Dalia Mogahed, research director at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding in Washington, an organisation that seeks to amplify the voices of American Muslims, has answered that question with a cogent “no”.
During an interview on MSNBC, she was asked whether more Muslim leaders should speak out against Isis. Here’s her reply:
“I think we should take a step back and ask a different question, which is: ‘Is it justified to demand that Muslims condemn terrorism?’ Now that might sound a little radical even asking it. The reason I say that is this.
Condoning the killing of civilians is, to me, about the most monstrous thing you can to do. And to be suspected of doing something so monstrous, simply because of your faith, seems very unfair.
Now when you look at the majority of terrorist attacks in the United States, according to the FBI, the majority of domestic terror attacks are actually committed by white, male Christians.
Now that’s just the facts. When those things occur, we don’t suspect other people who share their faith and ethnicity of condoning them. We assume that these things outrage them just as much as they do anyone else. And we have to afford this same assumption of innocence to Muslims.