ISLAM IS IN CRISIS TODAY.
This is a clear misdiagnosis. There is no crisis in Islam today but there is, conversely and unmistakably a severe crisis (or crises) among Muslims today like never before. Extremists with Muslim names are committing acts of violence because they have failed to understand Islam or at the very least, follow the easily verifiable teachings and actions of Muhammad (PBUH). The problem is not Islam since Islam’s position about violence is crystal clear. The problem is about misinterpretation of religious texts to justify acts of violence.
For example, if the Qur’an said nothing but “do good and avoid evil”, you can bet down to your last penny some extremists would take this to mean whatever suits their deranged purpose at the time.
Therefore, there is no logic to blame Islam when people with Muslim names misinterpret the two core religious texts that is, Qur’an which Muslims believe to be the divine revelation from Allah and Hadiths, the narrated sayings and actions of Muhammad (PBUH).
ISLAMOPHOBIA IS GETTING WORSE THAN BEFORE.
It is quite a challenge being a Muslim today although one could argue being a Muslim has always been difficult from the time of Muhammad (PBUH), given the wide range of physical, psychological, social and economic attacks he came under. Yet not once did he pray or act towards the destruction of his most ardent enemies in the name of revenge.
Instead, on every single occasion, attested by volumes of biographies authored by Muslim and non-Muslim historians alike, he prayed for their guidance. The early followers of Islam also faced threats in ways that was arguably worse than the type of Islamophobia widely evident today.
From multiple assassination attempts, physical attacks, mental abuse, public humiliation, misinformation and blatant smear campaigns to the draconian three-year economic boycott in Mecca by the original Islamophobes (the Quraysh of Mecca), these acts of Islamophobia have been very well documented by numerous notable Muslim let alone, non-Muslim historians on Islam and Muhammad (PBUH) over the last fourteen hundred years.
Current unchecked levels of Islamophobia, is worryingly bad but nothing we can’t overcome, if we decide to pull together our collective strengths.
BUT THE CURRENT ONSLAUGHT OF ISLAMOPHOBIA IS TOO STRONG.
It is worth noting there was a time not too long ago when the Jews were despised and persecuted across Europe. Then came the Germans, followed by the Japanese after the respective WWI & II. Today, while the State of Israel is sometimes criticised for its poor track record of mistreating its Palestinian neighbours let alone its own Arab Israelis, it is hard to imagine criticising or persecuting the Jews the way they were shamelessly mistreated by Christian Europe for centuries before.
Today, even the war crimes of Nazi Germany or Imperialist Japan are not readily brought up every time the subject of Germany and Japan are brought up, given how the world at large has come to learn the differences between Nazi Germany and ordinary Germans or the Imperial Army of Japan and ordinary Japanese or ordinary Jews and the power-manipulating Zionists and politicians acting on behalf of the State of Israel. Therefore, chin-up and march on forward against the onslaught of Islamophobia.
IT IS CHALLENGING RAISING MUSLIM CHILDREN TODAY.
The young Muslims of today are often brushed off as superficial, lazy and self-entitled by us, parents when this may only be applicable to a small minority of this group. Professor AC Grayling, founder and Master of the New College of Humanities once wrote (presumably in support of the idea behind atheism but in fact the argument can be applied both ways):
“Young minds are primed by nature to believe most of what adults tell them to believe. They should therefore be treated with respect, not twisted into shapes that conform with dogma”.
However, given how stuck we Muslims tend to be to our close- minded tautological views, little do we realise we are essentially doing to the Muslim youth what Islamophobes do to Muslims worldwide, every day that is, tar all Muslims with the same brush. If we do not fix this preachy or “holier-than-thou” attitude we have towards the young millennial generation of Muslim youth and teenagers, we run a severe risk of creating a “lost generation” of young Muslims disaffected or demonised on the basis of their faith, and perhaps most horrifyingly cut off from true Islam and a promising future.
Siddiq Bazarwala 