Confronting the winds of toxic Western campaigns is a responsibility upon all of us, especially the media

His Eminence the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Al-Sharif and Chairman of the Muslim Council of Elders, Prof. Ahmad Al-Tayyeb said in his speech during the opening session of the Arab Media Summit in Dubai: “We are still waiting for extensive media efforts to confront the groundless phenomenon known as ‘Islamophobia’ and address its negative effects in the West.  Islamophobia is nothing more than a sick illusion from which exaggerations are fabricated to distort Islam’s image and undermine its principles, which are based on peace and coexistence.”

 

His Eminence emphasized that this is happening despite the established rights of humans, animals, plants, and inanimate objects in Islamic law. We do not know of anything like Islam in the contemporary laws, systems, and policies which are praised by their makers and for which we are criticized. As soon as the catastrophe of the people of Gaza occurred, the cover was exposed, the mask fell, and what is hidden may be way worse. 

 

 

The Grand Imam emphasized that Western media campaigns were not limited to distorting Islam and its great civilization,  and its contribution to enlightening, educating, and advancing humanity, which the Westerners recognize well; they also undertook another mission, which is to undermine the constants of Eastern civilization, its ethical foundations, its human and familial society, and to call for the obliteration of these morals. These campaigns called for personal freedom first and foremost.

 

His Eminence emphasized that all of this happens even if it leads to the destruction of the family, changing its form, and replacing it with other systems that undermine children’s rights, permitting the commission of what is forbidden by religious laws, and even human taste and customs, and allowing men to marry men, and women to marry women, in addition to justifying atheism and rebellion against the nature of religions. This effort is aimed at drying up all sources of strength, independence, and feelings of pride in the Arab and Islamic personality. All of this, or part of it, urges us - especially the media professionals – to shoulder the responsibility of confronting these poisonous winds and save our youth and our countries from the factors of alienation, annihilation, and dissolution they carry.