Paper
Revealing Westerners and non-Moslems
Misconception about Islam
Submitted as a Final Project in
Cross Cultural Understanding Subject
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Nowadays,
cultural study is viewed as one of major studies that must be comprehended by
all language students since culture and languages are two inseparable things.
One of common cultural studies learned by language students is cross cultural
understanding. This study focuses on building students’ awareness of cultural
diversity. Awareness of cultural diversity will lead students to activate their
mutual understanding in the culture which can prevent them from having cultural
problem and helps them to solve such problems as culture is a common source of
conflict.
Cultural
conflict which can be in the form stereotype, prejudice, even radicalism
commonly happened in inter-religious community especially between Non-Muslim
and Muslim. As one of the big religion in the world, Islam is often
misunderstood by other communities whether religious communities or
non-religious communities. Religious communities that commonly hold
misconception toward Islam is Jews and Christianity. Both Jewish and Christian
claim that Islam is a false religion derived from their religious tradition.
The derivation can be seen from Islamic tradition of belief, scripture, etc.
Non-religious community which often misperceives Islam is westerners. The lack
knowledge of Islam and the spreading of anti-Islam books from orientalists have
diverted the true meaning of Islam. Islam is considered is the continuity of
ancient Arabian paganism spread by a false prophet and as a radical religious
community which brings forth many terrorism attacks.
In this mini
paper, the writer will try to give a brief
explanation about those misconceptions. The writer will briefly explain about
the truth of Islam how those misconceptions are actually viewed in Islam. In
short, the writer tries to reveal those misconception by answering them in
Islamic views.
CHAPTER II
CONTENT
A.
Misconception in Religious Setting as a Cultural Conflict
Religious
studies is one of the major concerns discussed in cross-cultural understanding
as cross cultural understanding leads its learner to explore the different
worldviews within the cross cultural communities. Helves (in Samovar et.al,
2007:75) stated that the worldviews discussed in cross cultural understanding
fall in to three categories: scientific, metaphysical, and religious. Scientific worldview refers to rules of exact
science people take to be the truth that the cultural communities hold.
Metaphysical can be defined as what the cultural communities hold to be sound
theoretical and abstract reasoning. The last worldview is religious worldview.
This worldview is how the cultural members confront the universal issue, or how
they perceive themselves in the macrocosmic setting.
How people
relate themselves to the other existence beyond them which is reflected through
religion is varied from culture to culture. Although cultural communities
practice diverse religions, the religion, however, was resulted from the same
view (Armstrong: 2002). In primitive
cultural tradition, people usually feared of the dark power of the world, the
entities that can bring them calamities and misfortunes. As the time went by,
the nature of religion shifted from the fear of the dark entities to the
consideration of human life in this universe. Some views of human suffering
living in this world began spreading in most of cultural setting. Many
perceived that living in the world as a kind of human sundering from God. The
world which was priorly considered as a place of the dark entities was now
viewed as a place of suffering where human need to release themselves from its
bond. To achieve the releasing of this bond, people need to devote themselves
to the certain practices, rituals, and creeds.
Despite of
being rooted of the same view, diverse religion existing in this life can be
the source of cultural conflict. To begin with, all religions have their own
accepted dogma, belief, rituals that followers must accept without question
(Brahm: 2005). This can lead to inflexibility and intolerance if they are faced to
other different kind of dogma, belief, etc. Moreover, a set of dogma which has
deeply been rooted in their heart will lead some cultural member as practicers
of certain religion to hold prejudice against other cultural communities.
The religious
prejudice often extends to the form of misconception due to several causes.
Firstly, there is a tendency to measure other items within certain religion
through one’s own religion. It commonly happens amongst interreligious
communities to hold other religions as false ones because the practice of the
different set of dogma, belief, rituals etc. than theirs. Even worse, most will
not accept any explanation given by the mistaken religious communities.
Secondly, the misconception about religious communities can be resulted from
the intentional spreading of misconception by certain authorities or media.
There are some authorities or media that intentionally spread the bad views
about certain religion. The misconception which has already held by other
religious communities can be worsened by this spreading.
In conclusion, in
learning cross cultural understanding, ones will learn about the different
worldviews amongst cultural communities which often lead to conflict. The
conflict itself, especially about religion, is resulted from different
religious practices which lead to the prejudice amongst interreligious
communities. The spreading of the misconception through authorities and medias
worsen this prejudice and cause a severe conflict.
B.
Misconception toward Islamic Religious Community
Islamic
community is the religious community which is often misconceived by other
communities, whether religious or non-religious. Handono (2003) stated that the
ideas of Islamic misconception arise in the different period of time. Islamic studies
began spreading in Europe in the 10th and 11th century.
