Arguments Against Islam

By definition, Islam is a religion of those who obey the doctrines of the Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad, who in the 7th century lived in Arabia, initiated a religious movement that throughout the Middle East was supported by the Arabs. Today, not only in Middle East origins, Islam has adherents, where it is the dominant religion in all countries (Non-Arab, and Arab), but also in other parts of Africa, Asia and, of course, as well as in the United States. Those who are loyal to Islam are called Muslims. The Sunni, Shiite conflict in Iraq started long before the ruling of Saddam Hussein, but when Hussein became Prime Minister of the country the conflict between the two religious sects was taken to a new level. Right when Hussein gained full power, under his control, began years of persecution of the Shiite Muslims in the country. But, before this happened, the conflict was based upon Muhammad and who was to rule after he had died. When Muhammad had died there were many disputes on who should succeed the Prophet Muhammad after his death in 632. Shiites believed that the prophet’s son-in-law, Ali, was to be the successor. Both consider the Koran the word of God. But, devoutness and religious practice distinguish between the two sects. However, Islam teaches that all Islam is equal so Sunni and Shiite sects fight with each other not only because of “hatred” but, also because of religious

Islam: suppressor of women, enemy of Western nations, and breeder of terrorists. The West has many stereotypes and misconceptions about Islam that are due to the media, prejudice, and ignorance. Islam is often seen as an "extremist" or "terrorist" religion. Often, the media's reports about Islam are incorrect due to ignorance or not wanting to acknowledge its true teachings. This is one of the reasons why Westerners are often wary of Muslims. In contrast to what the media portrays, Islam is a peaceful religion, which does not promote violence or terrorism.

Those who follow Islam are called Muslim. Muslims believe that there is only one God. The Arabic word for God is Allah.” There is really no difference between there and Christianity or Catholicism, they all believe in one god and two of them believe that their messiahs have already come and spread the word of their gods. There are instances were people commit terrorist attacks on citizens or people that they have personal issues with and claiming to be apart of a terrorist organization like ISIS. For example there was a shooting recently in Orlando Florida where the culprit targeted homosexual, killing 49 people and wounded 53 others. At first people who heard about it assumed that there was a connection with ISIS and later found out that it was indeed a hate crime. This happened because this specific terrorist group is relevant. The experience of these bullies is effecting the entire Islamic culture. Muslim citizens all over the world are now fearful of freely expressing their traditions, because they're worried that they will be shunned and hated for there “resemblance” the these different terrorist organizations. Back in the mid-1500s the Roman Empire persecuted any suspected Christians so throughout the world people had to his there faith in their god in fear of both their and their families death. “Long after the threat of persecution has past hidden christians in Japan are still closeted.

Muslim Americans are people whose religious belief is Islam, but they were born in America. Before September 11, 2001, Muslim Americans were rarely a discussion or a problem. However after September 11, 2001, Muslim Americans were the main topic. Even though Islam is a religious belief, people are fearful of anything associated with it. Some people discriminate against people who resemble those who are practice the religion. Even though it is not relevant to race, the difference between racism; and religious discrimination is often unclear to people. People believe that terrorists are Muslim activists, but that’s wrong because not all terrorists are Muslims.

the second we knew al-qadha was the terrorists that caused the 9/11, the price for countless innocent people will have to be paid by muslims. "The history of the world is labeled by two designations; B.C and A.b and there's a third designation now; the 9/11." My name is Khan. Muslims experiences daily prejudice and discrimination caused by the 9/11 and the media. Arizona, . According to a recent Gallup Poll, over fifty percent of Americans consider Islam a ‘critical’ threat, with similar numbers reported in France and Germany. researchers crunched the figures for 2006-08, they found non-Westerners were thirty eight times more likely to be killed in a terrorist attack than Westerners.

Violence has sadly become a large part of our society, as have hate crimes. Since the Paris attacks, there has been a huge incline of hate crimes against Muslims Americans and mosques. “The spike includes assaults on hijab-wearing students; arsons and vandalism at mosques at mosques; and shootings and death threats at Islamic-owned businesses […]” (Lichtblau). These attacks are bitter and cruel, but it is not the end of what has recently been happening to Muslims . This past December, there were multiple accounts of hate crimes against Muslims. On December 5th/6th, “A Muslim woman wearing a hijab said a man cut her off and threw stones at her car while she was driving away from a mosque…” (MacNeal). On December 10th, “A Muslim family in Plano, Texas, said that they had the windows on their home smashed two days in a row -- just six weeks after they moved to the area…” (MacNeal). Not only is this a horrible crime, but someone, maybe a child, could have been by that window. This act could have been fatal, and it shows how evil some people are. On December 13, two southern California mosques were vandalized. In the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Baitus-Salaam Mosque located in Hawthorne, California, a plastic replica of a hand grenade was found. This is a very serious way of threatening people, and about the same level of threat as a phone call saying someone was going to come in with a gun and kill people. To add to this, the fence surrounding the mosque of the Islamic Center of Hawthorne had the word “Jesus” spray-painted on it (MacNeal). Not only was this vandalization, but it took away someone’s right to religious freedom and knowing there was somewhere to pray without being judged, stereotyped, told it was wrong, or told they should be a different religion. Lastly, in “2013 Hate Crime Statistics” the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported that

