There’s a true disaster going on in this country today. It’s a crisis of no conscience, a revolution over race, a dance with the devil, a handshake with hate. 

Nowhere is this culture of evil more evident than in the raging Islamophobia sweeping the country. Day after day, week after week, Muslims and Sikhs are being harrased, their homes, cars and institutions ravaged, their lives taken, their family members hurt. They are being fired from their jobs for praying, forced to eat food their religion prohibits and dress in a way they find immodest. They watch on TV their countries of origin go up in flames and their religion of birth being maligned. This is the American dream gone badly wrong.

What we as a community must do is stand up to this hate, stand up to protect all our prop­hets — Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Muhammad, and all those divine leaders who have guided mankind through the ages. We cannot let the misguided masses in charge today malign our prophets. Only by following their advice and their wisdom will our world be corrected and sanity rule once again.

While we do this, while we defend our prophets and religion, we must do so only in a way they would approve. That would mean no violence, no hate. It would mean to love one another and to treat your neighbor as you would wish to be treated. Two wrongs do not make a right and the violence raging today across the Muslim world is wrong. Killing innocent people is not excusable and we must condemn it in the strongest terms. This is not the way to defend Prophet Muhammad, nor the way he would expect us to react in today’s world.

It is imperative that we fight the hate swirling around us. Whether propagated by individuals with twisted minds, small groups or organizations with thousands of members, the hate must stop or we will soon see genocide and mass destruction on a scale not witnessed before. There is no need for this. A wonderful future could be ours and our children’s, with the advances made in science, medicine, and technology. We must incorporate our faith – all of us whatever we believe – into our daily lives and our interactions in order to maximize, enjoy and grow these developments into true life-enhancing experiences in our daily lives. 

The government and Congress must lead this effort. Only when our leaders stand with us to stop the hate will the hate stop. Only then will we realize God’s plan for us. And only then will America restore its good standing across the globe, one that had long made it the dream destination for people of all faiths and ethnicities. 

Standing up against the culture of hate is not only the right thing to do, doing so is in our best interests as a nation. 

– The Arab American News