Dubai (Middle East) – There has been a growing wave of Islamophobia worldwide, especially apparent in the Middle East urging many Arabs to come forth and lend their support to the Muslims, against religious extremists.
The reactions have been disparate- some compare the treatment of all religions in their countries to how Muslims have been discriminated against in India while others are vocal about their intolerance for hate speech.
Princess Hend Al Qassimi, a member of the UAE Royal Family had to say that “hate is not welcome in the Emirates” and in a previous tweet, she mentioned that those who make racist and discriminatory comments would be fined and made to leave.
Hassan Sajwani, an Emirati who frequently speaks up against terrorism with a verified Twitter account had to say the following:
Here are a few other responses from intellectuals across the Middle East:
The tweets are a result of a landslide of incidents that occurred in India following the Tablighi Jamaat gathering which turned out to be the subcontinent’s worst COVID-19 vector. There has been unrest in the country since the passing of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) by the Modi government.
What followed were instances of discrimination against Muslims, with people voicing their “beliefs” on social media and the Gulf condemned these behaviors.
While many of the people who put up these posts have taken them down or have fleed the country in fear, the echoes of their harsh discriminatory comments are pushing intellectuals across the Middle East to speak up against their unjust and baseless claims.
For instance, a businessman based in the UAE Sohan Roy wrote a poem with an image that seemed to be signaling towards the incident. He put forth an apology for his mistake and deleted the previous post.
Closer to home, back in 2011, Harvard University dropped two courses of Indian Member of Parliament Subramaniam Swamy following his authoring of two articles putting Islam in a bad light.
While this is not enough action, it sets the path on how things should rightly work. The Middle East putting an intolerant front to this behaviour shall surely dissuade people from putting forth problematic statements.
The human rights body of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) human rights body raised concern about the “unrelenting vicious Islamophobic campaign in India maligning Muslims for the spread of COVID-19”.
They also condemned the negative profiling of Muslims in Indian media which subjects them to discrimination and violence. It urged the Indian government to take urgent steps to put an end to the growing tide of Islamophobia in the country.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei stated that the Indian government should confront extremists and stop Muslim massacres.
In response to all this, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office tweeted out the importance of unity and brotherhood against the COVID-19 ending his statement saying that ‘we are in this together’.
UAE and Saudi Arabia have both conferred Modi their highest civilian awards called the Zayed Award and King Abdulaziz Sash respectively.
Modi has been maintaining friendly strategic relationships with the Gulf countries. A large number of Indian expats live across the Gulf and the GCC is one of the largest trading partners of the subcontinent.
Disclaimer: The objective of this article is not to hurt any sentiments or be biased in favor of or against any particular nation or religion.
