The consistent demonization of Muslims and Islam is prevalent throughout the mainstream media. This demonization has led to widespread Islamophobia and resulted in military invasions of Muslim lands and the mass slaying of them.
The Myth of Muslim Barbarism and its Aims by S. E. Al-Djazairi, looks at this from a historical perspective, and highlights how the myth of Muslim barbarism was built through the ages and what forms it takes today. He demonstrates the fallacies at the heart of each of its aspects including the charges of intolerance, oppression of women, slave trading, cruelty to captives, Muslim inferiority etc. after refuting these claims he shows the real aims of those who propagate and benefit from them.
This is done in eight chapters:
- The first chapter looks at the methodology and techniques used to maintain and enhance the negative perception of the Muslim, especially his ‘barbarism.’
- The second chapter looks at the historical continuity: how, from the Middle Ages to this day, the Muslim has been associated with perversion, heresy and violence.
- The third looks at the way the Ottomans were associated with cruelty and barbarism for centuries, down to the twentieth.
- The fourth focuses on ‘Muslim intolerance and oppression of others, including women’.
- The fifth chapter looks at how the Muslim has been constantly depicted as a cruel captor, enslaver and racist.
- The sixth chapter analyses how Muslim accomplishments are suppressed from knowledge and the Muslims are painted as primitive creatures prone to animal behaviour, thus enhancing their barbarism.
- The seventh focuses on the crucial point: that is the sharp contrast that exists between the depiction of the Muslim as barbaric and reality, which shows the Muslim as the true victim of barbarism.
- The last chapter considers the aims behind such depictions.
I strongly recommend this book, if you are interested looking into the myth of Muslim barbarism and its aims from a historical perspective.
