Islamic Societies Must Work Through The System And Pass Necessary Laws To Squelch Bigotry of Islamophobia
By Tariq A. Al Maeena
November
21, 2020
Earlier
this month, a bomb blast ripped through a World War I commemoration event being
attended by Western diplomats in the city of Jeddah. Diplomats from France,
Greece, Italy, Britain, and the United States were in attendance to observe the
Armistice Day commemoration ceremony in the Red Sea port city.
Hasina Khan (centre) said the
event was a chance to "have fun and try on hijabs" to raise awareness
of Islamophobia
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The blast
left two people wounded and many others dazed at what had just transpired. Less
than a month earlier, a security guard at the French consulate in Jeddah was
wounded by a knife-wielding Saudi citizen.
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Saudi
Arabia which does not tolerate any form of terrorism set its security apparatus
immediately to work to ferret out those responsible for the attack. The area
surrounding the blast was immediately cordoned off and a house to house manhunt
was set in motion to catch the perpetrators.
The Saudi
Crown Prince was very explicit in his statement that the state would spare no
efforts to track down the perpetrators. In an address to the Shoura Council
after the attack, he pledged that “We will continue to strike with an iron fist
against all those who want to harm our security and stability.”
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Also Read: In the Wake of Killings in France, Some Questions to Fellow Muslims
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File image used for
illustrative purposes
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The blast
was apparently triggered by cartoons offensively depicting the Prophet (PBUH)
in the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. The cartoons had first appeared
in a Danish daily, Jyllands-Posten. Charlie Hebdo reprinted them in 2006,
angering Muslims in France and across the world, leading the magazine’s offices
to be firebombed in November 2011 when it published a provocative cartoon of
the Prophet. In 2015, a group of gunmen attacked the newspaper’s offices in
Paris and massacred 12 people, including some of the country’s most celebrated
cartoonists.
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Also Read:
The False Binary of the Secular versus Islamic Needs to Be
Broken
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French
President Macron has been vigorous on the world stage in his defence of the
right to publish the offensively-viewed cartoons to Muslims in the name of free
speech. He also hosted a summit of European leaders to plan an effective and
joint approach to combating what he termed as “Islamist radicalism” following a
shooting rampage in Vienna that left four people dead.
All this
aside, where does it leave Muslims today? Are we better off reacting the way we
do when anyone slurs our religion by taking off to the streets, burning
buildings or flags, or worse, targeting and killing people? The Prophet (PBUH)
would never allow such actions. He would not allow Muslims to behave with
violence towards others.
Al-Azhar
University grand Imam, Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayeb, had condemned the beheading of
Samuel Paty, the French teacher, and a later knife attack that killed three
people in Nice as “heinous terrorist attacks” that contradict Islam. Coming
from the head of an institution widely considered as Sunni Islam’s foremost
Centre to issue religious rulings, Al-Tayeb cautioned however that using free
speech as a justification to insult religions was an “invitation to hatred.”
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And that is
exactly what the enemies of Islam want. To drive us to the point of hate where
we take the law into our own hands. They know the trigger point where some of
us strike in the name of Islam -- all contrary to the teachings of Islam.
Muslims
need to wise up. They need to make their point through dialectics and dialogue.
The Islamic community can work through the system and pass laws to squelch Islamophobia
everywhere instead of resorting to violence or uselessly marching on the
streets.
Islam can
never be demeaned by words or deeds, regardless of what the detractors may
attempt. All it does is drive a wedge.
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Let us hold
high the memory of the one we hold dear to our hearts.
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Tariq A. Al Maeena is a Saudi socio-political
commentator. He lives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. \
Original Headline: How Muslims can tackle
Islamophobia better
Source: The Gulf News
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-society/islamic-societies-work-system-pass/d/123565
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