Acta Universitatis Danubius. Relationes Internationales, Vol 10, No 2 (2017)

Abstract

In the wake of the terrorist attacks on Twin Towers in the United States of America on 11 September 2001, a new question arose all over the world: “Does Islamic religion legalize or foster the terror?” This is because of the organization that carried out the horrible terrorist attack in question was a radical Islamic structure known as Al-Qaida. In the new process that started with the occupation of Iraq by the US army in 2003, Al-Qaida gave birth to a new organization called ISIS whose actions and prosecutions have so far caused all Muslims under suspicion as if they were all terrorists.

Nowadays particularly in the Western World, it is clearly seen that Islam has gained an image as though it justifies or foster the terrorism. In other words, there has been is a common perception in the modern world that Islam is equal to the terrorism or Muslim is equal to the terrorist. So many intellectuals in the Islamic world have stated that ISIS’s perception of Islam and the way of jihad have caused a lot of troubles for the image of Islam and Muslims, especially for the minorities who have been living in the Western countries. In this context, it seems that it has inflamed Islamophobia in the subconscious of the world public opinion.

It should be noted at this point that the method of literature review was used to collect data as regards the issue.

In the last section of the work, a scientific survey which aimed to measure how much ISIS’s propaganda techniques based on its well-known actions and executions have been effective on the image of Islamic religion and Muslims was applied in the city centre of Konya that is known as the most religious city in Turkey between 25 December 2015 and 18 January 2016.  Finally, the available data that had been collected through the survey at issue were evaluated and analysed one by one in terms of internationally acknowledged survey criteria called SPSS.