Bhattarai 1

Ashish Bhattarai
Professor Blandford
UWRT 1103
4 November 2015
Islam: Basics and Controversy
There is no other religion that is more interesting than Islam. The main reason that Islam
is so fascinating is simply because the American media has majority of its news about the Middle
East, about religion and many of them are displaying the followers of Islam as a hostile group of
people. There is a plethora of reasons to why many people viewpoints are this way, but the one
that stands out the most is the attack of 9/11 in New York City. This caused many people to view
the Islamic people and the religion of Islam completely differently than they had before this
event had happened. This got me wondering what the basis of the religion is considering it has
this much negativity surrounding it.
This research that I conducted helped me answer a good amount of questions that I had
regarding Islam. My visions of the religion were completely different and I was wrong after
doing research to find that Islam is nowhere close to the violent religion that it was portrayed to
be. For one, the word Islam itself is defined as peace and they have a holy book called the
Quran, which lays the foundation that is required for the Muslim people to follow. I also learned
that while the Quran is their holy book, they have another source of literature to guide them on
their following of the religion. The Hadith, as it is called, is a sacred text that has all of the
teachings and the beliefs that their prophet Muhammad had. While I had known that Quran is
their holy book, I had no idea exactly what was in the Quran and what the Muslim people were

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following. I learned that they are supposed to pray five times a day , believe that Allah is the one
and only true god and Muhammad is his prophet , help the needy , fast during the month of
Ramadan , and to take a pilgrimage to Mecca once in a persons lifetime. These are all very
interesting rules that are stated in the Quran. These rules are interesting because these rules show
how devoted they have to be to their god and do all these in a calmly manner in which no
violence will occur.
Due to the recent attack on Paris by ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), many
people are starting to believe that Islam is the biggest reason ISIS is doing what it is. This attacks
called the November 2015 Paris attacks killed 130 and injured a total of 368 people. ISIS
claimed responsible for the attack and stated that the French airstrikes on ISIL targets in Syria
and Iraq was the reason that they retaliated and did this heinous attack. Being an eighteen year
old man , and learning about this tragic event , I went to twitter and started reading what peoples
reaction were to this tragic religion. I am very flabbergasted when I found that many adults were
putting the blame on the religion of Islam and titling all Muslims as terrorists, while the people
of my generation were talking about a small group doesnt portray a religion followed by over a
billion people. There were many people defending the religion of Islam and the thing that caught
my eye was a quote from the Quran. This quote, If any one killed a person, it would be as if he
killed the whole of Mankind (Quran 5:32). My personal view of this quote is that Islam being
the peaceful religion it is, if any person were to commit murder, he has done something so awful
that god will all of mankind as murders and they will never be able to go back from that.

This made me decide why all the negative actions regarding the Islamic people are so
violent and why they are doing the things that they are doing. I decided to talk to a Muslim friend

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of mine to see what his viewpoint was in all of this. I first decided to ask him how the Islamic
people in the Middle East follow Islam. He told me that they are very peaceful and do what they
are told in the Quran and move on with their day. I then started to ask him about all of the bad
press that is being shown here. He told me that those are just the extremists that believe that
Islam should be the only religion in the world, and cant accept the fact that people have different
beliefs. I started to question if the Quran has any part of all the negative actions that people are
committing. He told me that everything that is happening is based on the person and Quran is all
about peace and there is nothing in it that would acknowledge the violent acts that people are
committing.
My research helped me understand many things about religion and why people are
devoted to their religion as they are. I learned that location has a huge effect in religion. Most
countries that are dominantly Islam are considered to be third-world countries. Those people are
not living the lives that they would desire and have decided to look toward religion as a source of
peace and a guidance for their life. While this may seem farfetched but I believe that the
extremists are trying to show their devotion for Allah by attacking all the non-Muslim people
because Islam has given them some sort of sense in life and want everyone to be the same as
them. I would have never guessed in the beginning of this essay, that religion and geography
could affect each other.
There are many reasons as to why I decided to choose to write a paper on Islam, and I
feel like my literacy memoir somewhat helped me finalize on this topic. I learned from the
literacy memoir that I relied on online chats, and television to get most of my news and being a
nave person, I more often than not believed it. I would usually check the news for interesting
news and then read the comments and then read what people say and believe whatever sounded

