# What is the first word that comes in your mind when hearing the word ISLAM? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 26, 2003, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116 "2003-07-26T18:04:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116/201 "2003-09-09T08:29:48Z")
Interesting question, although I tend not to have words pop into my head so much as images. Islam: “Middle”. Usually followed by the word “East”. Some others that pop up are “mosque” “Arabic” “Saladin” and “Sufi.” It feels more historical to me than anything else, despite its influence today. For the sake of comparison… Christianity: “church” Feels kinda plain and ordinary, probably since it desribes most of the people I grew up around. Judaism: “neighborhood” I guess I just associate it with a feeling of community. Buddhism: “Buddha” Usually with images of the temples in my neighborhood done in dark wood with gold trim. Shinto: “Shrine” also “festival” Hindu: “Elephant” Daoism: " " ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116/202 "2003-09-09T09:46:20Z")
> [@](#): > > What is the first word that comes in your mind when hearing the word ISLAM? Missing ---
**Author:** ![spogga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ab097/32.png) [@spogga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spogga)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116/203 "2003-09-09T10:01:11Z")
Not sure if these qualify as a word but when I hear muslim I think of 9/11 or WTC Terrorist and murderer on the other hand are words. Any, and I mean ANY religion that can convince its adherants that 70+ virgins await them in heaven if they kill non-believers must be a couple of vouchers short of a pop up toaster. ---
**Author:** ![spogga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ab097/32.png) [@spogga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spogga)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116/204 "2003-09-09T12:41:37Z")
For muslim substitute islam, remainder as is ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116/205 "2003-09-09T14:55:45Z")
"“Air raid siren” Which is exactly what the call to prayer sounds like in the medina in Fes, Morocco (I was there recently). There are over 300 mosques in a very small area and they all start up within seconds of each other. Which is especially nice at 4am. ---
**Author:** ![Zahava424](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/76d3ee/32.png) [@Zahava424](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zahava424)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116/206 "2003-09-10T02:43:23Z")
I think, racial stereotype. Not of any one in particular, but that are so many at the moment about Islam, and I have not idea if any are true. I’d be really interested to hear a Muslim’s full definition of the word jihad, though. All aldebaran has done on that front is confirm that there is one, and that it’s different/ more extensive than the usual Western one. Aldebaran, help me out on this. ---
**Author:** ![Hanayatori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8baadc/32.png) [@Hanayatori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hanayatori)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116/207 "2003-09-10T04:53:57Z")
I think of gold. Perhaps it comes from a generic desert scene with a golden sun beating down on golden sand. Sometimes from there my thoughts turn to butterscotch candy. Kinda silly. ---
**Author:** ![martin\_ibn\_martin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@martin\_ibn\_martin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/martin_ibn_martin)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2003, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116/208 "2003-09-12T04:23:54Z")
Salaams, Jihad means struggle or striving with a religious motive. The Prophet is reported to have said that there is a Lesser Jihad, which is to struggle in the world to correct injustices and protect the community, and a Greater Jihad, which is the struggle within oneself to be better. The laws concerning physical war are strict, limiting the use of arms to defense and regaining ones home and place of worship from those who took it. The Prophet is also reported to have said that Allah loves not those who love war. Martin > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zahava424 \* > \*\*I think, racial stereotype. Not of any one in particular, but that are so many at the moment about Islam, and I have not idea if any are true. I’d be really interested to hear a Muslim’s full definition of the word jihad, though. All aldebaran has done on that front is confirm that there is one, and that it’s different/ more extensive than the usual Western one. Aldebaran, help me out on this. \*\* **SEEM** **SEEM** ---
**Author:** ![SunTzu2U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@SunTzu2U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunTzu2U)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2003, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116/209 "2003-09-12T06:32:02Z")
Assassin, Since this word’s origins came from the Assassin sect of Islam. The Assassins held some city/states in the early middle ages which is now the modern day area of Jordan and Syria. They believed in the now time honored practice of killing people who were unbelivers in Islam. It seems they have a strong legacy still today! ---
