Dude You Have No Quran AUTOTUNE REMIX

Skateboarder Stops Extremist From Burning The Qur'an

Analysis Post

Within the last year there has been a rise of anti Muslim Feelings in the United States. One cause to what seems to have ignited the rise in discrimination against Muslims is the right winged Republicans. The upcoming U.S. Senate political elections have caused many Republicans to use anti Muslim sentiments harbored by the nation as a tactic to promote their campaign. There is no doubt that Muslims are the most negatively viewed faith in the U.S., as a result political leaders have been known to propagate anti-Muslims feelings to support their campaign. Consequently there has been a multitude of expressions of anti- Muslim feelings over the past year, a popular example in the media is the opposition of the construction of an Islamic Center near ground zero, also known as the “Ground Zero Mosque”. Although it’s been nine years since the catastrophic attack of 9/11, its aftermath still resonates amongst U.S. citizens. Muslims have fallen victims to this attack because it created a great extent of discrimination towards Muslims; the 9/11 attack is where the majority of anti Muslim feelings emerged. But within the past year Americans feel that they are becoming threatened by Muslims, this has caused an increase in Islamophobia, which is the fear and hostility towards Muslims that lead to acts of discrimination and injustice against them. A lot of terrorist who have attacked the United States happened to be connected to radical Muslims and from the Middle East. For this reason many individuals believe that the U.S. is at war with Islam, but it’s not. President Bush and President Obama have both tried extremely hard to point out that there is a difference between Islam and the radical Muslims. However this confusion has caused many to classify all Muslims into one group, refered to as terrorist. Thus essentially the anti Muslims feelings that developed towards all Muslims are due to the actions of a few radicals individuals.

If we take the Ground Zero Mosque for example, there are strong feelings against its construction because of its sensitive location near ground zero. One side of the argument is that Muslims shouldn’t build their mosque close to Ground Zero out of respect and consideration of the 9/11 victims who died in the horrifying attack. This side opposing its construction says allowing Muslims to build a mosque in this location will show terrorists that they have won the war. I respect the innocent victims that lost their lives due to the 9/11 attacks and thus support the Ground Zero Memorial on the actual land where the twin towers once stood as a place for victims to always be remebered and honored. Muslims are not trying to build a mosque there because they respect the memorial as a place to remember the nation’s loss on that day, which includes Muslims who also lost members working in these buildings. The proposed site for the “mosque”, as the media refers to it, while it is actually a community center open to the public, is a couple of blocks away from the Ground Zero. This highlights that there is no disrespect to the Ground Zero victims because the Islamic Center is not on the Ground Zero Memorial.

The argument that building an Islamic center is letting the terrorists “win” is also a poor argument. Unfortunately 13 Muslim terrorist attacked the U.S. on 9/11, but that does not mean that all Muslims are terrorist, in actuality these terrorist are extremist. Due to anti Muslim sentiments people just affiliate all Muslims with terror. So the argument purposed by those opposed the Islamic Center holds not true. The “terrorists” won’t have won anything because it’s not the terrorist who we are letting build this center but rather the American Muslims.

The right winged Christian Republicans has been the main force opposing the Islamic Center by coming up with discrimantory attacks against Muslims. As I’ve already mentioned both these opposing reasons do not make valid arguments against the Islamic Center’s construction, however the Republican goal seems to be to increase Islamophobia among U.S. citizens inorder to gain more support of those who are anti-Muslim. Republicans are conservative Christians so they are favored by individuals who don’t like the liberalism of Muslim activity in the U.S. So in a sense one major aspect of their campaign is Muslim tolerance. If they can persuade more people to become intolerant to Muslims by believing they are dangerous terrorists, then they will have more supporters voting for them when Election Day comes around. Although President Obama has mentioned several times that the U.S. is not at war with Islam and Muslims have the right to religious freedom, citizens are having a hard time believing Obama while Republicans are trying to distort the image of Muslims for their own political gain.

Due to politics Republicans have been trying to destroy the image of Muslims in order to achieve success in their personal political agenda. By deliberately increasing Islamophobia there will be more anti Muslim expression thus there will always be discrimination against Muslims in the U.S. Its politics that are creating the stereotypes and hate crimes that exists today. This can be depicted with the fact that the construction of the Islamic Center has been proposed for a while, but its debate didn’t actually start till recently. Why is that? Possibly because its election time and republicans are trying to get more supports by stirring up anti-Muslim feelings in the nation. Whats worse is the lack of education about Islam has led people to accepting false facts presented by the Republicans.

Islam

Many people harbor anti-Muslim feelings because they don’t understand the teachings of Islam. Ignorance of its teachings has caused people to denounce the reality of Islam. It’s a monotheistic religion of the worship of God, in Arabic Allah. The word Islam means submission, thus a Muslim is one who submits to God. Muslims believe in all the prophets and that Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was the last prophet who received the revelations of the Quran, holy book, and spread Islam. There are 5 basic duties of a Muslim known as the 5 pillars of Islam: monotheism and accepting Muhammad as God's messenger, daily prayer, alms giving, fasting the month of Ramadan, and pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Most people think Islam is a violent religion, but in actuality it teaches one to live in peace with our neighbors and respect them regardless of their religion or race. Islam does not teach Muslims to violently force non-Muslims to convert, the Quran says “Let there be no compulsion in religion. Truth has been made clear from error. Whoever rejects false worship and believes in Allah has grasped the most trustworthy handhold that never breaks. And Allah hears and knows all things” (2:256). This verse highlights that Islam teaches that no one should be forced into submission and that to be a Muslim is by complete will. People also accuse is Islam of promoting war, but the Quran says “Allah forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) Faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them: for Allah loveth those who are just” (60:8). In the Quran it mentions that God hates war and the only reason Muslims are allowed to fight are when they are being exiled from their land or when someone raises war on you because of your faith. Unlike most negative stereotypes would leave one to believe, peace is highly looked upon in Islam.

