Letter: Unfair to Islam?

Sir: Mr Paul Vallely's article ("The New Muslims", 3 November) was extremely racist and offensive. The article was sub-headed "Why are so many of us joining the most unpopular religion on earth?" The "us" is a reference to white people.

Mr Vallely cannot comprehend how it is possible to be white and a Muslim at the same time. He suggests that being white and a Muslim is a contradiction.

Globally, Islam is not defined along racial lines. Islam is a way of life and a state of mind. Being white is also a way of life and state of mind. A white person becoming a Muslim no longer sees him/herself in terms of skin colour but rather as a part of humanity as a whole.

There are white people who, even without realising it, already practise certain aspects of the Islamic way of life. For example, in the conduct of their personal hygiene (which in the West is still in the Dark Ages) and the giving of charity for the sake of it, without having to feel good about it.

The fact is that there is no Muslim press in the West to counter an endless stream of anti-Islamic rhetoric on a daily basis. There are no checks and balances.

Muslims could easily conclude that all white males are paedophiles on the basis of coverage in the Western press, but they know better. However, Westerners allow themselves to jump to unsubstantiated conclusions based on their own fears.

Western liberalism is compared to Islamic barbarity. Western liberalism, we are told, is superior. This is modern-day white supremacy. This will form the ideological colonialism of the next century.

A KARIM

Cambridge