The Muslim Identity Crisis Pt 1

So my last post was on Muslim women expressing their identity, and that's all well and good.. but it got me thinking; 

What exactly is Muslim identity in the 21st century?

There are so many views and opinions around on what Islam and the 'Moslems' are all about, so I figured i'd look behind some of the labels attached to Islam in contemporary times.

*History lesson time*...more or less since the times of the crusades, the "western world" has failed to grasp Islam properly. Folk stories and myths returning from the Holy Lands with the crusaders depicted Muslims as barbaric, backwards and violent. It was these views in history which some academics argue were the basis of Orientalism... which did nothing but widen the rift between the Eastern and Western worlds.

So, this issue is clearly not a new one. Why though, I find myself asking, so many years later (oo, only about a thousand), have these labels about Muslims and Islam appear to have lingered? (See some of them here).

It's pretty clear that the terrorist activity associated to Islam catalysed the re-emergence of 'Islamophobia' but despite this, did you know Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world today?

...even more surprisingly, 

Did you know 1.5 million Americans have converted to Islam post 9/11, at a rate of around 30, 000 a year?
(.. and those are just US stats, conversions have more or less taken the US and Europe by storm).

Why on earth, you ask, would people want to adopt the faith of the "terrorists"? 

Surely, seeing as pretty much every terrorist seems to yell "Allah-hu-akbar" before they blow themselves up or killing a bunch of people, the Quran must be a terrorist handbook of some sort and the crusaders must have had it right all along, right?

Wrong. The reality of what Islam is all about is far less exciting and dramatic.

..Islam does not have a murky history and neither does the Quran promote violence, murder and destruction (read more on this here). Funnily enough (and ironically), the main reason behind most of the conversions post 9/11 was that hearing Islam crop up on the news so much made people want to go and research it for themselves, and some decided "hey, this doesn't sound too bad". (Check out this convert story).

I'm pretty sure loads of you guys have heard that statement, "Islam is peace" (...and probably walked away laughing no doubt), but how about finding out for yourselves? After all, first hand research always beats second-hand hearsay.

So, something has gone horribly wrong. Why aren't the peaceful teachings of Islam matching the not-so-harmonious actions of those crazed bearded Muslim guys holding rifles and yelling stuff on the TV? (...it's because of guys like that where the whole identity crisis comes in).

Why don't normal Muslims going shopping and playing with their kids ever make an appearance in the mainstream? Is normal too boring? Do the media have to keep viewers on the edges of their seats with the latest extremist Islamic happenings in the world at the cost of painting all Muslims with the same brush?

Stay tuned for more on this!... In my next post, i'm going to look at the differences between the views of radical Islam and "normal" Islam and the impact these labels have had on the lives of 'normal' Muslims.

Tbc.