As terrorism runs rampant all over the world, we look to ISIS as our main focus. ISIS has taken countless lives and never fails to capture the media's attention as it executes its next plan to establish an Islamic State. A recent conversation with my family has sparked my interest in writing this article.
One of the things that came up was whether or not ISIS represents all of Muslims. According to the Pew Research Center, as of 2010, there were 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. Of the 1.6 billion Muslims, a fraction of them are a part of ISIS. The Islamic faith does not explain the behaviors of ISIS fighters. Muslim scholars have stated ISIS beliefs as extreme and not in line with the ideologies of Islam. According to an article by the "Huffington Post," ISIS kills Muslims too. We need to stop thinking that all Muslims are terrorists and that they pose a major threat to our lives. The more we ostracize peaceful people who are just like the rest of us with a belief system, we will more likely turn even the good into bad people.
When abandoned by society, left with nothing to survive, and left without any hope, young people turn to ISIS for a new future. As an advanced society, we need to recognize that our fears of all Muslims shows ignorance of Islam and a lack of empathy for our common brothers and sisters. It's time to look past our phobias.
Another thing to note is that the majority of Muslims actually believe in the same God as Christians. It actually says in the Qur'an that Christians and Jews are the book of the people and are not to be persecuted. They believe in one God and in Arabic, God is Allah.
Yes, it's true that the Islamic belief is different from Christian beliefs, but isn't it also true that even within Christianity, we have different sects of beliefs? Fundamentally, Christians and Muslims believe in the same God. The other differences should not stop us from accepting Muslims just as a Baptist would accept a Catholic.
A world would be a better place with a bit of faith in humanity. People say it's better to be safe than sorry, but what if people's definition of being safe is shutting out 1.6 billion people? What if being sorry just happens to be accepting a peaceful group of people.
Fearing ISIS and fearing Muslims are two different things.
Let's keep the two separate.
