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Islamophobia
What is Islamophobia?
Some would explain Islamophobia as simply referring to the fear of Islam.
Dennis Prager puts it differently. He claims that Islamophobia has one purpose. That is, “to suppress any criticism, legitimate or not, of Islam.”
Here we refer to it in a general way. Anything that relates to the overwhelming impact that Islam has on our lives today, falls under this category.
A few decades ago, most people would have stated that the greatest threats to mankind were nuclear weapons or the Communist threat from the Soviet Union.
Today, things have changed -– drastically.
There are major population shifts in Europe and the impact that the Islamic countries have is rapidly increasing.
The threats of proliferation of nuclear weapons is growing. Smaller rogue countries with radical leaders are more dangerous today than any other time. At the tine of this writing
Vigilance against all threats is necessary to retain the freedom we so cherish.
French-Tunisian Imam slams political Islam for Creating a War
Political Islam is dangerous. It promotes victimhood. It incites violence. And it’s the reason many people do not think Muslims are peaceful.
The Dangers of Political Islam
It is fascinating listening to this Imam speak about political Islam and what it does to Muslims. Organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood truly ruin the lives of Muslims, their culture, and their existence. And it destroys the lives of others as well in the way it promotes hate, violence, and death. It is responsible for so much brutality in the world.
The Brainwashing
Brainwashing is the norm in many Islamic circles. Coming from the leaders makes it seem acceptable to many Muslims. But it is horrifying. It is a sad reality, but children grow up thinking that murder is good and peace is bad. They are also taught to think that they are victims and that the whole world hates them and discriminates against them. And the result? They fight back hard. Many Muslims might not want this reality. But political Islam has forced it upon them and their children.
Some, like this Imam, are brave enough to fight back against this culture of hate. He stands up to the “cancer,” as he calls it. He points to it as the cause of all disasters for the nation of Islam.
Speaking out against Islam in such a way can be dangerous for the person brave enough to do so – whether one is a Muslim or not. Political Islam does not promote the right to criticize or use freedom of speech. Far from it, actually. But this Imam still spoke up publicly. And for that he deserves a lot of credit!
Islamophobia is a problem. A very real problem. People walk around in fear of Muslims. Muslims are not the problem; Islam is the problem. Muslims are lost souls in need of Christ like any one else.
However, Islam is billed as one of three Abrahamic religions. This is wrong. Saying that it is only legitimizes an evil cult. To believe that Islam is of Abraham negates Judaism and Christianity. Islam is no more of an Abrahamic religion that Hinduism, Buddhism, or Mormonism.
We know that Satan is a fallen angel. We also know that some people worship Satan. But, we do not call Satanism a biblical religion.
The prophet of Islam, Muhammad, was an illiterate Arab tradesman, who combined the beliefs of pre-Islamic Arabia, Judaism, and Christianity into a blood-thirsty cult which promoted slavery, degraded women, created an unjust legal system, and terrorized the world for the last fourteen-hundred years.
Do not be fooled by thinking Islam is like Judaism and Christianity, Peoples’ of the Book, an Abrahamic religion. If they were a true people of the Book, they would follow the Book, the Bible, not the Qur’an. Islam worships a false god, a deity they have named “Allah.”
A giraffe may claim to be a horse, but that doesn’t make it so.
1 – Jews believe and follow the Bible (OT) and it’s inerrancy;
2 – Christians follow the Bible (OT, NT) and it’s inerrancy;
3 – Islam follows the Qur’an, finding the Bible to be at fault and in error.
I know of no Christian theologian who would call Mormons or Jehovah Witnesses “People of the Book,” and I do not believe Muslims should have that distinction either.
9/11
In the immediate aftermath of September 11 anti-Muslim hate crimes significantly increased, including physical assaults, verbal abuse, and property damage to mosques and Muslim-owned businesses. In 2004, a report for the Islamic Human Rights Commission in Britain found that 80 percent of Muslims felt harassed or discriminated against in some way, compared to 45 percent in 2000 and 35 percent in 1999.
Since 9/11 numerous studies, articles and public commentaries have characterized transnational Islam and the increased Muslim immigration to Europe as a potentially existential threat to Western society. Provocative books such as Bruce Bower’s While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within, Bat Ye’or’s Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, Melanie Phillips’ Londonistan, and Patrick J. Buchanan’s The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil our Country and Civilization became best-sellers in Europe and America, resonating with the growing sentiments of fear and apprehension. Similar texts have been published by native writers such as Wafa Sultan’s A God Who Hates, Noni Darwish, Now They Call Me Infidel, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel.