Since most of European practiced the Christianity at that time, Islam was only viewed
as a heretic sect of Christianity, and its founder was an apostate.
Very soon, the expanding of Islamic dynasty in the same period which was
threatening the dominion of Christianity made people presume Islam was
established by Anti Christ who was destined to ruin and oppose the teaching of
the Christ. The first Latin manuscript of Islamic teaching and the thoughts of
Islamic experts in philosophy, astronomy, math, and medical were translated
during these centuries.
The misconception toward Islam was
significantly raised in the 16th century and after. Although some
literature about Islam has been used as a reference for Islamic studies, some
western outstanding Islamic scholars still brought with them the hatred toward
Islam. Many distorted the teaching of Islam in their books and works. Several
misconceptions about Islam except the religion of Anti Christ came up in this
century. After the 16th centuries, some westerner Islamic scholar as
some call orientalist
showed their hostility and hatred toward Islam. Some scholars came with issue
of the religious tendency and others with non-religious tendency. Those with
religious tendency claimed that Islam is a religion which was worse than
Christianity in all aspects. Most of those scholars were priests, popes,
missionaries or zending. Those with non-religious tendency showed their
hostility toward Islam through their works. In discussing Islam, they explained
it through the wrong analogies and reasons, for example Moslem worship the god
of moon as moon is the symbols of Islam. In the 19th century, dozens
of orientalist works were acknowledged as the references for Islamic studies in
most of world universities. They will inevitably learn Islam from the wrong
explanation. Thus, the Islamic misconception keeps spreading up to now.
Apart from being rooted from the
orientalists’ studies during the 10th -19th centuries,
the misconceptions about Islam, according to Naik (2010:3) are also spread by
media. The common misconceptions about Islam arise amongst non-Muslims
majority, because they are intensively given by media about misinformation
about Islam. International media is mainly controlled by the western world,
whether it is international satellite channels, radio stations, newspapers,
magazines or books. Recently, the Internet has become a powerful medium of
information. Though it is not controlled by anybody, ones find a large amount
of anti-Islamic propaganda about Islam on the Internet. Therefore, the Islamic
misconceptions also arise within the people who have no access or experience to
the works of orientalists.
The misconceptions about Islam found
amongst non-Muslim communities lie in many aspects of Islamic life. Handono
(2003) proposed that there are four misconceptions: Allah, Islamic Sharia,
Scripture, and Muhammad and his hadith. Misconception about Allah is related to
theological concept in Islamic teaching. Some hold that Muslim worships the
ancient deity of Arabian paganism; others Muslim worships the new God called
Allah. Many misconceive Islamic sharia as a inhuman law through the severe
physical punishment toward certain religious offenses. Misconception about
Islamic scripture is merely about the history of Quran and authenticity.
Finally, the misconception about Muhammad and hadith lies in historical life of
prophet. In addition to these misconceptions, Naik (2010) proposed twenty common
questions about misconceptions about Islam. They are polygamy, polyandry, hijab
for women, Islam spread by war, fundamentalist and terrorist, eating
non-vegetarian food, ruthless Islamic
method of slaughtering animals, non-vegetarian food makes Muslim violent,
Muslim worships the Ka’bah, non-muslim not allowed in Mecca, pork forbidden,
prohibition of alcohol, equality of witnesses, inheritance, is the Quran God’s
word, life after death, different Islamic sects, all religions are the same,
difference what Islam teach to what Muslim actually practice, and non-Muslim
referred as kafeer. To make it short, the writer
will classify those misconceptions into several simple classifications.
C.
Misconception
about Islam
1.
Misconception
about Islamic deity
a.
Muslim worships the god of moon
Many non-Muslims communities
presume that Muslim worship the god of moon from ancient Arabian paganism due
to several factors. To resolve this misconception, Handono (2003) provided the
following answers. To begin with, some said that Islam called their God in the
same name as Arabian paganism called their moon deity. To hold Allah as a name
for god of moon from Arabian paganism is a wrong perception. Firstly, the
Arabian pagan did not worship the god of moon, but they worship many deities;
the three great deities were known as Al-Latta, Al-Uzza and Al-Mannat which
also referred as to Banaat Allah (daughters of Allah). The word Allah itself
was used by Arabian pagan to refer to the divine entity which is beyond all
deities. They held Allah as a creator of the universe, yet they did not worship
Him. They simply worship what theologian called as lesser or minor gods.
