Is It The Real Islam?

In my previous article, I wrote about how people misjudge Islam from what is written or shown in the media. Sadly, the media isn't the only medium where you can get wrong facts about Islam. Internet Is one of the greatest innovation by man. Now we are living in an Information Age where you can search just about anything in the billion or so web pages out there. So people curious about Islam will naturally search about Islam on the Internet to find some answers to some questions they might have.

Now this is where the trouble starts. I hate to tell you this, but the piece of information about Islam that you might have read on the Internet, might not be Islamic teachings at all. That's right, you heard me right. But you must be thinking, but the websites I visited looked and felt like Islamic websites with Arabic calligraphy and intricate designs. Just like how fraudsters use Phishing technique to cheat you by directing you to a fake website that looks almost identical to the website of your bank, likewise there are lots of devious cults and sects that proclaim to be Islamic and these groups try to misinform both Muslims and non Muslims. I am not saying that all websites about Islam are fakes, it's just that you can to be careful of where you get the basic information. For your convenience I have given links to some very good Islamic Websites.

You can also read about these Devious Sects at this site. So I have to stress again that you have to be very careful about where you get the information from.

Political Religion

Recently a friend of mine wrote an article called Political Religion. All well and Good, but there was a slight problem, his article talked about Quran and Prophet Mohamad PBUH, sensitive issues for any Muslim. His Article somehow brought back memories of when I was in Speakers Corner of Hyde Park In England, there you can talk about anything under the sun, but do you know what the majority of the Speakers were talking about? You guessed it, it was Islam.


Speakers Corner, Hyde Park ENGLAND

As a Muslim, it was very interesting to hear the Speakers from all over the world giving a speech about Islam. What were they talking about Islam, well they were not forcing people to convert but rather clearing the bad press that Islam is getting these days. But you can sence from the general audience that prejudice runs deep, very deep indeed. No matter what the Muslim Speaker says to clear the misconception of Islam, some of the crowd simply refuesed to even lend a listening ear. I am not saying that you have to accept whatever the muslims say about Islam at face value, but to be impartial at least. Lots of people's perception about Islam comes from the media with all its distortion.

People are beginning to think of Islam as a cult bent on world domination and destruction. But is Islam preaching to the Muslims to do all these nasty things that you see on tv and hear about on the radio. Is Islam really behind the terrorist bombings and carnage? Can you really blame Islam for the acts of a few misguided people. One of the thing that really bothers me is that whenever there is an act of terrorism, the media quickly calls it an act of Islamic terrorism without really investigating who was behind the blast. And I have wondered to myself, why call the act of terrorism, Islamic terrorism in the first place. There are always people of other faith who do these nasty things around the world today, but you don't hear about christian terrorism or hindu terrorism. So my question is, Is the Islamic faith only about killings and carnage? What makes a so called Muslim person commit acts of terror when it is clearly forbidden in Islam to take an innocent life. Is it because like what my friend Ganga says in his article 'Political Religion' that the Quran is so complex that it is misunderstood by the reader?

I guess there is alot Muslims and non-muslims can learn about Islam. I think that dialogue is the only way we can clear some of the misconceptions about Islam. I hope readers would contribute their thoughts generously to this blog.