So why is Islam so vastly misunderstood today?
One of the main reasons I feel Islam is often misunderstood today is due to the simple fact that most people often think of Islam as some sort of Strange and EXOTIC faith that was meant for the Arabs. In fact, Arabs makeup a mere 18% of the total 1.3 billion Muslims on Earth. People often view Islam in a wrong light due to the constant bias reports of the media and the overwhelming negative depictions of Islam in Hollywood cinema and popular news.
This has an enormously negative and often underrated and understated effect on the minds of Non-Muslims. If you’d like to read more about this negative influence you can read one of my research papers I wrote a few years ago concerning this very topic, including its annotated bibliography. To access the paper click on the following link: Arab Portrayal: A Research Paper
Also, I don’t understand why Americans and “Westerners” picture Islam as such an Exotic religion when both Judaism and Christianity also came from the Middle East. Moses was born in Egypt, Jesus in Palestine, Abraham from modern day southern Iraq, and Noah built the ark in Iraq. For more biblical Iraqi (Mesopotamian) history follow this link: http://www.innernet.net/hlrotz/iraqevents.html
Another interesting fact that you may not be aware of is that Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) spoke the ancient language of Aramaic which is closest in resemblance to modern day Arabic. My dad speaks Arabic fluently and can understand parts of the movie “The Passion of the Christ” without subtitles; that’s how similar Aramaic and Arabic are linguistically.
Some people think that Muslims pray to a different God altogether simple because Muslims refer to God as “Allah”…this is ridiculous. Arabs of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic faith all refer to "The One God" as “Allah” in Arabic. The French use the word "Dieu"...the Spanish say "Dios"...the English say "God"...and the Germans say "Gott."
However, just because they all have their own word for "God" in their own unique language this doesn't mean that they believe in a completely different creator.
If anything, when Jesus referred to God in his native tongue of Aramaic it sounded almost identical to the Arabic way of saying ‘God’. In fact, the word for "The One God" in Aramaic is "Allaha"...that's only one syllable away from the Arabic term. The Jews and Arabs are both Semitic tribes so their languages are quite similar.
The Old Testament tells us that Prophet Moses (peace be upon him) referred to God as "El" or "Elohiym." Jesus too, referred to God using a similar construct. Very little of Jesus' actual words have been preserved to this day. However, according to Mark 15:34 in the Bible, Jesus referred to God as "Eloi." "Eloi" is an Aramaic word which means "My God." It is pronounced as {el-o-ee'}. The Arabs would say the same word as "Elahi," pronounced {el-ah-ee'}.
Muslims refer to God with virtually the exact same word Jesus used.
The bottom line is that although the Prophet Muhammad was from Arabia this is actually right in line with the rest of the Prophets in Islam, Christianity, and Judaism; from Abraham to Moses to Jesus to Muhammad (peace be upon them); all were indeed from the Middle East and definitely not of European lineage as some popular depictions would have you think.
In reality, all of these Prophets of God more than likely looked very similar to each other and shared many cultural similarities. In fact, as I previously mentioned, Arabs and Jews are both Semitic peoples and both trace their lineage directly from Abraham; the patriarch of all three religions. Abraham had two sons, Isaac and Ishmael; Jews claim descendants from Isaac and Arabs from Ishmael. Thus, Jews and Arabs are from the same family tree.
This is all fact. If you don’t believe me please feel free to confirm these assertions using your own private search.