I Am Happy! (Another post against grim-faced Islam)

Can you remember back when you thought of Islam as a religion of joy and happiness?



The perception of Islam, that I call "grim-faced Islam", is something unluckily widely spread in the world. Islam is a Religion of terrorists, fanatics, suppressors and surpressed, of dumb, maniacs, and men. Yes, a religion of men. When you enter the keyword Islam into google image search, all those existing preopinions make sense. Put the keyword Buddhism into google image search and the picture is completely different. There is hardly any negative imagery. You will find dozens of pictures of Buddha and lotus flowers. Buddha is smiling. Well, we don't depicture Allah. But if we did - would He be smiling? Why am I saying this?       





Only after extensive scrolling you will find a Time-cover with a buddhist monk and the headline "The face of Buddhist terror". (No "Buddhism will dominate the World" or "Buddhists can't be friends with Non-Buddhists", "Buddhism is a death-cult" or "Ban Buddhism") This is not because there are no negative stories to tell about Buddhism. Anyway, I'm pretty sure you can imagine what happens when you put the keyword Islam in the search-box.
Well, that is certainly not because the shown results are the truth about Islam, I think we all can agree on that, right? So why is it then? I think many Muslims would agree on the claim that that is because of the negative preopinions that others have on our peaceful faith. I can see truth in this claim and I definitely support the idea of clarification around this topic in the media. And I certainly don't say our faith isn't peaceful.
What I am saying is this: We should ask ourselves what the image is that we Muslims have of Islam? What are the values that we point out when we are in dialogue with others? How are we living our faith? Not to forget these: Do we smile? Are we kind to others? Do we respect one another? So let's just again focus on our own behaviour, on our own perception and values, our own thoughts. Are they in harmony with what we Muslims believe is the Peaceful Religion of Islam? 

My pledge is: Let us be happy and let's not give grim-faces ("Is this video halal or haram?" You must be kidding me) a chance to spoil our joy! 

Btw. The British Muslims are Happy - video shows many familiar faces, amongst them Kübra Gümüşay from ein-fremdwoerterbuch.com and Myriam Francois-Cerrah from myriamfrancoiscerrah.wordpress.com