It has now been eight years since the World Trade Centre attacks completely reshaped the world that we are living in today. I remember it as if it was yesterday, and although I was thousands of miles away, I was very much at home with the people of New York watching the news screens with disbelief. Then a few years later, it was a lot closer to home when London was attacked on the very Tube lines I travel on every day. Sept 11th was a turning point for many, and for me. It wasn’t only the flights that were hijacked; my faith, my religion and everything I believed in was also hijacked. How is it that these monsters have taken a religion with such beautiful values and transformed it into this hub of evil?
I marked the eighth anniversary of the attacks by remembering the lives that have been lost and reaffirming why I became a Faiths Act Fellow. I work with people of other faiths because I have something to learn from them; we have mutual understanding and we take our shared values towards positive social justice. I do this because I’m taking Islam back from terrorism and back from extremism. This is my faith and it is a beautiful faith, and it has no room for these misguided ideologies.
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