People shouldn’t make negative assumptions about the Muslim religion based on ISIS and its recent attacks in Paris and across the world, say Muslim students.
Abdulrahman Alqarni, a special education graduate student from Saudi Arabia, said “educated people know Islam is not terror, but it can be used as a terror.”
“Terror has no religion,” he said.
There have been many social media campaigns asking citizens of every country not to blame all Muslims for the extremists responsible for the attacks. On Twitter, for example, many Muslim users are posting with #NotInMyName.
Abdullah Alghamdi, a graduate student studying computer science, said his religion does not condone the killing of innocents.
“It’s not that Islam is a bad religion, it’s about the terrorist,” said Alghamdi. “In Islam, you don’t cut down trees; how do you kill innocent people?”
Alghamdi is from southern Saudi Arabi and said the media is to blame for the negative opinion of Islam and Muslims. After 9/11, the media began brainwashing people into thinking Islam is a bad religion, he said.
Fahad Zahrani an international student studying at the Intensive English Institute, said ISIS does not represent Islam as it should be.
“[ISIS] is not against the west, it’s against the Middle East, as well,” he said. “They do stuff in the name of Islam, but set off bombs in Saudi Arabian mosques.”
Although Zahrani has not experienced any direct unjust treatment in the United States, Alghamdi has.
“I was sitting in a dental clinic, and there was a man beside me watching the news on TV,” said Alghamdi. “He asked me if I was from the Middle East, and, when I said yes, if I was Muslim. When I said yes to that, he said, ‘I don’t talk to terrorist people.’”
In an effort to reach out to students of other religions and nationalities, the Campus Christian House (CCH) hosts a Bible study on Wednesday nights to teach Christians about Islam.
Mikaela McMillen, the international ministry assistant for the CCH, leads the study. She brings in Muslim people to answer any questions students may have.
“Our goal is to teach the differences between Christianity and Islam,” she said.
McMillen said although the CCH does reach out to Muslims, there are no programs targeting specific cultures or countries.
Alghamdi compared ISIS with the KKK, saying both groups “represent” a religion while carrying out practices that don’t follow any of the religion’s actual teachings.
“They don’t represent Islam,” he said.
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