MANILA, Philippines ? Ask non-Muslims about Islam and they?d probably tell you all the negative stereotypes they?ve heard about it. Their answers come not from a scholarly study of the religion and its followers, but from general misimpressions and myths sprung from fear and prejudice.

Some of the most common myths are:

1. Muslims are violent war freaks. When a succession of foreign invaders tried to conquer the Muslim Moros with violence, the Moros just as violently and successfully resisted them. Because they refused to submit peacefully to foreign conquerors, Muslims have been portrayed throughout history as warmongers. The battle-scarred Muslim Moros don?t crave war, but if government military forces give them hell, they have no choice but to fight back. Media?s depiction of battle-crazed Moros has not helped matters. Whenever crime suspects happen to be Muslims, news items carry such headlines as, ?Muslim rebels, Muslim carnappers or Muslim kidnappers?? But have you ever read about ?Catholic carnappers, Iglesia robbers,? or similar descriptions in the news?

2. Muslims are dirty. Nothing could be farther from the teachings of Islam. In fact, Muslims have to perform a ritual ablution before they pray five times a day. This impression may have stemmed from the fact that most Muslim settlers in Christian areas live in peripheral sites, usually squatter colonies, where sanitation comes second only to survival.

3. Muslims are masters of witchcraft. All primitive folk of whatever tribe must have practiced witchcraft. Before the advent of Islam, these tribes? primitive or archaic religion included practices that suggest the union of the natural and divine worlds. When they converted to Islam, these tribes abandoned their primitive practices because belief in, and the practice of, witchcraft are considered un-Islamic.

4. Muslims are traydor or treacherous. Ironically, most Muslims think that it is the Christians who cannot be trusted. Such suspicions are indications of xenophobia, a distrust of anyone different from one?s group. It is not an exclusive trait of only some groups.

5. Islam doctrinally promotes terrorism. This myth might have begun because of the methods of attack used by Palestinians against their nemesis, Israel. Israel?s tactical superiority meant that Palestine could not engage it in open combat, hence the use of other clandestine methods. The attacks carried on by the Al-Qaeda on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 have nurtured these myths. But far from teaching terrorism as a doctrine, Islam is actually a religion of peace. The Muslim greeting Assalamu Alaikum means ?Peace be upon you.?

But like the Catholics and the Protestants in Northern Ireland, people who believe in the same religion have different interpretations of how they can achieve their political agenda; one may resort to violence while other may choose peace to accomplish their mission.

6. Islam encourages war through jihad. Jihad is inherent in Islamic belief. However, jihad does not only mean rising up in arms and waging war against people of a different faith. It also means fighting the evils that may tempt one to commit sin. It has been narrated that the Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alayhi wasalaam or s.a.w.) once said after a battle, ?Now we are going from a lesser jihad (jihad al-asghar) to a greater jihad (jihad al-akbar).? What the Prophet meant by the greater jihad, an Ulama said, was the fight in resisting evil in everyday life.

During the time of the Prophet, jihad through arms was sanctioned when the Muslims were prevented from propagating Islam. That said, there was an instance when the Prophet chose to forge a peaceful treaty, the Treaty of al-Hudaybiyya, instead of waging war.

7. Muslims want to convert the whole world to Islam through force. It was the mission of the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) to propagate Islam, and the Umma (Muslim communities) recognize it to be their duty to continue the mission. But neither the Qur?an nor the Hadith states that this be done by force.

8. Islam prohibits inter-faith marriages. This practice is actually a cultural rather than religious tenet. For example, Maranaos are strictly endogamous, that is, they only marry within their group or tribe, even disallowing marriages with fellow Muslims who are not Maranaos. Other Muslim tribes such as the Maguindanaons, Tausugs, Sama, etc. allow inter-faith or inter-tribal marriages. The practice of endogamy can also be gender-specific and even geographically contained. For example, Maranao men are allowed to marry non-Maranao women but with their women, the Maranaos are stricter. Maranao women married to non-Maranao Muslim men are looked upon with disfavor, unlike their male counterparts who have also married outside the group. Maranao women who wed non-Muslims are either ostracized, disowned or executed. Finally, Maranaos from the Lanao del Sur area may be more strict with this practice than the Maranaos outside Ranao.

The same prohibition is not strictly enforced among other Muslim tribes which allow both men and women to marry outside their group, whether fellow Muslims or not.

9. Muslims are always armed with guns or knives. Not exactly. But Muslims who are involved in rido or clan war will definitely move around with a gun for self-defense or self-protection. But the concept of rido is again a cultural practice, not an Islamic canon.

10. Muslims are intellectually inferior. False. There are a lot of Filipino Muslims who are highly intelligent, but they may not be famous precisely because the media are dominated by non-Muslims who are not interested in featuring bright and intelligent Muslims. Discrimination by the Christian majority also keeps competent Muslims from reaching higher positions. I remember Sen. Ping Lacson questioning the appointment of Moslemen Macarambon to the Commission on Elections because according to the Senator, ?How could a nobody, who is not famous and did not top the Bar, be appointed to the Commission??

Muslims regularly make it to the honor roll. Some examples: the eighth placer in the 2006 Bar exams is Muslim. A Muslim graduate from Mindanao State University in Marawi City landed first on the Board Exam for Electrical Engineering. And so on.

11. Muslims are uncivilized. Muslims have a strong hold on their culture and religion, and wear their native dress and Islamic clothes with pride. Non-Muslims see this as being far from the clutches of civilization, often seen in terms of the Western perspective. People can be civilized without necessarily having to resemble or replicate the standards of Hollywood.

12. In Islam, women are considered inferior to men. On the contrary, Islam liberated women. Pre-Islamic Arabia saw women treated as sub-human beings, whose births are a disgrace to their families and are better off dead. When Islam was introduced to this chauvinistic culture, the birth of a baby girl was celebrated, the culture of taking numerous wives was limited to four, a gradual step towards encouraging monogamy, and women became partners of men.

But yes, some of these pre-Islamic cultural norms against women still exist among Muslims, just as some patriarchal and misogynist values in other religions are highlighted as religious edict, rather than as culture-based beliefs. And, like in other faiths, there are progressive Muslim women and men who are challenging interpretations of the Qur'an and hadith (traditions of the Prophet, s.a.w.) that are more repressive, rather than liberating, to women.

Those who grew up in Muslim areas know that these myths are just that. ?We are familiar with the religion and its followers so we see Muslims as ordinary persons like us,? they said. Perhaps if people took the time and trouble to get to know more about the religion and its followers, these myths would cease to exist.

The author is a young Maranao lawyer who teaches at the English department of the Mindanao State University.