Huff Post: by Ani Zonneveld.
Step aside Islamophobes, this is between me and my Muslim community.
Let me help. Here’s a laundry list of all the miss-guided interpretations of Islam: Leaving Islam is an act of apostasy punishable by death; Sharia is a set of laws that brutally punish women, chop peoples’ hands off for stealing (thanks Saudi Arabia); child marriages are permissible after all Prophet Muhammad married a child; homosexuality is punishable by death; Muslim women can’t marry outside the faith; the status of women is below that of a man; only Muslims go to heaven; and the depiction of Prophet Muhammad is prohibited. The list is longer, but it’s a start.
Now that the Boston Marathon bomber has been captured and the backstory has come to the forefront, Muslims are again reminded of the problem of radicalism conflated with Islam. We are again caught between radical Muslims and the Islamophobes who are relishing this new act of terror. And though moderate Muslims condemn terrorism at every opportunity and collaborate with law enforcements, what they are not doing is getting to the root of the problem.
The problem: There are so much radical, hateful and extreme interpretations of Islam on-line. They target the youth, they dumb it down, they appeal to the ego and to the exclusive notion of supremacy. (This is not that much different from White Supremacy, or any supremacist ideology, but as a Muslim I want to talk about Islam.)