A couple of days ago, I was waiting at the bus stop when my neighbor started talking to another student about Donald Trump. Ultimately, the conversation escalated to a discussion about Islam. My neighbor started making these irrational and impulsive claims about how all Muslims want to kill Americans apparently because “All Muslims hate Americans”. This is obviously completely incorrect. Personally, I was appalled and horrified by some of the comments made by my neighbor. So I decided to do some research on the issue of Islamaphobia, and I came across a man named "Reza Aslan". Reza Aslan is an internationally renowned writer, commentator, professor, producer, and scholar of religions. Many remember him for his extremely hysterical fox interview with Lauren Green. However, outside of this interview, Aslan has written and discussed ,in various ways, the power of religion. But over the past few years, he has been extremely vocal on the issues specifically related to Islamophobia.
Just two year ago, I remember being completely disgusted by Bill Maher’s interview with Ben Affleck. In the interview, Bill Maher stated that issues with Islam lie within the religion. Many agree with this statement and say that Islam itself promotes violence and mistreatment of women and several minorities. Soon after the interview with Bill Maher, CNN interviewed Reza Aslan about this very issue. To counter Bill Maher's argument, Aslan pointed out that society tends to compare the situations occurring in most extreme forms of autocratic countries to what is happening in every other Muslim country. Aslan stated that this exact ideology of society is factually incorrect. For instance, the mistreatment of women in Saudi Arabia (a Muslim majority country) cannot and should not be compared to the treatment of women in other Muslim majority countries like Turkey or Indonesia. He goes on to state that the issues occurring in Muslim majority countries, such as Saudi Arabia or Iran, should be representative of the country itself not the entire religion.
Many believe that one's values come from their own religious scriptures. Reza Aslan has found that this is in fact not true. He believes that people actually instill their morals into the scripture. So the argument that the Quran itself is responsible for the violent acts of Muslims is incorrect. In actuality the individuals themselves are responsible for the violent act. For example, not more than 200 years ago, both abolitionists and slave owners used the same exact verses from the bible to justify their argument. Which goes to show that people actually perceive the scripture based upon their social political or ethnic standing. Therefore without the perception or interpretation of the followers, the scripture is merely words on a page. Essentially Aslan concludes that “The power of scripture comes from its malleability itself”.
Just recently, the presidential election has taken the issue of Islamophobia to a whole other level. During his campaign, Ben Carson, former Republican presidential nominee, stated in an interview that he would never support a Muslim President in the United States of America. At the beginning of the campaign, Aslan predicted that addressing the issue of Islamophobia would, sadly, boost voting numbers, ultimately it did. As one of our current nominees himself, Mr.Trump, also hopes to put a “temporary” stop on Muslims entering the country. When asked about how Trump’s rise has impacted Muslim Americans, Aslan had a very disappointing yet accurate answer. He said, “We now know, what has always been the case, which is that a large swath of us [is] xenophobic, racist and Islamophobic. And we pretend that we're not. And now it's out in the open and can't be ignored any longer”.
Personally, I have always believed that my religion is who I am and the idea that someone might discriminate against me because of it is disgusting to me. But I have heard and seen so many people being mistreated because of their religion. And the sad thing is, is that majority of what I have seen has occurred in our country. America prides itself for the ideology that we have to never isolate anyone based on their religion, race, sexuality, etc. Yet so many Americans continue to subject or alienate individuals. Like I said, I find this completely appalling and unethical. It is really sad and disappointing to see that this is still an issue in the 21st century. America, it's time to change. (#pray4America)
