26 July 2012

Mohammed Amin: Islamophobia – a trap for unwary Muslims

.... Muslims need to keep it concrete. What is wrong is Muslims being denied their rights as citizens, as listed at the beginning, and that is all that Muslims should ever complain about.

I do not want other people to slag off Islam, any more than I want to see them slagging off Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism or any other religion.

However, if they wish to do so, they have every right in a free society to be as trenchant as they wish about Islam. What people are not free to do is deny me the rights listed above. That distinction needs to be understood by every Muslim (and indeed non-Muslim) citizen.

It would help if we stopped using term Islamophobia. “Anti-Muslim violence” and “anti-Muslim hatred” are much clearer, and focus the issue properly on the rights of individual citizens.

[A COMMENT] When I feel free to openly criticise Islam without fear of violence to my person, perhaps I will no longer be an Islamophobes. As a woman I would describe my Islamophobia as a dread of Islam, rather than a hatred.

I know some rather nice Muslims in the same way that I know some rather nice Christians. However, I feel freer to criticise the belief system of the Christian religion and some of its practices than the Muslims religion and some of its practices. [Conservative Home] Read more