How do Muslims respond?
Some disagree with press conferences to condemn terrorists’ actions
NEW YORK — By now, the tableau has become tragically familiar: American Muslims standing before cameras, condemning an attack linked to Islamic extremism.
After the San Bernardino, Calif., rampage, the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations didn’t even wait for law enforcement to announce a motive. Just hours after the husband-andwife shooters were identified as Muslim on Wednesday, the civil rights group held a news conference with the perpetrators’ brother-in-law, Farhan Khan.
The stunned man said his family had no hint of the plot. “I love this country,” Khan said.
“You have to be proactive,” said Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, a policy and advocacy group based in Los Angeles.
But some in the Muslim community say a new response is needed. A younger generation is especially impatient with the condemnations of Islamic extremism from Muslim groups after every attack. They argue the statements merely reinforce false notions that Muslims are collectively responsible for the violence.
“America is ready for a more sophisticated conversation when it comes to these things,” said Shahed Amanullah, a former U.S. State Department adviser and co-founder of Affinis Labs, which helps develop apps to counter the appeal of Islamic extremism and build online communities for young Muslims. “You can’t press release your way out of this.”
The public pleas that all Muslims should not be blamed for attacks in the name of Islam grew in the aftermath of the 2001 strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Muslim groups largely kept to script after extremist attacks in places such as London in 2005, Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, Boston in 2013 and, most recently, last month in Paris.
But many Americans continue to blame Islam itself for extremism. A Pew Research Center survey last year found an increasing share of Americans believe Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence among its followers.
A growing number of U.S. Muslims resent suggestions they have a special obligation to condemn attacks — no other religious group, they argue, is expected to issue such statements after self-professed followers of their faiths commit a crime.
At a Georgetown University event last month on anti-Muslim bias, speaker Linda Sarsour said she struggled with Muslims who take part in such news conferences.
“It reinforces the fallacy that I have something in common with” ISIL, said Sarsour, a prominent Muslim leader from New York. She said she condemns terrorism not as a Muslim, but “as a human” who is outraged and saddened by violence. The audience applauded.
Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the national Council on American-Islamic Relations, the civil rights group that is the primary force behind the news conferences, said he is well aware of the criticism.
At the same time, U.S. Muslim leaders have been reporting a fresh outburst of threats and vandalism at mosques.
“To remain silent — I don’t think that’s a viable alternative, especially when the New York Post front page screams ‘Muslim Killers,’” as it did after San Bernardino shootings, Hooper said.
Amanullah said after such attacks, Muslim groups should instead join the broader discussion, emphasizing shared concerns about preventing violence, while also doing something to help.
For Asra Nomani, an advocate of Islamic reform and author of Standing Alone: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam, the deeper problem is an unwillingness of American Muslims to truly confront extremism in the religion.
“I disagree with that whole logic of people who say we don’t need to apologize and we don’t need to condemn it,” Nomani said. “We’re not owning up to the problem when we say: ‘This isn’t my Islam. I didn’t pull the trigger. I don’t believe in extremist ideas.’ I think we’re setting ourselves up for this animosity that comes our way.”
“To remain silent—Idon’t think that’ s a viable alternative, especially when the New York Post frontpage screams ‘Muslim Killers.’
IBRAHIM HOOPER SPOKESMAN FOR THE COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS