Islamic Negative Portrayal by the West - Coursework Example

Islamic negative portrayal by the West Name: Unit: Course: Supervisor: Date of submission: Introduction The overall purpose of this essay is to highlight major issues in Islam which are repeatedly portrayed negatively in the West, ultimately leading to it becoming a pattern of false religious representation. Islam being portrayed poorly by the west has a long genealogy which can be traced back to medieval times and the birth of Islam. Today, living in the twenty first century we continue to see this long occurring trend of Islam’s name being damaged and falsely embodied. This paper aims to discuss three major concepts that focus directly on Islam’s surrounding controversial issues which are often inaccurate, stereotyped, offensive and almost always negative. Firstly, I will cover the history of Islamic civilisations including the rapid spread of Islam from the Middle East to the European World and how this impacted of the relations between the East and the West. Secondly, I will discuss the issue of Islamophobia and how this problem intensified since the September 11 attacks resulting in the segregation of Muslims and poor media coverage. Lastly, the controversial matter of Jihad and the implications and or meaning of ‘Holy War’’. Ultimately, this essay aims to break down the misconceptions of Islam and dissolve the negative genealogy. History of Islamic civilisation and spread The Islam faith was founded in 610 AD by an Arab merchant called Muhammad. The teaching by Muhammad inspired many people of the Arabic origins in Peninsula. By the around 750 AD the teaching of the Islam had spread, the Islamic empire conquered a very big area stretching from Afghanistan to some parts of Europe in the Spanish world (Berkey 2003, p.43). This was the start of the spread of Islamic empire in which trade, culture and science were the notable civilisations in the Islamic empire. The empire conquered new acquired lands and united the people by the Islamic teaching. Common tax was paid in the empire. Christians and the Jews in the conquered areas were subjected to higher taxes but were allowed to run their own religions without disruptions as long they did not undermine or insult Prophet Muhammad. The characterisation of the Islamic empire during the medieval time was the sense of unity among the traders and the people of the Arab origin (Berkey 2003, p. 54). The Islamic empire army spread the Islam in the whole of the Middle East and beyond. According to Shadid and van Koningsveld (1995, p.243)the main primary patterns applied in the spread of Islam to other cultures was in the military conquest context, even though the Muslims did not force the people to convert to Islam, they levied special tax on the other religions. The success of the Muslim armies created contexts in which people from other beliefs found it right to convert. This was through attraction to the power the Islamic empire exhibited and the triumph. The other context in which Islam had spread was through the conversion of the people through the trade activities and the missionary activities. The Muslim traders visiting the European world and the North Africa spread the Islamic teachings, the sense of unity and purpose attracted many people to the religion. It is worth noting that the expansion of Islam was mainly spread by traders ending to the North Africa, the Anatolia and the Turkish conquerors, this was through peaceful contacts among the traders and the Islamic missionaries (Halliday 1995, 143). The spread of the Islamic culture was due to attraction to peace that the empire allowed the Jews and Christians were left to carry on with their religions peacefully. This saw many people attracted to the religion and hence it’s fast spread. In Europe, the first spread of the Islamic faith was in Spain, the continued rise of the faith and the rise of the Islamic empire created fear among the Christians in the Europe which brought in the rivalry and determination by the Christian rulers to stop the spread. The Christians were not happy with the spread and had great appetite to stop the spread of the Islamic religion to the Europe and even to the parts of Middle East. In the eleventh century, the papacy then called in the Christian crusades that were aimed at getting back the holy land from the Islamic empire (Lapidus 1988, p. 98). Even though the crusade had some marked success, the spread of the Islam in the Europe continued mainly through the already converts and attraction to the teachings (Espito 1999, p. 99). Since the crusades, the hatred for Muslims among the Christian western has remained a major theme to date in the European and the larger western world which included USA. The spread of the Islam to Europe has since been treated with suspicion and Islamic religion has been labelled by the western as pro-violence (Hitti 1970, pp. 13-35). This negative attitude of the Christsians towards Islam and Muslims dates back to the 622 and 1492 when the Islamic world expanded rapidly and the religion spread from the Arabian Peninsula to North Africa, Asia and Europe (Sohail 1996, pp. 31-37). The western world was not happy about the expansion and hence devised means to counter attack the spread by the Christian crusades which were carried in the 11th century and ended in 1683 when the expansion of the Islamic empire was halted at Vienna. The crusades were also aimed at defending the Christian Byzantine empire which lasted from 312-1453. The spread of the Islam Empire weakened the Byzantine empire and despite of calling for help from the Roman pope then, it was finally conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. After the fall of the Christian empire, the crusades continued up to 1683. However, the end of the crusades did not end the rivalry of the western towards Muslims (Tehranian 2000, p. 203). The Christians continued with the hatred towards the Muslims and have since then used every opportunity to pin down the Muslims. This