Islam is not a Violent religion

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According to Armstrong (2001), “The very word Islam, which means “surrender”, is related to the Arabic salam, or peace”(p. 48). Is Islam a violent religion? This is the issue that has been brought up by the class, and it will be debated towards the end of the semester. This question has been raised by many non-Muslims due to the numerous events that occurred throughout the years such as September 11, some managed to find the right answers while others are still doubting Islam and trying identify and understand how it is practiced and know it’s values in order to know whether it is violent or not.
Once the entire class voted and chose this issue, I was worried about the kind of information that could be circulating around the Internet about my religion. I am especially interested in this issue because as a person who lived in Saudi Arabia, I have been asked many unusual questions by people who were not well informed and only judged based on the stereotypes; some of these questions were: “Is it true you never left your house because you are a girl?” or “Did you go to school, or were you home schooled?” These are examples of stereotypes that people believe are part of the religion of Islam. It occurred to me that discussing this issue will benefit the class, as both the pro and the con team will be presenting their arguments and sharing the information they found and it could inform both teams about things they were not aware of.
The debate issue it self is an impression, it is a result of thought derived from a specific sours that is most likely to be the media. . “Mass media is a term which connotes the means of a variety of media specifically designed for disseminating news and information to a large audience for a variety of r...

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...” (Woodward, 2001, p. 66). Moreover, Mark Gould (2005) argues that it is true that Jihad exists in Islam, but Muslims are not to use violence in all situations. (p. 16) “For example: Muslims are simply reacting to external impingement on Muslim lands.” Likewise, force cannot be used unless when reacting to a articular incident. (Gould, 2005, p. 16).

Works Cited

Armstrong, K. (2001). The true, peaceful face of Islam. Time, 158(15), 48.

Gould, M. (2005) Understanding Jihad. Policy Review, (129), 15-32
Ishak, M., & Solihin, S. (2012). Islam and media. Asian Social Science, 8(7), 263-269.

Jackson, L. (2010). Images of Islam in US Media and their educational implications. Educational Studies, 46(1), 3-24.
Nasr, S. H. (2010). Islam in the modern world. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

Woodward, K. L. (2001). A peaceful faith, a fanatic few. Newsweek, 138(13), 66.

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