The Day Islam and Muslims Also Became Victims: 9/11, and the Burden Placed Upon Millions Who Had Nothing to Do With It

September 11, 2001, began as an ordinary morning. People went to work. Parents took children to school. Passengers boarded airplanes. Employees entered the World Trade Center and the Pentagon expecting to return home that evening. Firefighters, police officers, office workers, restaurant employees, immigrants, executives, custodians, and visitors went about their lives. Then, within hours, thousands of innocent human beings were dead. America was wounded. Families were shattered. And the world changed.

Muslims watched those images too. They watched airplanes disappear into buildings. They watched human beings jump from unbearable heights. They watched firefighters run toward danger while everyone else was running away. They watched the towers collapse. They were horrified. They mourned. They condemned the attacks. And then something else began happening. They discovered that, although they had committed no crime, they too were being placed in the dock. The murderers had identified themselves with Islam, and gradually Islam itself was asked to answer for their murders. A Muslim living thousands of miles away, who had never heard the names of the hijackers before September 11, suddenly found himself expected to explain them. A Muslim mother who had never harmed another human being had to worry about her child being called a terrorist. A Muslim physician saving American lives, a Muslim soldier wearing an American uniform, a Muslim taxi driver working through the night, a Muslim professor teaching American students, and a Muslim shopkeeper paying American taxes suddenly encountered a question they had never imagined they would have to answer:

Are you with America—or are you with your religion?

For millions of Muslims, the question itself was painful. Because they had never understood the two to be enemies. Establishing Responsibility Without Condemning a Religion: Historical accuracy matters. There is substantial evidence that the September 11 attacks were organized by al-Qaeda under Osama bin Laden and carried out by nineteen hijackers. The 9/11 Commission reconstructed the planning, financing, travel, and preparation of the operation. There remain aspects of September 11 that have generated public controversy, suspicion, and alternative explanations. Questions concerning recovered identification documents, intelligence failures, and the collapse of World Trade Center 7 continue to circulate. But those controversies should not become the foundation of the Muslim case against collective blame. Muslims do not need to prove that al-Qaeda was innocent in order to prove that Islam was innocent. That distinction is crucial. Even if every factual conclusion about the hijackers contained in the official investigation is accepted, another question remains:

By what principle can the crimes of nineteen men become the responsibility of an entire religion?

Christianity is not placed on trial whenever a Christian commits murder. Judaism is not placed on trial whenever a Jew commits violence. Hinduism is not collectively indicted whenever a Hindu extremist kills. Buddhism is not abolished morally because a Buddhist participates in persecution. Atheists collectively are not blamed for crimes committed by atheists. Individual human beings and organizations bear responsibility for their actions. Why should nearly two billion Muslims inherit the guilt of nineteen men?

Where Does the Qur'an Command the Murder of Innocent People?

This is the question that should have been asked much more frequently after September 11: Where does Islam command Muslims to murder innocent civilians? The Qur'an says: “Whoever kills a soul—unless for a soul or for corruption in the land—it is as if he had slain mankind entirely; and whoever saves one—it is as if he had saved mankind entirely.” Qur'an 5:32 The Qur'an declares: “Do not kill the soul which Allah has made sacred, except by right.” Qur'an 17:33 Even when discussing warfare, the Qur'an establishes a limitation: “Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress. Indeed, Allah does not love transgressors.” Qur'an 2:190. And regarding people who do not fight Muslims because of their religion: “Allah does not forbid you from being kind and just toward those who have neither fought you because of religion nor driven you from your homes. Indeed, Allah loves those who act justly.” Qur'an 60:8. 

These verses do not describe a religion commanding indiscriminate slaughter. They establish the sanctity of life, limitations upon warfare, prohibition of transgression, and justice and kindness toward those who live peacefully with Muslims. Extremists have interpreted Islamic texts differently, often extracting passages concerning historical warfare from their context and constructing ideological justifications for violence. But an extremist's interpretation of a religion does not automatically become the religion itself.

What Was America's Crime Against Those Hijackers?

There is another moral question worth asking. What Islamic principle authorized the murder of ordinary passengers sitting aboard civilian aircraft? What had the secretaries working inside the World Trade Center done to them? What had the restaurant workers done? What had the firefighters done? What had the janitors done? What had the tourists done? What had the Muslims working inside the World Trade Center done? Nothing. Whatever grievances al-Qaeda claimed against American foreign policy, ordinary civilians were not legitimate objects of vengeance. Islamic moral reasoning does not permit an individual to murder an innocent person because he objects to the policies of that person's government. If it did, no civilian anywhere on earth would ever be safe.

