Since the 45th President of the United States took office last January, the social, economic, and cultural landscape of the U.S. has shifted. For the average American, these changes are not terribly pronounced. Sure, their taxes may go up or down a little, and they may not be able to afford health care, but for the stereotypical white, red-blooded American, there is no worry of physical safety nor cultural belonging. This is not the case for many Muslims living in the United States under reign of President
Trump.
Islam is the most feared and misunderstood religion in America. Despite notions of American diversity, Americans are grossly intolerant of Islam.
For many years after 9/11 the villain in action movies were Islamic terrorists. The film and television industry capitalizes on popular opinion when selecting the archetypal “bad guy” for the silver screen. These days the villains tend to be Russian or vaguely North Korean, again reflecting the zeitgeist of American mob mentality. Perhaps the term “American” here is disingenuous and I should be more specific. A Pew Research Center survey found, in 2017, that Republicans, white evangelicals, and those with less education are much more likely to express reservations about Muslims and Islam than any other group of Americans. On their “feeling thermometer” from zero to one-hundred where absolute zero indicates the most negative possible rating and one hundred the highest possible favor rating. The average Democrats rated Islam at 56 while Republicans and those leaning towards the Republican party came in at a cool 39. 63 percent of Republican respondents believe that Islam incites violence while only 26 percent of Democrats agreed with that statement. Additionally, Republicans also are more likely than Democrats to say that Islam is not part of mainstream American society (68 percent vs. 37 percent) and that there is a natural conflict between Islam and democracy (65 percent vs. 30 percent) according to Pew Research Center.
Why are there so many disjointed opinions on Islam? What or who propagates the misinformation and stigma about one of the world’s oldest religions?
The first answer that pops into my head when asking this question is Donald Trump. Trump’s campaign was built on the maintained notion of an “us vs them” mentality when it comes to Islam. In the first six months of Trump’s presidency there was a 91 percent increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes. From his retweets of Jayda Fransen, the notorious leader of the far-right Britain First organization and virulent anti-Muslim bigot, to his declaration in an interview March 9, 2016 with CNN that, “Islam hates us,” Trump has shown time and time again his disdain and fear of Islam.
The President of the United States is supposed to make every citizen feel safe in their country, (yes Donald it’s their country too) not incite violence and fear against a group of people that have done nothing wrong.
The notion that radical Islam is a direct result of the teachings of the Quran and the indication that violence is an inherent part of Islamic society is incorrect and dangerous.
There are three areas that must be understood when discussing radical Islam: the role of global politics that have destabilized regions and inflamed tensions, how dysfunctional states create an opening for extremism, and finally, how religion fills the gaps created by international and domestic uncertainties according to Hassan Hassan’s
ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror
. When looking for the source of extremist groups, we should look not at Islam but at ourselves. Hassan argues that the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)has more to do with U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East than with the Quran. He specifically notes how its military interventions have changed the region. Consider the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority’s 2003 order to dissolve the Iraqi Armed Forces. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were left angry and unemployed, and many of these individuals now provide militants with military expertise and training.
Another example of the United States’ role in stoking extremism is its support for the U.N. policies on Israel. In 2003, John Austin, a former British Parliamentarian, wrote an article for the Palestinian non-governmental organization (NGO) Miftah citing conflicts from Kosovo to East Timor to Iraq to Rwanda. In each of those cases, the U.N. imposed enforcement measures such as arms embargos, and international tribunals to prosecute crimes against humanity. Yet on Israel’s illegal building of settlements, there has been no action despite numerous U.N. resolutions dating back to the late 1970s often because of U.S. intervention on its behalf.
Extremist versions of religion serves to fill a power vacuum and is able to be used by authoritarian leaders to fulfill their crusade and lend credibility to their power pursuits. Christian terror groups are not often discussed in the media but they exist and are also responsible for atrocious acts of violence. Christian militia group “Anti-balaka” is responsible for the destruction of almost all mosques in the Central African Republic. The Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda made headlines when a documentary/YouTube campaign went viral discussing the horrors perpetrated by the Christian organization. In the United States eleven people have been killed by christian motivated attacks on abortion clinics. Radical Christianity exists everywhere where there is Christianity, as is the case with Islam and radical Islam.
Regardless of the inherent logic of the argument and the facts that I’ve presented, people still love to point to radical Islam as defining Islam while keeping their heads in the sand when it comes to radical Christianity. Both the Bible and the Quran incite violence against non-believers, speak against homosexuality, keep women subdued, speak to owning servants of other faiths, and much more. The teachings of Muhammad are not inherently that much different than the teachings in the Bible.
The differences lie in the social, political, and cultural landscapes in which the religions were molded and identified. The permission given in Quran 22:40–41 to fight was only given to “those against whom war is waged.” Fighting wasn’t just to defend Muslims from persecution — but to defend Christians, Jews, and people of all faiths. All subsequent verses addressing fighting are pre-conditioned on these clearly outlined rules of self-defense. Otherwise, it’s cherry-picking, something the Quran forbids as perverse.
Another thing that islamaphobes love to claim is that Muslims endorse terrorism even if they aren’t terrorists themselves. One student at the University of Colorado, Herra Hashmi, was tired of the claims that Muslims were not making a stand against terrorism. She compiled a 712-page Google-Doc citing instances of Muslims denouncing specific acts of terror with sources and posted it. Within a week of sending out the tweet, a website was made that holds all the statements and is updated. The site is muslimcondemn.com. When asked about the site and about her initial tweet, Hashimi spoke to the ridiculous expectation that Muslims are constantly expected to apologize for terrorist acts. Muslims, notes Hashmi, are “held to a different standard than other minorities: 1.6 billion people are expected to apologize and condemn [terrorism] on behalf of a couple of dozen lunatics. It makes no sense.” After all, Hashmi, says, “I don’t view the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) or the Westboro Baptist Church or the Lord’s Resistance Army as accurate representations of Christianity. I know that they’re on the fringe. So it gets very frustrating having to defend myself and having to apologize on behalf of some crazy people.”
No one on this campus, or anywhere in any walk of life, should feel unsafe or persecuted because of their religion. Islam is a beautiful religion of peace, brotherhood, and camaraderie. Those individuals who justify violence or extremism are not true Muslims. As Egyptian theologian Feisal Abdul Rauf puts it, “Fanatacism and terrorism and have no place in Islam.”
