: A Moment That Defines An Identity

I lost my appetite after 9/11, which made fasting for Ramadan easier than usual. Waking up to eat my predawn breakfast was easy, too, because I couldn’t sleep well.

The numbers 9 and 11, on their own, don’t mean anything. When I was little, I took pride in numbers. I knew Arab Muslims invented them (hence the term “Arabic numerals”). So-called Muslims changed the numbers 9 and 11 forever by killing 3,000 innocent people — an act of suicide and murder so clearly against Islam and in defiance of the liberating spirit of Islam that guided their ancestors to invent numbers.

The Koran says that killing a person not out of self-defense or in retaliation for a military attack is tantamount to killing all humankind (5:32). The sadness caused by the murder of the victims did kill a part of our humanity. The Koran also says that saving a life is equivalent to saving all of humankind. After 9/11, all the people who reached out to me to learn more about Islam saved my life. I hope, in some small way, I saved theirs. In this war on terror, I am fighting not just for my country but for my faith, too.

Asma Gull Hasan is the author of “Why I Am a Muslim” (HarperCollins Thorsons/Element 2004) and “American Muslims: The New Generation” (Continuum 2000).