A Christian’s apology, an Imam’s reply
From: John M [mailto:jmccartyrealty@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, 27 May 2016 12:36 PM
اسمي جون مكارتي، وأنا مسيحي.
اكتب هذه الكلمات من اعماق قلبي مرفقة بكل الاحترام والنوايا الحسنة.
واتمنى منك ان تخبر مجتمعك انني أعتذر عما حصل من تضييق وحرج على المسملين المحبين والمسالمين في بلدي الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية خصوصا وفي انحاء العالم عموما كنتيجة للإرهاب والكراهية.
كما انني اود ان أعلم كل مسلم انني كمسيحي اعتذر عما بدر من بعض اخوتي واخواتي من سوء معاملة او خطابات كراهية ضد الإسلام عبر مواقع التواصل الإجتماعي.
وارجو من كل قاريء لهذه الرسالة ان يعبر عن عميق تعاطفي واعتذاري لمجتمعه, وبأننا كمسيحيين نهتم لذلك وباننا نعمل حاليا للتصدي لمثل هذه القضايا.
انه لشيء مهم بالنسبة لي ان نعمل جل ما نستطيع لايقاف إشعال نار الحقد والكراهية والتدمير.
السلام عليكم
جون مكارتي
Peace be upon you.
My name is John McCarty and I am a Christian. Please understand that I wrote this message for you with only love and best intentions in my heart.
I would like to tell your community that I am very sorry for what is happening to so many peaceful, loving Muslims around the world as a result of hate and terrorism.
I also want all Muslims to know that, as a Christian, I am sorry for the manner in which so many ignorant “non-Muslims”, Christians included, around the world have been treating Muslims and for the hate speech against Islam on social media.
I am aware of these problems and I am addressing them as I come across them.
Please express my sympathy and apologies with your community and let them know that Christians care for you and that we are working on solving these issues.
It is my belief that we are to preserve life and save all that can be saved. Therefore, we must do everything within our power to stop fueling the fire of hate and destruction.
May the peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be upon you.
Austin, TX, USA
PS – I want to make sure that every Muslim in the world has an opportunity to read this message. Please share it with whomever/however you like.
AN IMAM’S REPLY TO THIS LOVELY MESSAGE:
From: Abdul Lachporia <hajee@sympatico.ca>
Subject: Peace, Love & Solidarity
Date: May 30, 2016 at 8:30:56 PM EDT
My Dearest & Most Respected Brother John:
I greet you with the Islamic Greeting of Peace:
Peace be upon you my most beloved brother. I pray Insha’Allah (God-willing) that you are enjoying the very best of health and imbued with life’s choicest peace, bounties and Blessings. I was deeply touched by your respect for the very peaceful religion of Islam and your concern for the hatred and injustices being perpetrated against the Muslims all over the world today. May you be a beacon of virtue for all humanity and a guidance for all aspects of human life.
Truth of the matter is when you’re fractured and fragmented, its hard to root out an evil movement like ISIS. Yes, it’s not an easy time to be Muslim, that’s for sure. And that brings me to my second point. Many people will argue that: “If ISIS isn’t Islamic, why do they use Islamic language to justify such murder and mayhem?” Ask any Muslim the world over and they will readily agree that ISIS assembles its rhetoric with bits and pieces of religion; its relationship to Islam is like Satan to an Angel or the living to the dead. Muslims continue to speak out against ISIS but nobody is listening to them.
Allow me please to quote from a recent speech by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir in Munich, Germany: Every religion has perverts and psychopaths that seek to hijack it. ISIS is Islamic as much as the KKK is Christian. They have a cross and they do everything in the name of religion. Don’t they believe that Jesus Christ (peace be upon him) compels them to lynch and kill people of African descent?
Can anyone really say that the KKK is a Christian organization? There are other groups that one can point to. There are other massacres that were committed in the name of religion by keeping certain countries or regions clear of non-Christians. There are people like this also in the Jewish faith that have nothing to do with Judaism. There are people like this in the Hindu faith that has nothing to do with Hinduism.
For anyone to to argue that ISIS, ISIL or DAESH is Islamic is preposterous. In the Islamic faith the Most Holy Qur’an reveals that you have your faith and I have my faith. You are free to practice your faith and I am free to practice my faith. What greater sign of tolerance and acceptance do you have than this? In the Islamic faith it says: “He who kills an innocent soul is as if he has killed all humanity and he who saves an innocent soul is as he has saved all of humanity”.