Moreover, the similar term, Allah, was used as reference to divine entity in
the surrounding area of Arab; El, Elohim, Eloy, Elah, Eli, and Eloah
(Armstrong: 2002). Those words were rendered to Allah in Arabian dialects. In
brief, the word Allah is not the name of the god of the moon because Arabian
pagan didn’t worship such deity and the same words had widely been used in the
surrounding Arabian areas.
In addition to
the Arabian paganism, Muslim, according to another religious community,
worships the god of moon because of the crescent is used as a symbol of Islam.
To judge the worshipped deity from the religious symbol is considered as a
false theory. The symbol used by some religious communities is not always to
denote their deities. Christianity, for example, uses the cross as its symbol,
but Christian people do not worship the cross. In fact, cross is used as a
symbol of God’s love to the humankind that he is willing to suffer to redeem
the sin of them. Like other religious communities, the symbol in Islam is not
denoted that Muslim worship the god of the moon but to show the world about the
expanding of Islamic territories at the time of Islamic dynasty (Armstrong:
2002).
b.
Muslim
worships Kaaba
The view of
Muslim as a worshipper of Kaaba is resulted from Islamic liturgy of bowing down
to Kabaa and face to Kaaba in their ritual practice, prayer. Kabaa is only a
direction for Muslim for prayer. Though they foster toward Kabba, they still
worship Allah because facing Kabaa is the command from Allah himself
“We see the turning of thy face (for guidance)
to the heavens: now shall, we turn thee to a Qiblah that shall please thee.
Turn then thy face in the direction of the Sacred Mosque: wherever ye are, turn
your faces in that direction.”
[Al-Qur’an 2:144].
The ultimate
goal of prayer facing toward Kabaa is to show the unity of Muslim. If Muslims
want to offer Salaah (Prayer), it is possible that some may wish to face north,
while some may wish to face south. In order to unite Muslims in their worship
of the One True God, Muslims, wherever they may be, are asked to face in only
one direction i.e. towards the Kaaba. If some Muslims live toward the west of
the Kaaba they face the east. Similarly if they live toward the east of the
Kaaba they face the west.
c.
Muslim
worship Muhammad
It is a common
misunderstanding that "Muhammad was divine and that Muslims worship
Muhammad," similar to some Christians who worship Jesus. The truth is that
Muhammad (peace is upon him) is no more than a messenger of God. He died like
any other mortal. Muslims do not believe that Jesus was divine (God or part of
God). Muslims regard Jesus as a blessed and chosen Prophet of God (Akhtar:
2011)
d.
Muslims
worshipped a new God
Some
non-Muslims incorrectly believe that Muslims worship a different God than Jews
and Christians. This might be because Muslims sometimes refer to God as “Allah”.
In real practice, Muslims worship the God of Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus.
The word “Allah” is simply the Arabic word for Almighty God - an Arabic word of
rich meaning, denoting the one and only God.
Allah is also
the same word that Arabic speaking Christians and Jews use to refer to God. If
you pick up an Arabic translation of the Christian Bible, you will see the word
“Allah” where “God” is used in English. Moreover, the same words denoted to God
are found in the several Arabian areas as previously stated.
Although
Muslims, Jews and Christians believe in the same God (the Creator), their
concepts regarding Him differ very much. For example, Muslims reject the idea
of God having any partners or being part of a ‘trinity’, and ascribe perfection
only to The Almighty
2.
Misconception about prophet Muhammad
a.
The
marriage of Muhammad as a lust
It is commonly
known that Prophet Muhammad married to several women in the several times
during his lifetime. The multiple marriages he did is considered as a token of
his excessive sexual lust by some people, non-Muslims; on the other hand, his
multiple marriage is not to satisfy his lust and desire. To answer this
misconception Handono (2003) stated if his marriage was to satisfy his sexual
desire, he should have married young women instead of the widows in their
middle ages. During his lifetime, Muhammad married to widows of Muslims who
died in the battle in order that they can be protected and sustained. It was
uncommon for a man in that time to give protection to women who has no any
relationship to him. In addition to it, the multiple marriages were quite
common at that time. Those who hold an important role and status in the society
were usually practice polygamy.
b.
The
tendency to kill and to do violence
Apart from disgracing Prophet Muhammad through his marriages, many
non-Muslims also thinks that prophet Muhammad is a person who likes to kill and
do violence to others. Seen from the historical record of Muhammad life written
by the trusted scholars, it is true that the prophet killed some people during
his lifetime but the murdering is for reasonable thing. Firstly, he did
murdering in the battle and war, killing people in the war is acceptable both
by logical and Quran because we have to defense ourselves from the enemy we
fight with. Secondly, the prophet ordered to do penalty death to some Jewish
people in Medina but this penalty is not considered to be rude. Two Jews which
were given the penalty death were Ka’b bin Asyraf and Asma bin Marwan.
