Ilyas, Muslim hero and defender of Holy Qur’an

Director General (DG) Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asif Ghafoor has hailed ‘Ilyas’, who stopped a man from burning a copy of the Holy Quran in Norway. A video surfaced on social media in which a man can be seen burning a copy of the Holy Quranan during an anti-Islam rally last week in Norway. The group is known as Stop the Islamisation of Norway’, and one of the participants attempted to burn the Holy Qur’an. While everybody looked on including police, Ilyas suddenly jumped over the fence and kicked the man. Many on social media praised Ilyas for his brave act calling him Muslim hero and Defender of the Holy Quran. DG ISPR his Twitter message paid tributes and saluted Ilyas for displaying courage to stop an absolutely deplorable act, adding that “Islamophobia is threat to global peace and harmony”.
On September 30th 2005, blasphemous caricatures of prophet Muhammad (SAW) were published in Danish newspaper hurting the feelings of Muslims that make about 25 per cent of the world population. Danish Muslim organizations had objected to the depictions responded by holding public protests attempting to raise awareness of Jyllands-Posten’s publication.
The caricatures were also reprinted in newspapers in more than 50 other countries, and this led to protests across the Muslim world, some of which escalated into violence with instances of firing on protestors resulting in a total of more than 100 reported deaths. The Danish embassy in Pakistan was bombed, and there were incidents of setting fire to the Danish Embassies in Syria, Lebanon and Iran. Crowds had stormed the European buildings, and burned the Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, French and German flags in Gaza City. But this time no such demonstrations took place perhaps with a reason.
There is a perception that extremists in the US and the West intentionally provoke Muslims; and when they react or retaliate they are dubbed as rebel rousers, extremists and terrorists. However, the publishers of the newspapers took refuge under so-called freedom of expression. American and European intellectuals and the people in general continue demonizing Islam for the acts of terrorism by a very small minority of fanatics, extremists and terrorists. As a matter of fact, the tirade against Muslims and Islam had started with Samuel P. Huntington’s article on inevitability of clash between civilizations. It appears that after disintegration of the USSR, the West needed another myth to keep the West united. The “Clash of Civilizations” was published in the journal Foreign Affairs in the summer of 1993, and given its intellectual and doctrinal nature, had the greatest negative impact on the governments and the people of the western countries.