pieces of me

In light of the events which occurred this January 7^th in Paris, it seems that many Muslims have taken the stance of supporting “Je Suis Charlie” as a response to the protocol of freedom of speech and publicly declaring a war on terrorism and all those who stand by it.

But it seems as though people have forgotten that with freedom of speech comes a huge and immaculate responsibility, one which in no way favors you openly expressing your racist, Islamophobic and offensive cartoons.

Though I am deeply saddened and heartbroken about the shooting of 12 innocent people who did not deserve to be killed (the first of them ironically called by the name Ahmed), the unequal and abusive treatment of the French community to a large number of the Muslims residing in it should not be shocking news to anyone.

The country that had millions marching on the street advocating “Freedom of Speech” is the same country that passed a hijab ban law and has witnessed many incidents in which Muslim women who choose to wear a headscarf have been mistreated and have even received physical attacks.

Should 1.6 billion people apologize for the acts of 3 gunmen who aren’t even Muslim to begin with?

This may sadly come as a newsflash to some, but Islam does not in fact condone acts of violence as a solution to racism or hate. Murder is strictly forbidden in Islam, “If anyone slays a person, it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.” [5:53] and “Even if you stretch forth your hand against me to kill, I will not stretch forth my hand to kill you. Surely, I fear Allah, the Lord of the entire universe.” [5:28].

Terrorism is pointed out as literally one of the highest possible sins in Islam.“Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land – it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one – it is as if he had saved mankind entirely. And our messengers had certainly come to them with clear proofs. Then indeed many of them, [even] after that, throughout the land, were transgressors.” [5:32]

The very fact that some poor Muslims are being forced into having this debate in the first place is arguably why shootings like this happen in the first place.

But now the fingers are pointed at whoever spoke up against the acts of terrorism in Paris and consciously ignored/ is still ignoring the daily massacres, genocides, rape crimes, children’s throats literally being slit open with butcher knives in their sleep(warning: graphic image) and innocent souls forced to leave their motherland only to become refugees in countries where they are dehumanized and left homeless.

The fingers are pointed at the so called “Islamist” countries who publicly condemned Charles Hebdo’s shooting of 12 French people but are sitting aside, watching as other fellow Arab countries continue to butcher the oppressed year after year.

So no, as a Muslim I will not defend a newspaper that disrespected me and ridiculed my faith and culture. I will not apologize for the acts of a couple ignorant and uneducated cowards in the name of Islam.

The Near East and South Asia suffered 7,721 attacks and 9,236 deaths. The majority of those occurred in just three countries — Afghanistan , Iraq and Pakistan — which, together, accounted for 85 percent of attacks in these regions and almost 64 percent of attacks worldwide.

U.S. military forces were directly responsible for about 10 to 15 million deaths during the Korean and Vietnam Wars and the two Iraq Wars.

On the FBI’s official website, there exists a chronological list of all terrorist attacks committed on U.S. soil from the year 1980 all the way to 2005.

The ignorant pricks who trended #KillAllMuslims where right: All terrorists are Muslim…except for the 94% that aren’t.