Islam and the West: distorting realities*

The author highlights the differences between the West and Islam, the reasons behind those, how they have been increasing and how both are responding to each other. The author has held media, especially American, responsible as a major source of spreading Islam’s bad image in West. One has to agree with the author that US government and their intelligence agencies have influenced the media to portray an exaggerated image of Islam and Madrassas and associate them with extremism and terrorism, to fulfill their own political needs and to get public support. Author’s idea that the television news channels to compete amongst themselves, to attract viewership and to provide “entertainment” through news are deviating from reality and showing fiction by exaggerating the true state of affairs is nothing but truth. They are portraying Madrassas as institutes where they teach how to explode bombs use automatic machine guns and to sacrifice there lives in the name of Jihad, which is all wrong. These are institutes where true essence of Islam is taught, and Islam is the religion of peace and humanity. These media channels are giving a false image of Islamic institutes and Islam.

*Touqir Hussain (DAWN, 25th April, 2004)