Since the September 2001 9/11 Terrorist attacks in America, Muslims have found themselves increasingly in the media for essentially all the wrong reasons. Although, this is partly the fault of the minority of the religion, it is also the fault of the media who have basically used this tragic incident as a reason to accentuate the portrayal of Muslims in a negative light.
Terrorism is one of the main reasons why Muslims are being presented in the way they are. However what people do not realise is that those terrorists who take it upon themselves to take the lives of hundreds and thousands of innocent people are not really following what their religion tells them to do, therefore it is debatable whether they can be classed as ‘Muslims.’
In verse 5:32 of the Qur’an, it states: ‘If anyone slays a person, it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.’ This is because as Muslims, we believe that no- one is permitted to take a life except for God himself, therefore killing another innocent is as if you’re almost taking the power of God into your own hands, which is a major sin in the religion.
However, in this day and age, people (especially the media) do not care about this and continue to paint Muslims as the ‘evil people.’ It’s as if indirectly the media is trying to show the world that because of what a few people who lost their way did, it really means that every other Muslim would follow in their footsteps and become terrorists. What people need to realise is that there is approximately 2 billion Muslims in this world and if you are to believe everything in the media, it is therefore saying that there are almost 2 billion suicide bombers in this world. How ignorant.
In 2007 on the BBC News Website, one of the subheadings of an article: Muslims are being “demonised” by the British media, with 91% of reports being negative, research commissioned by the London Mayor has found.’ This clearly shows that even the people who aren’t Muslims themselves have realised that nearly all reports that have anything to do with Muslims are negative.
Thus meaning that when someone in the Muslim community does something wrong then they immediately get a lot of media coverage, however if the roles were reversed and that same person was doing something beneficial then it would be most likely that it would be overlooked. In 2012, Christopher Bail wrote an article about the negative portrayal of Muslims in the Media, below is a snippet of what he had to say after conducting thorough research into this:
‘When Muslim organizations put out many messages condemning terrorism, in response to nearly any incident, these press releases were usually dispassionate or mournful, and they received little media coverage.
However, when Muslim groups put out angry and emotional messages in response to various cases of discrimination against other Muslims; these messages got more media attention. To the newspaper-reading and TV-watching public, the impression is that Muslims care little about condemning terrorism and are over-sensitive to Islamophobia,’
Why is it that the world would rather see the negative side to Muslims than anything else?
Where is the ‘equality’ that the Western world seem to always encourage?
It just goes to show how biased the media can be when it benefits them most.
If you’re looking to stereotype – then look at the majority, not the minority.
Not all German people are supporters of Adolf Hitler.
Not all Irish people are supporters of the Irish Republic Army.
Just like that, not all Muslims are terrorists.
Nafeesah Chowdhury 