Why I Stopped Publicly Condemning Terror Attacks as a Muslim

This month, the writers of the Patheos Muslim Channel are opening up about their feelings on the “hot take,” a quick response to a current event, political debate or issues of the moment.

I see people posting on social media, hiding behind their keyboards yet acting so tough, as they declare that Muslims never condemn terrorism. That is quite the contrary because most of us do, any chance we get. We post about it on social media, we talk about it on the news. We try to get the word out there, but the media doesn’t want our words or voices to be heard. So, many people don’t hear about it no matter how hard we try to communicate this message.

What prompts me to write about this is that I care about it emotionally and I am passionate about the subject.

I even wrote an article for The Huffington Post titled, “An American Muslim Guide In The Aftermath Of National Tragedy.” In that article, I offer tips that will help Muslims navigate discussions and correct false narratives. I stated that “it is okay to show your remorse and sadness. This is because ― like all Americans ― American Muslims mourn after any tragedy occurs, as we did after the recent shooting in Las Vegas and the Texas church massacre. We all mourn because the loss of innocent lives is something any sane person would mourn.”

I used to be a Christian, so I understand why people want us to condemn terrorism. It is because the media has brainwashed people to the point that they believe only the bad they see or hear about Islam. It brainwashed people into believing the whole religion of Islam is horrible, not just a few people (out of nearly 2 billion Muslims across the world).

I hate having to publicly condemn terrorism just because I am a Muslim. I know that it’s only letting ignorant people win, because we are saying sorry for something we didn’t do.

What drew me to learning about Islam was seeing how nice all the Muslims I knew were. I figured they were “the good ones.” I wanted to prove them wrong. I wanted to prove to them their religion was bad and persuade them to convert to Christianity. I want to find the hate rooted in the religion of Islam. I could not find it. The more I studied the religion and read the Qur’an, the more I wanted to convert to it.

I have written about this subject many times, saying that the real Islam does not allow for any type of terrorism. Killing yourself is a sin. Taking an innocent life is a grave sin. Raping is a major sin.

I covered this subject in a piece I previously wrote for the HuffPost titled, “Why Do Muslims Have to Condemn Terrorism? They Don’t!”

Towards the end of the article I told the reader to answer these questions:

Why do Christians not have to condemn the KKK?
Why do Christians not condemn someone that shoots up an abortion clinic?
Why the double standard?
Why are members of ISIS not seen as mentally deranged individuals, while non-Muslim White killers and terrorists are?

Enough Is Enough

I hate the irony of all Muslims having to condemn something, even though all White men or Christians do not have to condemn the KKK. And by the way, most of the time, the targets of these terrorist attacks are other Muslims. But nobody cares about that.

Even when Muslims do condemn terrorism, no one sees or hears about it. No media outlet wants to show the nice side of Muslims, which is the overwhelming majority of us. The truth is boring to people.

The truth is, you are far more likely to be killed by a white man than a Muslim. The difference is, if a White Christian man goes to an all-black church and kills everyone, he is labeled as mentally unstable, not a terrorist.

One Muslim in particular, Heraa Hashmi, made a 712-page document that compiles all the time and places Muslims have condemned terrorism. This then led her to creating MuslimsCondemn.com, a database that records Muslims denouncing terror. it keeps getting updated every time a Muslim or Islamic organization condemns terrorism.

The media has brainwashed people to the point that they believe only the bad they see or hear about Islam. It brainwashed people into believing the whole religion of Islam is horrible, not just a few people.

I hate having to publicly condemn terrorism just because I am a Muslim. I know that is only letting ignorant people win, because we are saying sorry for something we didn’t do. It is like we are admitting that our religion is not good, so we must say sorry for it. No, there is nothing wrong with our religion. There is nothing wrong with Islam, and rarely is there something wrong with Muslims. It is just that when a Muslim does something bad, it gets way more news coverage versus a guy shooting up a Baptist church.

The point is, Muslims are humans and there are a few crazy ones (as there are in every group of people) but they are very few. The vast majority of us are trying to contribute to society like everyone else. Only a minuscule number of Muslims are bad. People are just letting fear win and take over their lives.

If someone is going to blame a whole religion for the actions of a minuscule number of people claiming to be Muslims, then maybe that person is as ignorant as ISIS.