I write this as a peace­ful and plead­ing Trin­bag­on­ian Mus­lim. In light of events since the in­fa­mous 9/11 un­til the re­cent protests and at­tacks on sev­er­al US em­bassies and all that oc­curred in be­tween, I urge my fel­low coun­try­men to avoid get­ting trapped in the web of Is­lam­o­pho­bia (de­f­i­n­i­tion: prej­u­dice against, or ha­tred or ir­ra­tional fear of, Mus­lims).

I urge them to look at the af­fairs that oc­cur lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly ob­jec­tive­ly and with com­mon sense, and not to let their start­ing point be a judge­ment of racism and ha­tred. I ad­vise them to re­search any con­tro­ver­sial is­sues con­nect­ed to Is­lam or its Prophet and to ask those with sound Is­lam­ic knowl­edge be­fore jump­ing to any neg­a­tive con­clu­sions. They should re­alise that they have noth­ing to fear from Mus­lims and that we are not a threat at all.

Many non-Mus­lims have in­cor­rect pre-con­ceived no­tions and mis­con­cep­tions as to what Is­lam is. This is per­haps be­cause they have wit­nessed Is­lam be­ing mis­rep­re­sent­ed in one way or the oth­er. Some Mus­lims, ad­mit­ted­ly, are not the best rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the true prin­ci­ples and tenets of the faith. How­ev­er, we shouldn't judge the whole by what a small por­tion does!

That is why one is en­cour­aged to read from au­then­tic Is­lam­ic sources while sup­port­ing that with learned in­di­vid­u­als who are able to ex­plain prop­er­ly what is not un­der­stood com­plete­ly such as a qual­i­fied Imam or schol­ar. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, I have seen many Trin­bag­o­ni­ans in­ter­pret the Qur'an false­ly and wrong­ly by tak­ing se­lect­ed vers­es out of con­text; I know my coun­try­men are smarter, more ed­u­cat­ed and def­i­nite­ly more just than that. This ig­no­rance is un­be­com­ing of any 'Tri­ni'.

We shouldn't for­get that al­though Mus­lims make up a rel­a­tive­ly small per­cent­age, Mus­lims have con­tributed much to the de­vel­op­ment of our coun­try like oth­er re­li­gions. One of the great achieve­ments of our re­pub­lic is that we have co-ex­ist­ed in rel­a­tive har­mo­ny. Let us not be spooked by for­eign or lo­cal 'Is­lam­o­phobes' in­to back­ward think­ing and in­tol­er­ance. Every creed and race ought to find an equal place.

Abu Safi­ur-Rah­man

El So­cor­ro