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Jihad means “striving in the way of God,” and to associate that with terror is inexcusable.
I remember that sunny Tuesday morning as though it were yesterday. My father knocked on my bathroom door, asking me to hustle since I was running late for class. The class was the second of the two destinations that I had that morning. The first was the 16th floor of the World Trade Centre (WTC) in New York City. It was the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
On the drive, I suddenly noticed an immensely thick, black cloud of smoke, and when I traced the thick black cloud of smoke to the first tower, a fireball erupted out of the second tower. Following this was perhaps the longest five to 10 seconds of bafflement that I have ever experienced.
My brain was having a tough time comprehending what reality was, perhaps even sub-consciously denying it. My plans were obviously cancelled – the buildings collapsed and the huge cloud of smoke persisted for a few more days. Whoever said that nothing good ever comes out of being late?
The following days brought us tremendous amounts of news about the victims, the planes, the pilots, the politics, the helping citizens and also the names of the people responsible for the horrific acts. Nineteen hijackers, all of them, Muslims.
This sparked clusters of racial violence, which included hate mail, threats, vandalism of mosques and major physical assaults of Muslims all around the world. Gradually, the western media started portraying Islam as a religion of terror by introducing terms such as “Islamic extremists,” and using words like “Jihad” in the most inappropriate contexts.
Jihad itself is a tremendously vast topic that requires its own discipline. It is an Arabic word that means “striving in the way of God,” and to associate that with terror is inexcusable and uncouth. Recently, on Sept, 14, 2006, one of the headlines on cnn.com stated, “Muslim bomber guilty of killing 17.” Is it relevant and essential to mention the bomber’s religion along with his act?
This type of slandering and depiction of Muslims has become common place for the media, which often addresses terrorism alongside Islam. Inevitably, the brainwashing by the media is successful, which has led many westerners who spot a man of an eastern decent, who has a beard, a cap and wears Middle Eastern or Asian clothing to automatically think as “terrorist”.
The word “Islam” comes from an Arabic-root word that means peace and submission, and to think that people who practise this religion exercise the contrary is preposterous. The Muslim population is more than 1.4 billion, which accounts for more than one -fifth of the world’s population. One-and-a-half billion people cannot be terrorists.
Ironically, Muslims of the world are the major victims of the terrorist activities. Innocent civilians, including thousands of children, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Kashmir and many other places have been killed in the name of terror. Those harmless people were also a part of many families just like us. We should ask ourselves: are our lives more valuable than theirs? It is time we realise that Muslims across the world are being falsely labeled as committers of horrific deeds of terror, solely based on the acts of perhaps only nineteen people out of 1.4 billion.
(The writer is based in Halifax, Canada and can be reached at khansaab20@hotmail.com)
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