Following September 11, 2001, there seemed to be a sense of fear towards Arabs and Muslims in America. Since then, the tension between the United States and the Middle East has escalated. Based on the attention terrorist attacks receive, stereotypes tend to arise toward Muslims. Terrorists can be any ethnicity or religion, but typically jihadist terrorists’ gain the most attention in the media and the press. In America, Arabs, Muslims, and Jihadists tend to all get grouped together, even though they are not synonymous terms (Amble, 2012, pp. 340, 342). Not every Arab is a Muslim and not every Muslim is a terrorist. In fact, only a small portion of Muslims partake in terrorist activities and the Islam religion actually prohibits deliberate murder of unarmed individuals in battle and suicide (Pratt, 2013). If many stereotypes of Muslims seem to be incorrect, then it is crucial that Christians become educated on what Muslims actually believe. Critiques of the Islam faith that the Christian makes cannot be rooted in the actions of a few radicals. Just as certain people do evil things in the name of Christianity, without truly knowing Christ, I believe terrorists do the same. By targeting the aspects of violence in Islam I believe the Christian can close doors to witnessing. Instead, I think there are two core criticisms between the Islam religion and Christianity that can be analyzed to persuade a Muslim, law and logic. These two categories would allow us to meet with Muslims at

Islam is not the only religion that use violence for instance, the Christian use violence to destroy Islam. In the article crusades the idea of violence was demonstrated when pope urban II send innumerable amount of solder to “Rise in a spirit of cruelty against the jewish people scattered through the cities and slaughtered ’the women, also, and with their swords pierced tender children of whatever gender and sex.” The soldier did not stop there they also “Destroy the houses, synagogue of the jews and divided among themselves a very, large, amount of money [that once belonged to the jews].” Christians were influenced by Pope Urban II to assassinate million of people. It is estimated that about 1.7 million of people died during the crusades.

In 1900, the world was made up of 12.3 % Muslims. In 2010, The number rose to 22.5% making Islam the fastest growing religion in the entire world, exceeding even the growth rate of Christianity. The American Muslim Council has estimated that there are 2,000 mosques and Islamic community centers in the United States. More than 80% percent have been built in the past 12 years.

Islam is portrayed and is commonly accepted as the most violent and largest direct threat to the West. This is a generalization made by most of the West, but it is not particularly the West or the Islamic people’s fault. There is constant turmoil in Islamic countries in the Middle East and these conflicts are what make the news in the West. The only representation in the media that the Islamic nation gets is that of war. Though most Islamic people are not violent, the select few that do participate in terrorist groups give the rest of the Islam nation a bad image.

As a result of Islamophobia; there were a lot of reports of assaults, attacks on mosques and other hate crimes against Muslims last years, . Muslims have been shot and killed, execution-style, in their living room, and outside of their mosques. They have

Islam - A Highly Controversial Sensitive Issue in Today's World: Examination of Misconceptions and Beliefs

To illustrate, ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) organizes suicide bomb attacks in many countries and they claim that they justify this attacks with Islam and different interpreting of Quran. These attacks pose a threat for the innocent people all around the world and cause a massive fear from Muslims among non-Muslim people. What’s more, due to ISIS’s belief that it represents the Islam, people generalize all Muslims as terrorists. In this point, in his article ‘Islamophobia plays right into the hands of Isis’ Jones (2015) express that it is certainly enough to say that the vast majority of Muslims do not except their interpretation of Islam and he emphasizes that there is a highly big distance between Muslim world population and the ISIS. Besides, as it is known ISIS also attacks several Muslim countries and causes to death many Muslims. In spite of this fact, it might be suggested that one of the most important reason for the Islamophobia in the world is existence of terrorist groups and their brutal

The connection between Islam and terrorism was not intensified until the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center that pushed the Islamic faith into the national and international spotlight (Smith, 2013). As Smith (2013) articulated, “Many Americans who had never given Islam a second thought before 9/11 now had to figure out how to make sense of these events and relate to the faith tradition that ostensibly inspired them” (p. 1). One way in which people made sense of these events was through the media channels that influenced their overall opinions by shaping a framework of censored ideas (Yusof, Hassan, Hassan & Osman, 2013). In a survey conducted by Pew Forum (2012), 32% of people reported that their opinions of Muslims were greatly influenced by the media’s portrayal of Islam that depicted violent pictorials and fundamentalist Muslims. Such constant negative depiction is likely to lead to the inevitable—prejudice and hate crime. For instance, in 2002 alone there were approximately 481 hate crimes that were carried out against Muslims (Smith, 2013). Ever since the 9/11 attacks Muslim people have been the target of “suspicion, harassment and discrimination” (Talal, n.d., p. 9).

Millions of Americans and people around the globe consider the terrorist bombings all over the Earth to be the work of cowards who can only execute such murderous acts because of the knowledge that they won't live to face the repercussions. However, while the actions of these people can never truly be justified, they are within the general spectrum of Islamic teachings. If these men believed that their faith was under attack by America, they raised the "sword" to defend it. As the Quran once again states, "Fighting is obligatory for you, much as you dislike it. But you may hate a thing although it is good for you and love a thing although it is bad for you. God knows, but you do not" (Van Voorst 312). Muslims are taught that any martyr who dies in defense of Islam has the rewards of life multiplied many times over waiting for him in Heaven. "Allah has given those who fight with their goods and their persons a higher rank than those who stay at home" (Sherif 166-168). However, the idea of martyrdom and a beautiful afterlife for martyrs is not exclusive to Islam, but present in many other religions, including Christianity. The teachings of Islam are not to blame for