Growing up, my passion was playing basketball and following the Boston Celtics. I never had any Muslim friends. In fact, I did not even know a single follower of Islam until my college years. If you had asked me “What is a Muslim?” when I was 16-years-old, I would not be able to answer you.

But everything changed when 9/11 happened.

Muslims were seen as “extremists” and Islam was an “evil” force that had to be crushed by “freedom loving people”. When it came time to choose an academic discipline in college, I chose “Islamic studies” – not because I wanted to learn about a great religion and world civilisation, but rather to work for the CIA and become a spy to nab the “bad guys”.

One of the first classes that I enrolled in at American University was “The World of Islam”. I figured this was a way for me to learn about why an event like 9/11 happened. On the first day of class, I learnt about basic Islamic principles like giving alms to charity and praying five times per day. I was told about a hadith, or saying of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), which stated:

“The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr.”

I remember one of the Muslim students in the class standing up and reciting a Quranic verse, which read:

“Taking the life of an innocent person is like killing all of mankind.”

Another Muslim student stood up and recited a Quranic verse which stated …..

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