Anti-Islam campaign: ignorant or deliberate act?
Anti-Islam campaign: ignorant or deliberate act?
The following text is the exact words of a major British paper (Mail Online) regarding a small gathering in a university in England by mainly young Muslims.
“Inside the British university where Muslims were segregated by sex: Shocking picture shows how men were reserved front-row seats while women had to sit at the back
Photograph was taken earlier this year at a Leicester University seminar
The same Islamic society came under fire for 'brothers and sisters' sign
Universities UK has backed down from guidelines which allow segregation
Speaker at the event: 'Separate seating is not something we ever enforce'
Anti-Islam articles and campaign are not new or strange and appear daily in the European media. European Muslims are more or less used to this type of Islamophobic campaign but due to disunity amongst Islamic communities a firm and logical reply so far has not been given to the perpetrators who are directing the events. By looking at the title and the text of the article, a fair minded person can realise that the aim is to frighten the readers about a community which encourages “segregation” and at the same time warn the readers about the threats Muslims pose to the European values.
Words like “shocking”, “segregation”, “enforce”, “separation”, etc. are used to shock the reader. Of course Islam is not a new phenomenon and it has been in existence for centuries and the Islamic etiquettes are clear to Muslims and non-Muslims. Muslims who follow the Islamic etiquettes in gatherings follow the guidelines which direct them to respect the dignity of female participants. In gatherings where single and married men and women take part and for the sake of observing the dignity of the audience particularly ladies, without the need for any enforcement, Muslims observe the seating arrangements in a way to respect the ladies and provide them with comfortable environment.
Muslim ladies, even those who are married, would like to sit with other ladies in gatherings but if they wished to sit next to their husbands they can do so. This is not an issue within the Islamic communities and therefore should not be an issue with non-Muslims. There are some important points regarding the anti-Islam campaign which need to be mentioned here.
Muslims have no problems integrating with other communities wherever they live, particularly in Europe.
Like other communities, Muslims are entitled to observe their religious etiquettes without being worried to be insulted by the media.
There are 2 groups which damage the image of Islam particularly in European countries and some in the media seem on purpose to focus on them to give a distorted image of Islam. The first group is those Muslims who think by imitating the life style of the host countries they can integrate and become like them. Of course this way they are neither accepted by their own community nor others. The second group includes all those extremists who do not have a clear idea of genuine Islam and try to force their distorted views on whomever living around them. The real Islam and Muslims reject both of these groups and they are not representatives of the religion.
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