We are Muslims, Not Terrorists!

By Namrah

I am not at all a good writer, and I can’t write articles. But this one, it is just what is inside my heart…

Today, whenever a Muslim in America enters a public place everyone gives him/her a suspicious look. The first thought that might come into an American’s mind after hearing the word Muslim is ‘terrorist.’ One of my friends went to the US by the YES Scholarship (the year must have been 2005 or 2006), and when she went to one of the high schools, one of her classmates stated that all Muslims are terrorists. So that’s what Americans think of Muslims. Not all Americans, but many of them.

Therefore, I am writing this article to tell those people that, no, Muslims aren’t terrorists and terrorists aren’t Muslims. In my religion, Islam, we are not allowed to kill another Muslims. We are also not to harm a non-Muslim without any just cause. And Muslims should hurt women and children at all, not even in the midst of war! So why would Muslims do so?

These terrorists might call themselves Muslim, but they are not. They are hypocrites who have disguised themselves as Muslims just to show them as bad people to the world. But here I would also condemn the Americans for their behavior towards Muslims. After the events of 9/11, they seem to acknowledge even their well-known Muslim friends as terrorists!

Some years ago, when I wasn’t much aware of the outside world, I wanted to go to the US because the high schools there are so cool and teenagers there have a lot of cool stuff to do. But now, after what I’ve heard, I am afraid of going to the US.

I am afraid that if I go there, they would claim me to be a terrorist too. They would think that my father belongs to al-Qaida or some Taliban group just because we are Pakistanis and we are Muslims.

Sometimes Americans put innocent Muslims through unbearable mental torture, which is horrible. After knowing that this happens to the innocent Muslims in the US, I cried and prayed to Allah, ‘Please, never send me there, even when before I wanted to go!’

In the Muslim culture, we have to wear scarves and do hijab. But the non-Muslims take it as a bad sign, like it is some sort of bad guy or gal having herself all covered up. However, that is for the reason that men don’t see us like an item in a shop by which they pass. Women are not items of display! There are so valuable that they are not to be shone to just anyone. And the beard for men, which can be a sign of piety in a Muslim, is considered bad. Of course, they wouldn’t be bad if they were fashionable. But as long as clean-shaven is in, beards are off and a Muslim with a beard is termed a terrorist.

In a nutshell, Islam is the religion of peace, love, brotherhood, and everything good that makes sense!

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Original can be found here.