by Muath Freij | Sep 16, 2012 |

JORDAN TIMES

AMMAN — A group of young Jordanians launched an initiative on Friday to counter a film deemed insulting to the Prophet Mohammed by educating people about who the prophet really was.

The organisers of the campaign, “This is the Prophet Mohammad,” each sent at least 10 messages on Facebook to people who are not their friends and who do not speak Arabic, with a brief introduction to Islam and the prophet, said Ali Kloub, who initiated the drive.

“We wanted to start a civilised campaign to defend our Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him,” the 24-year-old told The Jordan Times over the phone on Sunday.

Kloub added that he decided to conduct the campaign over Facebook so that it could reach as many people as possible.

The message includes an explanation in English of how Muslims view Prophet Muhammad and links the reader to a video with more information.

“Our idea is to send this message to people who do not speak Arabic because we wanted those who watched the movie [“Innocence of Muslims”, an alleged amateur film whose trailer on YouTube set off a wave of anti-American protests in the Muslim world] to know the real identity of our beloved prophet. We are planning to write this message in different languages,” Kloub said.

He noted that since the beginning of the campaign, over 1,000 people have participated and more than 10,000 people have been contacted.

Mohammad Abu Mura, a 23-year-old engineer, participated in the project to show people a more accurate and positive image of Islam than that depicted in the movie trailer.

“I received negative and positive replies. Some people told us that we should have moved earlier than this because they were curious about our prophet,” he told The Jordan Times.

Abdul Kareem Shamri, one of the participants who sent more than 50 messages, said that such campaigns were a better response to the anti-Islam film than demonstrating in the streets.

Violent protests at US and other Western embassies in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and other Muslim countries over the past few days have led to confrontations with police and several deaths, including that of US ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens.

“I am totally against what happened in the Arab countries over the weekend, because all the damage and killings that took place were totally against Islam. If Prophet Mohammad witnessed these events, he would not have approved of them. What happened did not represent the message of Islam,” Shamri said.

http://jordantimes.com/facebook-campaign-aims-to-correct-misperceptions-about-prophet-mohammad