The religion of Islam is one of the oldest faiths still in practice today, with an estimated 1.53 billion followers… or almost a quarter of the world’s population. Man, if we had a quarter for each of those folks, we could afford to write a better joke here.
Anyway, there are many, many, many misconceptions about the Islamic faith, but what follows are only five that generally relate to a Western viewpoint.
1.
Jihad = Holy War
Those of us living in the Western world tend to associate the word “jihad” with “holy war.” We do not have have great associations with the word.
He did not help.
Truth be told, jihad does not mean holy war. In fact, the word is most often translated as “struggle,” and can be divided into three separate concepts: the struggle to maintain faith, the struggle to improve society and the struggle to defend Islam itself. Each form of jihad is religious in nature. Sound familiar at all?
Jesus, seen here turning on his heart light, taught that faith was a struggle.
Many of us immediately associate the word with holy war thanks to former terrorist and current corpse Osama bin Laden’s liberal use of the term in attacking who he believed to be Islam’s enemies. But of course, the truth is far different from the words of a mad man. In fact, the prophet Mohammad stated that the struggle to maintain one’s faith was more important than the warfare that can result from defending the faith. It’s in the Quran and everything. Go figure.
Not a big reader.
The problem is that for whatever reason, we associate Al-Qaeda with Islam, which is about as apt as associating those Army of God guys with Christianity. We call them extremists for a reason, people.
2.
September 11th was Predicted in the Quran
In the months following the September 2001, the public was abuzz with so much conspiracy that Mike Savage’s head would have spun if he weren’t already dead.
Dead inside, anyway.
Many found references to the attacks in unusual places. Some, like this unfortunate Starbucks ad, are genuine. Others, like the Windings controversy, are completely false. A popular email forward at the time that people still claim as fact is that September 11th was a prophecy in the Quran.
According to the email, chapter nine verse eleven (see what they did there?) reads like this:
For it is written that a son of Arabia would awaken a fearsome Eagle. The wrath of the Eagle would be felt throughout the lands of Allah and lo, while some of the people trembled in despair still more rejoiced; for the wrath of the Eagle cleansed the lands of Allah; and there was peace.
Eagle? Allah? Conspiracy.
It’s just to ridiculously perfect to be real. Quran 9:11 actually reads:
But if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, they are your brethren in faith; and we make the communications clear for a people who know.
That’s so far from the alleged prophecy that it might as well have been written by Stephen King on a restroom stall.
3.
Muslims Are Barbarians
Let’s be honest: most of what we learned about the Middle East we learned from Aladdin.
Hotter than hot in a lot of good ways? Was that guy singing about porn?
The common portrayal of Muslims is that of a violent, sword wielding fanatic or a sorcerer with a wise-cracking parrot. For ages, the spread of Islam across the world has been portrayed as a violent eventitself, with invaders giving their new hosts/victims a simple choice: convert or die. Medieval Islamitself is falsely painted as being concerned solely with expansion and bloodshed. This should all breakdown at first touch if we’re going by the Quran, which forbids killing all but armed combatants duringwar. Stranger still, when conquering new territory Islamic leaders would keep the region’s holy sites(like churches) intact and functioning. They were seemingly quite accommodating in that regard.
Seriously, dude should have at least skimmed the pages.
Much of this misconception seems to stem from how history has romanticized the Crusades. Somehistorians and commentators believe Europe launched its offensive in retaliation. While you couldargue this for some of the later, smaller Crusades, the initial act was done simply to claim relics andland the the church felt were holy (and thus theirs). The goals of later Crusades changed, with somearguing they were are a reaction to growing instability in the Arab world and others pinning it oncolonialism alone.
4.
Women Have No Rights
In the Western world we’re pretty familiar with images like these:
This is an admittedly thorny issue. If you’re living in the United States you’ve likely been bombardedwith stories of horrific abuses against women in Islamic societies in the past few decades. This leadssome to assume that this is how Islam dictates women to be treated. This isn’t true if we’re lookingstrictly at the Quran, which states women are equals to men in nearly every sense. Ideally, sisters aredoing it for themselves.
Mmm-hmm!
But like any other religion, there are many variations or branches of Islam, and while they areusually related at the core they begin to differentiate based on which source materials they use toconstruct their beliefs. Not surprisingly, the Quran is not the be-all end-all of Islamic tradition. Thingslike legal opinions, secular laws, and even pre-Islamic traditions—all of which vary from area toarea—shape the various branches differently. While we can’t deny that stories of mistreated women aretrue, it’s not correct to tie it to the Quran itself. As with all faiths, variations can be observed on severallevels and need to be taken into consideration.
5.
Al-Qaeda = Islam
Most of the misconceptions on this list can be related back to a corruption of the faith itself. This sort of corruption happens in all faiths to justify extreme measures (again, we’ll direct you to those Army of God folks), and none do it with quite the notoriety of those classy folks in Al-Qaeda.
At this point you probably don’t need much convincing that Al-Qaeda’s version of Islam is not the norm and that terrorism is essentially forbidden by the code of warfare. The killing of innocents is explicitly forbidden by the Quran multiple times, eliminating ninety-five percent of the Al-Qaeda business strategy.
The other five percent? The selling of tasteful hats, believe it or not.
Despite what their PR guy would have you believe, Al-Qaeda is not favorably viewed in the a vast majority of the Arab world, and that majority has been growing at a considerable rate over the past decade. Much of this seems to have stemmed from the group’s tactics and willingness to kill civilians as well as their aggressive nature (the Quran states that one should act aggressively only in self-defense and never beyond the point of defending one’s self). Essentially, they’re seen as dragging the name of Islam through the mud.
Did he just not have a library card, or…?
But groups like Al-Qaeda are often associated with the faith because they use it as a unifying banner and justification for attacking others by claiming their targets are at war with Islam. Their version of jihad doesn’t fit and is little more than a means of aggression.
Written by NN – Copyrighted © www.weirdworm.net
Image Sources
Image sources:
- – Jihad = Holy War: http://www.topnews.in/files/George-W-Bush60.jpg http://share.imgroups.net/share/showImage/622G201108180000000031b434b20131dfa2040b58e5.JPG http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00480/binladen_280_480272a.jpg
- – September 11th was Predicted in the Quran: http://crooksandliars.com/files/uploads/2008/01/mike_sav.jpg
- – Muslims Are Barbarians: http://bellsouthpwp.net/l/a/lara6281/ALTitle.jpg http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00480/binladen_280_480272a.jpg
- – 4. Women Have No Rights: http://www.yllpress.com/fotografite/artikujt_origjinale/kuvendi_nacional_francez_mirat.jpg http://www.asianews.it/files/img/ISLAM_-_Muslim_women.jpg
- – Al-Qaeda = Islam: http://www.victoriana.com/Mens-Clothing/images/mens_hats-12.jpg http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00480/binladen_280_480272a.jpg
