move is not accepted and fought in the third world, and its leaders are supporting terror groups”… again, blame it on the terror, and claim the third world rejects progression. It rejects war, it rejects colonization, there’s a big difference.

There are many other quotes of Osama Bin Laden, Taliban and a lot of fundamentalists, I think the article doesn’t aim at informing as much as showing the side of a group of Fundamentalists, which helps give a very bad reputation to Islam.
Therefore I ask everybody to always refer to the right, non-biased, well-informed resources before spreading any information. After all, writing is responsibility.



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Posted December 3, 2004 by Eman Abukhadra in category "Media, International", "Religion