Popular resistance SC3037C - Essay Example

Knowing and understanding the relationship between the narratives and the perceptions which some Muslims may hold can certainly help policing protest movements and help in controlling a situation that could spiral out of control. A Muslim empire was more or less firmly established during the lifetime of the founder of the religion, i.e. Muhammad, but the golden age of the empire came a few centuries later when the Muslims had expanded their region and spread their religion from India to Africa and even into Europe as a Spanish Muslim region was formed.

In this manner, the Muslims are perhaps unique amongst the major religions of the world since their empire was founded in the name of religion but divided on national lines overtime (Petersen, 2005). Even then, religion remained important and still continues to be so. While many of the narratives today focus on the battles which the Muslims have had with ‘non-believers’ in the past, the historic narratives also focus on discovery, learning and being objective in scientific experiments (Rochberg, 1992).

Sardar (2004) discusses this very topic and reports that: “The Koran devotes almost one-third of its contents to singing the praises of scientific knowledge. The first Koranic word revealed to the Prophet Muhammad is: "Read." It is a basic tenet of Muslim belief that the material world is full of signs of God; and these signs can be deciphered only through rational and objective inquiry. ‘Acquire the knowledge of all things’ the Koran advises its readers; ‘Say: O my Lord! Increase me in knowledge’ (Sardar, 2004, p. 28)”. From a religion which devotes itself to peace and the search of knowledge, the narratives about Islam today are clearly more focused on the militant aspect of the religion in which victory means the blessings of god while martyrdom means seventy virgins in paradise (Turner, 1999).

This changing narrative means that if the story of Islam can be retold and given to the Muslims