Why So Much Hate?
By Aiman Reyaz, New Age Islam
31 May, 2014
Why is it that there
has been and there still is some degree of tension between the Muslim
and other faith communities, although the Quran promotes “peaceful
coexistence”? 1. I would suggest a few reasons behind that and I will
try to be very brief.
First and foremost is to mix Islam with Muslims. Islam, properly understood and implemented is perfect; because it was revealed by the Perfect
(this sentence can be applied to other faiths also, although they are
all just one faith). But Muslims are imperfect human beings; and so is
the case with every community, some are bound to be imperfect; they have
just put a label on themselves. They are merely professing a particular
faith and not practicing it.
Can any religious
community make the claim all its members or followers are perfect
throughout history. This distinction should be made clearly. All human
beings, irrespective of religion are bound to commit errors. In fact
there are many Muslim cultures that violate the basic principles of
Islam.
It is helpful to
understand the causes of radicalisation, be it perceived or real. Severe
and sustained injustices and disregard of Muslim human rights lead to
radicalisation but this can never be used to justify those evils that
are forbidden, even if the person is oppressed2.
The second source is
the focus on the negatives in history done by the selected few Muslims.
In the case of Islam for 14 centuries of interaction with other
communities by Muslims who varied in their ways of degrees of commitment
but still none of them could really be perfect. If you want to look for
the negative you will find a lot in every community. Why just focus on
one religion?
Justice and balance
urge us that we should also delve in the many centuries of relatively
good, solid, peaceful coexistence between Muslims and other communities
and cooperating together in producing immense civilizations, which led
in science and arts and knowledge and heritage that sparked the European
Renaissance. So this really is a question of bias and cherry picking,
both elements are there, but the positive actions exceed the negative
actions.
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