**Author:** ![SunTzu2U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@SunTzu2U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunTzu2U)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2003, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116/210 "2003-09-13T04:11:54Z")
No Questions? ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2003, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116/211 "2003-09-13T13:51:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SunTzu2U \* > Since this word’s origins came from the Assassin sect of Islam. The Assassins held some city/states in the early middle ages which is now the modern day area of Jordan and Syria. Not so much modern Jordan, though they did have strobgholds on the northernmost reaches of the Jordan River in southern Syria. But east from Syria all the way to the borders of modern Afghanistan. > [@](#): > > They believed in the now time honored practice of killing people who were unbelivers in Islam. Not really. Their involvement with the Crusader states for example were largely tangential, as they had bigger fish to fry. They were far more concerned with disrupting and overthrowing their Sunni Muslim overlords than engaging in petty struggles ( in their mind ) with local Christians. To quote: \*…The contemporary sources in both Persia and Syria suggest that the Ismaili terror was directed against specific persons, for specific purposes, and that apart for a few, quite exceptional outbreaks of mob violence, theire relations with their Sunni neighbors were fairly normal. This seems to be true both of the Ismaili minorities in the towns, and of Ismaili territroial rulers, in their dealings with their Sunni colleagues …With few exceptions, the victims were Sunni Muslims. The Assasssins did not normally attack Twelver or other Shi’ites, nor did they turn their daggers on native Christians or Jews. There are few attacks on even the Crusaders in Syria, and most of those seem to follow Sinan’s accord with Saladin and Hasan’s alliance with the Caliph. The enemy, for the Ismailis, was the Sunni establishment - political and military, burecratic and religious.\* From The Assassins: _A Radical Sect in Islam_ by Bernard Lewis ( 1967, Weidenfield and Nicholson ). > [@](#): > > It seems they have a strong legacy still today! Not in any real sense, no. The terrorists of today are coming from a different place ideologically and the Ismailis of today are largely peaceful and apolitical. - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2003, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116/212 "2003-09-13T14:17:41Z")
The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Islam are the words, rigid, diaspora, uneducated women. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2003, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116/213 "2003-09-13T22:35:16Z")
I’ll go beyond rigid and say **repressive**. The repression of women is the most egregious example. The fatwa against Salman Rushdi is another. **Repressive** is closely followed by **Introspective**. Islam hasn’t advanced in the past four hundred years or more, when it passed the torch of Progress it had been keeping (since the fall of Rome) to the West. It has done little more than sit and gaze at its navel. The Islamosphere today reminds me much of Europe at or just before the time of the Inqusition. In the film of Umberto Eco’s **The Name of the Rose** , one of the monks, Brother Yorgi, views everything as a glorious recapitulation of what has gone before. Symbollically, Yorgi is blind. [Steven den Beste](http://denbeste.nu/essays/strategic_overview.shtml) expounds further - Part 1 of his article is particularly relevant here. My final word is **optimism**. If Islam can get over itself, as Christianity did, then the world will be a far better place. ---
**Author:** ![Zahava424](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/76d3ee/32.png) [@Zahava424](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zahava424)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2003, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116/214 "2003-09-14T03:15:03Z")
Martin ibn martin, thank you so much for your help. I’m assuming you’re Muslim and that the definition of jihad I’ve just been given is the reiligious one; if this isn’t true, or if there’s any discrepancy in the way the religious Muslim community defines jihad, please let me know. I feel that this is important to the thread, especially because so many of its respondents listed jihad as the first word that came to mind without knowing its true meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Windwalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/5e9695/32.png) [@Windwalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Windwalker)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2003, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116/215 "2003-09-14T03:39:18Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m can hardly be trying to get away from something that isn’t my responsiblity. It is the West who started to write and scream “Islamic” terrorists, not me. So it is the responsibility of those who constantly repeat this to correct themselves. > I have no objections to the use of the word “terrorist” for people who killed one of my friends along with thousands of others in the WTC. To give one example. > I do have objections of the link that is constantly made with my religion since there is none. > You should try to read my posts here instead of waisting energy in “getting more angry”. Try to grasp what I mean. > > Cheap lazy uninformed biased sensationalists claiming to be journalists but only out