Perceptions About Muslims: In the Past Few

Perceptions About Muslims: In the past few years, negative perceptions about Muslims have continued to grow and affected the relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. As these relations are hugely affected, many Muslims across the globe are constantly fighting negative perceptions. These negative perceptions about Muslims and Islam in general have been stimulated by recent events in the Muslim and non-Muslim world. These events have continued to receive huge media coverage and generated a tremendous amount of mutual suspicion.

One of the major reasons for the growth of negative views about Muslims by non-Muslims is that Muslims are disproportionately prone to violence. Negative Perceptions about Muslims: The negative perceptions about Muslims have increased because of the negative media representations of these people and the negative attitudes towards them in various societies. The negative attitudes are in turn linked to the development of stereotypes, which affect social interactions between Muslims and non-Muslims.

In some cases, such attitudes have resulted in the abuse, discrimination, and misunderstanding from various parts of the society. Actually, the negative attitudes towards Muslims are regarded as the main factors to Muslims' experiences of both social and cultural exclusion (Maher, p. 1). In addition to resulting in the construction of negative stereotypes, negative attitudes contribute to the reinforcement and standardization of negative stereotypes about Muslims. Moreover, such attitudes have contributed to Muslims experiencing social, cultural, and economic disadvantages from non-Muslim members in the society.

The main reason for the increase in negative perceptions about Muslims and Islam is the recent increase terror attacks by Muslims. For instance, many people have expressed unfavorable views about Muslims because of the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States and America's war on Iraq. According to reports by liberal and conservative experts, the negative attitudes about Muslims by Americans are partly stimulated by political statements and media reports that are almost entirely centered on the actions of Muslim extremists (Deane & Fears par, 4).

Consequently, people believe that the Islamic religion helps Muslims to conduct violence against non-Muslims across the globe. Some of the common negative perceptions about Muslims include the following: Muslims as Evil People: One of the extreme negative views of Muslims by people is the fact that Muslims are regarded as evil or people who tolerate evil. This extreme vie is largely because many Muslims are intolerant, ignorant and tend to be extensively over reactive.

While Muslims are generally simple people, they are viewed as evil because of their intolerance and extreme over-reaction. Similar to other negative perceptions about Muslims, this perspective of them as evil people has partly been fueled by the media that has constantly focused on covering evil and crazy Muslims across the globe. This is despite of the existence of many Muslims who live their lives as decent people and pose no threat to non-Muslims in the society.

Some people view Muslims as evil people because they believe that Muslims are forever fighting the fact that they were created outside of God's plan for Abraham and Sarah. These people not only believe that Muslims were created for evil but also consider the Islamic religion as evil because it emanated from Abraham's distrust of God's promise. Muslims are also viewed as evil people because Islamic nations tend to be autocratic and fascist by allowing women to be subjugated and persecuted.

The oppressive nature of the Islamic religion has partly fueled the negative perceptions of Muslims as evil people. In addition to the evident persecution of women in Islamic countries, many of these nation and majority of Muslims idolize extremist Islamic groups. For example, many Muslims idolize the responsible individual for 9/11 terror attacks and terrorist groups that constantly murder non-Muslims across the globe. Notably, there is predominant violence and oppression in almost every place that Islam and Muslims in general border non-Muslims and people of other cultures.

The other major factor that has contributed to the perception of Muslims as evil is the tendency of decent Muslims to tolerate Jihadist evil they claim to detest. The decent and law-abiding Muslims passively tolerate Jihadist evil that take place under their noses because of fear or the ideological kinship between them and perpetrators (Spencer par, 1). There have been many jihad arrests across the globe as the Muslim community continues to tolerate jihadist evil that they profess to detest.

These factors have hugely contributed to the perceptions of Muslims as evil people by non-Muslim communities across the globe. Muslims as Terrorists: This is the second most common negative perception of Muslims that has been fueled by several factors, especially the recent events in the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds. According to statistics, many terrorist acts that have been carried out in the past three decades have been committed by people who claim to be Muslims.

The aggressive activism of Muslim extremist groups and fundamentalism can be traced back to pre-historic times though terror attacks by the groups have increased in the recent past. As these Muslim fundamentalists and extremist groups continue to claim responsibility and issue threats regarding terrorist attacks, non-Muslims have started believing that Muslim is the other name for terrorist. Until the recent terror attacks, terrorists mainly consisted of people from every color, race, sexual orientation and creed.

The recent changes that have depicted many terrorists as Muslims have contributed largely to the perception of Muslims as terrorists. Analysis of the Perception: The perceptions of Muslims as evil people and terrorists are impractical because of the several shortcomings or weaknesses of each perspective. First, while the notion that Muslims are evil is more plausible in almost every corner of the non-Muslim world, not all Muslims are evil.

As individuals, Muslims range from lapsed to devout and to those practicing Jihadists and should therefore not be considered as evil because of the actions of a few. Evil Muslims of Jihadists only account for a minor percentage of the Islamic population in the world. Furthermore, there are many decent and law-abiding citizens who even live peacefully.