I know that having taken academic classes on Islam, I have a different perspective of the religion than most. My perspective is NOT based on what I learn from the media, if it was I’m pretty sure my Islam professor would give me a swift kick in the ass. I took two classes specifically on Islam, one being on the history of Islam as a w hole and the other being on Islam in Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia is different from the Middle East for Muslims because many of the countries are majority other religions.
There are a few things that the media, and therefore citizens, get mixed up about Islam. First of all, what is jihad? If we go by what terrorists and the media tell us, it is a war against non-Muslims. But what jihad really is, is a struggle within one’s self to become closer to God (yes I use a capital G but the God of Islam, Allah, is also the God of Christianity and Judaism).
Next, let’s take a look at the fighting between Muslims. This has been going on since the 1st Caliphs. After Muhammad’s death, there was confusion as to who would be the 1st Caliph. This created the huge divide between Sunni’s and Shi’its. Sunni’s believe that Muhammad’s father-in-law Abu Bakr was to be the 1st Caliph following Muhammad’s death. While Shi’its believe that Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law Ibn Abi Talib was the 1st Caliph and that his descendants would follow in his footsteps as Caliph’s since they would be descendants of Muhammad.
The fighting between the two groups have been going on for centuries and there is nothing that the West can do to stop it. This fighting is different than what happens when Muslims try to defend themselves against terrorists.
That brings me to the next point, the majority of Muslims do not endorse or support terrorists in any way. Islam, as a whole, is NOT radical. Every Muslim is not a terrorist and every terrorist is not a Muslim. Wait, what there are non-Muslim Terrorists?!?! But the media never talks about them. They do, they just don’t call them terrorist. Timothy McVeigh, American born and raised terrorist that killed over 160 fellow Americans, oh and he was raised Catholic. McVeigh is just one of the many examples of non-Muslim terrorists.
Terrorists are evil, it doesn’t matter where they come from, what their religious background is, the country they were born in or currently reside. Terrorism doesn’t happen in just one small part of the world, it happens everywhere regardless of so many other things.
Now let’s look at our current situation. Yes, there was a terrorist attack in Paris last month that ISIS took responsibility for. However, the terrorists that carried out the attack were NOT, I repeat NOT, refugees. They were European Nationals. Since the inception of the European Union, European’s have the freedom to travel between EU countries freely. Yes, there was a couple last week that shot up coworkers of the husband and killed a number of them. Yes, there seems to be a link between the wife and ISIS and many are questioning how she arrived to the US on a fiancé visa from the Middle East. Yet, despite all of this, we have millions of Muslims living in the US who carry on their daily lives like every other non-extremist American. They go to work, go to worship, take their children to after school activities, eat and shop in the same places as non-Muslim Americans. Yet, we have a Presidential candidate and many of his supporters calling for all Muslims to undergo surveillance simply because of their beliefs. They want these peaceful Muslims to be card carrying Muslims that identify them as Muslims.
And then we have people like me who quote American Author Sinclair Lewis saying, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” Think about that for a minute. Think about what fascism did to Europe less than 100 years ago. And then we have people who respond, saying the Jews weren’t going around killing people and being terrorists so therefore, we should treat Muslims as a whole worse because of the actions of a few of them. One of the biggest slippery slope arguments that I have seen regarding all of this. Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany losing WW I and got people to believe in and to elect him. Now, we are allowing a Presidential Candidate to blame all Muslims for the actions of a few and promising to make America great again (another thing that Hitler did). I have no idea how anyone can justify the treatment they are wanting of Muslims because of the actions of some. What really gets me is that I see some people saying one day they only want this treatment for Muslim extremists and then the next day for all Muslims.
Do we need to find a solution for handling extremists and terrorists? Yes, we need to now more than ever. However, this is NOT confined to Muslim and extremists and terrorists. This applies to extremists and terrorists regardless of their skin color, religious affiliation or lack thereof, country of birth, and country of residence.
However, we are feeding ISIS, in particular at the moment, the air it needs with all of the anti-Muslim rhetoric that is coming from the US. One of the main idea’s of ISIS is that Muslims cannot live a Muslim life in western countries. And guess what, every time the news reports that there are American’s who think that Muslims should be banned from the country or that Mosques should be closed, or that Muslims should have an ID card that they must carry everywhere, we are fueling their idea. Muslim’s have been living in the US for a long time, many of them don’t bother you a bit in your everyday life but people live in constant fear of them. I’m more afraid of what a former employee will walk into where I walk and do than I am of any Muslim that I see. I’m more afraid of what will happen to me if my run takes me down the wrong street one day than I am of Muslims that I see when I’m at the airport. We cannot let fear control us, we cannot continue to let the fear and hatred spill over to an ENTIRE religion.
Now, my best friend is in the Air Force and has spent more time that I would have liked in Iraq and Afghanistan. Living in an Army town, I have plenty of friends who are active duty, retired, or spouses of military personal. Some of them bring a different argument to the table. While I have never been to the Middle East and witnessed what they have witnessed, there is no way for me to truly understand where they are coming from. However, it pains me to hear things along the lines of “Since you’ve never been shot at by Muslims, you don’t know what they are really like.” “All Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan are evil terrorists.” There are countless cities in the two countries that have been under control by the bad guys over the past 14 years and those are the cities where our government sends our troops. These are the cities that our government wants to give back to its peaceful and law abiding citizens. Many of those who previously lived in these cities, fled before American troops ever stepped foot in the city limits. So yes, I believe that almost every Muslim in these cities are evil terrorists. But that doesn’t mean that they represent every Muslim that was living in that city 20 years ago. Is it the war zones that instills these idea’s to our service men and women or is it their leadership? I don’t know if there is a way to get to the bottom of that question but it is something to think about.
All of it comes down to a huge misunderstanding of the 2nd largest religion in the world. Personally, if all Muslims were evil terrorists the world popular wouldn’t be as large since there are so many Muslims that would be able to carry out terrorist attacks. So many in the US are so focused on Christianity, that they fail to realize that people need a solid understanding of all religions and not just their religion. I know atheists who know more about different religions than those who practice those religions know. I’m not saying that everyone needs a degree in religion like I have but knowledge is power. If you know the truth and history about something you have a different perspective about it than someone who only knows what the media tells them about it (this doesn’t just apply to religion, it applies to just about everything in life).
Maybe I’m crazy but I believe the religions can coexists. Once religions stop trying to get everyone to follow their religion and recognize that there is no one religion fits all, we will have a step in the right direction. We need to have dialogue between different religions so that people can learn about what others believe and why they believe it. We need to have politician’s that encourage this dialogue and partake in it. In a world full of misunderstandings, there seems to be no driving force in overcoming those misunderstandings. Instead, people want to continue to only believe what the media feeds them, which half the time isn’t correct, and continue believing that their religion is the one answer for the world. To have peace in the world, we first need to understand where others are coming from. Without that understanding, there is no end in sight to everything that is currently going on in the world.
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