The April 15th Boston Bombings, the Term "Terrorist", and the Muslim Community

Just over 12.5 years ago, America was rattled to its core by a devastating terrorism attack that claimed the lives of hundreds of innocent people. And, today again, America was shook by the news of a bombing in Boston, Massachusetts. I don't know the details of the Boston marathon that was effected by the bombing today, but I read somewhere that the marathon is watched globally every year. So far, as a result of the bombing, 3 people are dead and over 150 people are injured; hospitals are jam-packed with patients missing limbs and suffering from shock. Family members and friends are struggling to console one another, and our nation is reconsidering its faith in humanity.

The responsible party has yet to be named, let alone caught, but authorities have released a statement confirming that the bombing was sophistically planned. The word "terrorists" comes to everyone's mind. And, it should.

Merriam-Webster defines "terrorism" as: the systematic use of terror as a means of coercion.
Merriam-Webster defines "terror" as: a state of intense fear.
And logic dictates that a person (or group of people) who want to elicit terror by the means of terrorism is (are), in fact, a terrorist(s).

The term "terrorist" can be applied far and wide. A husband who domestically abuses his wife (even if only emotionally) can be labeled a terrorist. A case of terrorism can be made for almost any situation. Employers have been known to terrorize their employees, thugs have been known to terrorize individuals in their close proximity, in-home care providers have been known to terrorize their patients. The list can go on and on. But we don't like to use the term for such small instances. We like to save the term "terrorist" for big things.

The man who killed 26 innocent individuals (18 of which were young children) in Newton, just a few months ago, didn't get labeled a "terrorist". His actions were not labeled an "act of terrorism," they were labeled a "tragedy."

Today, many news outlets are reporting the news of the Boston bombings as an "act of terrorism" (and I can't stress enough that it IS that).

In America, when you hear the words "act of terrorism," the mind automatically swerves back to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. And we all know who the terrorists were in that act of terrorism, a group of Muslims.

In the 4,233 days since the September 11th attack (this puts us at April 14th, 2013), members of the Muslim community in America have had to endure hateful taunts and threats because of their religious affiliation with the terrorist in that attack. Most of these taunts and threats have been blatantly accompanied with the use of the term "terrorist." And, today, April 15th, 2013, the Muslim community has again come under scrutiny as news outlets and figureheads across the nation speculate if today's act of terrorism was perpetrated by Muslims, as well.

Does anyone remember what happened to the Muslim community the last time Muslims were found to be the culprits of an act of terrorism? Here are just some of the things the Muslim community had to endure: mosques (houses of worship) were burned down, individuals were attacked in the streets in broad daylight, shops were vandalized, and threats were abound. And it wasn't just Muslims who had to endure this. Much of the Hindu and Sikh community was effected in the same way, merely because (in the words of the attackers) "they all look the same."

This didn't just end in a couple of months after the September 11th attack. This has been going on for years! Just Google it if you don't believe me. Islamic events are, to this day, publicly and vehemently protested against! Anti-Muslim Americans have stood outside of Muslim-held banquets, yelling "go home, terrorists" (to people who were born and raised in America); they have stood outside of mosques, blocking the entrances for Muslims coming in for prayers; they have, politically, tried (and in many cases succeeded) to restrict the building of Muslim schools. The homes and businesses of Muslims have been vandalized. Muslims are physically attacked in their homes, at their place of work, at their places of worship, and in public. Sikhs and Hindus are facing this same treatment, because they "look alike." But, in each and every one of these instances, the term "terrorist" is being thrown at the victims of these attacks.

Today, a loved-one who lives outside of the U.S. called me to ask how I was holding up after hearing the news of the bombing in Boston (even though I live 3,000 miles away from there). For most of the day, I couldn't put my finger on why he would ask me how I was doing in regards to something that happened so far away. Yes, I was deeply saddened by the news, and my thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their family. But that is because of empathy. The victims of the bombing all had someone who loved them and someone who they loved. I would be devastated if someone I love was hurt, so I can empathize with the victims and their families. Other than that, I fully expected my life to carry on as if nothing had happened; because, in reality, I had nothing to lose as a result of the bombing in Boston. I was wrong.

My day went by uneventfully affected. Until dinner time. I was out to dinner with a cousin and we were having a pleasant time. We don't look very "Muslim"; I was born and raised in the U.S., he came here at a very young age; neither of us dress in traditional Muslim garb. But about half an hour into dinner, my parents joined us. My mother wears a scarf and dresses in traditional Pakistani clothes at all times. Everything was going great for a while. Until I saw someone looking in our direction with a not-too-nice look on their face. It was quick, I was in the middle of a laugh and looked away almost without registering anything. Maybe that person's not-too-nice glare wasn't even because of us. But something did register.

It took a few minutes, but everything came flooding to the forefront of my mind. There have been times where people have outright pointed at my mother and said some hurtful things merely because she is a Muslim and wears a scarf. And, today of all days, Muslims are being brought to the platform of the discussion of who might be responsible for the Boston bombing. So, was it really so far-fetched for me to assume that the glare was directed at us precisely because my mother's presence made it obvious that we are Muslims?

Now my thoughts turn to the whole of the Muslim community in America. Should we be bracing ourselves again? If the Boston bombing is indeed the result of actions carried out by Muslims, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind or my heart that the thousands (if not millions) of innocent Muslims in America that have nothing to do with the bombing will become targets of blatant "retaliation" from some anti-Muslim Americans, again to the degrees of the days and weeks recently following the September 11th attack. And even if the Boston bombings are found to be caused by someone (or a group of people) who are not Muslims, I am worried about the reactions to the mere implication that Muslims might be behind the bombing. People filled with anger and hate rarely are deterred by logic. We've seen that these last 12.5 years.