hatred has been seen through the western governments which are mainly Christians grouping together to attack the Islamic nations. For instance, there have been concerted forces against Palestinians who have continued to suffer under the Israeli with support of western governments. The hatred of the Muslims by Christians has been widening due to negative misconceptions of the west towards the Muslims, which have continued to build up, and misconceptions have been rife. The western consider the Islamic world as a threat, many a times the west have warned of the enemy (Muslims) preparing to attack. This has been coupled with the tendency to label the developments in the Islamic world as a signal to religious extremity (Espisito 1992, p. 203). The barrier created by the Christians has continued to date and more counter attacks of the Western has continued to kill many Muslims. In Muslim world, the Western has countered political and social developments. To counter the developments, the west has waged war and propaganda in the areas of Middle East with the claim of stoping religious extremity. This notion has been growing and journalists and political scientists from the western world have magnified the belief with painting of the Islam as a harbouring terrorism. For instance, the Iranian revolution, the western world has termed it as a religious uprising ignoring the pertinent political, social and economic factors that are the cause of the revolutionary movement (Pool 2000, p. 162). This is an example of the western hegemony towards the Islam and the myth of Islamic threats. The religious extremism has thus been used by the western world to hide the islamophobia of the Islam with no found basis. Islamophobia Islamophobia is the exaggerated hatred, fear and outright hostility towards Islam and or Muslims in general. Islamophobia is perpetuated by the negative stereotypes about Islam and Muslims (Saeed & Rahman 2004, p. 52). The negative stereotypes are hinged on the misinterpretation of jihad and the holy war and depiction of Islamic religion as pro-violence. This has resulted in bias, marginalisation, discrimination, suspicion and exclusion of the Muslims by the western world. Islamophobia has been in existence since the expansion of the Islamic religion in the medieval ages and has continued up to the present date. However, the last decade on the wake of the September 11 attacks, saw the islamophobia magnitude increase. The islamophobia was marked by western allegations of the Islamic state that was synonymous with terrorism. This led to the western world edging war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and later the attack of the Iraq and the occupation (Salla 2007, p.211). Islamophobia has been an area of concern, after the September 11 attacks, the US identified almost 200 Muslim-American terrorist suspects, which represents a small percentage of the criminal violence that is normally witnessed in the US each year. The impression of the terrorists having been associated with the Islam created the western attention that Islam is based on belief of terrorism more prevalent than the reality. The islamophobia has thus been characterised by evident fear of a religion that is ready to group and attack the western world (Pool 2000, p. 174). Any mention of the Islamic state has been treated as the regroup and the western has always made efforts to block any emergence of right wing politics in the Islamic world (Lawrence 1998, p. 42). The western world has turned a blind eye on the how the Muslim-western community has been on the fore front of championing for peace and its helps after the 9/11 in helping security forces avert terrorists plots in the US and other places. In the sociological context, the fear of Islam as seen in the west has been considered as clash of civilisation and takes the issue of political and ideological grounds in the determination of the politics and control of the world power (Zubaida 1988, p. 3). The fear of Islam is a path towards turning hostility towards the Muslims and Islam in which there is no sociological abut an ideological basis of separatism. After the September 11, this separatism was witnessed with the Americans vowing to keep Americans safe from the Muslim states which their leaders were considered tyrants. This has seen the ideology by the western world that Islamic spread is a threat towards the global security and has been likened to the Nazism and fascism before the Second World War (Ismail 2003, p. 114-120). Jihad and Holy war Even though islamophobia in the western world has been there for centuries, since the September 11 attacks, the media has continued with negative stereotypes. The word Jihad has been used by Media to associate the Islamic religion with terrorism in the America and Europe (Louay 2001, p. 51). The media has used the word to make Islam appear as a religion that condones violence. This saw the emergence of the caricatures insulting the Islamic religion marking a shift from the early rivalry during the crusades where the main contest was based on control of power to purely a religious cleansing ideology (Salla 2007, p. 211). It is after the 9/11 bombings that jihad and holy war have been brought to fore front, interpreted and defined based on the stereotypes by media and intentional failure to find the real meaning of the worlds as preached in the holy Quran. The portrayal of jihad in the western media as synonym of ‘Holy Terrorism’ is vindication of Islam (Hafez 2000, p.188). This has resulted in high contestation of the term jihad and its relation with the holy war. The Quran scholars have tried to correct the notion by the western media and have given the appropriate intervention of the concept of jihad as a used to mean strive by Muslims to lead good Muslim Life of peace as the Islamic word denotes (Saeed & Rahman 2004, p. 62). The meaning has also been used to imply taking charge in the spread of Islam to the world. Other Muslim scholars have explained the word jihad as