To highlight apparent hypocrisy among Republicans, the video than played multiple clips of former President George W. Bush referring to Islam as “peace”, and that the U.S.is not fighting against Muslims or Arabs, but rather against “evil”.
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The body representing Muslims in France has called on the country’s 2,500 mosques to condemn “all forms of violence or terrorism” in prayers this Friday.
Were last week’s attacks in Paris and Beirut expressions of faith that should fundamentally shape our views of Islam?
Associating the actions of the Islamic State and other terrorist groups that claim to follow Islam with the entire religion of Islam in order to create the notion of a powerful anti-Western threat is asinine. Soldiers wearing camouflage gear and cradling automatic rifles also patrolled.
Flowers and banners are pictured, as a tribute to the victims of Paris attacks at the gate of French Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia, on November 18, 2015.
Imam Magid says he wishes more Americans saw Muslims the way he sees them. But an ordinary Muslim living in France is concerned about their future. Members of local groups who called us, here in Paris, to say “listen, what happened is awful, we are all terribly shocked, terribly affected, and so moved by what happened”. Muslims like himself, he said, are just as much victims of the Paris attacks as non-Muslims. The DNC put out an ad attacking Republicans for talking about “radical Islamic terrorism”, which the Democrats said was “inciting fear”.
The southern port city of Marseille saw both anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic violence after the latest attacks, with a veiled woman punched and slashed with a box cutter as she left the subway and a teacher at a Jewish school assaulted by three knife-wielding attackers, the Interior Ministry said.
France’s five million-strong Muslim minority is Europe’s largest and makes up about eight percent of the population. “They are the “khawarij” of modern times” it added comparing the killers to violent extremists in early Islam who fought against the faith’s recognised leaders. Still, that doesn’t make their cold shoulders easier to bear. I understand the desire to regain a sense of security and comfort in our everyday lives and to defend against any group or ideology that appears even remotely threatening. “The anger”, said Mahfoudia, a 64-year-old grandmother.
I had a depressing conversation the other day. If not, then more accounts of mosques being burnt – like the one in Peterborough – and the random attacks on Muslims, will continue to rise and divide our country. A statement from the National Association of Evangelicals said, “Let’s not punish the victims of ISIS for the sins of ISIS”. Their leaders know it and we should know it. Yet, their followers are not aware of the true Islam, and they ultimately become puppets and pawns who carry out their wishes of anarchy and scare tactics.
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“Looks now are cold and wary”. Anti-Muslim graffiti has also shown up in many places. The January gunmen specifically targeted journalists and Jews. It has proven unable to run an even basically functional state, and thrives only in an environment of chaos and terror, where people are desperate and fearful and where they turn on one another.