America Gave Muslims Something Precious

There is another dimension of the story that deserves greater attention. For millions of Muslims, America was not a country that prohibited their religion. It was a country in which they could practice it. They could build mosques. They could call themselves Muslims publicly. They could print Qur'ans. They could establish Islamic schools. They could create charities. They could organize associations. They could criticize the government. They could challenge discrimination in court. They could vote. They could run for public office. They could raise their children as Muslims.

The First Amendment did not tell Muslims that religious freedom belonged only to Christians. It protected their mosques too. For Muslims who had immigrated from countries where governments sometimes interfered extensively in religious and political life, these freedoms could be particularly meaningful. Why, then, should loyalty to Islam require hostility toward a constitutional system protecting a Muslim's right to worship? It does not.

The Muslim American Does Not Borrow His Citizenship

A Muslim American does not live in America as someone's temporary guest merely because he is Muslim. If he is an American citizen, America is his country. Its Constitution is his Constitution. Its streets are his streets. Its schools educate his children. Its hospitals treat his family. Its elections determine his government. Its soldiers include his sons and daughters. Its successes belong to him. Its failures concern him. And when America is attacked, his country has been attacked too. A Christian American can love America without being asked whether Christianity prevents his patriotism. A Jewish American can love America without Judaism being considered incompatible with citizenship. An atheist can love America without belief in God. A Muslim deserves precisely the same presumption. He does not have to surrender Prophet Muhammad to love America. He does not have to abandon the Qur'an to respect the Constitution. He does not have to choose between praying toward Mecca and standing beside his fellow Americans when their country suffers.

Muslims Were Among the Victims of September 11

There is an especially painful fact often lost in the rhetoric surrounding 9/11. Muslims died on September 11. Muslims worked in the World Trade Center. Muslims were passengers. Muslims had families who waited desperately for telephone calls that never came. Muslim first responders and public servants participated in America's response. The terrorists did not stop before killing someone and ask: “Are you Muslim?” Their indiscriminate violence killed human beings. Yet afterward, people belonging to the same religion as some of those victims were sometimes treated as though they shared responsibility for the attack. The irony is devastating. Some Muslims were victims of the terrorists—and then Muslims became suspects because of the terrorists.

The Muslim Who Only Heard About It

Consider the ordinary Muslim thousands of miles away. Perhaps he was a farmer in India. Perhaps a teacher in Indonesia. Perhaps a shopkeeper in Nigeria. Perhaps a mother in Egypt. Perhaps a student in Pakistan. Perhaps a physician in Chicago. Perhaps a taxi driver in New York. On September 10, 2001, he knew nothing about what nineteen men were preparing to do. On September 11, he learned about it on television, exactly as billions of other people did. He had not selected the targets. He had not purchased the tickets. He had not trained the hijackers. He had not financed the operation. He had not approved it. He had not been consulted. He had not even heard about it. He watched it happen. He condemned it.

And nevertheless, something about his identity changed in the eyes of others. His beard could become suspicious. Her hijab could become suspicious. His mosque could become suspicious. His Arabic name could become suspicious. His prayer could become suspicious. Sometimes his silence was treated as suspicious. Sometimes even his condemnation was considered insufficient. Imagine the helplessness of being required continually to prove that you did not approve of a crime you never contemplated committing. That became part of the post-9/11 experience for many Muslims.

The Double Wound

For Muslim Americans especially, September 11 could therefore carry two wounds. The first was shared with every American: Our people were murdered. The second was painfully particular: Now some of our fellow citizens suspect us because the murderers claimed our religion. They mourned America while fearing what America might begin to think of them. They wanted to stand beside their neighbors, but sometimes discovered that their neighbors were afraid of them. They condemned terrorism, yet repeatedly encountered demands to condemn it again. They explained that Islam prohibited murder, only to be told what their religion “really” taught by people who had never opened the Qur'an. The psychological burden of collective suspicion is difficult to measure. How many Muslim children grew up hearing their religion associated with terrorism? How many wondered why classmates repeated the words “9/11” when they learned that they were Muslim? How many parents told their children to be careful about discussing religion publicly? How many ordinary families discovered that a crime committed by strangers had somehow become attached to their identities?