And another question comes to mind. If the Boston bombing is found to have been perpetrated by a non-Muslim, particularly by someone of white skin, will the bombing no longer be called or remembered as an "act of terror"? After all, no one refers to the Oklahoma bombing of 1995 as a "terrorist" attack.

My thoughts and prayers go out the victims of the Boston bombings, and to their families and friends; may God help you through this difficult time. My thoughts and prayers also go out the nation as a whole; regardless of our location and relationship to this bombing, things like this have a way of rattling us and making us reconsider our faith in humanity. And my thoughts and prayers go out to my brothers and sisters in the Islamic faith; stay strong and trust in Allah to keep us safe.

Istikhara

WARNING: this post is a long one.

In my parents' culture/religion, they have this thing called an istikhara. The idea and purpose behind an istikhara is that before making a big decision (like getting married) in life, a concerned party spends an evening or two performing certain prayers and then within the next few days, the praying person expects to receive some kind of "divine" sign, often (but not limited to) in the form of a dream. However, there are conditions involved with this divine-dream sign; the greatest being that you will not see anyone or thing in definite clarity, but rather in colors, shapes, sounds, and movement. This means that the dream must be individually and personally interpreted.

Shortly after Imtiaz and I got engaged, his mother and my mother both decided that they should do an istikhara on behalf of our decision to get married. They both did this without consulting either Imtiaz or me. That, really, came as no surprise to either of us, as both sets of parents were adamantly against the idea of our engagement and impending marriage. What did surprise us was the fact that both his and my mother came away from the istikhara with similar signs: of struggle, difficulty, and anger. And, also somewhat not surprisingly, both mothers came to us with similar interpretations: if we got married, we would be unhappy together, and spend the rest of our life together resenting each other and arguing.

At the time, this worried both Imtiaz and I because we actually had been arguing for some time. Mostly about the fact there were so many parts (location, time, work and school schedules, etc.) of our relationship that weren't falling into place, and the fact that our parents were trying everything in their power to pull us away from one another wasn't helping either. We wondered if we had rushed into our engagement a little too early; it WAS an incredibly short span of time between meeting and getting engaged.

We took a few days to step back from it all and figure out if getting engaged was the right decision. It took me all of two days (the story of what took place these two days is one worth writing about, maybe I'll do it another day) to figure out that I could not, in fact, imagine a scenario of my life in which I was not spending my life with him. So, I knew that through thick and thin, I was in this for the long hall. Now, I'm not a mind reader, so I can't tell you with 100% accuracy, but if you can take a person as his or her words, then Imtiaz felt the same exact way.

Imtiaz and I have been engaged for well over a year now. We have had our ups and downs. We have had hardships and arguments. But at no point in any of it have I ever thought for even a moment that "I do not want to be with him". You can roll your eyes and mutter under your breath about how I'm still young, ignorant, blinded by love, and stupid, but the reality of the situation is that every argument that we have ever had and every hardship we have had to overcome has done nothing more than cement into my mind that my heart was right. If anything, our arguments have helped me to see that even though we have differences of opinions (considering we were both raised in different cultures) on some really big issues, we are both willing to work pretty damn hard to understand, accept, and accommodate each others' point of views. To see that even though we have come to the point (a couple of times) where two people start to consider whether it would be best if they walked away, we are both willing to take a step back from that ledge and work out the issues. And don't even get me started on the things that I have learned about myself and the capacity of love.

Sure, ever relationship comes riddled with complications and arguments, I am not denying that. And I am no future teller, so I cannot even imagine what the future holds for us (good things, I hope). But in the last year and a half, I have had been blessed to be in a loving relationship with a man who is willing to work through every hardship we have come upon so far, which gives me hope for the future. So, you can imagine that I have not given much thought to the results of the two istikharas that were done on our behalf by our mothers.

Until recently. Two days ago, I received some very bad news. And it seems that we are going to have to postpone our wedding plans even longer. We were sooo close *pinches fingers together* to setting a wedding date for late October of this year. But, alas, for what seems like the hundredth time, we have come across another hurdle.

As most of you know, Imtiaz lives more than 5,000 miles away from me, in Italy, right now. Our plan was that we would wait until he could come to the U.S. to get get married. In the past year, every time we get close to getting everything in order, something happens and we have to spend months overcoming a new hurdle so that we can set a new time frame. First, we decided we would get married without our parents' blessing. Then we decided to wait to get married until we could convince them to give us their blessings and be a part of our happiness and our lives. It took us 8 months to convince both sets of parents to meet, and my parents and I flew to the other side of the planet (almost 8,000 miles) to meet his parents, but that all blew up in our faces. Then, when we finally decided, again, to go ahead and get married without our parents' blessings, he had an issue renewing his residency permit in Italy, which delayed us by another 4 months. NOW, when he finally got that all resolved and we got all our fiance visa papers together, my lawyer informed me that the visa process has been extended from its original timeline of 6 months to a new timeline of 15 months (that's 2.5 times longer)!

I honestly don't think I can wait another year and a half to marry him! So, here we are again, trying to figure out what we should do.

And my mind keeps going back to the istikhara. Is this--our constant struggle to overcome the several hurdles in the way of us being together--what the istikhara could have really been about? Are these the difficulties, the struggles, and the anger that our mothers dreamt of? I am not saying that we are going to stop fighting and just give up. No, we are going to KEEP struggling until we get what we want: to get married and spend the rest of our lives together! But, are we going to have to struggle after that, too? If we are having to overcome so many hurdles just to be able to get married, what kind of struggles are we going to have to face after we get married?