on easy gained $$$$ on the back of my religion don’t get any grain of my respect. They are pulp writers, pulp reporters, pulp media degrading the profession with every word they write or speak and with every cheap mass influencing rethoric they spout. > People addicted to such forms of uninformed biased cheap sensationalism, which is for them the only form of information they are willing to absorb, can’t count on respect coming from my side either. I think this is a valid point, but I think you’re being unfair when you insult virtually all American journalism because they call the terrorists “Islamic”. I understand that you want to distinguish rational Muslims from lunatics, just as rational Christians want to distinguish themselves from random abortion bomber “christians”. However, [in this Washington Post article](http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1196-2003Jun1?language=printer) , it seems clear that the paper is ready and willing to call this guy a “Christian terrorist” if they know that he was in fact doing it to further a perceived Christian cause (of which some uncertainty remains). They do know that the terrorists in 9/11 were acting for Islam (in their eyes), which means they feel free to call them Islamic fundamentalists. I’m not saying this is right, but I think perhaps it is their policy to call groups what they want to be called, and that I don’t believe this is evidence of some sort of anti-Islamic conspiracy (seeing as how they would be perfectly willing to call people Christian terrorists). This may be the most practical solution, as how can they decide what people are Islamic, and who aren’t? One can make an argument that gays adhering to a Christian faith can’t be called Christians because, well, they’re gay and that violates the Bible in some people’s eyes. Should journalists stop calling them Christians? Similarly, most Muslims may be against violence, but what gives the paper the right to make the distinction between terrorists who call themselves Muslims and others who call themselves Muslims? What if the issue were not violence, but, say a sect that did not believe in the pilgrimage to Mecca (note that I don’t know Islam well enough to give a reasonable example)? Should they not be called Islamic, as well? Where is the line drawn? Obviously, papers will make judgment calls about some things. For example, if a Frenchman kills George Bush, but the Frenchman claims to be Swedish, I doubt any paper would honor that request to be called Swedish. But when it comes to deciding which interpretations of faith are legitimate, do you really think papers should be making that distinction? ---
**Author:** ![Testy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c37758/32.png) [@Testy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Testy)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2003, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116/216 "2003-09-14T05:54:29Z")
I believe the term “Islamic terrorist” is not so much the fault of the media as the terrorists themselves. Obviously they don’t call themselves terrorists but they **do** claim religious justification for their actions, hence “Islamic terrorists.” Regards Testy ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2003, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116/217 "2003-09-14T09:28:58Z")
[Steven den Beste](http://denbeste.nu) has just published another blinder of an article. ---
**Author:** ![gum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bbe5ce/32.png) [@gum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gum)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2003, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116/218 "2003-09-14T20:28:04Z")
first words - 72 white raisins and jesus walking on water. ---
**Author:** ![Windwalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/5e9695/32.png) [@Windwalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Windwalker)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2003, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116/219 "2003-09-14T21:58:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Testy \* > \*\*I believe the term “Islamic terrorist” is not so much the fault of the media as the terrorists themselves. Obviously they don’t call themselves terrorists but they **do** claim religious justification for their actions, hence “Islamic terrorists.” > > Regards > > Testy \*\* hehe, I think you missed my point entirely. I was trying to show exactly that. The media will call people how they like to be called, as they really can’t discriminate between “legitimate” people acting in the name of Islam (or Christianity, or whatever) and non-legitimate people. This is to counter Aldebarran’s notion that it is a sign of either journalistic bias or ineptitude… ---
**Author:** ![Franko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7ab992/32.png) [@Franko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Franko)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2003, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116/220 "2003-09-14T22:01:57Z")
It is a religion on the move, spreading worldwide. Involved in conflicts all over the planet. Like the Cathlic church in the dark age’s, a very non tolerant religion. A muslim in Iran who wants to change religions can be put to death. Anyone not of their faith is a infidel. A very scary religion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-first-word-that-comes-in-your-mind-when-hearing-the-word-islam/191116.md?page=12)