For many non-Muslims, the events of September 11 bolstered the impression that Islam is an intolerant faith, which scuttles freedom of expression and suppresses dissent. This view, promulgated by the mainstream media, now seems ingrained in the non-Muslim psyche, stubbornly refusing to go away.

On the other hand, western civilization is largely perceived as the upholder and guardian of freedom and tolerance. But isn’t there a certain element of hypocrisy inherent in this perception? After all, there is contemporary anecdotal evidence that would suggest that the West is possibly less than sincere in its role as the vanguard of all that free and tolerant.

During the entire Salman Rushdie/Satanic Verses controversy of the early 1990s, the western media was awash with pictures depicting Muslims as fanatical hordes, burning books and issuing death threats. Muslims burning books always makes for good front-page stories, but when others do the same thing, it is often ignored or barely mentioned.

On December 31, congregants at the Christ Community Church in Alamogordo, New Mexico heard an anti-Harry Potter sermon in which Pastor Jack Brock condemned the books for preaching sorcery. Later, the congregants burned J.K. Rowling’s novels as well, as books by Stephen King, Ouija boards and AC/DC records. Similar book-burning events were reported in several other cities in North America and Europe. But did they get the same attention as Muslims did when they burned The Satanic Verses? Not by a long shot.

In another instance, Jewish students in Beith Shemeish, Israel burned a Hebrew copy of the New Testament. The burning took place in the Orat School courtyard after a teacher found that one of his students had in his possession a Hebrew New Testament given to him by Christian missionaries. The burning reportedly had the blessing of the school’s principal. After studying the case, Rabbi David Spector, a top Jewish scholar, ruled that Christian missionary material should be burned. But he said that such an act should be done by the owner and in private. Even though this incident was widely reported in Israeli newspapers, the western media was completely silent. Even Christian conservatives ignored it. Imagine if Muslims had committed the same act.

In one of the worst acts of academic censorship, the scientific journal Human Immunology urged its subscribers to rip out the pages of a keynote research paper in which the authors showed that Middle Eastern Jews and Palestinians are almost genetically identical. The article’s lead author, Spanish geneticist Professor Antonio Arnaiz-Villena of Complutense University in Madrid, was also sacked from the journal’s board. The journal's editor, Nicole Sucio-Foca, of Columbia University in New York, claims the article provoked such an overwhelming number of complaints that she was forced to repudiate it. Would the same have been done if those who were complaining were Muslims?

In another example of a publication succumbing to pressure, a website removed a reference that compared a first-century Jewish extremist group called “The Zealots” to terrorists. After receiving a letter from Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn), Scholastic Inc., publisher of an educational website, removed the offending reference. Hikind wrote that, "calling The Zealots, who fought against their Roman occupiers, 'terrorists' cannot be intellectually justified." However, in an interview with the New York Daily News, Walter Laqueur, a historian who wrote the 1987 book The Age of Terrorism, called the removal of the reference to the Zealots "ridiculous.”

"[The Zealots] were not the very first, but there's no doubt that they did exist and they used terrorism," he said. "I devote about half a page to them."

With the removal of the offending reference, the website’s section on the history of terrorism now begins with a 12-century Shiite Muslim group.

Early last year extremist Hindus burned a copy of The Holy Qur’an. This heinous incident was captured on film by a cameraman working for the Reuters news agency and was flashed across the globe. But for a long time, the Indian government and the media refused to acknowledge that the incident ever happened.

In a more recent controversy, the Human Resources Ministry in India launched a campaign to remove all references that offend the Hindu community from the country’s school textbooks. So, for example, the historical fact that early Hindus used to eat beef must be removed. But when Muslims ask that misinformation regarding Muslims in those books be removed, it is flatly rejected.

In short, it is not infrequent that the non-Muslim media and academia see the world through two lenses. They use the first lens to assert their own self-righteousness and arrogance. They use the second to defame and malign the Islamic faith. Now that westerners have become more eager to learn why they are hated in Muslim world, it would be a good idea for them to have clearer picture of the diverse world by viewing it with singular, accurate vision.