Condemnation Was Widespread

The claim that Muslims simply remained silent after September 11 is historically false. Muslim organizations, scholars, and governments across the world condemned the attacks. American Muslim organizations condemned them immediately. Muslim leaders described the killing of innocent civilians as contrary to Islam. There were, of course, extremists who celebrated or justified the attacks. Their existence should not be denied. But neither should they be allowed to represent hundreds of millions of people who rejected their worldview. No religious community should be defined by its worst members. If humanity adopts that standard, every religious and ideological tradition will eventually stand condemned.

Muslims Must Also Confront Extremism

Rejecting collective guilt does not mean Muslims should refuse introspection. Muslims have a responsibility to challenge those who manipulate Islamic language to justify terrorism, sectarian murder, persecution, or hatred. When extremists misuse Qur'anic verses, Muslim scholars should answer them. When political grievances are transformed into religious permission to murder civilians, Muslims should reject that reasoning unequivocally. When young Muslims are drawn toward violent ideologies, Muslim families, mosques, scholars, and institutions have a responsibility to intervene. Defending Islam does not require pretending that Muslim extremism does not exist. It requires insisting upon the distinction between Islam and extremism committed in its name. That distinction is intellectually honest and morally necessary.

Patriotism Does Not Have a Religious Test

America's greatest answer to terrorism should never be suspicion of an entire religious community. It should be fidelity to the principles terrorists cannot tolerate. Religious freedom. Equal citizenship. Due process. Freedom of speech. Freedom of conscience. The rule of law. The Constitution. If Muslims are required to prove a greater degree of loyalty than Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, or atheists merely because they are Muslims, then equality has been weakened. The Constitution does not say: “We the Christian people.” It begins: “We the People.” Muslims are part of that “we.”

Twenty-Five Years Later

A quarter-century after September 11, America should be capable of holding two truths simultaneously. The first is that 9/11 was an act of terrorism committed by al-Qaeda extremists who claimed Islamic justification for their actions. The second is that their claim did not make Islam responsible for their crime, nor did it make ordinary Muslims collectively guilty. There is no contradiction between those truths. Indeed, accepting both is necessary if history is to be remembered accurately. The victims of September 11 deserve truth. Muslims deserve truth too. And truth requires us to distinguish between perpetrators and populations, between ideology and faith, between criminals and communities.

Do Not Give the Terrorists Ownership of Islam

Perhaps one of the greatest unintended victories that could ever be handed to extremists is allowing them to define Islam for everyone else. Osama bin Laden wanted the world to believe that Muslims and the West were engaged in an unavoidable civilizational war. Why should Muslims or Americans accept his premise? Why allow nineteen hijackers to determine the relationship between hundreds of millions of Muslims and America? Why permit terrorists to become interpreters of a religion practiced across continents for fourteen centuries? They did not own Islam. They did not speak for every Muslim. And they had no authority to turn ordinary Americans into legitimate targets.

We Mourned With You

Perhaps the Muslim response to twenty-five years of suspicion can finally be expressed in simple human language: We did not attack you. We saw the airplanes when you saw them. We saw the towers burning when you saw them. We watched people falling. We watched firefighters disappearing into smoke. We watched families searching for loved ones. We were horrified. We mourned. Some of the dead were ours too. We did not know those nineteen men. We did not choose them. We did not authorize them. We did not send them. And their crimes should never have become our inheritance.

Do not ask a Muslim child born years after September 11 to carry the guilt of men he never knew. Do not look at a Muslim woman walking toward a mosque and imagine an airplane flying toward a tower. Do not transform a Qur'an sitting peacefully in an American home into evidence against the family reading it. Judge Muslims as America promises to judge everyone else: by what they themselves believe, say, and do. When a Muslim commits a crime, prosecute him. When a Muslim advocates violence, confront him. When a Muslim violates the law, hold him accountable. But when a Muslim teaches children, heals patients, builds businesses, pays taxes, serves in uniform, feeds the hungry, votes, raises a family, and prays peacefully—allow him to be what he already is: a fellow human being and, when he is a citizen, a fellow American.

September 11 belongs forever to the memory of those who died. It should not belong forever to the suspicion of those who did not. America can remember its dead without condemning Islam. Muslims can confront extremism without accepting collective guilt. And Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists and every other American can stand beneath the same Constitution without asking one another to surrender their deepest convictions as the price of belonging. That would not diminish the memory of September 11. It would honor what America itself claims to defend. The terrorists attacked America on September 11, 2001. They should not be permitted, twenty-five years later, to continue dividing Americans from their Muslim neighbors.  

AA