Islamophobia

 

 I was born the same fateful year that divided the world into two blocks, the Muslim world and the rest of the world. September 11, 2001 or 9/11 as it is commonly called, is the day the West decided to launch a crusade or a war on terrorism as George Bush used the term against the Muslim world in general and Afghanistan and Iraq in particular. Since the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon were all Muslims and Arabs. 9/11 onwards was a long story of atrocities against everyone even remotely resembling Muslims. For example a Sikh was killed in America because people mistook him for being a Muslim since he had a beard. The propaganda against Islam reached a level where panic overtook the western world and they developed an Islamophobia, a fear of Muslims.  The first thought that came to every mind was that the Islamists did it because they have deep seated vendetta against US for its support for Israel and what Israel is doing in the Middle East. We may never know the truth behind 9/11 and to what extent Bin Laden was sincere in his efforts to save Islam but one thing is for sure, we, as Muslims, members of the once mighty Muslim Ummah still haven’t come out of our golden past and we continue to see ourselves as conquerors and history makers. We haven’t come to terms with the fact that we are no longer the subject of history, we are no more the conquerors, and we are just standing helplessly on the margins of history. We somehow believe that it is our birth right to rule and this right has been usurped by scheming and cunning kafirs.

The war on terror began a new wave of US attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, taking the war right to the heart of Muslim world in general and the Arab world in particular. If we can carefully analyze the event of the past 70 to 80 years ago we see that terrorism has come to be associated with Islam and Muslims. It is in fact referred to as Islamic terrorism. It began with Palestinian freedom struggle and continues until now. It is very unfortunate that some supporters of political Islamic movements believe in violence as a legitimate means to achieve their goals.  They not only use violence they also find support for their arguments in Islamic texts. Pakistan has been one of the worst hit countries by terrorism. We have lost thousands of lives in aimless and useless terrorist attacks. Both the killers and the victims were Muslims, both were “Kalima go”. One thing is crystal clear, Islam is neither violent nor pacifist. Quran has not taught violence against the unarmed, the old people, women, children, animals and even plants. But what we have grown up watching is quite contrary. No one is safe from terrorists in Pakistan. These terrorists claim themselves to be the upholders of divine justice. We are ourselves responsible for the image non-Muslims receive; we are no less responsible for Islamophobia. For the last few decades there has been an increasing trend of politicization of Islam. It is basically the political Islam, not the religion Islam that makes its supporters adopt terror and violence as tools of achieving their ends. History is witness to the fact that before the creation of illegitimate state of Israel, Jews and Arabs co-existed peacefully in a tolerant atmosphere for centuries.  There is no record of Jews being persecuted by the Muslims. It’s the Christians who shamelessly persecuted the Jews for more than thousands of years. Christians are even responsible for the Holocaust. Greece was under church linked dictatorships for a long time. Russia and many Latin American states have been and still are under dictatorship. Islam isn’t even responsible for those two fought world wars as not even a single Muslim state had any link with all the destruction caused by the world wars. Islamophobia is the first term invented to conceal Western imperialism. Even without Islam, the world would still have rivalries and conflicts based on ethnicity, nationalism, ambition, greed, resources, financial gains, powers, interventions and hatred of outsiders. Islamophobics will never judge Muslims positively. They will fear anyone who has a beard or has their head covered.

I have experienced good and bad both kinds of non-Muslims. I remember once in Germany I was wearing this shirt that had my name in Urdu and this boy comes up to me and says “why do you have something written on your shirt in the forbidden language?” and I asked him what he meant and he simply said that this is the language of terrorists. I told him it’s Urdu and he said that it doesn’t matter because it’s the language of Pakistan and Pakistan is a Muslim country so that makes Pakis terrorists too. I was disgusted, but the truth is we chose this for ourselves. We should be ashamed! All we can do is get triggered when people say bad stuff about Islam but we still won’t change ourselves. But till when? It hurts… it hurts a lot. The bad ones do the sins and the good ones suffer.  No one can change the image of the Muslims in the eyes of the world but us Muslims. I know it will take some time but the world will gradually see a new and strong Muslim Ummah appearing and proving the world wrong about the image they have for us Muslims and Islam.