a struggle by Muslims against the oppression. However, the western world has chosen to support the definition by the few terrorists using the world to mean using violence to overthrow the western governments and attack on US interests all over the world. This is a simplistic interpretation taken by few terrorists and which has increased the western hegemony towards the peaceful Islamic religion. The simplistic view perpetuated by media has thus been used to equate Islam as religion of fanaticism and violence (Lueg & Hippler 1995, pp.440-454). The Quran depicts jihad as the concept of peaceful persuasion or passive resistance. The term jihad is thus not connected to the ‘holy war’ as used in the medieval times by religions to defend their empires. The actual word for the holy war is al -harb al-muqaddasah and is not found in the Quran. According to Ali (1965) the main concept of the Islamic teaching is peace, war is not holy and it is not justifiable in the Islamic teachings. In addition, the Quran insists that there must be no coercion in matters of faith (2.256). It is due to the non-coercion that in the Islamic faith spread in many people between 662-1492. However, the western world has gone by the inappropriate jihad interpretation to defend its attack on the innocent Muslims. The invasion of Iraq saw many innocent people die. In Syria, the revolutions taking place have been used by America and its allies to threaten to support the killing of the Muslims who are labelled as harbouring terrorism and jihadist. Palestine remains to be a case where killing of the Muslims has continued for many decades up to date. Many Muslims have been killed by the western in the Middle East and others put in detention camps. However, due to the negative stereotypes perpetuated by the media, the West has been considered the heroes and human right protectionist while the innocent Muslims have been treated as the villains. Conclusion The negative genealogy of the Islam and its implication with violence can thus be traced to simplistic analyses of the Islamic teachings. Even though there are many revolutions in what is considered the Muslim world (Middle East), there are complex causes of the violence that relate to social, economic and political backgrounds and are not necessarily attached to religious reasons. The social historical reasons and the human setting in which the revolutions and violence have been happening is due to the societal dynamics and it is void of the ‘violent’ Muslim as depicted by the western media. Since the birth of Islam and its subsequent spread from the Middle East to other parts of the world, Islam has been marked by peace. The jihad has been used in the Quran to urge Muslims to spread the Islamic faith and it is not attached to ‘holy war’ which again has been due to misconceptions and islamophobia in the western world. References Ali, S. A. 1965. The Spirit of Islam: A History of the Evolution and Ideals of Islam with a Life of the Prophet. London: University Paperbacks, pp. 115- 133. Berkey, J.P. 2003. ‘Arabia before Islam’ and ‘The Early Seventh Century’ in The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600-180, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 39-53. Esposito, J.L. 1992. The Islamic threat. Myth or reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 194-205. Esposito, J.L. 1999. Contemporary images of Islam: Islam, modernism and the West. Cultural and political relations at the end of the millennium. New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers. pp. 94- 108. Hafez, K. 2000. Imbalances of Middle East coverage: Islam and the West in the mass media. Fragmented images in a globalizing world. Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press, INC., pp. 181-197. Halliday, F. 1995: Islam and the myth of confrontation. Religion and politics in the Middle East. New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers, pp.102-146. Hippler, J. 2000. Foreign policy, the media and the Western perception of the Middle East. Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press, INC. pp. 67-87. Hitti, P. K. 1970. Islam a Way Of Life. In P. K. Hitti, Islam a Way of Life. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. pp. 1-60. Ismail, S. 2003. Rethinking Islamic Politics: Culture, the State and Islamism, London: I.B. Tauris, pp, 114-137. Lapidus, M. 1988. A History of Islamic Societies: The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Islamic world. New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers, pp.97-111. Lawrence, B.B. 1998. Shattering the myth. Islam beyond violence. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, pp. 38-67. Louay, S. M. 2001. Peace and the Limits of War: Transcending Classical Conception of Jihad Herndon, VA: International Institute of Islamic Thought, pp. 47-53. Lueg, A. and Hippler, J. 1995. The next threat. Western perceptions of Islam. Londo: Pluto Press, pp.431-454. Pool, E. 2000. Framing Islam: An analysis of newspaper coverage of Islam in the British press. Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press, INC., pp. 157-179. Saeed, A. and Rahman, F. 2004. A framework for interpreting the ethico-legal content of the Qur’an’ in Taji-Farouki, Suha, Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Qur’an. Oxford: OUP. pp. 37-66. Salla, M.E.2007. Political Islam and the West: a new cold war or convergence? Third World Quarterly, 18 (4), pp. 729-742. Shadid, W. and van Koningsveld, P. S. 1995. Religious freedom and the position of islam in Western Europe. Opportunities and obstacles in the acquisition of equal rights. Kok Pharos, Kampen, pp. 239-252. Sohail H. 1996. Interpreting the Islamic Ethics of War and Peace. The Ethics of War and Peace. Princeton: University Press, pp.31-38. Tehranian, M. 2000. Islam and the West: Hostage to history? Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press, INC., pp. 201-218. Zubaida, S. 2008. An Islamic State? The Case of Iran? Middle East Report, 153 (1), pp. 3-7. Read More

