Source: www.duluthnewstribune.com

Two Muslim brothers from Chechnya devastated the Boston Marathon on April 15, resulting in three deaths and many injuries. Apparently the brothers sought to justify this brutal act of violence by calling it a jihad in protest of American troops in Afghanistan. They were completely wrong.

Islam clearly forbids any sort of violence when it claims that “whosoever killed a person, it shall be as if he has killed the whole of humanity.”

As an American Muslim, I condemn the Boston bombings without exception. Being a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, I am glad to have the Khalifah of Islam, Mirza Masroor Ahmad, who champions separation of mosque and state. We condemn all forms of terrorism and promote an intellectual jihad of the pen.

Therefore, I invite all my fellow Americans and especially my fellow Muslims to join us in rejecting violence and condemning the Boston bombings to be barbaric and un-Islamic.

Zarar Hayee

Duluth

The writer is in the seventh grade at Ordean East Middle School.