On Sept. 11, terrorists committed suicide in the act of killing thousands of others. Redha Mohammad explained Thursday night that this is a sin.
“They killed innocent people and said they did it in the name of Islam,” Mohammad said. “This is a major violation of Islamic law.”
Mohammad was one of three speakers at a Muslim Student Association panel discussion, held in an effort to educate about Islam and erase the misconceptions about the religion that have arisen since Sept. 11.
Students Lidia Karmadjieva and Alina Tureeva also spoke to an audience of more than 60 people about human rights, jihad and the Taliban in respect to the Islamic religion. The overall message of the event was that Islam does not support violations of human rights, suicide or the killing of innocent people, despite what terrorists or Taliban leaders may claim.
MSA member Nadia Hasan opened the program by explaining the basics of Islam. She said the literal meaning of Islam is “surrender to the will of God.” She added that Islamic religion is practiced in many countries outside the Middle East.
Karmadjieva, a student from Bulgaria, said the faith of Islam is not discriminatory and welcomes different people and different perspectives. She said Islamic beliefs include tolerance of other faiths, and Muslims encourage people to explore those faiths.
“Education in the Islamic world is highly encouraged,” she said. “‘Educate yourselves, and enlighten the world.’ This is what Islam is about and what I’m about.”
Karmadjieva said Islam encourages women to be educated, and Muslims don’t see women as inferior. She said in Muslim society, women can use their education however they want. It’s important for women to be educated, she said, because otherwise they can’t raise educated children.
“Illiterate mothers raise illiterate children — who grow up to be suicide bombers,” she said.
She added that she sees the United States as a big part of the prophecy of Islam because of America’s principles of freedom and respect of different communities. She said the only way to fight terrorists is to fight with the principles on which the country was founded, not with bombs.
“Don’t battle darkness with darkness, fight darkness with light,” Karmadjieva said.
Tureeva, who is from Uzbekistan, said it is important to understand that a lot of the citizens in Afghanistan are illiterate. She said their inability to read the Quran, Islam’s holy text, makes it hard for them to understand what the religion is about.
Mohammad, who is from Kuwait, agreed, saying the Taliban preys on citizens’ illiteracy, distributing inaccurate information about the religion to justify the leaders’ actions.
“They can’t read the Quran, so they have no way to know if what (the Taliban) are telling them is true,” he said. “And people believe them.”