Modern Religious Experience: Reflection #8 Islam: Two Perspectives

Modern Religious Experience: Reflection #8 Islam: Two Perspectives: "Find where Islamic religious beliefs intersect with current events. Research a Western news source on the story and summarize the article fr..."

For my current(ish) event I chose the story about a Christian Minister in Florida who originally planned to burn copies of the Qur'an to commemorate 9/11 earlier this year. I remember that this story was huge on CNN, BBC, etc., but it was really interesting (albeit a little disturbing) to hear the story from the perspective of a predominately Islamic country. I found my western point of view from an article on www.vaonews.com/.../US-Church-Cancels-Quaran-Burning-102571464.html that was titled "Florida Minister Cancels Quran Burning Protest". This article described how The Reverend Terry Jones had originally planned to commemorate 9/11 by burning several copies of the Qur'an with his parish in Gainesville, Florida. It went on to say how President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and numerous religious leaders around the country and the world encouraged him to abandon his plan and publicly spoke out against it. Finally, the article says that Reverend Jones wanted to negotiate with Islamic leaders in the United States so that a controversial mosque would not be built at the Ground Zero Location. The article that I found from an Iranian perspective was very different. On http://www.presstv.ir/detail/141769.html I discovered an article titled "Qur'an burning cover-up for US crimes". This article quoted a senior Iranian Commander who stated that the "attempted burning of the holy Qur'an is part of a US scenario to distract global attention from its crimes." It went on to argue that there is strong evidence to support that 9/11 was staged by the US government and their Israeli allies to draw sympathy from the rest of the world and provide a "necessary pretext" to start the War on Terror. The article condemns "Pastor" Terry Jones and his plan to burn "several hundred" copies of the Qur'an and also says that many Muslim countries have held massive demonstrations against the US Church's plan.

The only thing that I found similar in these two stories is that they both broadcasted that a Reverend in the US wanted to burn the holy Qur'an. Other than that the perspectives were different. The American article did not specify how many copies of the Qur'an were to be burned, however, the Iranian article stated that the Reverend wanted to burn "several hundred". Islam was defended in both articles, with the American article trying prove that the P/.resident and his top advisors were largely against the idea. The largest difference that I found between the two articles was that the American article focused on showing that the government had nothing to do with the idea, while the Iranian article suggested that it was a conspiracy by the US government and even went on to say that the 9/11 terrorist attack was set-up by the American government in an effort to "expand its influence throughout the world". Though I realize that both articles have some degree of bias, I have concluded that the Iranian article is based less on truth and facts. As a United States citizen who watched the Twin Towers burn on television as a first grader, I was greatly offended by this article.