Why is Islam criticized in many parts of the world?
4 Answers
The widespread unease and dislike of Islam around the world is a consequence of history and experience.
Explanation:
Religion is a driving engine of culture but is also fundamental to many people's identity. Humans also have fundamental questions about themselves and turn to religion to meet specific needs.
Cultures and identities can come into conflict and use religion as an excuse when they do. This is a frequent story in history.
Many religions are (mostly) specific to one culture. Hinduism built and shaped Indian civilization, Judaism, Shintoism, and Taoism have done likewise elsewhere. There are three "universal" religions that have spread far beyond their founding cultures -- Buddhism, Christianity and Islam.
Because the media continues to portray Islamic people as villains in movies, TV shows, the news, etc.
EXAMPLE
One recent example is in Blindspot (season 1, episode 10, approximately 30 minutes in and on), where a gun-wielding terrorist organization hijacks an airplane ("Pan-Asian flight 921") in order to kidnap passengers.
They made the passengers build microsatellites so they could fly over 60000 feet in the air and locate and disable the USA GPS satellites (so the US armed forces can't track these terrorists).
The actor Neimah Djourabchi plays a role literally labeled "terrorist" according to IMDB, so clearly, some of the actors who at least look like they are Islamic, are portrayed as terrorist characters here.
Since so many people watch TV, read the newspaper, etc., if depictions like these happen enough, and if people don't get properly educated on the diversity of Islamic people, since they primarily receive the violent depiction, they might foolishly generalize to the entire culture.
In fact, not all Muslims are automatically extremists or terrorists!
MAIN REASONS FOR POORLY-CONSTRUCTED CRITICISM OF ISLAM
One common misconception that is likely the reason why many people have negative views of Islamic people is the false definition that jihad is literally a "holy war". But it's not explicitly suggesting physical violence.
In fact, from my Interreligious Dialogue final, I had written:
Irrespective of interpretation, jihad is a passionate duty in which the jihadist struggles to maintain his or her adherence to the Islamic religion and might include opposition as-necessary towards nonbelievers. There is no explicit indication of actual physical violence. Although [Sayyid] Qutb would see jihad as a general means towards reforming the sovereignty of the state, bin Laden simply reoriented the focus to involve "violent rather than spiritual struggle as primary" and justified jihad as a so-called self-defense against "an[y] attack[s] on Muslims everywhere" (Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought, pp. 432, 433). This is the violent form of jihad we are most familiar with today.
So, if we want to blame anyone for the spread of terrorist Islam culture, we should not choose Muslims everywhere, but Usama bin Laden (who followed the Wahhabi mindset, just like ISIS), who took Qutb's idea of jihad and projected a new goal of performing jihad for its own sake, i.e. the goal of fighting against America for the sake of jihad itself.
WHY AM I BLAMING BIN LADEN?
To be honest, from reading his writing (Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought, pp. 425-459) in my Religion 350 class, bin Laden's arguments are terribly constructed (he has poor trains of thought, loads of repetition of the same ideas, and pulls from conspiracy texts), so it makes sense to say that he probably misinterpreted Qutb.
Bin Laden is almost as fundamentalist as you can get for a fairly recent Islamist (Muslims with a political goal, such as combining government and Shar'ia Law):
- He blamed America for occupying the "Land Between The Two Holy Places" (Saudi Arabia). He says this (pg. 5) in one of his writings, titled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places" (August 23, 1996), which can be found in Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought.
- He constructed a "Zionist-Crusader Alliance" (pg. 6) as basically a straw man.
- He labeled America as oppressive (pg. 3).
- He supposedly "justified" driving America out as "self-defense", which, though it makes some sense, does not suggest more violence after the Americans are out. Yet, he decides to declare war outright (pg. 5).
Qutb didn't suggest physical violence, though since his language is so suggestively radical, he might be accidentally read as such, and perhaps, bin Laden read his intentions for jihad like that.
Since ISIS follows the Wahhabi mindset, just as bin Laden does, it makes sense that ISIS would be so violent as well.
(It's not to say that I actually agree with ISIS or bin Laden though.)
One reason is the political aspirations of some forms of Islam.
Explanation:
Islam has been militarily and politically aggressive in its history.
Soon after the establishment of Islam in the Arabia Islam spread out and conquered most of the middle east. Then the Christian empires of Egypt and the Sudan were conquered. By 711 the Islamic armies had conquered Spain. Under Islamic rule the people not Muslim became second class citizens, causing people to be critical of Islam and to fear it military and political aspirations.
In 732 the Islamic expansion was stopped in France at the battle of Tours. Warfare continued the Christian armies of the Franks and the Islamic armies for more than 100 years.
The Islamic armies also invaded China conquering parts of western China where Muslim population have recently created political instability. The Chinese civilization learned to distrust the Islamic civilization.
When the Ottoman Turks converted to Islam in middle ages they renewed the expansion of their Islamic Empire finally conquering Constantiople and the Eastern Roman Empire. (Changing the name of the city to Istanbul and the churches to mosques.) The Ottoman Empire invaded Europe reaching to the gates of Vienna and the Austrian Hungarian Empire. Albania and parts of Kosovo are still a Muslim countries based these conquests. The political dominance of the Muslims in the areas that they conquered still causes people in Greece and other parts of Europe to fear Islam.
I would like to add a relevant point in this. Islam is being criticized today mainly because most islamists, many in powerful positions, are resisting reform.
Explanation:
Reforms keep extremism in check. And reformist socio-religious movement must arise from within the religious institution as happened in many cases. Bengal renaissance in nineteenth century is an example, close to our part of the world, spearheaded by Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1774-1833) whose efforts ultimately banished the cruel practice of 'Sati'- a Hindu tradition of burning the widow on the pyre of her dead husband.
Such reform must start from traditional schools of education, also called Madrasah. Islamic clerics also play extremely important role in society and their teachings may help followers to come to terms with the changing reality.
One author has simply put it in this way: now is the time when Islam must produce it's own Martin Luther.