The success of the Muslim armies created contexts in which people from other beliefs found it right to convert. This was through attraction to the power the Islamic empire exhibited and the triumph. The other context in which Islam had spread was through the conversion of the people through the trade activities and the missionary activities. The Muslim traders visiting the European world and the North Africa spread the Islamic teachings, the sense of unity and purpose attracted many people to the religion.

It is worth noting that the expansion of Islam was mainly spread by traders ending to the North Africa, the Anatolia and the Turkish conquerors, this was through peaceful contacts among the traders and the Islamic missionaries (Halliday 1995, 143). The spread of the Islamic culture was due to attraction to peace that the empire allowed the Jews and Christians were left to carry on with their religions peacefully. This saw many people attracted to the religion and hence it’s fast spread. In Europe, the first spread of the Islamic faith was in Spain, the continued rise of the faith and the rise of the Islamic empire created fear among the Christians in the Europe which brought in the rivalry and determination by the Christian rulers to stop the spread.

The Christians were not happy with the spread and had great appetite to stop the spread of the Islamic religion to the Europe and even to the parts of Middle East. In the eleventh century, the papacy then called in the Christian crusades that were aimed at getting back the holy land from the Islamic empire (Lapidus 1988, p. 98). Even though the crusade had some marked success, the spread of the Islam in the Europe continued mainly through the already converts and attraction to the teachings (Espito 1999, p. 99). Since the crusades, the hatred for Muslims among the Christian western has remained a major theme to date in the European and the larger western world which included USA.

The spread of the Islam to Europe has since been treated with suspicion and Islamic religion has been labelled by the western as pro-violence (Hitti 1970, pp. 13-35). This negative attitude of the Christsians towards Islam and Muslims dates back to the 622 and 1492 when the Islamic world expanded rapidly and the religion spread from the Arabian Peninsula to North Africa, Asia and Europe (Sohail 1996, pp. 31-37). The western world was not happy about the expansion and hence devised means to counter attack the spread by the Christian crusades which were carried in the 11th century and ended in 1683 when the expansion of the Islamic empire was halted at Vienna.

The crusades were also aimed at defending the Christian Byzantine empire which lasted from 312-1453. The spread of the Islam Empire weakened the Byzantine empire and despite of calling for help from the Roman pope then, it was finally conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. After the fall of the Christian empire, the crusades continued up to 1683. However, the end of the crusades did not end the rivalry of the western towards Muslims (Tehranian 2000, p. 203). The Christians continued with the hatred towards the Muslims and have since then used every opportunity to pin down the Muslims.

This hatred has been seen through the western governments which are mainly Christians grouping together to attack the Islamic nations. For instance, there have been concerted forces against Palestinians who have continued to suffer under the Israeli with support of western governments. The hatred of the Muslims by Christians has been widening due to negative misconceptions of the west towards the Muslims, which have continued to build up, and misconceptions have been rife. The western consider the Islamic world as a threat, many a times the west have warned of the enemy (Muslims) preparing to attack.

This has been coupled with the tendency to label the developments in the Islamic world as a signal to religious extremity (Espisito 1992, p. 203). The barrier created by the Christians has continued to date and more counter attacks of the Western has continued to kill many Muslims.

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