A number of recent apologies made to the Muslims by non-Muslim leaders clearly indicate that the world has grown increasingly fearful of the Muslim rage. Political Islam, as is obvious by the reactions of the socio-cultural and political institutions in countries of Europe, Britain and the U.S. has come of age. It has been able to install itself in a position from where it can manipulate the host country’s social and political systems to its advantage. The significance of this achievement can’t be denied. Political Islam’s disabling fear has already deprived much of the West of its ability to stand up and defend its values.

After Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten apologized for publishing the Prophet Muhammad’s caricatures, Pope Benedict XVI found himself repenting for his comments and now Germany’s leading opera house, the Deutsche Oper Berlin has cancelled a production of Mozart’s Idomeneo, because it was determined that it will offend the Muslim sensibilities.

A report on combating terrorism issued by the Netherlands Interior Minister Johan Remkes and Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner says that radical Muslims are gaining influence in the Netherlands. According to the report, the ultra-orthodox Salafism that seeks to return to the “pure Islam” of the days of Prophet Mohammed was making its presence felt in an increasing number of mosques.

The adherents of Salafism shun western society and work against the moderate Muslims who want to integrate in the Dutch society. The report pointed out that the followers of radical Islam have successfully used the internet and lectures to win over more followers and gain control of moderate mosques, Remkes said [1].

U.S. experts believed that radical Islam in France was responsible for last year’s rioting in France that began in a poor, mostly Muslim, neighborhood near Paris and then spread to other suburbs and cities across France and parts of Europe. They said, despite the characterization by several media outlets that those perpetuating the violence are primarily disaffected youth upset with French economic and social policies, the fact the unrest spread so quickly and is virtually limited to Muslim neighborhoods signifies a deeper, ideologically driven motive [2].

Great Britain, America's closest ally in the war against terrorism is also a major base of operation for some of the most radical Islamic organizations, including some direct supporters of Osama bin Laden. Radical Islam exploited the cultural and moral vacuum which has been emerging in Britain over the past 30 years. The London terrorist bombings last July, perpetrated by homegrown Islamist terrorists, shocked British society which until then thought that radical Islam was confined to distant places about which British people knew little and cared less. In January of 2002, British military intelligence working in eastern Afghanistan made a shocking discovery in the mountains of Tora Bora. During searches of Osama bin Laden's cave complex, they found the names of 1,200 British citizens, all Muslims, who trained with the Al Qaeda network in Afghanistan [3].

In the United States of America, Islamists with clear ties to the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon are not only being awarded by the administration but are also influencing the U.S. policy in the Middle East. There are reports that the Muslim cab drivers are imposing there restrictive values on the Americans by refusing to accept passengers who carry liquor in their luggage.

In short, radical Islam has perpetuated itself in every part of the globe. No country or community is free from the influences of this fascist strain of political Islam. Islamist leaders are happy that they have been able to carry out the basic mission of Islamism to overwhelm the infidel world. In an interview with an Australian magazine, Nida’ul Islam, ‘The Call of Islam’, bin Laden called for a global holy war against the West. “Our encouragement and call to Muslims to enter Jihad against the American and the Israeli occupiers are actions which we are engaging in as religious obligations. Allah Most High has commanded us in many verses of the Qur’an to fight in His path and to urge the believers to do so… We have given an oath to Allah to continue in the struggle as long as we have blood pumping in our veins or a seeing eye, and we beg of Allah to accept and to grant a good ending for us and for all the Muslims.” [4]

Should I as a Muslim be happy about the situation? After all, these apologies and advances made by radical Islam confirm that the Muslims are winning in their jihad against the “infidel” world. The Judeo-Christian World is on the defensive and has chosen to lay down its arms at the feet of the religious fascists instead of standing up for its ideas about openness, tolerance and freedom.

But I do not feel any happiness or see any victory in finding that the world fears the Muslims. IN FACT I AM SAD. I do not want to be feared. I want to be respected, accepted and loved. The very fact that the world is appearing to be afraid of Muslims concerns me a great deal. I am afraid that the Muslim extremism is pushing this world to a point from where its rescue will be almost impossible. I do not see anything good in the situation.

The fact that the world fears Muslims speaks volumes about the image of my co-religionists. The image is definitely not good. People do not fear GOOD. They fear EVIL. And Muslims have somehow have failed to convey to the world that they are good. And I am not surprised.

Muslims will have to pause and ponder as to why world does not respect them Why are not they loved instead of being afraid of? Why it is that more and more people in the world have this image of them being fanatical as a rule as compared to the adherents of other religions where fanaticism is an exception. Muslims will have to think as to why the communities that welcomed the Muslim immigrants with open arms are now afraid to see them living amongst them. According to a Swedish, Carl Berglund, Muslims have polarized the Swedish society. “Their religion is so stifling and unaccommodating. They expect us to accommodate their religion when they don’t respect our beliefs,” he said. Carl Berglund doesn’t want to live with the Muslims any more and wants them to be expelled from Sweden. He says that he is no longer afraid of Muslims. “We should stop being afraid of Muslims. This is our country, our world, and those who can't accommodate us, should get out of Sweden. [5]”

France has also threatened to deport any Muslim leaders preaching extremist views, after fundamentalist Muslims won a strong voice in a new council to represent Islam in France. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said the council, which will represent the country's five million Muslims, would not be allowed to become a breeding ground for radical Islam. "Islamic law will not apply anywhere because it is not the law of the French republic. Any Imams whose views run contrary to the values of the republic will be deported," Sarkozy told Europe 1 radio.

Earlier, Britain revoked the citizenship of a radical Muslim cleric, Abu Hamza al-Masri, who praised the September 11 attacks, after banning him from preaching at his London mosque because of his extreme statements.

I am afraid that this fear of Muslims will result in a serious revulsion of Islam in the western society. Contrary to the claims by the political Islamist establishment that Islam is a peaceful faith, their deeds convey an altogether opposite sense – there is nothing peaceful in what is happening in the Muslim communities today and what Islamists are doing in the world. And the faith that the radical Islamists represent is a faith of “perpetual outrage.” And in the words of Thomas Jefferson, “I have judged other’s religions by their lives, for it is from our lives and not our words that our religions must be read.”

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Ref:

[1] http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=1&story_id=30605

[2] http://www.m4radio.com/main/messageboard/1249.html

[3] http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/841550/posts

[4] http://www.aijac.org.au/review/1999/243/nidaulislam.html

[5] http://forum.ebaumsworld.com/showthread.php?t=41358