Muslims throughout the world have condemned the terrorist organization known as Daesh and Muslim scholars have released countless condemnations that explain why Daesh is in no way an “Islamic State.” These Islamic scholars have gone so far as to say the Daesh is a deviant sect and their supposed “Islamic State” is void, invalid, and unrecognized by Muslims throughout the world. While media in Arab countries, North Africa and in Europe use this term Daesh to refer to this terrorist organization and many politicians including secretary of State John Kerry use the term regularly, Western media continue to use "Islamic State.” Just as the term “illegal immigrant” was removed from the Associated Press and many other press organizations style guides and replaced with “Undocumented immigrant” because the term was offensive, the time has come to remove “Islamic State” from the Western Media.
This term “Islamic state” used over and over again in reference to the inhumane and un-Islamic acts of Daesh which are condemned by 99.9% of the Muslims throughout the world create backlash and Islamophobia directed at the global population of 1.6 billion Muslims who have nothing to do with and in most cases hate Daesh. The primary victims of Daesh are Muslims in Syria and Iraq, and Daesh even target Muslims in Paris. The reality that Daesh has created has led to the harshest refutations by Muslim scholars such as the Syrian Refugee, Shaykh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi who in his book Refuting ISIS: A Rebuttal of its Religious and Ideological Foundations states that Muslims should lead in the eradication of Daesh in form and in ideology.
Just as the associated press led in the removal of the term “illegal immigrant” from its publication before many other Western news organizations did the same, we call on the Associated Press and its reporters to stop using the term “Islamic State” as it gives a status unrecognized by the worlds Muslims and is actually offensive to Muslims. In times when Muslims at large are blamed for the act of this small deviant sect known as Daesh, this act of dropping IS from Western publications could go far in combatting Islamophobia and backlash that innocent Muslims are facing in Western societies.
