It's coming .. shall we stop it?

Not so long, I was watching a show of the Muslim preacher and media-man, Tareq Al-Suwaidan. The subject of the show was the relation between Muslims and non-Muslims. He mentioned during his talk a horrible number which means, if it was true, that there is a serious disaster threatening the relation between 4/5 of humans living on this planet and the other 1/5 of humans who integrate them. He said that in one of the surveys made in America, only 2% of the American people heard about Islam from Muslims!!! The rest of them either never heard about Islam, or knew very little information about it from non-Muslim writers or through the Media.

The case is seriously of great importance, and I dare to say, represents high threats!

Some signs of the coming disaster have already showed up..

-In America now some Americans are fighting against building a mosque in New York.

-In Europe many countries like; France, England, Holland, Denmark, Italy and Belgium are fighting against Nikab (Burka) which is generally related to Muslim culture.

-And lately we started to hear about attacks against Muslims based on their religion: an American man in New York on August, 2010 stabbed Ahmed Sherif, a Muslim cab driver, in the throat that caused severe injuries, a German-Russian man killed Marwa El-Sherbini, a Muslim woman, in Gerrmany and attacked her husband violently on July, 2009. And according to its survey, the American organization, Council on American-Islamic Relations has observed a raise of 25% of the attacks against Muslims from 2005 to 2006. And lately the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee has warned all those who look as Middle-Easterns or Muslims to be careful to avoid attacks against them.

-And on 30th July, 2010 a church in Gainesville, Florida invited to an "International Burn A Koran Day"!

-Desecration of mosques and Qur'an copies, throwing stones on mosques, drawing crosses on mosques, not allowing Muslim employees to practice their prayers, etc are also included in the list.

Yes, it's extremism, Extremism against Islam and Muslims.

At present we are handling individual actions from extremist persons, but if the "individual" turned to be "collective", then that's the worst nightmare we all fear.

If we would summarize the main reasons of extremism against Islam, we would find the following:

1- As response against extremist actions from extremist Muslims, usually extremism generates extremism.

2- The intended inflation in media of Muslim extremism actions, and ignoring the actions of moderate Muslims and peaceful coexistence experiences.

3- The writings of some biased non-Muslim writers who present a twisted and distorted understanding of Islam.

4- The ignorance of many non-Muslims about Islam. Remember: Only 2% of Americans heard about Islam from Muslims. Plus, the survey on 2009 made by GALLUP who tell that 63% of Americans either never heard about Islam or have very little knowledge about Islam.

I cannot stop western Media from inflating acts of Muslim extremists, nor I can enforce them to tell western peoples about moderate Muslims and wonderful experiences of coexistence among Muslims and non-Muslims. I cannot too stop writers from misguiding western readers.

But I do can decrease the ignorance of some non-Muslims about Islam. I can tell the world about my own religion. That I'm proud to be a follower of it. Maybe, my little efforts will be an obstacle stone in the very steep way of the flood of the violent river of exchanged extremism among 4/5 of the people on this planet and their integrating 1/5.

For all that, starting from the next week I'll begin a series of posts talking about Islam in brief, trying to achieve two goals;

*Increasing the awareness of western non-Muslims regrading the basics of Islamic religion and Muslim traditions.

*Giving those who heard about Islam from biased writers or from media, a chance to hear about Islam from a Muslim.

May Allah help me!

Stay tuned!