By : EL Otmani EL Hassane
« EL Otmani EL Hassane is a junior private school teacher of English in Agadir city. He obtained his Bacalureate degree at bear inzaran high school in 2008. He earned his B.A. from Ibn Zohr university, Agadir. His writings take the form of short stories, poems, article and … »
Agadir, Morocco,
Are we really muslims?
Can you handle the truth? the truth is that islam is the way of life given to mankind by Allah almighty. If you really want to understand what it is to be a muslim, then convert to islam and discover it by yourself.
A wise man once said that « knowledge is power ». In this vein, I would like to forewarn about something which I think is going to ruin the image of Islam. It is that Americans, and Westerners in general, whether Christian or not, are all too often still dangerously ill-informed about Islam. Many people in the West hear and believe media propagandas about Islam, but don’t make any effort to search out the facts about the history, theology, and psychology of the Islamic phenomenon and discover the beauty of the religion.
While knowledge may be power, ignorance can render a person, a nation, or an entire civilization absolutely powerless. It is the intention of this article to dispel ignorance about Islam and to expose it to the light of open and honest facts. How much does your average Westerner, your average American, your average churchgoer, or your average secularist, know about Islam? How can we sort through the varying images and claims made by and about Islam? What is truth, and what is falsehood, as far as what we are being told about the religion of Islam? Are we being lied to, and if so, then how can we detect these falsehoods and avoid them?
As we all know that Islam is the religion of peace. The religion name derives from the word “salam” which it means “peace”. The universal Muslims’ basic greeting is “Assalamu Alaikom” which means “peace be upon you” . Such are the authentic facts unlike what BBC or FoxNews do claim. Islam is the religion which gathered more than a half of the world's population. And still the majority of people in the world converts to Islam, after they have known the real truth about it, and that Islam is the most peaceful religion in the world, based on divine natural faith. Islam respects the rights of everyone. be it a man or a woman.
Islam is growing at an extraordinary rate. Almost 1/3 of the world’s population is Muslim. Islam is found in 204 of the 238 countries on earth. The name « Muhammad » peace be upon him, is the most popular name in the world today. There are over 1 Billion Muslims in Asia alone. More than half of Africa is Muslim. Further, Islam is the fastest growing religion in Europe and North America. In 2007, NBC news reported that 20,000 Americans convert to Islam each year. And out of the 20,000, there are 4 times as many women than men. In the same year, CNN news reported that 1.5 million Americans converted to Islam after September 11, 2001. Over 68,000 people become Muslim every 24 hours. There are over 1200 mosques or Islamic centers in the United States alone. Half a million Russian Muslims gathered in the city of Moscow for an Islamic feast this year. 5 times a day, nearly 2 billion Muslims pray as one to the One God. Every year, 3 million Muslims participate in the largest pilgrimage on Earth. Aren’t you a little curious about a religion which attracts so many people and unites people in such a manner?
Apart from the points I made above, let's take a look on what is happening now in the Arab world; In Syria, Egypt, and in other unknown parts of the world. You can determine for yourself the unmercifully acts that the Arabe regimes comitted against their innocent civilians. From slaughtering the innocent children, to killing without mercy. it is like history repeats itself, when Hitler killed more than 15000 Jewish people in gas chambers.
Perhaps you have heard about what Bachar al Assad did in the last two years, and still doing against his people. Perhaps you have heard about what the army did and still doing against their Brothers and sisters in Egypt. it is absolutely shameful to hear that Muslims do these wrong deeds against their brothers. However, it is crystal clear that those are not muslims. they are monsters, killers and criminals who struggled to destroy the image of Islam in the world.
When Islam has came, especially when the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him being born and got his noble message. He wanted to change this world into a better and safe world for all the species that it homes. But, unfortunately that did not happen, because of the disobey of his orders and pieces of advice by his followers. They keep imitating everything.
As far as I am concerned, unfortunately, we -Muslims- almost always choose and use the bad side of everything we see. we do not know how to be selective. We just appreciate things, acquire foreign habits and forget about our culture, tradition and religion. I am not against being open to the world. I am just saying that we have to know that we are not supposed to be identical.
How on earth we want to teach our kids the beliefs of Islam and we are not sure that we are really Muslims? How can we teach them to pray, to treat other people politely, and to be good citizens? And we haven't done that at all in our entire life. This is absolutely ignominious.
At this point, I would also like to forewarn the reader that I have written this article without any malice towards anybody. This may come as a disappointment to some and as a shock to others, but it is nevertheless true.
Ultimately, my objective, in some of the lines of this article, is to distill the discoveries and ideas of modern scholarly investigation into the nature, origins, and history of Islam into a form accessible to the average reader who does not have the time, or perhaps the interest, to become familiar with the somewhat insular body of academic literature available on the subject. By bringing to the reader's attention what I view to be the important highlights of what scholarly investigation has said about the subject, I hope to inform my readers about these important points, and hopefully excite their interests in pursuing further study. As such, I would consider myself to be filling the role of a "transmitter" rather than an "originator" of knowledge. My desire is to systematically present the evidences vis-â-vis the claims of Muslim apologists, and demonstrate to the reader where the weight of facts, and from these truth, resides.
« An important note to my dear readers : »
If you have finished reading this articles, then it is highly recommended that you visit this web site for more information on Islam:
www.IslamReligion.com
It is a web site for people of various faiths who seek to understand Islam and Muslims. It contains a lot of brief, yet informative articles about different aspects of Islam. New articles and videos are added every week. It also features Live Help thru 1-to-1 chat, especially for those who are interested in converting to Islam.
Peace and much respect !
