When did you Learn who Muhammad was?

Submitted by Fawzia Mirza (United States), Dec 17, 2002 at 14:25

I find it odd that PBS is being criticized for airing a documentary that is trying to begin the education process of Americans to Islam. Americans may think they understand Islam and Muslims and history, but there are so many gaps in our American-taught knowledge, that we cannot faign total awreness. I doubt that the first time a documentary about Jesus was aired on PBS it was critical of Jesus; in fact, I am sure it took many years, many documentaries and many letters and lobbying before PBS was finally willing to air criticisms of Christ.

This brings us to the tragic flaw of our American society; we think that everything must evolve at the same pace as everything else; something new to us must be critical, otherwise it holds no credibility. I'm not saying we shouldn't criticize Islam and that we shouldn't look at the flaws of the religion, but we also need to recognize the inability of people to truly appreciate a viewpoint or a way of life when it is immediately and perpetually presented in a negatively biased light.

As far as Muhammad himself, he acted in a manner that differs from the lifestyle of modern Americans. And his religion, Islam, does have problems in this contemporary world, such as oppression, etc....but, isn't every religion and every culture plagued by such atrocities? In America, aren't non-Muslim men of all colors guilty of spousal abuse, incest, child abuse, pedafilia, alcoholism, rape, etc? Aren't there thousands and thousands and thousands of domestic abuse shelters for women, hotlines for women, shelters for children, foster homes for children, because of the way that non-Muslim American men treat their families and abuse the system and abuse humanity? People who do bad things to other people will be bad whether they live in Saudi Arabia or whether they live in the United States of America. ...

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