Not Apologise But Explain

Not many people, not even Muslims themselves, know about the Children of Adam. This group of young Muslim men and women (although anyone is welcome to volunteer) gather together in Holborn, London every Sunday evening, despite any kind of weather, to feed about a hundred and fifty homeless folks. These homeless folks love them so much that I’ve heard them express deep sympathy about the Islamophobia Muslims have had to face in recent years. Tell these homeless folks that Muslims are terrorists or at least sympathizers and you are likely to be met with scorn and derision.

The Brussels attack a few days ago has claimed dozens of lives and unsurprisingly, the suspects bear Muslim names and ISIS through some shadowy means has admitted guilt. The millions of Muslims in Europe and North America will now have to pay the price when the backlash happens. One particular piece of news yesterday stuck out.  A man confronted a Muslim woman and asked her what she thinks of Brussels. She then answers ‘nothing to do with me’. He then derides her as ‘mealy mouthed’ in his tweet. The tweet was later deleted and he explained that there was no malice in his questioning. It was in good faith, he insists.

Even so, there is so much wrong with this incident. The first and foremost thing is, how did he know she was a Muslim woman? She was wearing the headscarf, he says. Does this automatically mean she knew about the Brussels attack or that she is even Muslim? The headscarf is a piece of cloth. It is known even in other Semitic religions. Granted that today it is mainly identified with Muslims but even so, it doesn’t give this man the right to stop anyone and ask about an act of terrorism, simply because this woman looks like she belongs to the same faith.

This brings us to a salient point – Islamophobia is not a rational attitude. It seeks to equate 1.5 billion people with the acts of an infinitesimal few.  Islamophobes seek out Muslim either to harm or to seek apologies and regret. How can we possibly apologise for something we had no control over? Of course we should sympathise but apologise? This would be unfair to ask us to do. It would be the equivalent of asking every descendant of the early Americans to apologise to the Native Americans for their losses of lives and land.

No, we should not need to apologise but we do need to explain. Explain why we disagree with ISIS and how our faith is a faith of peace, justice and compassion. Many Muslims would be indignant at my suggestion but here’s how I see it – ISIS is acting in the name of Islam. Even their name bears the word ‘Islamic’!  This is clearly a misnomer but people need to know why. Where is it that ISIS has gone wrong? One only needs to watch the ISIS recruitment video to know how they treat the Quran. Not even half a verse is quoted when the ISIS operative attaches his terrorist-scholar’s opinion as to what it means. With such a shoddy, flimsy and dishonest methodology, of course they could deceive the masses. The onus is on us to explain the difference between ISIS’ Islamofascism and the Islam we know and love. Our knowledge of our faith needs to put to good use.

Muslims cannot depend on anyone else to undo the damage ISIS has done. There is no time for that. Instead, we need to counter ISIS propaganda ourselves and the best way to do this is social action like the aforementioned Children of Adam. Coincidentally, this is the instruction of the Quran anyway (Chapter 107, Verses 1-3). We need to act now before ISIS burns whatever bridges we have with the rest of humanity.

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