Saturday, April 20, 2013

Bigots revealed on Facebook


I awoke from a terrible nightmare just past 2am this morning. I dreamt that I was in a car with my nieces, and that we were stopped at some kind of security 'check point' in Johannesburg, and detained for no other reason but being Muslim.

I live in South Africa, a country ridden by crime, fear and everyday failings and winnings of ordinary people. Religious intolerance doesn't feature high on this list. Only when the trauma had made itself vivid from my subconscious in this way, did I realize just how affected I was by someones status on facebook and the subsequent thread of comments.

And so these facebook 'friends' claimed triumphantly that they 'knew' the bombers would be Muslim. They seemed to purport that 'being Muslim' predisposes one to one day waking up and deciding to bomb some inconvenient place.

The memo I got in my madressa years left that out; in fact, it clearly stated that to harm a fellow human being or form of life would be to harm all humanity, and that the soul would be answerable on the final day. That death would be tortuous even, if harm has been brought to another. What Islam are you talking about? My Islam is peace and tolerance. My Quran is Love. The struggle is to overcome nafs/ego for the reward of higher self. This is the only jihad I was taught. This is the only jihad I know.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That's the perception out there - being deliberately fuelled by certain quarters. We shouldn't be surprised that for many, this is the initial reaction.

When 'normal' Muslims step up and make their voices heard, it doesn't make headlines and isn't sensational enough.

The whole media battle and PR stuff is important - but it's not the most important challenge we face.

Allah won't change our collective condition until we start with change from within. That needs to be our primary focus - a return to the pure principles of the deen, and not trying to fit into a world that will only see what the puppet masters want them to see...