With the dazzling speed of technological advancement, our humongous globe has been shrunk to the split second of a touch. A few decades ago, for a person to talk to someone in a different continent, he had two options: send either a mail which would need days to arrive or an e-mail that landed in give or take thirty seconds. At a glance, the second seemed like a no-brainer and it technically was. But there is a catch: not everyone at the time could afford a computer. Thankfully, these complications have vanished and now people, in general, need not rack their brains to make such tough decisions anymore. But even with all of these dreams-come-true we have reached, we remain somewhat powerless against the man-made barriers, the unbreakable pedestal of prejudice.
Among the self-evident hate speeches, daylight discriminations and online harassments out stands the infamous atheistic train of boycotting and blacklisting religions in the same of science. For overly avid advocates on both sides, the presence of the other is too much to handle. They keep attacking and defaming, denying and ridiculing. But inside this maelstrom, both the atheists and the religious find themselves have one thing in common: the fear and hatred for Islam, or Islamophobia.
Islamophobia is not entirely an irrational bigotry that appeared out of nowhere; it came from the horrors caused by the ISIS and Al-Qaeda. They ruthlessly launched massacres on opposing lands, taking the lives of thousands. They installed a totalitarian regime that coerces people into abiding by ill-founded rules and regulations. If anyone dares to disobey, they publicly behead him to make an example. To reinforce it, they opt for kidnapping babies and children, brainwashing them into senseless war tools with an unwavering loyalty. When the rest of the world stands in their way, they take revenge by killing more through suicide bombings. The world knows all too well about their unforgivable crimes.
That being said, these terrorist groups do not in the least represent what Islam stands for. We know that they are only a minority of extremists who capitalize on the faith and belief of the people to fulfill their twisted wishes. We know that the ones suffering the most in this injustice war are Muslims themselves who have to witness their friends and family in pain and die. We know that many of the soldiers had no choice and had they been given another chance, they would have never chosen this road.   
But why do most of the non-Islamic population, with this information in mind, still abhor Muslims who have no tie with neither the ISIS nor the Al-Qaeda whatsoever? Why is Islam universally hated? Certainly there are many sides to a problem but in this case, it is not much of a stretch to say that the media is largely responsible for this bigotry.

While the terrorists feed on fear to build their empires, the press and media feed on the fame of these terrorists. No concrete evidence is here to confirm or deny their prejudice but it is displayed vehemently in the articles they wrote. They shamelessly distort the stories to suit the readers' misconceptions of Islam, one that they created. If a murderous attack happens and the attacker is a Muslim, he is almost certainly labeled a terrorist. But if the attacker is not a Muslim, he is somehow called a mentally ill person, a lone wolf, or a person driven by dispute. What the press and media want, they surely have got it: a lot of fame, money and a whole generation of readers that accept the nonsensical mainstream anti-Muslim craze.
The media and the Internet inundated with images and stories of female abuse and male superiority, it is no wonder why the rest of the world believes that Islam is a religion of discrimination and Islamic families are patriarchal. This notion is indeed correct, but only in certain countries, or more precisely, in certain cultures.
Just as how every other religion once reached faraway lands, Islam was spread and taught by word of mouth. As Islam arrived in those places, the people there, on one hand, adopted the religion, on the other hand, integrated some of their own practices into the guiding code to suit the regional traditions. Over time, these addictions were accepted and considered as part of Islam itself. Besides those of the oral teachings, there were also major alterations made to the translation of the Qur'an. The Arabic language has some unique troublesome characteristics that make it nearly impossible for scholars to truthfully convey the Qur'an's messages in their translations. The differences between them and the original were notable enough for specialists to no longer consider them as translations, but rather as interpretations. Owing to these vast varieties of changes, whether deliberate or not, new distinct branches were formed, all different from one another. And this is where the problems began.
Jamie Hu's illustration as a protest to Donald Trump's Muslim ban.
The images and stories we see daily only show what is happening in countries where the rules are incredibly stern and biased; they do not, by any means, reflect the lives of female Muslims in the rest of the world. Portrayed as a symbol of oppression, the hijab is in effect a traditional practice, not a mandatory religious garment, and hence, optional in many parts of the world, particularly in open-minded societies like Turkey and Malaysia. No chain is there to tie women down; no enslavement; no freedom restriction as long as they behave decently and modestly.
The role of cultural element's integration into Islamic practices has always been ambiguous but in recent years, thanks to the uncalled-for press and media attention, it has been steered away from the bright side of harmony and diversity to that characterized by extremism and anachronism. Many atrocities associated with Islam - honor killing and woman circumcision, for instance - are actually pre-existing cultural practices which are strictly indigenous to certain countries and regions. They cannot and should not be regarded as examples of the life of Muslims. Admittedly, Islam, like all other religions, bear some outdated teachings that have no place in the modern world. The fact that these shortcomings are still imprinting their stains on many young Muslims' lives does not mean that changes are out of the questions. Reforms are taking place, slowly but surely. Heartbreaks, sadness and sorrows of the past cannot be reversed but the future can be guaranteed to look brighter.
It is quite intriguing to witness the sheer extent of Islamophobia and the ludicrous acceptance it receives. One does not need to understand the cultural impacts and the interpretations of the Qur'an to realize the deadly errors in many's, or even their own,  perception of Islam and Muslims, and how selfish and destructive it is. But acknowledgment alone is not enough. What does it count for, what weight it carries if discrimination happens right in front of us, we just either downright support it or just turn a blind eye and pretend as if nothing happened? Silence has a price. If we are not to pay it, someone else will.
Maybe all of these persist because none of these is our business. Maybe it is because we cannot swallow our pride and accept the wrongs we have made. Maybe, the revelations are too much and it is not what we like. After all, “people generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.”
Shepard Fairey's poster for Barack Obama's presidential election campaign.