As I was graduating from the college of arts\ Translation Department, I had to choose my graduation paper and translate it from English into Arabic.
It was among students to choose novels and short stories because they are easy to translate and they could easily find them during the Saddam era and the damn international sanctions were imposed on Iraq at that time.
I thought that I had to choose something important and unusual to be translated by me. Due to the job I was doing I could have an Internet access that enabled me to select a very important subject.
I chose an article on Moslems in the west. I was very interested to know how Moslems are living in the west? And how they communicate with the westerners? And the most important thing I was very keen to find out is what the westerners think about Moslems and Islam?
As I started translating I found very interesting information. I found that Moslems in the west are freely expressing their ideas and mixed with the western society also I found that Moslems are different in the 3 countries the article covered - the United States of America, Great Britain and Denmark.
I was not surprised when I found that Moslems live peacefully with the western societies particularly in the United States, but they communicate badly and they do not explain in a proper way what Islam means. And what does Mohammad means as well.
I also found that the relationship between Moslem and westerners was entirely changed after the September 11th attach.
Westerners started attacking Moslems and make a lots of trouble to them and some times it has reached the stage of forcing Moslems to leave the country they have been living in for a long time or send them to Guantanamou.
This is due to that attack on the two towers and the misleading role of the administration of United States and because the Majority of people in the west have no clear idea about Islam the starting hating it and it's believers.
And because people in the west do not read about it and Moslems all over the Islamic world do not communicate with them properly a huge gap has been created between the Islamic and westerners culture which made it easy for Bush and his administration to disorder the image of Islam and Moslems.
People in the west started thinking that Islam is the religion of terrorism and violence.
The main principal of Islam is that people must live peacefully to each other and not to hurt each other by hands or saying bad things about each other, therefore the greeting of Islam is Wa Alaikam - `Peace be upon you'.
Prophet Mohammad gave a definition to Islam by saying " A Moslem is the man who's people are safe from his hand and tongue". It means that a real Moslem is one who does not hurt people or say bad things against them.
Mohammad, the prophet of Mercy, was teaching his people at that time and he is still teaching us by the words he said how to be merciful to others even if they cause hurt for you:
It happened that the prophet owned a Jewish man a sum of money but he could not give it back to him. While the prophet was sitting among his a companions the Jewish came over asking Mohammad violently to give him the money back. This made one of his a companions very angry and he was about to kill the Jewish man him but the prophet stopped him and said" It would be better if you asked me and force me to pay him back his money, he asking for his right".
It happened that a non-Moslem group paid a man thousand dinar to assassinate Mohammad. They gave him a poisoned sword and as that man arrived to the mosque where the prophet was at prayer. One of the prophet's a companions stopped that man and arrested him then he brought him to Mohammad and told the prophet "He wants to kill you."
The prophet asked Omar, the companion, "Did you offer him food and water?"
"He was about to kill you, " replied Omar.
" Release him," Said the prophet.
They sat down together and Mohammad asked that man " Why do you want to kill me?"
" I was paid to do it," Said the man.
" Do you believe that am the messenger of the god?" Mohammad asked.
" No, I would not kill you if I do believe you" said the man.
" Do you need any thing now?" the prophet asked.
" Yes" the man replied. " I want to give me back my horse and my sword and release me" he added.
" Bring him some food and water and give him back all his prosperities and set him free" Mohammad said.
He was teaching Moslems how to be merciful and he was saying to them "Do not hurt any Christian or Jewish and who does that means hurts me and who hurts me means he hurts the God."
Does such a merciful man deserve to be humiliated by the people whom he was protecting?
Is it fair that people misjudge another because some of them were extremists?
What kind of freedom of expression does the west have?
Is it the freedom of misestimating others?
That cartoons were published in Danish newspaper demonstrated that people in the west do not have a real idea about Islam and Moslems and they do not respect the freedom and the democracy they want to teach people in the east.
Am afraid to say this is what people in the Arab and Islamic world think of the west and westerners.
Ahmad Ali.
Baghdad.
