The prominent intellectuals from United States, Professor John L. Esposito had written about a way forward for Muslim and the West relationship in his book title, The Future of Islam. It was published in 2010, around the time when President Barack Obama visited Egypt and promised to mend the relationship between the US and the Muslim world. The relationship had been tarnished by 9/11 attacks by Al-Qaeda that destroys New York Word Trade Center and Pentagon. It was escalated by President Bush when he decided to attack Afghanistan and Iraq unilaterally as a response to destroy Al-Qaeda and the so-called Weapon of Mass Destruction that is being built by Saddam Hussein.
Ignorance of the
West towards had always been there and the 9/11 attacks makes the ignorance
even worse. This is because they only see Muslim as homogenous, backwards and
only living in Middle East. They completely forget about the existence of
Muslim in Africa and Southeast Asia that have different culture and image.
Esposito also criticized those who only learn about the Holy Scriptures and
history of Muslims in the past, but forgetting to understand the reality of
Muslim living in the current world. They also have regular problems such as economics,
politics and social that needed to be addressed. They also have identity crisis
and problems with accommodating their religions with modernity. All of this
contributing to diversity in how Muslims think and behave.
Chapter 1, which
entitled The Many Faces of Islam and Muslims touched on the fact several
Westerns paints Islam as the other. They prefer to regards relationship between
Muslims and the West as the clash of civilization. They also have a very
negative perception towards Muslims such as Islam is not a religion that can
accommodate democracy and pluralism. This also reflected in the fact that a lot
of Muslim majority country is authoritarian and has weak civil society.
The image of
Islam is also very intertwined with Arab, while ignoring the fact that Arabs
only constituted one-fifth of Muslims. A lot Muslim can be found in the country
such as India, Pakistan, Nigeria and Indonesia. Islam also started becomes the
object of research and studies especially by American after the Iranian revolution.
Because of the portrayal in the media that terrorist is usually Muslims, this
makes 46 percent of American sees Islam in a negative view and the cause of
terrorism, according to Washington Post/NBC News poll.
Islamophobia is
the term introduced by Runnymede Trust in 1997 as prejudice on Muslims physical
appearances as well as intolerance to their religious belief. Kofi Annan
himself, then UN Secretary-General urged the world community to unlearn
stereotype that media had helped propagate, and strives to accommodate
different cultures in our own society.
Another aspect
that is important to note about Muslims nowadays is their situation as a
minority especially in America and Europe. Almost 50 percent of Muslims in
America is on the age of youth, which is from 18 to 40. Investment on American
Muslim youth could help nurture the future leadership of America. Muslims women
are also very much educated and have wages as equal as Muslims men. But the
downside is that African-American Muslims still left behind and have low
incomes. This contributed towards the inequality between different ethnic of
Muslims.
American Muslims
also reportedly satisfied in their living, which is account for 41 percent.
They believe that to have a good living, they need to work hard. But at the
same time, because of the Islamophobia, they are being singled out because of
their belief. There is also a sense of alienation and pessimism about the
future. The political inclination of Muslims is very diverse, which 38 percent
claims to be moderate, 29 percent liberal and 25 percent conservative. This
resembles the political inclination among Jews in America. Although in 2008
presidential election, majority Muslims voted for Obama.
Prof Esposito
also shared on his experience when starting his studies on comparative
religion, he surprised that Islam has a lot of similarities with Judaism and
Christianity. This is because a lot of biblical figures were also a prophet in
the Quran such as Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses) and Sulaiman (Solomon). In
fact they are revered among Muslims. Muslims sees that their religion is a
continuation from Judeo-Christian and considered the Prophet Muhammad’s message
as a final revelation from the same God. He also questioned why the West
intellectuals don’t want to integrate Islamic history and tradition into
European traditions.
In Islam, there
are 5 pillars which most Muslims perform everyday such as prayer. But the most
misunderstand concept in Islam especially by the West is Jihad. The literal
meaning of Jihad which is struggle can refer to Muslims struggle to lead an
honest and virtuous life. At times it can be violent if there are enemies that
wanted to destroy Muslims. Which had happened in the times of Prophet itself.
Chapter 2 of the book discuss on God in Politics. The chapter focuses on the history of Muslims and United States from 20th century onwards. Two biggest conflicts between Muslims and American government is the Iranian Revolution on 1979 and 9/11 attacks. The fear of political Islam in the 1980s has contributed into United States trying to undermine anything named Islam. After the revolution, another conflict that happened such as the assassination of Anwar Sadat by Palestinian sympathizers. There is also a Lebanon civil war that effected the Israel-Palestine peace process.
The resurgence
of Islam in the 1970s had also contributed into a new image and ways of
thinking that differ from the West modernity. The revival had proposes an
Islamic education, clothes and even financial institution. This idea eventually
picks up by Islamic country such as Malaysia and Pakistan. The Muslim had
become more religious and sees only Islam as strong identity, compare to
Socialism or Liberalism. This also a continuation from the frustration of
Muslims on the defeat of Arabs in 1967 war with Israel. Added to this is the
fact that Muslim countries still behind in terms of education and economics and
the repression of the dictators that cozy up with the West and abandoning their
country people.
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