In the aftermath of blasphemous cartoons

Article by Dr. Khaled Tawfik

After the republication of the blasphemous cartoons ridiculing Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and after Geert Wilders, the Dutch Member of Parliament, of the far right party, produced a movie ridiculing and attacking Islam and the Holy Qur'an, the people who supported such campaigns under the pretext of the freedom of expression hoping that such vicious campaigns might distort the image of Islam, received the biggest shock of their life.

In Denmark, the people who embraced Islam since the first publication of the sacrilegious cartoons numbered around 5,000, while now each day a Danish national embraces Islam.

The newspapers have published the story of a man from the Philippines who entered the fold of Islam. Asked about the reason that made him embrace Islam, the man said that the reason was that he saw the other people persistently on attacking Islam although Islam respects all the other religions and that Muslims respect all Divine Faiths and believe in all Allah's Prophets and Holy Books.

There is a growing interest in Islam in Europe and translations of the Qur'an in all European languages are the bestsellers nowadays.

Recent studies indicate that European non-Muslim women when marrying Muslim men usually embrace Islam because they discover the greatness of this Faith through their husbands' uprightness, faithfulness, truthfulness and noble morals.

What really shocked people in the West is that prisoners in Europe and the United States are embracing Islam in large numbers. A recent report in France indicates that every week, a prisoner, after embracing Islam, comes to ask for halal meat.

When asked about the reasons that made them embrace Islam, prisoners' answers revolved around many things: finding true peace in that religion, it provides man with a kind of psychological balance that makes him bear the misfortunes of life, it advocates the idea of equality, all people being equal regardless of their color, race, language, wealth, education... etc.

What is more astonishing is that one of the Israeli newspapers expressed its concern as 80% of the French people who have recently embraced Islam are Jews. Jewish organizations feel that such a trend threatens their very existence.

Not only that, all efforts exerted by these organisations to prevent people from embracing Islam are going in vain. It was also discovered that some of those French people embraced Islam in secret till they find the right moment to declare that.

The idea that I would like to stress is that Muslims all over the world have to realise that such anti-Islam campaigns usually yield results in favour of Islam because Allah is always there to defend and protect Islam and His Prophet (peace be upon him).