“You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
- Mathew 7:16-19

And so, it happens again.

Bomb scares.  Police arrests.  Travel restrictions.  Round-the-clock news coverage.  Islamophobic editorializing.

Once more, our fellow Muslims are alleged to have planned grave acts of terror.  In particular, I am referring to the news of last August that some British Pakistanis planned to down many airliners over the Atlantic, hence killing thousands of innocent people.

For myself, this latest episode strikes particularly close to home. I too am a British Pakistani. I too was raised in some of the very same towns, as these Muslims.

And between the moments of sadness, hurt and shame, I can’t help but find within me an overwhelming sense of frustration.

I am tired, not just of the terrorism which so often rears its ugly head amongst us, but also of the way our community so often brushes under the carpet, the real problems we face within.

I noticed this after 9/11, 7/7 and again 8/10.

Our standard response seems to consist only of offering the same tired old excuses which ring increasingly hollow:

We say; “But they are a tiny minority. You can’t judge all Muslims by the actions of a few.”

We have already seen how a ‘tiny minority’ from our one billion Muslims, were able to kill thousands on 9/11. If God forbid, one day a whole city is wiped out by one Muslim with a dirty bomb, will families of the dead and injured be comforted by such reasoning?

When so much damage can be inflicted by so few, this response offers little defense.

We say, “But we Muslims are oppressed and our lands have been occupied”.

Some might think of ourselves as victims, and hence these terrorists as some heroic band of freedom fighters. But such a sentiment does not stand up to rational reasoning.

Under what oppression, were these British Pakistanis burdened? They grew in the same places with the same opportunities that I had; opportunities that we never could have dreamed of having, in the land of our forefathers.

Together with the British Pakistanis who perpetrated the 7/7 attacks and the Muslims who carried out 9/11, exactly what alleviation of suffering did they bring to the world?
In the global cycle of violence which they fueled, the only liberation they brought was a liberation from living, for many innocent people around the world.

We say; “But Islam is a religion of peace. What these terrorists do, has nothing to do with Islam”.

Whatever we claim Islam to be, is neither here nor there.

The waters of history have been muddied enough that many Christians now firmly believe Islam to be a war-like religion of conquest. Rightly or wrongly, even the open-armed and politically correct Christians of Europe are finding themselves evermore fearful of Muslims and Islam.

These latest events, have only served to reinforce that view.

Our fellow Christians believe, ‘By their fruits ye shall know them’. So, what fruits have we Muslims been known to bear recently? We can each explain how Islam contributed so much to civilization in its Golden Age. These gifts to the world, can surely be considered amongst the most valuable of ‘fruit’.

But that was then. And this, is now.

Today those that seem to wave the flag of Islam the most, and shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ the loudest, are so often those who do so whilst advocating the slaughter of innocents.

Osama Bin Laden. Ayman al-Zawahiri. Hizb ut-Tahrir. Al-Muhajiroun.

Not long ago, I returned to the town of my birth, Walthamstow. This town has the longest street market in Europe. Whilst shopping in that market one day, I noticed a new stall which I had never seen before.

It was a stall for Al-Muhajiroun.

They had a black table. Surrounded by Muslims wearing black. With a black banner. Handing out black leaflets. Their objective, they claimed, was to one day see, ‘the black flag of Islam flying over Downing Street’.

I wonder then, if it is any coincidence that so many of these latest terrorists, came from Walthamstow. It is with no surprise, that this sinister group is now banned by the UK government, under it’s new name (1).

What pains me is not that this group was allowed to peddle it’s hateful views, but rather that we Muslims all seemed to ignored it. We all saw it as someone else’s problem. I do not recall seeing a single Muslim confronting their rhetoric.

It is meaningless then, to waffle about what ‘true Islam’ is, when we so casually allow groups like these to redefine Islam for the rest of the world, in our name.

So, whilst we as individuals may each be innocent of any wrongdoing, as a community we are all guilty of casually allowing such hateful ideologies to flourish in our midst.

And once again, instead of asking ourselves why our community is producing such evil, we instead throw out the same tired excuses and point our fingers at everyone, except ourselves.

It took hours for us, not to condemn this planned act of terror, but instead to ask the Police to be ‘sensitive’ in their investigations and then to complain that Muslims will now suffer ‘discrimination’.

I suspect that there is far more discrimination, in blowing up an innocent person 38,000 feet over the Atlantic.

Terrorism is not a uniquely Muslim problem. As a child, I lived through many years of terrorist bombings perpetrated by Irish Catholics. In the history of mankind, we are not the first to face terrorism from within. However, I struggle to find any examples of communities which refused to ultimately search within themselves for the root causes of the terror they had borne, in order to stamp it out.

We all have our own political views. I am against the ‘war on terror’. I am against what is now happening in Iraq, Israel and Lebanon. It is okay to have disparate viewpoints with which the majority may disagree. Such is the nature of modern discourse in civilized society.

But, it is not okay to allow those views to translate into the murder of innocent people. It is not okay to wreak death and destruction on those who have done us no harm. It is not okay to deliberately leave this world with more grief and misery, than when you found it.

Perhaps some will respond to this article, by attacking me personally. But, if Islam is truly a religion of peace, I hope that we can still cease pointing fingers at others and instead look deep with in ourselves, to understand why we sometimes bear such bitter fruit.

Because we of all people desperately need to find that peace and grasp it tightly.

We would not be the first to confront the undesirable attributes by which we’ve come to be known. We would not be the last. Such questioning is often difficult and painful, but it will yield answers vital to the peace and happiness of our future generations.

Ultimately, we should face these questions with hope and determination.

Because, it is still possible to one day be known by the precious fruit of our next Golden Age.

“The Believers, men and women, are protectors one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil […]”
- The Quran 9:71

(1) Al-Muhajiroun claims to have disbanded, but has rather simply changed names to the Saviour Sect in Islam or al-Firqat un-Naajiyah.