Many Embracing Islam Despite Western Media Smear Campaign

Tuesday, 19, October, 2004 (06, Ramadhan, 1425)


Many Embracing Islam Despite Western Media Smear CampaignJavid Hassan, Arab News

RIYADH, 19 October 2004 — Islamic scholar Dr. Zakir Naik has said that the more Western media is trying to distort and suppress Islam, the stronger it has emerged. As a result, while Christianity has grown by 47 percent since Sept. 11, 2001, Islam registered a whopping 235 percent surge in its following during the same period. He was obviously going by the growth in religious conversions.
Dr. Naik was speaking on “Islam — the solution, not the problem for mankind” at King Fahd Cultural Center on Friday night. Dr. Naik, in his speech, reeled off statistics or quoted the Qur’an, Bible and other scriptures chapter and verse to support his arguments.
Ahmed Izzat, an Egyptian Islamic scholar, chaired the meeting, which was organized by the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) in collaboration with Islamic Research Foundation International of Bombay.
Dr. Naik spoke on a variety of topics — from deliberate attempts to misrepresent Islam to Islamic resurgence in the wake of 9/11 and Islamic solution to economic ills. The way forward was to study it without the blinkers of prejudice. In this context, he mentioned that the cumulative wealth of the world’s three richest men was equal to the GDP of 47 poorest countries in the world. Similarly, if the world’s 52 richest men gave zakah equal to 2.5 percent of their wealth, it would eradicate poverty in the world.
He said Islam also provides solution to the incidence of crimes by imposing deterrent punishment on the criminal. Speaking about the distorted image of Islam, Dr. Naik said many in the West were studying the Qur’an out of curiosity whetted by the media onslaught. Once they imbibed its real message, they embraced it. Thus 34,000 accepted Islam in the US alone since 9/11.
Regarding the media labeling of Muslims as fundamentalists, he said it is a misnomer, since anyone who follows the fundamentals of a particular subject is a fundamentalist. “Unless a scientist is thorough with the fundamentals of science, he will not be a scientist...As far as I am concerned, I am proud to be a fundamentalist Muslim, since I strive to practice the fundamentals of Islam. And I know, there is not a single fundamental of Islam which is against humanity.”
In a separate interview, Adil Salahi, Religion Editor of Arab News, said the concept of jihad was misunderstood by the West. “Jihad means striving for a noble cause, especially to remove obstacles in the path of addressing God’s message to mankind.” He said Islam is opposed to religious persecution. “That’s why the Holy Qur’an describes oppression as worse than killing. And jihad is a means to remove that oppression.” Asked about the media attacks on Islam as “religion of extremism”, Adel Salahi said the concept of extremism is alien to Islam.
“However, in Islamic history there were always groups which tried to enforce a rigid and narrow understanding of Islam. They attached undue importance to points of detail that have no central position in Islamic thought. This is contrary to Islamic approach, which always follows the middle-of-the-road approach.”
Dr. Naik said the Western media was putting a wrong spin on extremism. Extremism in Islam should always be understood in the positive sense. “What is wrong in being an extremist if one is extremely kind, extremely generous, extremely helpful,” he said. However, the media was conveying the wrong impression about Islam by highlighting acts of terrorism or other crimes committed by bad sheep in the community and tarnishing the image of the Muslim community as a whole, he added.