Abstract
Our paper aims to decode the immense fear which is evoked by the word Sharia in the West. For the masses of the West-mainly European and North American, Sharia is no less threatening than Lord Voldemort himself- something which is widely misinterpreted as medieval legal system with only one version of extreme interpretation which is used by bearded mullas to oppress women and give draconian rulings. However, at the back of their minds they also have a deep-rooted suspicion that Muslims want to impose Sharia law in Europe and America to dominate the West, this view is often pumped by the media when they generalize the whole 1.8 billion Muslims based on the actions of a few. Our main purpose is of writing this paper is to convey that this gloomy image of Islam and the massive ignorance at understanding Sharia did not come out of the blue. It is a deliberate manipulation to support western foreign policy goals. Throughout the paper we would elaborate the misinterpretation of Sharia by debunking 5 popular myths and how media made it worse, by quoting these peddlers of hate. We would trace how this fear was exploited by politicians to increase their vote bank and manipulate general population into supporting their interventionist foreign policy. Later on, we establish the link between these Islamophobic statements and spike in hate crime against Muslims-a direct consequence of ingesting fear 24/7. Towards the end, we give an insight about what the word Sharia really is and give solutions to actively combat the underlying hysteria of Sharia threatening the West civilization.