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the most realistic. There was once an article on religion , and reading those comments made me
have a different perspective on religion and doing this essay has answered a helped me change
my perspective on religion. As I learned through my literacy memoir, I gained most of my
knowledge through TV during my teen years. Taking this into account and my love for war
movies, my thoughts on the religion of Islam and the area of the Middle East were greatly
misguided and completely wrong. Those movies made it seem like everyone in the Middle East
were extremists and hated America and wanted to kill everyone and are getting their guidance
through Islam.
As I have stated earlier, I used to watch movies and make my own beliefs based on those.
I watched movies such as The Hurt Locker and American Sniper to get my idea of Islam. These
are both American movies made by Americans with the intended audience between Americans
over the age of 21 and American patriots. This paper has helped me realize that these are the
intended audience because I believe that the whole purpose of those movies is a propaganda for
the American military and proving as to why they are superior to any other military force. I use
to not think this way and watch the movie for enjoyment but after re-watching those movies after
being assigned this paper, I realized that it was indeed in some way a propaganda. Those movies
portrayed the Islamic people very violent and although the military were killing innocent people
for answers, they were being portrayed as heroes and innocents not knowing what is going on as
villains. I then decided to watch a documentary called Islam: Empire of Faith. This documentary
begins with the origins of the religion and how Islam traveled all over the world and how they
became a big realign. The documentary also shows the violent parts of the religion such as the
Christian crusade and the Ottoman Empire. This documentary finishes with views of the current
day and the lives of just ordinary Muslims and how the religion has changed the lives of millions

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of people. The main purpose of this documentary is to show how all the things in the past has
brought to life this big religion that turns out to be one of the most beautiful religion that ends up
uniting people all over the world and educating people who dont have much idea about the
religion , like me. Due to the readings from this class, I have learned to question my research so I
dont know how accurate the documentary is, but I know that it will give me a much better
understanding of the religion than either of those movies would have done.
This essay has helped me learn a lot about myself and much more than I would have
expected it to have when this assignment was first handed to me. I learned that before making
any accusations, people should know what they are believing in and be certain that they are
believing the truth. There are many unknowns out there in the world, and the whole debate
between right and wrong of a religion will be one of the biggest unknown because there will
always be two sides of the argument and it will make the whole topic of religion an unknown.
Learning about this religion, and learning that people react to situations differently, made realize
that I should respect a persons beliefs and make sure I know everything there is to know before
having any final assumptions.
While this paper has helped me understand a lot about the religion, there is so many
information about the religion since it is such a vast topic, that I have missed a lot of information
which could change my viewpoint of the religion. This paper, I decided to look at the positives of
the religion and how it has impacted the lives of many Muslims all over the world. If I were to
have a different viewpoint on this paper and start this paper all over again, I would have focused
on the negatives of the religion, and there will be many examples on how Islam has negatively
impacted the lives of their followers. I researched and found out that Islam still does not support
the idea of homosexuality. It happens that if a man is found that he is homosexual, his family will

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force him to marry a women in hope that he will no longer be homosexual. It also turns out that
being openly homosexual in some Islamic countries can have severe penalties going as to high as
death. The religion isn't perfect, yet nothing on the planet is and I trust that the religion has
created caused more good than mischief and I have a totally new understanding on something I
was not extremely acquainted with. Despite everything I have majority of questions in regards to
this religion, however I have adapted more about this religion than I would have ever thought.

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Works Cited
Abou El Azayem, Gamal, and Zari Hedayat-Diba. "The Psychological Aspects of Islam: Basic
Principles of Islam and Their Psychological Corollary." International Journal for the
Psychology of Religion (1994): 41-50. Print.
Caschetta, A.J. "Does Islam Have a Role in Suicide Bombings." Middle East Quarterly 22.3.
Print.
Rane, Halim, and Jacqui Ewart. "Reflections on 9/11: Australian Muslim and Non-Muslim
Responses 10 Years On." Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 33.2 (2013): 155-70. Print.
Skreslet, Paula. "Basic Primary Sources in Islamic Religion." Theological Librarianship 1.1
(2008). Print.
Winter, Tim. "America as a Jihad State: Middle Eastern Perceptions of Modern American
Theopolitics." Muslim World 101.3 (2011): 394-411. Print.