July 10, 2010 by Lindsay Mitchell
Today, in my personal quest to begin connecting with more online communities of caring people who want to positively impact the world, I joined the site Care2.org. Excited to begin searching for groups and causes to get involved with, I looked over some of the recently posted petitions.
(Most of the groups, people, and petitions on Care2.org are truly wonderful- nothing like what I am about to describe- but my reaction to this particular posting was too strong for me to ignore.)
Sadly, rather than finding a meaningful cause to sign on with, my eye was first drawn to a rather alarming petition title: “Stop Islam.” I couldn’t ignore it, I was too curious and taken aback. So I clicked on it, hoping to find some kind of reasonable explanation for such a bizarre title.
But my hopes were dashed, and my shock was only intensified by the description of the petition:“Islam is a religion of hatred for all nations. In most countries around the world sharia law is imposed. I call upon the UN to put a stop to this and to remove Islam from the world. Christians are suffering greatly in the middle east. Their homes and churches are destroyed by Muslims. If you’re a Muslim please leave Islam. The more people who resist this horrible religion will see a change in the world.”
First of all, to ban an entire religion would not only be logistically impossible, it would be a gross violation of human rights and religious freedom—not to mention hypocritical. How can one defend the rights of one religious group (Christians) while at the same time advocating to deny the rights of another (Islam)? I wondered to myself, “Who would sign such a ridiculous, uneducated, pointless petition?”
Well, apparently someone like the person who added this comment: “They are a sexist, barbaric, dogmatic religion. They say they are a religion of peace, but try only to force their ways on others and bring war to those who do not agree. Look what horror’s they bring to their own women and children. Child rapes, child brides, stonings, lashings, they just rounded up 60,000 pet dogs and slaughtered them as dirty. They are souless! Stop them before they come to your community.”
So there I was, hoping to connect with people interested in making the world a better, more peaceful place, only to be confronted by bigotry, hypocrisy and a complete lack of understanding.
I have studied Islam and the Qur’an, and it is an incredibly rich and beautiful religion. The problem is not with Islam or Muslims, but rather with extremists and fundamentalists in Islam—or any other religion for that matter.
As Howard Handelman explains in The Challenge of Third World Development, “the mere fact of peoples being ‘Islamic’ [has been confused] with that of their adhering to beliefs and policies that are…’Islamist’ or ‘fundamentalist.’ It has been assumed…that most Muslims seek to impose a political program supposedly derived from their religion. The fact that most Muslims are not supporters of Islamist movements is obscured.”
Furthermore, many people, especially in the West, are “unaware of a long tradition of liberal theology within Islam that has advocated religious tolerance, progress for women, and democratic values” (Handelman, 59).
Yet in the West, and the United States in particular, we are rarely shown this side of Islam, leading to widely held misconceptions about the religion and its followers. Cynthia Boaz provides an excellent analysis of this issue in her article “Separating Church and Hate: Irrationality and Anti-Muslim Stereotyping.”
The article addresses three common misconceptions about Islam: (1) that Islam is a religion of violence, (2) that Islam calls for the oppression of women, and (3) that Moderate Muslims enable radicals by tolerating their behavior.
Throughout history, people have used religion as a tool for political power and oppression. For every case of Islam being used to justify war and killing, I assure you there are as many in the case of Christianity (have we forgotten about the Crusades?), and many other religions as well (even Buddhism).
As for the oppression of women, one could site just as many verses from the Bible as the Qur’an that have been interpreted (many would say wrongly) to state that women are inferior to men.
As for the third misconception, consider this: “Although the story was never covered in mainstream American media, after 9/11, there was a major fatwa (religious decree) issued by five of the world’s most prominent Muslim leaders and scholars which gave permission to American Muslims to fight in Afghanistan on behalf of the United States and against their Muslim Afghani counterparts” (Boaz).
Furthermore, it must also be noted that the religion of Islam itself is far from the only cause of fundamentalism and terrorism in the Middle East. As Handelman explains, “the indignities of colonialism and then neocolonialism, resentment against Israel and the West, and a feeling of failed development have all contributed to that region’s religious revival” (70).
Additionally, many young people growing up in these countries are drawn to extremist groups simply because they see no other options in life. In Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson writes, “I’ve learned that terror doesn’t happen because some group of people somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan simply decide to hate us. It happens because children aren’t being offered a bright enough future that they have a reason to choose life over death.”
Islam is not the enemy. The true enemies—war, poverty, and lack of education and economic opportunities—are the ultimate source of hatred and extremism.
Perhaps if we focused our efforts more on solving these deeply rooted societal problems, rather than making sweeping judgments about a religion and region of the world most of us know little about, we might actually begin to move toward peace.
And so I leave you with the words of the oh-so-wise Dalai Lama:
“Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.”
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