After the Sun published a front page claiming one in five British Muslims had “sympathy for jihadis”, the tabloid has been hit with criticism about its polling methods and a record number of Ipso complaints.
Twitter users, however, took a different tack. Using the hashtag #1in5Muslims, some much-needed humour was added as people tweeted their own made up and humorous facts about Muslims. They ranged from slice of life humour:
#1in5Muslims use 'Inshallah' to politely avoid committing to any plan. (And it works.) "Wanna get coffee sometime?" "Sure, yeah, inshallah."
— Mehreen Kasana (@mehreenkasana) November 23, 2015
#1in5Muslims are lucky enough not to have a red squiggly line under their name in Microsoft Word
— Hamzah Moin (@hamzahmoin) November 24, 2015
#1in5Muslims have accidentally munched on a packet of gelatine haribos
— Aisha S Gani (@aishagani) November 23, 2015
#1in5muslims look like Zayn Malik, according to their mums.
— Sarkhaíl Khan (@Sarkhail7Khan) November 23, 2015
To references to popular internet memes:
#1in5Muslims think Netflix and chill means Netflix and chill.
— Areeb Ullah (@are_eb) November 23, 2015
Naturally, animals were involved:
#1in5Muslims force religion onto pets pic.twitter.com/whqGmXKO41
— Indian Stats (@Indian_stats) November 24, 2015
#1in5Muslims force their pets to wear modest Islamic clothing pic.twitter.com/Zen1T5q2eK
— _ (@sumaiyyahhh) November 23, 2015
And there were references to popular culture:
#1in5Muslims think Batman is performing the Maghreb (evening) prayer. pic.twitter.com/V4RncQfNH1
— Amro Ali (@_amroali) November 23, 2015
#1in5muslims think Ross and Rachel were on a break
— ثناء (@LiberatedSoul_) November 23, 2015
#1in5Muslims are French... if they score. Otherwise, they're Arab. pic.twitter.com/YY4h7CYbOG
— Khaled Bey (@KhaledBeydoun) November 24, 2015
There was also room to discuss discrimination faced by Muslims:
#1in5Muslims are victims of baseless Islamophobic rants of narcissistic racists who show inherent bigotry pic.twitter.com/HaCd6t2788
— Farhan Khan Virk (@FarhanKVirk) November 24, 2015
Initially, the hashtag was being used to discuss the front page, but campaigner and community activist Furqan Naeem felt it needed to go further to “send a strong and unequivocal message to the Sun that they can’t stigmatise a community”. He and his friends encouraged others to make #1in5Muslims a trending topic.
We are trying to get #1in5Muslims trending to rip into the sun... Let's see how far we get! @AssedBaig @dats @aishagani @miqdaad
— Fergie (@Furqan_Naeem) November 23, 2015
He added: “The hashtag was a fun way to show Muslims coming together to set the record straight but also to show the light hearted and fun in way to laugh off such ridiculous claims. The message was clear - you try to sensationalise and stigmatise a community then people power will rise up and set the record straight.”
The Sun’s poll, conducted by Survation, has drawn scrutiny from several sources, with some pollsters saying the question did not make it clear whom “fighters in Syria” referred to.
A spokesperson for the Sun said: “No one agreeing to the statement: ‘I have a lot of sympathy with young Muslims who leave the UK to join fighters in Syria’ was in any doubt which fighters we meant.”
