Originally Published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer
It is unfortunate that when I first heard about the Boston Marathon bombings, instead of thinking “Oh, God, please have mercy on the victims and their families,” I thought, “Oh, God, please do not let the perpetrators be Muslim.”
When I heard the perpetrators were from Chechnya, I made another mistake; I sighed with relief thinking that they definitely weren’t Muslims. It turns out, they were Muslims, but only in name. I say this because I know the Koran I study tells me that “whosoever kills a person, it shall be as if he had killed all of mankind” (5:33).
I know that the religion I follow does call for jihad — which is a holy internal struggle against evil. What those cowards did is anything but jihad. Reflecting back, my sigh of relief was justified; these terrorists do not deserve to be ascribed to any religion.