The growing sense of apprehension among the general population has led to public political activism against Muslims and empowered the nascent right wing European parties, leading to political campaigns that espoused anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner, and anti-Muslim tirades. In 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen of France’s National Front gained an electoral victory by advancing to the second round of the French presidential primary election. Geert Wilders, founder of the Freedom Party in the Netherlands (and later Germany), has based his political policies on criticism of Islam. Comparing the Qur’an to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, Wilders has tapped into a groundswell of public opinion. He received an astounding 15 percent of the vote, enough to extract concessions from a minority-elected government on such issues as restrictions on immigration and bans on some forms of Islamic dress. An estimated 20 percent of Germans identify as sympathetic with the party and as many as 25 percent of Berliners “could see themselves voting” for the party. While Wilders has been described as a “radical liberal” since he supports fairly progressive causes, his criticism of Islam focuses on the premise that it restricts liberty. Similar anti-immigration and anti-Muslim parties have been elected in Sweden, demonstrating a growing trend across Europe. Belgium’s extremist anti-immigrant party, Vlaams Belang, has gained increasing popularity. It won 24 percent in 2004 regional elections. Originally the party called for forced repatriation of all immigrants up to the third generation. Deemed as racist, they lost their state funding and were dissolved. Soon after, they reorganized and slightly moderated their stance, claiming that Islam is incompatible with democracy. The party has rapidly gained supporters, becoming the strongest party in the Flemish region. Other political parties, as well as the King, continue to call for a more moderate discourse and for tolerance.
In Germany, the media often has a “framing problem,” a tendency to consistently discuss Islam as a monolithic and unified force, thus ignoring its heterogeneity. The tendency is to over-emphasize the associations between Islam and honor killings, the oppression of women or the unwillingness of Muslims to learn German. In a nation-wide survey an estimated 46 percent of Germans felt that there are “too many” Muslims in Germany while only 19 percent thought that Islam is compatible with German culture. In contrast, 69 percent of Muslims in Germany express a “strong” or “very strong” sense of connection to Germany. Part of this anti-Islamic sentiment appears to stem from two concerns about Islam. The religion is perceived as promulgating conservative and backward values, and also is conflated with terrorism, extremism, and Sharia law. Eight terrorist plots foiled by German police between 2001 and 2015 have intensified these fears. Germany Does Away with Itself, a wildly popular book penned by the banker Thilo Sarrazin, made the case that the nation’s generous social welfare system has attracted undesirables such as Turks. Many German conservatives have flocked to the Freedom Party because they felt betrayed by Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Christian Democrats who perpetuate a public dialogue they perceive as far too politically correct, thus limiting legitimate debate regarding race, politics and immigration.
In the UK, the British National Party won two seats in city council races for the first time in over a decade. The party, which represents the far right in British politics, launched a “Campaign to Keep Britain Free of Islam” that included the distribution of thousands of leaflets claiming that Islam stands for intolerance, slaughter, looting, arson and the molestation of women. In the weeks following the London bombings, hate crimes increased. London reported 269 crimes in the three weeks following the attacks compared to 40 that had been recorded during the same period the entire previous year. Over half of the UK’s mosques and Islamic centers have been victimized since 9/11. According to the Association of the Chief Police Officers between 50-60 percent of all religious hate crimes in Britain have Muslims as the target. One study found that a mere 23 percent of a sample group believed that Islam was not a threat to Western civilization. Only 24 percent thought that Muslims were compatible with the British way of life; in contrast, other studies show that an overwhelming majority of Muslims — over 80 percent — are proud to be British.
Islamophobia and xenophobia, according to Observatorio Andalusí, has increased among the Spanish public as well. A “latent bias” became evident as a reaction to the visibility of Islam and Islamic institutions, including new mosques, wearing hijab, and police actions against suspected Islamist activists. A survey of 2,000 Muslims administered by the Ministry of Interior in December 2008 found that 31 percent of Muslim participants felt that Islam was rejected in Spain. In May 2009, the Spanish press reported complaints from several leaders of the Jama‘at Tabligh ad-Da‘wa in Spain against the Spanish government for refusing to grant citizenship to members of this group due to their choice of garb and other displays of religiosity. Reports of violence and discrimination post 9/11 and after the 2004 Madrid bombings were relatively rare. Spain notably did not legislate anti-terrorism laws. Instead, the government increased security at borders, airports, bases and embassies.
Another controversy that continues to elicit fear in Europe and in America by voters, legislators and the courts is what has been called “Shariaphobia”: The fear that Muslims are seeking to establish Shari’a as the law that governs Western nations. A study by the Council of American Progress, “Fear, Inc.,” identifies donations of over forty million dollars for the support of an Islamophobia industry in the United States. David Yerushalmi and his Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE), in cooperation with Frank Gaffney, are a major source of the anti-Islamic law movement. On June 13, 2007, Yerushalmi and Mordechai Kedar unveiled the “Mapping Shari’a in America Project” that targeted some 2,300 Islamic institutions in the U.S. The project was slated to “collect information about America’s mosques and associated day schools, provide information to both law enforcement officials and the public, and test the proposition that Shari’a amounts to a criminal conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. Government.”Through his “American Laws for American Courts” project, Yerushalmi, a self-styled “specialist in securities, business and international law,” offered legislators in over 20 states “a template that claims to sidestep constitutional objections to singling out Islam by avoiding explicit mention.” Over 20 state legislative bodies have taken this advice. While professional perpetrators of Islamophobia such as Frank Gaffney, Robert Spencer, Steven Emerson, Daniel Pipes, Pamela Geller, and David Yerushalmi, among others, appear to be dedicated to demonizing Islam and Muslims and raising questions about their to be American citizens, American Muslim communities across the country have reflected on how best to react to the slander and pernicious acts perpetrated by hate mongers.
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