The Islamic Culture

It’s a well known fact that the Western media has created a thick wall of misinformation between the Muslim and the Western world. People are made to believe in the West that Muslims are generally quite intolerant, illiterate and extremist. They are told about a number of practices going on in the Muslim world that are against the basic human rights. Keeping in view the Pakistani society, the most obviously inhumane act is ‘honor killing’; killing a family member (mostly women) in the name of honor. This practice is only found in some tribal areas of Pakistan adjacent to Afghanistan, but the act is so violent that even sporadic murders of this sort attract a lot of media attention. There are many more examples of such acts around the Muslim world that go against the human rights, for example, genital mutilation of women in some North African countries.

The problem is that such practices exist mainly due to low literacy rates. The only way to exterminate these customs is by educating the population, especially in the tribal areas, but governments of the countries where such customs exist are rarely interested in educating their people.

Condemning such acts is very natural, and that’s what the Western media does, but there is something that is put into the minds of people by the media that isn’t natural, rather its quite fabricated, and that is the perception that such practices are dominant in ‘Islamic societies’ or these practices come from Islamic teachings. Ideally speaking, the actions of a Muslim should depict the teachings of Islam, but unfortunately this is rarely the case. So, blaming religion for every nonsense custom being practiced by Muslims is not something very wise, because the world is not that much ‘ideal’. There is a clear difference between religion and culture. Religion is same around the Muslim world, but culture is different in every Muslim country and most of the cultural practices date back to the ‘dark ages’ when Islam was not even introduced. 

A recent example of such event is the murder of three girls by a Canadian ‘Muslim’. He killed his daughters because they were indulged in some ‘unchaste’ activities with a Pakistani boy. As soon as the news became public, people started cursing Islam for its atrocities against women, but no one thought for a moment that the Canadian Muslim is an Afghan immigrant. The practice of killing women in the name of honor comes from the tribal culture of Afghanistan, not from Islam. According to Islamic jurisprudence the man would have been charged with murder as has been done by the Canadian judiciary. Everything that belongs to the Afghan, Pakistani or Middle Eastern culture doesn’t necessarily belong to Islam. Certainly it’s a greater dishonor for a Muslim to kill a woman than to let her go with a ‘Pakistani boy’. But for a narrow minded Afghan tribesman it might not be so. 

The problem is that many Muslims value their culture more than their religion and they haven’t let Islam change their customs and traditions that have roots in the dark ages. Islam is not against every cultural aspect of a nation or tribe, but it obliges people to redefine their culture on the basis of fundamental Islamic principles. So, Islam is not a threat to any culture, but it doesn’t condone any inhumane practice belonging to any culture as well. If people let their culture overcome their religion then it’s not the fault of religion if their cultural practices are inhumane. 

The solution is education, and that is not limited to the professional education, but people also need to learn about their religion so that they can live according to it. The interesting but unfortunate thing is that most of the Muslims are ignorant of Islam. They have never been taught about their religion through any authentic source. Rarely any Muslim country has a system to acquaint its people with the teachings of their religion. Today Muslims are being despised by the whole world because they don’t act like Muslims. Terrorism, extremism, intolerance and all other negative attitudes that are today found in some Muslim societies are the same attitudes against which the Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W) struggled throughout his life. Western media won’t be much of a problem for Muslims if someday they themselves realize their own shortcomings and learn to follow their religion earnestly.