Bob Roberts, Pastor Northwood Church, Dallas (Texas), US.; Zia Sheikh, Imam of the Islamic Centre, Irving, US. and Syed Maulana Muhammad Kabir Azad, Grand Imam of Badshahi Mosque Lahore, Pakistan.


By Umer Nangiana



“There are people in United States who are afraid of Muslims and I would have to say that Islamophobia is real,” said Bob Roberts, Pastor Northwood Church, Dallas (Texas), speaking to Community on the sidelines of an interfaith harmony conference in Doha recently.
A big part of the problem, he points out, is the news media. “In the news, I don’t care who it is, it is whatever big sensational story that grabs people. So their impression is shaped by 30 seconds or 2 minutes on the news and they don’t have broad enough understanding. I honestly believe the biggest challenge is our news media,” said the pastor.
“I think when they (Americans) see ISIS, they do not know how to distinguish ISIS from all Muslims or when they see some extremists do some kind of behaviour then their feeling is — all that is…Muslims (doing it),” he elaborated.
Roberts was one of the speakers at the conference organised by Peace and Education Foundation, Islamabad, Pakistan and Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue (DICID), Qatar and attended by religious scholars, imams and pastors coming from the US and Pakistan. 
“I really believe our news media is not giving necessarily an accurate view of some but an incomplete view of all and that is what is hurting,” said the Evangelical Pastor from the US.
Pastor Roberts, who enjoys a large following in America, said that such fear of Islam and Muslims was rather newfound. Most Americans historically, he explained, have not been afraid of Muslims even after the problems between Iran and the US in the 1980s.
“I don’t think the Americans became afraid of Muslims until the mid-90s when we began to be told that there were threats and so forth and then when 9/11 happened, it has just been overnight,” said Pastor Roberts.
“And then I am sorry to say there are some people who make money out of that. They write books, they want you to fear Islam and so some people that are not good use it to their advantage,” he added.
Muslims in America don’t say much to avoid problems but recently some of them have started speaking up.
“For example, in America, some people would say why the Muslims don’t condemn terror attacks. Well, they have condemned the terrorist attacks. But once again the problem is that media does not carry those stories. It only carries the attacks but not the condemnation,” said the pastor.
He said he also believes that it is the job of the majority to protect the minority and that what has made America great in the past and “that is why many of us are saying enough, we don’t like this. This has to stop.”
He said as evangelical pastors they are the largest religious group in America. Sadly, there have been some evangelical pastors who have been caught up in this hype. Roberts said they are working from imam to pastor to make a broad statement to churches and mosques in the community that this (Islamophobia) is wrong and it has to stop.
“We are doing two things. Interfaith dialogue is good but it is not enough. There is something more that needs to be done and that is ‘interfaith action’. And the key to that are the imams and pastors because we have access to thousands and millions of believers,” he explained.
In America, he said, they have built friendship with the mosques and imams. They have started to invite the members of the mosques to the church. They have got halal food.
“We had a big event in which they came and they ate and the imam spoke and I spoke and we got together and it was very profound and then our church went to the mosque and we did the exact same thing at the mosque,” said Pastor Roberts.
“My goal was to get the imams and the pastors together and let them talk not just theology, it was much bigger than that,” he added.
Speaking about how the mosques and Islamic centres in the US are reacting to provocative protests and controversial exhibitions by certain groups of people in the US and in the West in general, Zia Sheikh, Imam of the Islamic Centre, Irving, US said they do not want Muslims to engage with people who do such kind of provocations.
“Those people need to be marginalised and the only way to do that is not to engage with them. People who know Muslims, they have a favourable image of them,” said the imam.
“What we suggest to the Muslims is that make sure they get to know their neighbours, get to meet them and try to create good relationships with everyone, get involved in the local politics, get involved in civic activities and it will go a long way in improving the image of Muslims in the West,” he added.
Speaking about the growth of Islam in the West and how it was making the non-Muslims fear Islam and Muslims, Sheikh said it is spreading and people are embracing Islam. However, certain people try to portray that Islam is taking over at such a pace that the non-Muslims are going to be marginalised and they are going to be defeated and Shariah law is going to take over.
“All this is basically propaganda to make non-Muslims feel scared of the Muslims and Islam. That is not going to happen because in all these countries Muslims are in a minority. There is a state law that they have to abide by. And when people are provoked there is a threat; it just creates an unnecessary fear among the non-Muslims,” he opined.
At the conference, he said they (the pastors and imams) have decided to go back to the US and a different organisation completely whose focus will be to combat Islamophobia and that will comprise both Muslims and non-Muslims.
Both will be the spokespersons in the media, Sheikh said, adding that when non-Muslims speak out in favour of Muslims that is much more powerful than actually Muslims speaking out.
Maulana Syed Muhammad Kabir Azad, the Grand Imam of Badshahi Mosque, Lahore, Pakistan said minorities in Pakistan live in harmony in Pakistan largely. “Our government, in fact, has established a Ministry of Interfaith Harmony which is looked after by the minister for religious affairs and interfaith harmony,” said the grand imam.
“I think the international media does not portray the correct image of Pakistan to the audiences abroad. Minorities in Pakistan were part of the struggle for independence and creation of Pakistan and they are equal citizens,” he noted.
Problems, he argued, can emerge anywhere in any country of the world but these cannot and should not be generalised. And in this conference, he said he and his colleagues have been able to remove misunderstandings of many people from the US about Pakistan.
Dialogue, Azad said, was very important. “Unless we talk, there would be misconceptions. We would make all efforts to facilitate interfaith dialogue in future as well and this we have agreed on during the conference,” said the imam of Lahore’s biggest mosque.


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