There is a knot inside each of us now that seems to get bigger and more twisted with each murder. That knot is fed by anger, disappointment and fear. A man who lives in Riyadh told me that he had stopped reading the newspapers. “I am depressed, I cannot feel safe any more because of the crazy people in the streets of Riyadh.” All I could say was that I understood his feelings since everyone of us living in the Kingdom spends every day in fearful anticipation of what may happen next.
A few days ago after hearing of the murder of an innocent man in Al-Malaz district in Riyadh, I could not help myself from shuddering, “It is getting closer now,”I told myself. Not that I did not realize the menace before. But those murderers are now tainting my memories of Riyadh. As a child, I lived in Al-Malaz and when I heard about the shooting, suddenly a picture of our old house and the peaceful neighborhood jumped into my mind. That was a peaceful time and people were much more relaxed; women went out without being harassed on the street, and as simple as life was, it nonetheless has a flavor that lingers on.
Now I find that I am being deprived of my memories by deluded young men, self-righteous judges of others who think the world begins and ends with their ideas and beliefs. Instead of losing myself in useless laments, I asked myself a question: How have we reached this point? All I could answer was that we did not say “No” strongly enough to the self-righteous zealots when they first invaded our lives. They used to tell us we were wrong with our ideas and we listened to them, sometimes in resentment but always in silence.
A recent opinion piece by Prince Khaled Al-Faisal in Al-Watan pointed out that in the past 20 years, we have been bombarded with all kinds of writings, lectures and sermons — each claiming to know the absolute truth and each denouncing everyone else’s views and opinions as heretical. In what these people said was often some genuinely good Islamic teaching but because of shrill words and condemnations, what was good failed to get our attention. We gave our ears to everyone who said the word “Islam” without even questioning what kind of thought he carries around and expounds. Moderate clerics were scarcely heard, maybe because of a tendency among many of us to embrace the toughest teachings. I wonder if this was due to self-hatred or a strong desire to purify ourselves by pushing leniency and tolerance out of the way.
I cannot forget a relative who was shocked when his six-year-old son came home from school and said to him, “My teacher says that you are an infidel because you do not pray in the mosque every day.” My relative was shocked that a teacher should poison a young child’s mind in such a way — to take advantage of his position and the trust given to him by the young. But then we have all heard stories like these, and most of time, we did nothing. That, I think, was our mistake. The time has come now when we must move out of our passive state and begin thinking about what we want our children to learn. We have to trust our own minds and thoughts and stop taking ready-made advice without reflecting on who is giving it and why. In the end, God has given us minds because He wants us to use them. How many verses in the Holy Qur’an tell us to use our minds and reflect on God’s universe? Why do many of us seem to ignore those verses?
As far as these terrorists are concerned, anyone who is different from them has automatically committed a crime. To be a non-Muslim is an even greater crime. And of course, none of us, even Muslims, are good enough to suit them.
Killing the innocent, which is forbidden by every religion, is easy for them since they always have their own twisted ideas and incorrect interpretations to justify whatever they do. The Islam I believe in, on the other hand, is a religion of peace, love, tolerance and doing good as often as possible. This is also the Islam of the majority of Muslims. We believe the Prophet’s words that good will remain on earth till the end of time and we do not forget his advice to plant a seed even if doomsday is fast approaching.
Those misguided individuals might be able to pull some of my memories to pieces and they might be able to kill innocent people. What they will not do, however, is make us live our lives in fear or take the love of God and all our fellow human beings away from us.
