Letter: Students need support in face of misconceptions about Islam
March 23It has come to my attention that many negative and misleading things about Islam are being published in the Daily Lobo. As per my right to freedom of speech granted to me in the American Constitution, I would like to now respond to these attacks from the American Muslim point of view. First of all, I’d like to point out that lecturing people on what their religion teaches when you are not even a part of that religion is as if I went to a lawyer asking for a medical diagnosis. In Islam we have many different sects and schools of thought. In addition to the Sunni and Shi’a — the two main sects — in Sunni Islam we have four primary schools of thought, or madhebs. These schools of thought are set up to interpret Islamic jurisprudence. We also have many other different interpretations of Islam. So the idea that you can group everyone under “one” Islam is an ignorant attempt to paint all Muslims the same. Similarly, this type of language is actually utilized by terrorist groups in an attempt to make Muslims feel alienated from their societies and recruit them to join these organizations.
