Letters to the West

The recent events in France and similar ones in some other Western countries have convinced me to directly talk to you about them. I am addressing you — the youth — not because I overlook your parents; rather, it is because the future of your nations and countries will be in your hands, and also because I find that the sense of quest for truth is more vigorous and attentive in your hearts.

I don't address your politicians and statesmen either in this writing, because I believe that they have consciously separated the route of politics from the path of righteousness and truth.

I would like to talk to you about Islam, and particularly the image that is presented to you as Islam. Many attempts have been made over the past two decades, almost since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, to place this great religion in the seat of a horrifying enemy. The provocation of a feeling of horror and hatred and its utilization has unfortunately a long record in the political history of the West.

I don't want to deal with the different phobias with which the Western nations have thus far been indoctrinated. A cursory review of recent critical studies of history would bring home to you the fact that the Western governments' insincere and hypocritical treatment of other nations and cultures has been censured in new historiographies.

The histories of the United States and Europe are ashamed of slavery, embarrassed by the colonial period, and chagrined at the oppression of people of color and non-Christians. Your researchers and historians are deeply ashamed of the bloodshed wrought in the name of religion between Catholics and Protestants or in the name of nationality and ethnicity during the First and Second World Wars. This approach is admirable.

By mentioning a fraction of this long list, I don't want to reproach history; rather I would like you to ask your intellectuals as to why the public conscience in the West awakens and comes to its senses after a delay of several decades or centuries. Why should the revision of collective conscience apply to the distant past and not to the current problems? Why is it that attempts are made to prevent public awareness regarding an important issue such as the treatment of Islamic culture and thought?

You know well that humiliation and spreading hatred and illusionary fear of the 'other' have been the common base of all those oppressive profiteers. Now I would like you to ask yourselves why the old policy of spreading fear and hatred has targeted Islam and Muslims with an unprecedented intensity. Why does the power structure in the world want Islamic thought to be marginalized and remain latent?

I don't insist that you accept my reading or any other reading of Islam. What I want to say is: Don't allow this dynamic and effective reality in today's world to be introduced to you through resentments and prejudices. Don't allow them to hypocritically introduce their own recruited terrorists as representatives of Islam.

Receive knowledge of Islam from its primary and original sources. Gain information about Islam through the Qur'an and the life of its great Prophet. I would like to ask you whether you have directly read the Qur'an of the Muslims. Have you studied the teachings of the Prophet of Islam and his humane, ethical doctrines? Have you ever received the message of Islam from any sources other than the media?

Have you ever asked yourself how and on the basis of which values has Islam established the greatest scientific and intellectual civilization of the world, and raised the most distinguished scientists and intellectuals throughout several centuries?

I would like you not to allow the derogatory and offensive image-building to create an emotional gulf between you and the reality, taking away the possibility of an impartial judgment from you. Today, the communication media have removed the geographical borders. Hence, don't allow them to besiege you within fabricated and mental borders.

Although no one can individually fill the created gaps, each one of you can construct a bridge of thought and fairness over the gaps to illuminate yourself and your surrounding environment. While this preplanned challenge between Islam and you, the youth, is undesirable, it can raise new questions in your curious and inquiring minds — questions whose answers will prepare you for discovering new truths.

Therefore, don't miss the opportunity to gain proper, correct, and unbiased understanding of Islam, so that hopefully, due to your sense of responsibility toward the truth, future generations would write the history of this current interaction between Islam and the West with a clearer conscience and lesser resentment.

The bitter events brought about by blind terrorism in France have once again moved me to speak to you young people. For me, it is unfortunate that such incidents would have to create the framework for a conversation; however, the truth is that if painful matters do not create the grounds for finding solutions and mutual consultation, then the damage done would be multiplied.

The pain of any human being anywhere in the world causes sorrow for a fellow human being. The scene of a child watching the life leave the body of his loved one, a mother whose joy turns to mourning, a husband who is rushing the lifeless body of his spouse somewhere, and the spectator who does not know whether the scene will be his last scene of life — these are scenes that rouse the emotions and feelings of any human being. Anyone who has a share of love and humanity is affected and disturbed by witnessing these scenes, whether it occurs in France, Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, or Syria.

Without a doubt, the one-and-a-half billion Muslims also have these feelings, and abhor and are revolted by the perpetrators and those responsible for these calamities. The issue, however, is that if today's pain is not used to build a better and safer future, then it will just turn into bitter and fruitless memories.

I genuinely believe that it is only you, the youth, who by learning the lessons of today's hardship can find new means for building the future and who can be barriers against the misguided paths that have brought the West to its current impasse.

Today there are very few people who are not aware of the role of the United States of America in creating, nurturing, and arming al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and their inauspicious successors. Besides this direct role, the overt and well-known supporters of Takfiri terrorism — despite having the most backward political systems — are standing in the front line of the so-called allies of the West, while the most progressive, brightest and most dynamic democrats in the region are suppressed mercilessly. The West's double standards in dealing with the awakening movements in our region is an illustrative example of the contradictions existing in Western policies.

The other side of these contradictions can be seen in supporting the state terrorism of Israel. The oppressed people of Palestine have experienced the worst kind of terrorism for the last sixty years. If the people of Europe have now taken refuge in their homes for a few days and avoid being present in busy gathering places — it is decades that a Palestinian family is not safe even in its own home from the Zionist regime's death and destruction machinery.

What kind of atrocious violence today is comparable to that of the settlement constructions of the Zionist regime? This regime — without ever being seriously and significantly censured by its influential allies or even by the so-called independent international bodies — everyday demolishes the homes of Palestinians and destroys their orchards and farms. This is done without even giving them time to gather their belongings or collect their crops, and usually in front of the terrified and tearful eyes of women and children who witness the brutal beatings of their family members, who in some cases are dragged away to gruesome torture chambers.

I do not ask you to conduct a survey or engage in comparison of the images of the oppression of your region against the oppression in our region. You should not restrict your understanding to images. You should, rather, ponder as to why the conscience of the world never gets uneasy, or at least rarely gets uneasy, from the images of this systematic violence.

Perhaps the common and repetitious explanation of this immunity through the influence of the Zionist lobbies on the US government and on the parliaments and governments of some European countries is a simplification that should be taken at face value, but you should not deny that the perpetual displacement, indignity, and brutalization is actually just the output of a calculated process of spreading hatred.

My second request is that in reaction to the flood of prejudgments and disinformation campaigns, try to gain a direct and firsthand knowledge of this religion. The right logic requires that you understand the nature and essence of what they are frightening you about and want you to keep away from.

I don't insist that you accept my reading or any other reading of Islam. What I want to say is: Don't allow this dynamic and effective reality in today's world to be introduced to you through resentments and prejudices. Don't allow them to hypocritically introduce their own recruited terrorists as representatives of Islam.

Receive knowledge of Islam from its primary and original sources. Gain information about Islam through the Qur'an and the life of its great Prophet. I would like to ask you whether you have directly read the Qur'an of the Muslims? Have you studied the teachings of the Prophet of Islam and his humane, ethical doctrines?