Challenges Facing Muslims In The 21st Century

Every society in the 21st century has to face new challenges. These challenges can determine the future direction of a nation and a culture. Muslims are also expected to also be prepared to deal with new and usually complex and difficult challenges. This essay will examine the challenges facing Muslims today, involving rising religious radicalism among youth, growth of Islamophobia around the world and impact of incompatible moral values system that came through the digital revolution. The first new and complex challenge that Muslims need to deal with is the rising of religious radicalism among youth. Mahmood (2015) wrote, a large number of young Muslim female from west detected had travelled to conflict zones to join Islamic State (IS). These

There are many reasons for the growing of Islamophobia such as wars, terrorism and the ideas that are widely spread in the Internet. It is undeniable that religion has been said as the root of wars. According to Yahya (2016), the real causes of war are national interests, economic benefits, political superiority or colonialism. However, there is a black propaganda claimed that religious conflicts are the main reason of wars in 20th century which then lead to the growth of fear towards Muslims among the non-Muslims especially in the west. Even though religion is not the reason of wars, people around the world keep blaming it due to the propaganda made by unknown agencies. Moreover, the extremist use the name of religion, specifically Islam, to justify their actions like what had been done by IS and al-Qaeda. They claimed that they are striving the real jihad by attacking the non-Muslims. This eventually grows the fear among non-Muslims toward Muslims without knowing the truth that Islam has nothing to do with extremism and

According to Yahya (2014), Islamophobia has risen significantly in places like the United State (US) and Europe. However, the author does not put the blame on the rise of Islamophobia entirely on the non-Muslims. He, in fact, partly puts the blame on Muslims themselves. Some Muslims, for example, regard Islamophobia or misconception on Islam as fiction rather than reality. He urged Muslims not to only talk about Islamophobia but to take real actions to stop or counter the problem. Islamophobia is obviously seen after the 9/11 attacks and it became worst due to the attacks in Paris, recently. A mosque in Texas was defiled with feces and torn pages from the Quran. Verbal and social media threats were made against mosques in Houston and Tampa Bay and a Christian Uber driver in North Carolina was attacked by a passenger who thought he was Muslim. This also affect the refugees fleeing from Syria and Iraq to US where they have to undergo a long process that includes background checks, personal interviews and technology examining the irises of applicants to confirm their identity (Milligan,