The Netherlands’ Islam Experience Centre Offers Not Understanding, but Carefully Crafted Misunderstanding

A new museum presentation is showing the Dutch how wonderful Islam is: “Can virtual reality change how people see Islam?,” by Mozhda Poyan, Hyphen, June 24, 2026:

In one room, a group of non-Muslim visitors move slowly along a row of illuminated displays, headphones on and audio devices in hand. They pause beneath a glowing sign that reads “Pilgrimage”, listening to an explanation of Hajj while a digital model of the Kaaba glows inside a glass case.

In another, the two women in hijabs and the younger man settle into glowing white chairs beneath suspended VR headsets. Animated scenes set in seventh-century Arabia show a man in a white thobe moving through desert settlements and marketplaces, introducing figures such as Bilal ibn Rabah, the first muezzin….

But visitors won’t see scenes of Muhammad and his followers slaughtering Jewish tribes, no scenes of helpless prisoners belonging to the Banu Qurayza tribe being killed, or of the massacre of the inoffensive Jews at the Khaybar Oasis in 628 A.D. It’s only the peaceful side of Muslim life that is on view. Not even hints of violence, unless it is violence committed against Muslims, are allowed.

What if you were to ask interactively such questions as these: Why did Muhammad “consummate” his marriage to Aisha when she was only nine years old? Why did Muhammad call for the killing of Asma bint Marwan, Abu ‘Afak, and Ka’b bin al-Ashraf? Why does the Quran’ describe non-Muslims as the “most vile of created beings”? Why does the Qur’an tell Muslims not to take Christians or Jews as friends, “for they are friends only with each other”?

Do you think you’d get an answer? Of course not. Only silence, or perhaps a recorded reply that says “this is a hostile remark, intended only to cause strife. The Islamic Experience Centre stands for peace.”

IXC’s educational ambitions extend beyond individual visitors. According to Tarik, school groups have become a significant part of the project’s audience. Some visit the Rotterdam centre as part of school trips, while IXC staff also travel directly to schools with VR equipment and presentations….

Oh, this helpful IXC staff, busy bees proselytizing through “immersive” propaganda hither and yon. How many Muslims will have their faith reinforced, how many who had strayed from the faith will embrace it again, and how many non-Muslims will come away convinced that Islam has gotten a bad rap, as the scenes in which visitors are immersed make clear, for at the IXC it turns out to be as peaceful a faith as anyone could possibly wish.

Tarik argues that understanding different religions and cultures is also important.

Of course. But this is not “understanding” of Islam that is being offered, but a carefully curated misunderstanding, to lull non-Muslims into acceptance of the spread of Islam in their own countries, and to bring lapsed Muslims back to the one true faith.

“When students learn about Dutch history or the second world war in museums, I think it’s equally important they learn about religions and cultures around them,” he says. “People encounter Muslims every day. Understanding each other matters.”…

Yes, the Dutch encounter Muslims every day in their country, sometimes violently, sometimes merely hostilely, and nearly always unpleasantly. What Tarik wants is to have the Dutch misunderstand Islam, so that they will continue to allow them to migrate into their country.

“We want to show what we see as the true image of Islam,” Tarik says. “If there are misconceptions, we try to address them in a healthy and accessible way.”

Yes, in a healthy, accessible, and altogether misleading way.

Nick, 28, who was visiting the centre with Bram, says his interest in IXC began with Van Klaveren himself.

“If somebody from the most anti-Islam political party in the Netherlands researches Islam and completely changes his mind, then you become curious.”

Yes, there must be something to this Islam, if someone like Van Klaveren, who was once dead-set against Islam ends up — having seen the light — converting to it. And please don’t mention the tens of thousands of Muslims who, once securely in the West, convert to Christianity. That would simply confuse people. Stick to Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, and of course, Jobam Van Klaveren.

So the propaganda is working. People arrive with “very different relationships to Islam” — mistrust, dismay, alarm — and once they’ve been through the immersive experience, they come out the other side with warm feelings for what they once feared. It would be useful if a dozen Dutch people, alarmed by the inroads being made by Muslims in their country, were to visit the Islam Experience Centre, moving through its offerings, while recording everything that is said and shown in these immersive experiences, and then publishing a report about them, pointing out how Islam is being purposely misrepresented, and providing the public with a list of the Islam Experience Centre’s most startling omissions.