Ka’b bin Marwan was given the death penalty because he did
something very bad to the Muslims community in Medinah despite the treaty of
Medina charter which was signed by both Muslim and Jew. His hatred to the
prophet led him to extreme deeds, from saying the bad things about the prophet
to incite the Quraish tribe to hold a war against Muslims and the prophet. He
had been warned for several times, yet he kept doing the same. Hence, to
maintain the stability of Medinah, the prophet took a further action. The
execution, however, was not carried out by Muslim but by his own tribe, Bani
Aus. The same thing goes to Asma bin Marwan.
What the prophet did toward the offense committed by these two Jews
is not considered to be violence. Lammens, a Jewish historian, (in
Handono:2003) acknowledge this penalty “It was understandable if Muhammad gave
such penalty to Jews because they have betrayed him and the treaty they both
taken together, and not to mention the unstable condition of Arabian country
within the prophetic period.” Furthermore, Welfinson, a Jewish history
professor stated that the loss the Jews obtained in Hijaz is lesser if it
compared to the gain that they obtained from the spreading of Islam which saved
many life of the Jews from the Roman Empire. Besides the establishment of
Islamic civilization during the period of Umayyah and Abassyah dynasty had
significantly contributed to the advancement of Jewish people.
c.
A
sinful prophet
The begging for mercy and apology which the prophet often did in
his lifetime makes some presume that Muhammad was a sinner as apology and mercy
is only needed by those who committed sinful things. Armstrong (2002) explained
that begging for apology and mercy of God is the common thing which the prophet
does in his teaching. Why he begs for apology and mercy of God is not to show
their weakness and the bond of sin they committed but to teach the followers
how they redeem the sin they have committed.
3. Misconception about Islamic Scripture
a. Duplication of biblical accounts
The same stories of the same people are found
in both Bible and Quran. These similarities lead to the misperception that
Quran was direatly duplicated from the biblical sources. The same stories of
Bible and Quran can be used as a point to show that Quran was derived from
Bible. The similarity is merely because many similar prophets are acknowldeged
in Jew, Christian and Islam. Hence, the stories of those prophets are recounted
in the scriptures of the three religions. Moreover, some Islamic experts said
that Jews in Medina often asked the prophet about the stories of their prophets
to test the knowledge of the prophet.
Although there are similarities between Bible
and Quran, both scriptures significantly differs in the authencity. Unlike
Quran, Bible has undergone many changes in its courses of the time. Gospels, the first four books of new
testaments, were written in the different time and from the different source
(Samad:2003) namely Q (Quelle), U (Urmacus) and L (Luke). The first Gospel to be written was Mark which
was written at Rome at least forty years after the crucifixion as an expanded
version of Urmacus. The Gospel of Matthew was written in Greek at Antioch about
90 C.E. The author of this book use the two lost documents as sources: Q and
Urmacus. The third Gospel, the Gospel of
Luke, was written somewhere in Greece about 80 C.E bu someone referred himself
as Theophilus who was the friend of St. Paul. The source which the author wrote
this book is L. The last Gospel, Gospel of John, was written at or near Ephesus
between the years 110 and 115 C.E by some unknown writer from unknown source.
Those Gospels, however, show some differences in their contents. Compared to
these books, Quran has more clarity in its content and history. There is no
doubt about its authenticity because this scripture was written not long after
the demise of the prophet.
b. Grammatical errors found in Quran
Many orientalists claim that some grammatical errors
found in Quran. They insist why the so-called words of God have errors in
language. According to Handono (2003) it is a very wrong perception to hold
that Alquran has some errors in grammatical structures. The grammatical rules
of Arabic were firstly written by Sibawaih of Persia in the 2nd century of
hijri years, 150 years after Quran was revealed. How can ones measure the
grammar of Quran from Arabic grammar which was established 150 years after its
revelation. Moreover, Quran is categorized as the piece of literature; in fact,
some claim that Quran is the highest achievement of human literature. As Quran
is viewed as the literary sense, it is free the bound of grammatical rules like
other literary works.
4.
Misconception about feminism issues
a.
Women
are given inferior status in Islam
The status of women in Islam
is the most misunderstood aspect of the religion. According to the Qur’an as
well as the sayings of the prophet Muhammad, women possess honorable status.
Islam gives women separate legal rights as individuals. Fourteen hundred years
ago at the very inception of the Islamic faith, by divine decree, women were
given the right to divorce, the right to own property in their own name and
separate from the husband, the right of inheritance, the right to make a will,
and many other rights. These rights were not available to women in the western
societies until the 19th century.
b.