Pastor Terry Jones

            Pastor Terry Jones plans to have an international burn a Quran day at his church in Gainesville, Florida, on 9^th anniversary of 9/11. He believes that Islam is the devils religion and that the Quran only leads individuals to hell fire so thus he will burn it in the fire because that’s where he believes it belongs. Also interestingly enough another protest Pastor Jones is leading is against Gainesville Mayor Craig Lowe for being a homosexual and taking up a leadership position. This man I believe is a Christian extremist who needs to realize several things about the United States especially. First of all in the US people have the freedom of religion, meaning that anyone can practice any religion they choose, even if it means they choose to worship the devil. That being said he also needs to educate himself about religions before he starts falsely accusing them. Islam does not teach its followers to be violent but in fact the opposite, it teaches one to live in peace even with their non-Muslim neighbors. It is those Muslim extremist that have interpreted the Quran wrong and believe it’s necessary to kill non-Muslims. But why should the Pastor criticize them if he himself is a Christian extremist, this is quite hypocritical. Secondly in the US people have the freedom to be any sexual orientation they choose. What sex you prefer does not prevent individuals from living the American life and pursuing happiness. Although these events have affected the Pastors happiness, they are rights to every citizen to practice any religion and sexual activity they preferred. From these two examples it’s evident that the Pastor not only has a strong hatred for Islam, but in fact he despises anything that is not Christian. The Pastor’s dreams of a conservative Christian U.S. is intolerable especially since this is “home of the free”.

Ground Zero Mosque

A controversial topic that has been streaming the news lately is the construction of the ground zero mosque. Due to the attack of 9/11 many individuals believe that Muslims are affiliated with terrorism and thus it would be unthinkable to build an Islamic center in this “sensitive” place. These same people who oppose the construction justify this by saying it would show that the terrorist have won. Already many things here have to be addressed. First of all not all Muslims are terrorist and people who believe that should educate themselves about Islam. Second of all the media has spread false information about the ground zero mosque which, quite frankly I myself would oppose its construction if these facts were true. For instance, “Ground Zero Mosque” is highly inaccurate for several reasons. It’s not being built on ground zero, which would be highly unthinkable; instead the proposed building is going to be two blocks away from ground zero on a private building block of an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory. Also this is not a mosque, it’s an Islamic center, so yes there will be a place of worship but there will also be other facilities like a gym and basketball court that will be open to the public. Lately I’ve been pondering why its construction is even controversial, it shouldn’t be at all. The constitution’s first amendment has granted all American citizens freedom of worship. This means “there is no way for President Obama or any other president to put a stumbling block in the way of the free exercise of religion without violating the sanctity of that freedom”. The constitution is what makes America “the land of the free” and thus its laws must be obeyed. If the law says every citizen has the freedom of religion, then we can’t legally stop people from obeying the law. I want to know how you feel about this so post your comments and also take the poll on my blog.

Islamophobia

It’s been nine years since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the United States and yet its impact can still be seen till today. This attack has affected many people like the innocent people who died, the families that lost their loved ones, the war on terror, and Muslims. Muslims have fallen victims of the 9/11 attack and have been affected to many different degrees. One way that this attack affected Muslims is that it increased Islamophobia amongst U.S. citizens. Islamophobia is when "fear and hostility leads to discriminations against Muslims, exclusion of Muslims from mainstream political or social process, stereotyping, the presumption of guilt by association, and finally hate crimes” (http://www.cair.com/Issues/Islamophobia/Islamophobia.aspx). So who should we blame for the extensive growth of Islamophobia? Well we can start with the biased media’s portrayal of Islam. Newspaper and news reports show pictures of Muslims protesting and taking violent actions, but they never explain that such actions are due to discrimination and injustice. I believe that it is completely wrong for the media to be targeting Muslims because this will only cause more dangerous situations. More non-Muslims will become scared of Muslims and this way peace will never be achieved. It’s gotten to the point where the majority of U.S. citizens have accused their own president Barak Obama of being Muslim. Why you might ask? It is merely because he supports freedom of religion and supports anti-discrimination. In a survey conducted recently about 52%  "of Republicans believe that President Barak Obama 'sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world'" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/30/obama-islamic-fundamentalist-gop-polled-majority-says_n_699883.html) Not only that but they also accused Obama for being Muslim because they questioned his integrity when he traveled to Arab countries in an attempt to promote peace. So clearly these two accusations are not true and yet they are believed to be true due to the Islamophobia that is instilled in their minds. Just because the president is supporting Muslims, like he supports Christians and Jews, does not in any way mean that he is going to suddenly become Muslim or even a terrorist. Yes, the U.S. is at war with Muslim extremists but not all Muslims are extremist just like not all Christians are extremist. Thus people should not be Islamophobic because, if anything, Islam teaches peace not violence and the majority of Muslims are not “evil” like the media portrays them.