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A flurry of insinuations against Islam, and more lately, against the Holy Prophet, have become almost a norm of daily life in the US. Day in and day out, misguided commentators and right-wing observers provide fresh proof of unfeigned disdain for Islam with remarks that are caustic and biting and have a telling effect - both on the naive non-Muslim viewers as well as followers of the faith.

Masjid-e-Nabawi

The name of Islam has been sullied with unpardonable lapses as newscasters lay undue stress on a select group of words - Islam, Qur’an, Muslims, terrorists, Islamists, and more recently, Muhammad - in their display of a singular contempt for Islam. Williams, the last name of the villainous Washington-fame sniper, has been conveniently abandoned and now the reprehensible character is identified as Muhammad! The rising phantom of hatred assumes alarming proportions. The insinuations are fraught with dangerous overtones.

Given the fact that Muslims venerate Hazrat Essa (Prophet Jesus Christ, Peace be Upon Him), Hazrat Musa (Prophet Moses, Peace Be Upon Him), and Hazrat Maryam (Mary), the unceasing disrespect shown to Islam and Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) marks an unbecoming show of levity on the part of the media that hurts, and hurts profoundly. Islam - one of the three Abrahamic religions - lays emphasis on peace and tolerance. True, a few fringe religious groups have engaged in censurable acts of terrorism but their folly can in no way be attributed to the teachings of the faith.

Was the Prophet a terrorist, a thief, a murderer, as has been claimed recently?

History testifies to the contrary. To quote just one Western historian - Hugh Thomas of Reading University - Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) “was a personage of decisive political importance in his lifetime, and one, as Gibbon put it, ‘distinguished by the beauty of his person, an outward gift which is seldom despised except by those to whom it has been refused.’

With him there was no dilemma between religious and temporal power, nor, indeed, between military and civilian power. Church, State, and Army were one. He revived and redirected currents that already existed among the Arabs of his time. Bernard Lewis is correct to point out that ‘his career was the answer to a great political, social and moral need’ for ‘a higher form of religion’ than that which the Arabs had had before them.’

A century after the Prophet’s death, the Muslims had passed back the Eastern empire into Asia Minor, dominated all the fertile territory that lay between Morocco and the Indus, occupied Bokhara and Samarkand, conquered nearly all Spain and penetrated France. They controlled the Mediterranean after 655 AD. The Arabs did not impose their culture on those whom they vanquished…

“Christians survived in the Middle East almost intact under Arab rule. Bernard Lewis claimed that the Christian population of Syria and Egypt preferred the rule of Islam to that of Orthodox Byzantium. Probably, the Jews thought the same. Nor did Islam stifle scientific enquiry. Hence the preservation of chemistry, hence the early universities, hence the extension of the craftsmanship of early antiquity, hence the skill with which the caliph made use of men of many nations and faiths, hence indeed the intellectual and commercial superiority of the Arab world in the ninth and tenth centuries which were the golden age of Islam, particularly in Spain. There the spirit of Muslim toleration was seen at its best. Tolerance towards different creeds expressed by Islam, its role in preserving the memory of classical knowledge…”

Hugh Thomas (A History of the World, New York, Harper and Row Publishers, Inc., 1979) was not the first nor the only Western historian to spell out this truth. Other unbiased scholars too have proved faithful chroniclers of history. More recently, a PBS documentary Islam: Empire of Faith screened in the United States furnished fresh proof of this wholesome western trend.

The Los Angeles Times editorial of October 25 reproduced below also lends support to one’s belief that the spirit of independent enquiry and coexistence characterizing the great American nation is very much alive today. Despite a few failings, there are manifest indicators of fair-mindedness on the part of the nation of immigrants founded by George Washington. One ardently hopes such comments would be the general rule rather than an exception so that mainstream Americans can see the truth and the true face of Islam.

Media and the Manhunt

“In a compelling, weird way, the arrest of two suspects in the Washington-area sniper shootings seems like the cancellation of an awful reality-TV show that we hated but couldn’t resist watching. The terrible deaths and injuries to innocents made worse by a bewildering randomness terrorized that area while TV instantly home-delivered matching fears across the land. The manhunt now becomes a process story in more familiar legal forums, allowing us to see institutions determining facts, innocence or guilt and punishment.

“The nation has had serial killers and mass murderers before, but none so ongoing, so quickly and deeply penetrating the nation’s psyche. That’s a measure of two things. It re-demonstrates the TV’s permeation of life, especially the all-news cable channels with their own peculiar, at times perverse, competitive drives. And it exposes lingering scars and latent fears persisting even 14 months after the 9/11 attacks. Having witnessed that dramatic devastation, also on TV, we’re simply more prepared to be scared now - be the threat a sniper, foreign fundamentalist, domestic child abductor or marauding shark. That’s a normal reaction, not bad if it instills a new kind of rational caution.

“As a member of the industry, we hesitate to offer unsolicited advise to the ubiquitous media. But this case, involving cryptic messages from police to culprit through the media demonstrates that news reporters can become participants in the news they ‘re covering. Several times the sniper appeared to react to coverage.

“Each news outlet should reexamine its decisions. Were they true to a mission of delivering news, not speculations, of reporting facts, not hyped promotional opportunities? Though marketable, is it proper to give a disturbed, unidentified killer the same blanket celebrity coverage as less lethal personalities? Must we speculate on targets or offer dramatic rifle-scope cross-hair images, as nifty as they probably looked in draft form?

“Cable news knows that ratings jump with continuous coverage of a story. Fine. TV is great at relaying facts and sights. But cable’s “blabocracy” is awful at pondering and proportion. Here’s the real decision. Are there enough facts to warrant continuous coverage? The sniper story often had little news. But countless hours were filled with excessive speculations by “profilers” and “security experts” unearthed by program bookers needing to fill time. If these folks are experts why aren’t they on the case?

“Dinner table speculation is one thing, on national TV, it’s sometime else, possibly incendiary. It’s hard to envision CBS’ Walter Cronkite on the afternoon of President Kennedy’s assassination asking experts to guess the unidentified assassin’s nationality, religion or motive. As we’ve all seen recently, much has changed in American society. News consumers now need to factor worthiness and wisdom; not just entertainment value into their viewing decisions.” True, very true.

“It’s hard to envision CBS’s Walter Cronkite on the afternoon of President Kennedy’s assassination asking experts to guess the unidentified assassin’s nationality, religion or motive” is a timely and incisive observation of the Los Angeles Times editorial, one that merits undivided attention of journalists and viewers across the country. In the land of the free, in the land of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln where Mormons and Amish live in peace with a plethora of religious groups to pride on the concept of ‘unity in diversity’, there is little need to stifle the rational streak that makes this country so great and its people even greater. That Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was a personage of decisive political importance in his lifetime, and one, as Gibbon put it, ‘distinguished by the beauty of his person, an outward gift which is seldom despised except by those to whom it has been refused,’ is a fact that the enlightened and the unbiased in the US should ungrudgingly concede to provide strength to the American spirit of enquiry and openness.

Precariously perched in a country I dearly love and own, I am reminded at this critical juncture of the spirited rendition of Akbar’s salam by my dear mother as I bring this piece to its conclusion:

Ashiqo sheda tumhara

Phir raha hae mara, mara

Har jagha tumhain pukara

Is ki lo ab khabar Khudara

Ya Nabi Salalm Alaika

Ya Rasool Salalm Alaika

Hath phelae huae hai

Ranj-o-gham khae huae hain

Door sae aae houae hain

Tum pae itrae huae haen

Baksh do jo cheez chaho

Kiyon kae Mehboob-e-Khuda ho