What better example of compassion and mercy do you have than this? So if you look at what ISIS says and you say it is in their Scripture does’nt the OLD TESTAMENT say “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth”? If somebody does it today would you then say they were Christians or Jewish, so, we must caution people because it seems to have become almost novel. Its become the flavour of the day to try to read things from ISIS (DAESH or ISIL) into Islam that are not there.
Islam and the Islamic civilization was the civilization that preserved the history of Greek and Rome and passed in on to the West. Western civilization would not exist without the Islamic Arab civilization. The Islamic civilization was the civilization that connected China with Europe so it was global.
So, if Islam was intolerant and ISIS, ISIL or DAESH represented Islam would Islam have preserved the writings of Aristotle and Socrates and passed it on to the West? Would Islam have connected Eastern civilization with Western civilization? – of course not! (end of quote).
There were a few exceptional times in history, however, when Islamophobia in the West was somewhat suppressed in order to achieve higher political gains. During the Cold War, the West saw Islam as a good tool with which to fight Communism. Similarly, under the 13-year Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, members of the Afghani resistance were admiringly called Jihadi, Mujahedeen, heroes, and freedom fighters by Western media. In the 2006 book “Media, Terrorism, and Theory (edited by Anandam P. Kavoori and Todd Fraley), Dr. Daya Kishan Thussu, professor of international communications at the University of Westminster (London) lists five myths propagated by the Western media in their campaign against Islam and Muslims.
- The Myth of “Islamic” Terrorism:
While it is rare to find a Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, or Buddhist brand of terrorism, it has been common both before and after 9/11 for the media to use the term “Islamic” terrorism. Additionally, while the use of other terminologies (e.g. Islamic fundamentalist/fundamentalism, Islamic militancy, Islamists, political Islam, etc.) is familiar, all of them point in one direction – to the label of “Islamic” terrorism. This already dark distinction is compounded by bracketing Islam with the heinous Nazi legacy through an increasing usage of “Islamofascism.”
- The Myth of Madness:
Prof. Thussu notes that the media effectively frame conflicts involving opposing Muslims within a binary context where Muslims are “projected as irrational and fanatical, pitted against a firm, rational, and reasonable” Western political leadership. “The demonizing of supposedly bigoted leaders can be effective tool for propaganda,” Thussu continues, “as it helps to personalize an invasion by reducing the entire country and its population to one person.” In more recent developments, the American administration under George Bush Jr. did that with Saddam Hussein prior to invading Iraq and then treated Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad similarly in making threats against his country.
- The Myth of Nuclear Threat:
The threat that a Muslim country – whether Iraq, Syria, or Iran — will soon develop nuclear weapons and use them to attack the West or Israel, is very popular with imperialists and Zionists. We now know that “The argument that Iraq was in possession of nuclear weapons and had the capacity to deploy them within 45 minutes notice” was a lie, yet it was disseminated by global media without proof and given out as a compelling reason for invading that country.
- The Myth of Atrocities:
Double standards define the media’s presentation of “atrocities committed in the name of the war on terrorism, with terrorist groups receiving maximum opprobrium and the state-sponsored terrorism (and torture) often being ignored.”
- The Myth of Morality:
The most important myth used by the media, according to Prof. Thussu, is “about the U.S. crusade to spread democracy, freedom, and human rights in the world. It has been proposed that force may be needed to democratize the international community. However, the undermining of democracy in the United States and Britain was evident during and leading up to the Iraqi invasion. An historically unprecedented number of ordinary citizens — as many as eight million — marched on the streets of five continents on February 15, 2003, demonstrating against the U.S.-British plan to invade Iraq, and yet the democratically elected governments chose to ignore popular sentiment.”
Islamophobia is a serious form of discrimination, intolerance, and a clear violation of basic human rights; the right to live without fear of attack from those who see Muslims as “not like us.” Islamophobia not only reinforces centuries-old negative stereotypical representations of Islam and Muslims, it also creates new ones.
Your message of kindness and love is an eloquent heart rendering appeal, to stop fuelling the fire of hate and destruction. Muslims all over the world can now be assured that there are indeed people like you, who care about us, who love us and who are prepared to stand with us. You are willing to strive for goodness and decency in life. May this generate a chain reaction with sweeping power. The world could change. All Glory and Praises are due only to Almighty Allah – TOGETHER WE SHALL OVERCOME!
I conclude with the Fondest love and Salams to you and all your loved ones.
Your’s truly,
Abdul Hamid Lachporia
Toronto. Ontario. Canada