Courtesy of New York Post

With the recent Boston bombings, once again, Islam has taken center stage. In fact, minutes after the second bomb set off, the number one trend on Twitter was the word “Muslim,” and Fox analyst Erik Rush took the social media site by storm in response to those speculating Muslims for the cause of the tragedy. “Yes they’re evil,” he tweeted, “Let’s kill them all.”
As an American, I am deeply saddened by what took place in Boston, and my prayers go out to the three lives tragically cut short, and the hundreds injured. What I don’t understand is that after the attack, the first couple of people that everyone was to point fingers at was a 16 year old Moroccan high school student, who was a track star and was there to observe how the race works out, so he could apply for it next year. He was the front cover of many national newspapers, calling him the suspect and how FBI was in search for him. This accusation made must have been so embarrassing because lets not forget he was a high school student.
But as trite and cyclic as it may seem, this was not the actions of Islam.
According to a recent LA Times and Gallop polls, conducted by Gallop, 66 percent of Americans agree to having at least some prejudice against Muslims, one in five say they have “a great deal” of prejudices. Almost 50 percent believe that American Muslims are not “loyal” to the United States and one in four do not want a Muslim neighbor.
When I read and hear of these statistics I could not help but gape at the ignorance of some of these people.
Almost finishing high school, in my sixteen years of existence, I’ve come to terms that when many do not understand something or someone, they tend to utilize fear and irrationality to lead the way, in this case generalizations on the world’s fastest growing religion.
Yes, in a post 9/11 generation, where it was extremists who conducted one of the worst attacks on American soil, where it was extremists who claim the lives of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s common to point a finger, especially when that finger leads to a common theme.
I can’t help but wonder why 1.6 billion people are categorized as terrorists, and why the term terrorist has become synonymous with Islam, when it is such a small group of people deranging society. The actions of so few have the power to instill fear in the whole nation, and bring down one of the world’s largest religions.
Let us not forget that the number one victims of Al Quieda, and other Muslim extremist groups are the Muslims themselves. Almost 70 percent of those killed by the terrorist groups are civilians in their homelands.
But to really put it in perspective, an FBI report showcases that between 1980 and 2005 98 percent of all terrorist attacks on U.S. soil are Non-Muslim related.
What about the 60 Muslims who died at ground zero, who among them were electricians, financial analysts, secretaries? Muhammad Hamdani, a 23-year-old first responder who died saving those trapped in the World Trade Center; he was a Muslim, yet he was one of the many people who helped rescue lives.
Timothy McVeigh, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Adam Lanza, and the list goes on, have all attacked our nation in way unexplainable and immoral. Whether they may be a Muslim, Christian, or agnostic, attacks are the actions of those deranged without validation and justification. It’s not my religion that’s the problem, or anyone else’s and it’s time we focus on the accounting those who do wrong instead of the irrational fear that we get succumbed into and they bring with them. This is a problem for humanity not my faith.