Polygamy
Some non-Moslems feminist proponents spread the view that Islam disgraces
women through the permission of polygamy. Talking about polygamy, Naik (2010)
cited that Islam is the only religion which limits the number of women whom are
allowed to be married by men, four women to be exact as it is stated in Quran.
Such limitation is not found in other religions. Moreover, some religious
figures were known to have many wives.
Polygamy is allowed in Islam due to the outnumber women than men. By
nature males and females are born in approximately the same ratio. A female
child has more immunity than a male child. A female child can fight the germs
and diseases better than the male child. For this reason, during the pediatric
age itself there are more deaths among males as compared to the females. During
wars, there are more men killed as compared to women. More men die due to
accidents and diseases than women. The average life span of females is more
than that of males, and at any given time one finds more widows in the world
than widowers. Therefore, if one man only allowed marrying one woman then many
women will not have husband. The following example is cited in Naik (2010).
“In
the USA, women outnumber men by 7.8 million. New York alone has one million
more females as compared to the number of males, and of the male population of
New York one-third are gays i.e sodomites. The U.S.A as a whole has more than
twenty-five million gays. This means that these people do not wish to marry
women. Great Britain has four million more females as compared to males.
Germany has five million more females as compared to males. Russia has nine
million more females than males. God alone knows how many million more females
there are in the whole world as compared to males. Even if every man got
married to one woman, there would still be more than thirty million females in
U.S.A who would not be able to get husbands (considering that America has twenty
five million gays). There would be more than four million females in Great
Britain, 5 million females in Germany and nine million females in Russia alone
who would not be able to find a husband.”
c. Hijab
subjugated women freedom of expression
Islamic women are abiding with the
strict rules in fashion that they have to cover themselves. The ‘hijab’ or the
Islamic dress is cited by many as an example of the ‘subjugation’ of women
under Islamic law. The reason why Hijab is prescribed for women is mentioned in
the Qur’an in the following verses of Surah Al-Ahzab:
“O Prophet! Tell thy wives and
daughters, and the believing women that they should cast their outer garments
over their persons (when abroad); that is most convenient, that they should be
known (as such) and not molested. And Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” [Al-Qur’an
33:59]
The Qur’an says that Hijab has been
prescribed for the women so that they are recognized as modest women and this
will also prevent them from being molested. Moreover, it is a sign of dignity
and respect for women. It signifies that the worth and value of a woman is not
in her looks and her physical form. It protects Muslim women from being
molested by men. It safeguards the woman from being reduced to mere “sex
objects.” Islam prohibits women from all acts of lewdness including public
display of their beauty in any form or manner.
5. Misconception
about radicalism
a. Islam
spread by sword
In
the past centuries, Muslim kings, conquered many lands; but a distinction has
to be made between lands conquered by these kings and imposition of Islam on
its people. Islam does not believe in force or lure of material benefits to
spreads the faith. Muslims believe that God alone can put faith into the heart
of a person. There are several examples of the tolerance of Muslims towards
other religions. Muslims ruled over Spain for many hundreds of years. The
Christians and the Jews there were free to practice their own religion in their
places of worship. In fact, Christians and Jews are regarded as privileged
people and are mentioned with respect in the Qur’an as "People of the
Book".
Even
during times of war, Islam lays down strict rules. For example, a Muslim is not
allowed to harm or kill those in a peace treaty with Muslims, non-combatants,
women, minors, servants, the blind, monks, the elderly, those physically
incapable of fighting, and the mentally ill. In fact, Muslims are not even
allowed to damage crops and vegetation during times of war! These noble ethics
were, and still remain, unheard of in any army.
b. Islam
permits terrorism
The
media portrays as a terrorist any Muslim who fights regardless of whether they
fight justly or unjustly, or whether they are oppressing others or being
oppressed. Islam prohibits terrorism, unlawful acquisition of property of
others, and causing harm to innocent human beings. Islam rejects all forms of
violence. Terrorists have no religion. They kill indiscriminately. They use the
name of religion to justify their atrocities, and thus bring a bad name to the
religion.
CHAPTER
III
CONCLUSION
Many misconceptions about Islam are
spread within the non-Islamic communities. Those misconceptions come from the
prejudicial tendency of the different religious practice, the false theories and
writing of orientalists which are used as references to Islamic studies in most
of universities in this world, and from the bombardments of anti-Islamic media.
Non-Islamic communities misperceive many values and teaching and Islam, from
the theological concepts to the social life. However, if seen from the original
sources of Islam, those misunderstandings are proven wrong.
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