Paris attack: As a Muslim I’m disgusted how Isis can carry out this violence and claim to represent my faith
People gather in a solidarity rally with the French people in the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks EPA/DANIELE MASCOLO
As a Muslim I am not only shocked at the evil and carnage inflicted on innocent people, but I am equally if not more so angry that these people should do so through some misguided and warped grasp of my faith.
But there is also a real concern that in the days ahead, there will be those who will try to use the Parisian atrocity to divide the British society and as an excuse to launch attacks against Muslims, as happened after the Charlie Hebdo attacks earlier this year.
With a number of horrific tweets talking about killing all Muslims and with people such as Richard Dawkins equating Islam with Nazism, we need to be vigilant. WikiLeaks has suggested that it is indeed the strategy of Daesh in France is to provoke a crackdown on Muslims.
Verbal assaults against Muslims have already begun to take place. At a bus stop in the UK today, a man shouted, “They need to all die, these Muslims need to die. Look what they’re doing in Paris,” to a young Muslim woman. There are also unconfirmed reports of a glass bottle thrown at a young Muslim woman in West London this morning. This adds to the fear amongst some Muslims, after a string of recent Islamophobic incidents including a woman who was pushed into a moving train earlier this week.
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I have appreciated the article and I hope that all sane people will. To blame all Muslims for this disgusting, vile and evil act would be doing exactly what the perpetrators desired. We must ALL pull together to prevent this insidious evil from warping our minds and becoming as stupid and as evil as they are.
As a non religious person I will decline to comment further on that subject.
Reading what you say, shocked muslim, get on the streets show your displeasure against these muslims who kill for their faith,show us all there are thousands of you in Europe how much you despise isis etc, to me you are all talk, come on take to the streets,
Muslims who take to the street to protest fundamentalism simply make themselves targets for the idiot fringe on the far right, while achieving absolutely nothing in terms of changing the minds of ISIL. Most ISIL operatives will probably never even know that any protests happened, and those who find out will just write off the protesters as ‘corrupted by the West’.
How is that going to be any more useful than writing articulately and coherently as to why the attacks were so abhorrent?
As much as i appreciate a muslim condemning terror attacks carried out by other muslims, having a go at intelligent people like Richard Dawkins and trying to defend a fanatical belief just reveals once more the crux of the problem.
What IS wants is to establish a muslim planet where the laws of islam and the sharia are present in every country. And isn’t that what every strong believing muslim wants? Isn’t that what the Qran wants? Is that not what Allah wants from them?
And if that is not what Muslims want, why don’t they say it clearly? Why don’t they stop Imams from preaching that in the Mosques? Why do they all tolerate the fanatics in their middle, and even defend them, single persons aside who are not heard as well because they are just quiet?
Why don’t young muslims, men and women, go out on the streets, throw away the hijabs, and demand their religious leaders to stop supporting middle aged religious rules and violent laws?
I can tell you why. Because deep inside, they agree with all that. Because they all have been brainwashed since early childhood not to think, to reflect, to criticise, to be self- critical. Because for most of them. defending their precious religion comes before everything else: before humanity, before compassion, before common sense.
And that is the core of terrorism.
You do realise your own opinion is coming over as intolerant, don’t you?
I assume the reference of ‘intolerance’ is sarcasm?, PH is correct. The muslim community must stand up, bear their allegiance to their adopted country (British or not) and ultimately renounce their faith. They cannot both believe in the teachings of the Qur’an, and social freedom. Only this will quell the anger of the world & prevent civil unrest. ISIS should have no friends in the west to help their agenda.
No, I wasn’t being sarcastic.
Islam isn’t about blowing stuff up and murdering people.
Have you read the Koran?
“What IS wants is to establish a muslim planet where the laws of islam and the sharia are present in every country.”
No they don’t. They want to ‘de-Westernise’ what they consider to be ‘The Holy Land’. They couldn’t give two hoots what we do in Europe.
“And isn’t that what every strong believing muslim wants?”
No.
“Isn’t that what the Qran wants?”
If you mean ‘The Qur’an’, it depends which bit you read. As is so often the case with holy texts written in the first millennium, it is riddled with contradictory ideas.
“Is that not what Allah wants from them?”
No.
“And if that is not what Muslims want, why don’t they say it clearly?”
They do, they say it all the time, it’s just you’re not listening. Hell, a muslim says it completely succinctly in the very article you’re commenting on, it’s just you don’t appear to have noticed. I wonder why?
“Why don’t they stop Imams from preaching that in the Mosques?”
Why don’t you stop political leaders in UKIP, the BNP and Britain First from preaching xenophobic hatred in the popular media?
“Why do they all tolerate the fanatics in their middle, and even defend them, single persons aside who are not heard as well because they are just quiet?”
They don’t.
“Why don’t young muslims, men and women, go out on the streets, throw away the hijabs, and demand their religious leaders to stop supporting middle aged religious rules and violent laws?”
Because their religious leaders don’t support middle aged religious rules and violent laws. And why should they throw away the hijabs? What harm do hijabs cause? Do they make you feel nervous because they look ‘different’ from you?
As I pointed out to Alistair Lazenby above, making a big public song-and-dance about opposing fundamentalism would be a completely futile gesture, while making themselves targets for the idiot fringe on the far right in this country.
“Because deep inside, they agree with all that. Because they all have been brainwashed since early childhood not to think, to reflect, to criticise, to be self- critical. Because for most of them. defending their precious religion comes before everything else: before humanity, before compassion, before common sense.”
So you claim to be a mind-reader, do you? Presumably you also think that burning a man in effigy hurts them in real life.
You really do have medieval ideas.
All of this is you just trying to rationalise your fear. You want to be able to lash out at Muslims because you are scared – that’s not me mind-reading by the way, your clear terror comes across in your every word – but you have to find a way of linking them into the events that have scared you in order to convince yourself you aren’t being irrational, so you use this fallacious ‘guilt-by-association’ logic.
In fairness, Islamic Radicals are just as bad for that mindset; they tend to associate everybody in the West with the constant domination of the Middle East by the US Government, and the military invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s nonsensical to do so, of course, but no sillier than your attempt to hold peaceful Muslims partly responsible for the crimes of a relatively small number of fanatics from other parts of the world altogether.
This article might be quite eye-opening for you.
http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2015/03/mehdi-hasan-how-islamic-islamic-state
Yes I have, amongst other teachings, it comes top of the list for intolerance, second only to the Bible.
And yet you choose to side with the Christian people they attacked.
I notice you don’t have anything to say about the Muslims who have been killed by this organisation since it arose. What’s the total now – 100,000 deaths?
What do you have to say about a supposedly Muslim organisation that deliberately attacks and kills Muslims?
I side with no religion. Like I said, the literal teachings of Islam know no bounds when it comes to enforcement, all are targets, Muslims who don’t toe the ‘official’ line suffer as you see in Syria et al.
What ‘official’ line is that? There are several different strands of Islam – and even when you’ve established which version you’re facing, there are different interpretations. Where are your “literal teachings of Islam” then?
It has ever been thus religious attacks on each other are nothing new and will no doubt still be going on well after we are all dead, not only one religion attacking another but infighting within them, personally I lost all faith in any religion a long time ago, and it is my opinion that if you are a god botherer you should keep it to yourself not impose your irrational beliefs on another person, that way we could all be happy.