What do you think is the origins of such hate and what are your solutions?
Ejaz - I respect you and know your intellectual level - so don't answer me on the lines that they hate because we are Muslims.
Well, there are majority people who are willing to go and find out the truth without a prejudiced mind even if they have apprehensions. These people are willing to give the silent muslim majority a chance. They know that what the see on the TV is not what they experience one-to-one with muslims and want to know the reality. And it is with these people that the inter-faith dialogue, promote tolerance and have open house mosques e.t.c. makes valuable contributions where faith can be discussed freely.
Let me give you an anecdotal example of Hindu friend of mine who never talked about religion with me but one day finally getting the courage did ask why muslims praise Mughal kings like Akbar every day and what about non-muslim Kings who were equally as great as Akbar.
I was surprised of course cause that wasn't true but then he pointed out the azan (the muslim call to prayer) where Allahu Akbar is said. When I explained that it basically means
Bhagwan sabse bada hai and Akbar in Arabic means great he appreciated it much better and understood that our call to prayer is strictly that with no political overtones.
Now compare this to the fanatic who stabbed the Egyptian pharmacist just wearing hijab 18 times. What dialogue can we have with him? Ofcourse these things don't happen overnight. That person might get life imprisonment or similar punishment, but this fanaticism and hatred created against a hijab wearing women was imbibed in him over years.
Why do some people abhor the jews or demean the blacks so much? Some people might come up with some legitimate excuse of jews being rich or blacks being criminals but the more murky picture is that this prejudices are set in mind over years and the current environment.
In the pre1990s era, muslims and mujahideen were the great allies against the war against communists. It was described as the great Christian-Muslim civilizations against the evil Communists. Historical precedents were quoted to show the solidarity and portray how evil Communists were. The mujahideen were portrayed as heroes and Rambo movies fighting Russians with a turban were shown. Infact, even Hindus were shown in unsavory light during this era usually as part of the 70s drugged crowd for being soft commie supporters.
In another era in Europe and Germany in particular, jews were living in ghettos, and despite being hardworking they were treated with extreme prejudice. People justified that they don't live with us and dress a certain way kept beards and hence were rightly forced to live as such. Historical precedents were quoted to show how jews killed Jesus and were involved in unsavory money lending practices e.t.c.
Our era is defined by 9/11 like it or not. It doesn't matter how bad whose history was. It doesn't matter the WWI and WWII were the most devastating wars in the history of mankind that killed and unprecedented amount of civilians that no muslim kingdom or state had indulged in. But obscure historical precedents are quoted of how "Blood thirsty" muslims are. For example despite the fact that Mongols were non-muslims when then invaded Afghanistan and NW parts of India and then later Persia and Baghdad were large numbers of Hindus and then later Muslims were massacred, this is portrayed as some sort of muslim invasion. When in fact it was a case of the victors taking the religion of the vanquished. Ofcourse we could keep refuting through logic and Quranic quotes that what is right and what is wrong, and that even if a muslim is killing innocents, lying, indulging in honor killings or "slicing head of babies
*" that it is wrong. But this is just unending. Hence my emphasis on the greater responsibility being on Muslims to reform themselves first and return to true Quranic values.
I think that the experiences of other groups who have suffered from xenophobia like Jews would be helpful for the muslim community to draw lessons and create a better understanding among the wider community. But at the same time, I would abhor some self-righteous groups of muslims becoming like AIPAC e.t.c. where any criticism or discussion of Islam or muslims is labeled as Islamaphobia. That would be demeaning the sufferings of those genuinely suffering from this. Just like the suffering of the Hijab martyr's family.
(*I remember seeing a picture on some website claiming this is what muslims do to commemorate Ibrahim sacrificing his son after Hajj every year with a man holding knife next to bleeding head of a crying baby. Ofcourse it could be a fake picture as muslims are never required or even known to do anything like this. And according to the story Ibrahim's son is not sacrificed. But ofcourse who cares for the truth when your aim is to promote hatred.
Its just similar to the allied propaganda that Germans ate baby brains or that Saddam's guards bashed babies heads on walls. The aim is the same, dehumanise the target-if they can do such things to a baby, then obviously they are no humans)
