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Thousands of Muslims march against ISIS on Ashura

Thousands of Muslims march against ISIS on Ashura

Categories: Latest News

Wednesday October 04 2017

On Sunday 1 October, thousands of Muslims in Central London marked the holy day of Ashura with a march against ISIS, the Independent reports. The group gathered to mourn the innocent victims who have lost their lives to terrorism and to denounce violence carried out in the name of religion.

 

Muslim women and men of all ages and backgrounds carried signs saying, “Muslims condemn terrorism,” “ISIS = Enemies of Islam,” and “90% of ISIS victims have been Muslim.”

 

This last statistic is often buried in reporting and public discourse about global terrorism. Because the media overwhelmingly frames terrorism as a conflict between “Islam” and “The West,” the reality that the vast majority of ISIS victims are Muslim is largely ignored.

 

Samuel Huntington’s famous “Clash of Civilizations” (1993) essay popularised the false idea that the main source of conflict in the modern world is between “Western civilization” and “Islamic civilization.”

 

Though the empirical evidence clearly demonstrates that Muslims suffer the most from terrorist violence, Huntington’s argument that “Islam” is inherently antagonistic towards Western society continues to carry weight in the general public.

 

For example, a 2016 survey of 2000 British adults conducted by ComRes found that only 28% of people surveyed believe Islam is compatible with British values and that 31% believe that Islam promotes acts of violence in the UK.

 

These negative attitudes contribute to an environment of distrust and disunity where false information about Islam and Muslims spreads quickly.

 

The march was one effort among many to demonstrate Muslim condemnation of ISIS’ hateful ideology and to stand in solidarity with victims of all creeds and none. Speaker Mike Haines, the brother of the humanitarian who was murdered by ‘Jihadi John’, addressed the crowd saying, “is important that we react in a positive way against these hate-mongers… It is only by working together that we can combat the hatred of the extremists.”

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