Daisy Khan’s wisdom on Islam empowers us all

I don’t know about you, but I’m beyond weary of hearing about “Islamic terrorists” (as if we say “Christian terrorists” when speaking of the Ku Klux Klan).  And I’ve had it with slurs dealt out to women who wear scarves over their hair instead of crosses around their necks.

So I was delighted yesterday to open my mail and find an outstanding, robust workbook, titled WISEUP: Knowledge Ends Extremism.

It’s edited by Daisy Khan, a fellow in our Prime Movers program, and published by the group she founded — Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality. The acronym fits perfectly; my friend Daisy is indeed WISE.

The book is organized in three parts: Voices of American Muslims; Islamic Theology Vs. Extremist Ideology; and Preventing Extremist Recruitment. Within each part are scores of topics addressed by academics, clerics, military officers, and community leaders. (With a bullet list of key takeaways at the head of each short subsection, it seems perfect for a book club.) I was drawn to titles such as “How Does It Feel to be a Problem?” “Terrorists and their Delusions,” and “Counteracting Hate Speech.”

In my life, I’ve been close to three genocides: the German Holocaust; the Fall of Yugoslavia; and the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Each was planned and carried out by Christians. That’s not an interpretation:

• Germany in the 1930s was two-thirds Protestant, one-third Catholic (and one percent Jewish).
• In the mid-1990s, I sought US Government intervention in Bosnia to stop indescribable atrocities committed by Serb Orthodox perpetrators, who razed mosques and taunted their victims with “go back to Turkey.”
• And addressing the Rwandan cataclysm, which wiped out ten percent of the population in 100 days, Pope Francis recently “implored anew God’s forgiveness for the sins and failings of the Church and its members, among whom priests, and religious men and women who succumbed to hatred and violence, betraying their own evangelical mission.”

Over the last decades, the huge majority of deaths at the hands of extremists have not been Christians killed by Muslims. FBI Director Chris Wray, appointed by Donald Trump, testified to Congress a few months ago that home-grown, far-right radicals pose a danger in the US as great as Islamic groups. (Independent groups say the domestic anti-government danger ratio is much higher.)

Daisy Khan’s book couldn’t be more relevant. At a time we sorely need it, each of the 360 pages offers up information, but also wisdom. Readers will find statistics that debunk carefully crafted bigotry, whether born in us or fed to us. But readers will also find ideas that challenge their assumptions, deepen their religious creeds, and energize their patriotism.

Islam is a religious faith espousing peace, forgiveness, and tolerance. We would be better people if we immersed ourselves in its scriptures and history. But this in an age of “If you see something, say something.” So with the recent tidal wave of Islamaphobia championed in the name of security, let’s stop in our tracks and ponder the question of international human rights lawyer Arsalan Aftikhar: Can we treat an entire community as a suspect, but also expect its members to function as our partners?