Written for The Muslims Times: by Abdul Alim: Our hearts are full of sadness on account of what has happened in Boston yesterday. Humanity is being killed in different parts of the world for different reasons under different pretexts. Some of these have to do with nationalism and national security, some with just personal enmities and some in the name of Faith. We have already seen people jumping to conclusions on who is behind the current bombing in Boston. Twitter has been aflame with fingers being pointed to Muslims and by proxy to Islam. While all reasons for killing humans have to be condemned the Qur’an uses a powerful analogy of stating that killing just one human is the killing of whole humanity (see below).

Al-Ma’idah Chapter 5 : Verse 33: On account of this, We prescribed for the children of Israel that whosoever killed a person — unless it be for killing a person or for creating disorder in the land — it shall be as if he had killed all mankind; and whoso gave life to one, it shall be as if he had given life to all mankind. And Our Messengers came to them with clear Signs, yet even after that, many of them commit excesses in the land.

Among reasons for which people kill, nationalism, personal enmity and faith, perhaps the worst is when faith is used as a reason to justify killing. It is because, it defiles the most pure and the most beautiful and subtle of human emotion which is the belief, want and desire to believe in the existence of perfection. Perfection named differently in different religions and Faiths- in that One Ever living being that has created us in Love. A dastardly act like this, when linked to the faith of its perpetrator ends up ultimately to lead people to think that faith is to be blamed and indirectly it is that One Perfect Love that does not exist or is irrational enough to have allowed something like this to happen.

Let us just be clear, a killer is ultimately someone whose thinking is distorted enough to use any reason to kill. He or She may come from any background. If they grow up in a family that is inclined towards religion or Faith they will find a (ir) rational argument to do what they want to do and will find even a line from a scripture to defend their logic. In its internal logic it is no different from an ultra-nationalist finding a reason to kill others because that’s the logic that suits their behaviour.

In this environment when the world is under one of the worst crises of morality, faith and finances, this sort of barbaric act and its justification on the basis of Faith is a deeply saddening event. Instead of recognizing the need to return to God and that deep Love ingrained by Him in us to be one large human family, we get divided into groups of people who react even more irrationally to hurt others and stereotyping US vs. Them. The result of this is a win for hate and divisions among us leading to even more restlessness and deepening of the spiritual crises that we face today globally. Atheists can find even more reasons to paint the irrationality of faith. It is therefore critical that we not jump to conclusions and even when these conclusions point to some people, we do not condemn a whole Faith to being an object of hate. We share the pain of our fellow human beings who have lost their lives and those who are still in hospitals and suffering. We bow our head in prayers for God to heal them and we hope that those who have done it will be swiftly brought to justice.