MUSLIMS RESPOND TO Tragedy in Boston

Last Thursday, in a powerful, uplifting speech at an interfaith service at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, President Obama said he went to join people to “pray and mourn and measure our loss. We also come today to reaffirm that the spirit of this city is undaunted and the spirit of this country shall remain undimmed. I’m here today on behalf of the American people with a simple message: Every one of us has been touched by this attack on your beloved city. Every one of us stands with you,” he said.

At the conclusion of the President’s speech, the 2,000 people in the crowd leapt to their feet, some with tears streaking down their cheeks, to deliver a standing ovation. The crowd then joined in singing “America the Beautiful.”

The interfaith service at the cathedral was in keeping with a religious response to the terror attack at which three people died and more than 170 were injured when two blasts were detonated near the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon.

Religious clerics have been responding because of the grief and the terrorists’ claim to be Muslims. However, unlike some previous attacks in which the perpetrators claimed to be Muslims, the reaction of Muslim clerics this time was different.

In reference to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the terrorist who died in a shoot out with the police, one Boston Muslim cleric said he would refuse to perform funeral rites for a man accused of committing so much violence. Yusufi Vali, executive director of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, the largest mosque in the Boston area, also refused to identify with the two killers.

The two Tsarnaev brothers, accused of the Boston bombings, occasionally attended prayer services at the Islamic Society of Boston Cambridge Masjid, a small mosque near Tamerlan’s home. In a statement from the masjid, Muslim leaders claim “the brothers never exhibited any violent sentiments or behavior in their visits to the mosque.”

In a recent interview, the Council on American Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) Executive Director in Florida, Hassan Shibly said, “domestically, it appears that many of those who engage in plotting acts of terror are ignorant, troubled, and mentally unstable individuals. Some have used disagreement with US foreign policy as justification for their disgusting acts, but the fact remains that such acts are unjustifiable and are due to the individual needing serious mental health counseling more than anything else. No mentally healthy individual can accept the intentional attack against innocent civilians, especially not in the name of any divine faith.”

I congratulate American Muslim leaders on this move to condemn the Boston attack. I now challenge them to go one step further and condemn the Egyptian cleric who said the attack in Boston “was definitively a jihad by mujahedeen.” As a matter of fact, the dust had not even settled on the ground at the site of the devastating explosions at the Boston Marathon finish line before Islamists started celebrating that so many people in America had been killed and injured. There were reports from Jordan and Gaza that people explicitly allied with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad joined with ordinary citizens to dance in the streets, cheer, and pass out candy.

Such celebrations are unacceptable in today’s America - and so are the organizations that participate in the celebrations. American Muslim clerics need to challenge and discontinue supporting terrorist organizations. To challenge violence in any religion is not hate speech. 

Sinem Tezyapar, a Muslim commentator got it right when she said, “history has witnessed many sick people leading others to commit atrocities, but there is one thing for certain; whatever the perpetrator or perpetrators might profess as a religion, they are not believers. If someone is capable of killing innocent people without so much as blinking an eye, then they are murderers with no fear of God. That is indisputable.”  

That perspective deserves our support as Christians. In his first letter to Timothy, the apostle Paul urged Christians to pray for persons in authority, “that we may live peaceful and quiet lives...” (1 Timothy 2:2). Hundreds of years earlier, while in exile, Jeremiah encouraged the Jews to “seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (Jeremiah 29:7). 

Today we are seeking peace in a hostile world. In pursuing that peace we must encourage others who are also seeking peace and condemn every attempt to challenge civility and tranquility.