Perspective: 'After the New Zealand shootings, I buried Muslim victims. Islamophobia kills in other ways, too.'
Texas Imam Omar Suleiman hugs the father of Mucaad, the youngest victim of the March 15 mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand. By Omar Suleiman March 27 at 6:00 AM The imam at Christchurch began the second half of his sermon with these simple words: “Islamophobia kills.”
When we hugged Mucaad’s dad, Aden, he told us that he hoped the world would not see the hatred of Islamophobia but the love of Islam through this tragedy. He refused to accept the idea that his 3-year-old son was killed for no reason. While the tributes poured in about the contributions and amazing lives of the adults murdered in that terrorist attack, Mucaad never had a chance to shine; his tribute was abbreviated, not natural. In the eyes of the terrorist, he was disposable and despicable.
Islamophobia kills. As I returned home this past Saturday to Texas, my family picked me up. My daughter, May, age 9, told me about how her school had a lockdown drill, and that all the kids thought the shooter from New Zealand had come to get them. May has been seeing armed white supremacists protesting in front of her mosque since she was 6. My son Abdullah, 6, was only 3 like Mucaad when he first saw them protesting with signs that said, “the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim.
I see the way Islamophobia kills — in more than one cruel cut. It kills literally, with the tiny casket I stood over this weekend. It kills by spooling out its trauma, to people like the 12-year-old who nearly fell into his brother’s grave. It kills by a society that isn’t urgently addressing the hate that allows my elementary schoolchildren to have to watch armed white supremacists stand in front of their place of worship.
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