A great Reddit thread for Muslims to express how they felt after learning about Paris

[FLPanhandle]

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3sqh0u/serious_actively_practicing_muslims_what_goes/

It's over 8000 comments, and, frankly, it made me feel for muslims in western countries. For those without the extra time a sampling of common posts...



Arab Muslim in Saudi Arabia. People are just waking up to the news (it's the weekend). I read a few headlines last night before bed, but could not imagine it would reach the scale that it did (this was before the hostage situation came to light). I remember my thoughts in order were:
"Please don't let it be Muslims"
"Who am I kidding? It's probably Muslims."
"Fuck. I should be thinking about the victims..."
"Please don't let it be Muslims."
On another note, I honestly feel guilty for caring so much. Just the night before, 43 people were killed and 200+ injured by two explosions in Beirut, Lebanon (long called "the Paris of the Middle East" amusingly enough) and I shrugged it off as "business as usual". I feel guilty now for being so insensitive, and ashamed that it took the media coverage in Paris to get me to even sympathize with the victims in Beirut. I feel like at this point, if I talked about Paris it would be hypocritical, and if I talked about Beirut it would be too forced. I just feel like staying silent.



Generally it goes something along the lines of "Oh no another terrorist attack? PLEASE DON'T BE MUSLIMS PLEASE DON'T BE MUSLIMS PLEASE DON'T BE MUSLIMS PLEASE DON'T BE MU- GOD FUCKING DAMNIT". I know this is a joking sort of comment in a serious thread but to be perfectly honest, I think that goes through most of our heads. It seriously sucks because for a lot of us Muslims in the western world, we have the same fears that all the Europeans and Americans have (fear for our lives and for our loved ones) and at the same time we fear for our safety and how we will be affected by the terrorist attacks.



As an American and a Muslim, with a family that's all Muslims and friends that are mostly Muslim, I speak for all of them when I say: Fuck these fuckers and I hope they rot in Hell. What are you trying to achieve? You're just fucking up the lives of all those Muslims who abhor your corrupted beliefs. And to what end? You wanted the west out of the Middle East, and now we're just going to come in stronger. You did 9/11 and now all your Al Queada heads are dead and the situation in your countries are considerably worse. What have you achieved except bring more suffering onto the Muslims just trying to peaceably live their lives in Iraq, Afghanistan, And Syria?


I hope and pray with all the power in my soul that they're not muslims. But then they're always fucking muslims. And the next day at school/work/whatever it is that I'm doing at that specific day is filled with insults and slurs and faces that look like they just smelled the most disgusting thing on the face of the earth. If only they knew, if only they knew that I was every bit as much (or possibly more) disgusted than they were with the terror attacks. Following the 9/11 attacks, everytime I'd open my backpack in school, everyone would be looking at my hands unzipping it with beads of sweat on their forehead. They'd think I have a bomb in there. This lead me to a deep depression when I was around 15 years old because the slurs and comments just wouldn't stop. I'm just rambling now, but what I wanted to say basically is that I'm always disgusted by terror attacks when I see them on the news and get attacked for being muslim verbally throughout the next couple of weeks.


Honestly, I feel anger towards my own people. I grew up in the middle east, at a young age I was exposed to the Bullshit ideologies that exist within middle eastern society.

People out there don't care enough to get up and do something about their withering homes, their lack of funded education, the rise in crime etc. Instead they blame these things on the west, and more specifically Israel.

The guy that chose not to go to college when he had the chance to do so suddenly finds him in the shitty part of town, with 7 kids and drives a cab all day. But when asked why he doesn't do anything he'll puff up his chest, square his shoulders and confidently say something along the lines of "it's America and Israel that fucked us, we Arabs are proud and our time will come".
The thing that I was exposed to as a child wasn't religious extremism, it was social elitism. As an Arab myself I can tell you that a huge majority of Arabs living in the middle east sincerely believe that if you're not one of them then you're a level below them. I absolutely hate it when apologist Muslims come out of the woods every time a tragic event like this occurs and say "but not all muslims".

If you live in the middle east and deny what I just said you're only lying to yourself. It's a majority of people who have this stupid point of view, and it's easy to warp their reality into picking up a gun and shooting innocents, or convincing them into suicide bombing themselves in a crowd or bus. When you have a bunch of people who honestly believe they're better than everyone else, you can make them do whatever the hell you want. Why else would people go willingly join terror organizations?

I mean for fucks sake, we don't even like eachother. Jordanians, Lebanese, saudis, Iraqis etc etc all hate eachother. And within our own countries we hate eachother and do nothing but show off our blood lines. "I'm from this family, I have more right than you" type mentality actually exists in this day and age.

I honestly don't blame anyone for thinking negatively of muslims, a lot of people I've met in the state I currently live in have never met a muslim, I can't blame them for thinking that we're all violent idiots.

I'm sorry for ranting, I'm on my phone so the formatting might be terrible. It just makes my blood boil every time I hear about tragic events like this being caused in the name of religion.






How does ANYONE feel knowing that so many people are being killed mercilessly? Horrible, disgusted, sad.
But as Muslims, it goes beyond that. We don't get to feel horrible about people dying because we're treated like the enemy/murderers who caused all this in the first place. So if we show condolences, we dont get taken seriously and get hated on for 'lying'. Basically these incidences dehumanize the average Muslims.
Also, anxiety. Many Muslims won't be leaving their houses today (and the next few weeks) if they can help it. Muslim women are especially at risk if they're wearing hijab. Generally its the Muslim women that get attacked/harassed, even months after the incident took place.



Sadness for the families who lost loved ones. Anger over the state of Muslims all over the world. Fear that the acts of murderous villians will be attributed me and my faith. Do not misunderstand, evil Muslims are out there as we have seen time and time again. But I am not one of them and they are not me. Chances are, if you are reading this, I am probably like you. A normal human being who abhors senseless violence and wants to live a peaceful life that counted for something. The world is a fucking mess right now. Its all so fucking overwhellming I dont know what more to do. All i can do at this point is enjoin in what is good and forbid what is evil and try to become a better person.



I am a Muslim and I fucking blame Muslims for this. Not because Muslims are terrorists, but because we know exactly where this kind of mentality comes from (Saudi Arabian religious education and religious groups) yet we stay silent about it. We fucking deserve to be hated because we are partners in crime for staying silent.





First, I felt anger; anger at the idiot Muslims who claim to be doing this for Islam, yet see no consequences for the non-idiot Muslims who are simply trying to live peacefully without being the center of scrutiny because of their actions. Then I felt sad; sad because of all the innocent people who will never get to live their life fully because of the idiot Muslims who killed them. Now I just feel depressed because of all of the attention on Muslims in the next few days, but I also feel hope, I hope that good people will stand up for them whenever someone is spouting hate towards them, I hope that we as Muslims can stand against this racial hate, I hope that we as people can get past this and get rid of this evil.
Thank you for reading.



I am a Muslim in America who is about to stop believing in this religion and to become an atheist. I want this fucking ISIS pieces of shit just to fucking kill themselves. Everytime there is a terriost attack you already know it is a Muslim. I want to apologise to everyone on what my religion is doing to people. We keep saying it is the religion of peace but after what happen in Paris it is just Bullshit. My heart goes out to the families of the victims. I hope the whole world teams up with each other and kill each Fucker that is apart of ISIS. Each day I am losing my faith in this religion and my faith in God because what God let this happen in the world. I am sorry if I am not making any sense it is because I'm angry sad and scared. I am angry at these fucks killing innocent people. I am sad at the victims and I am scared about my family now after this day. I know that might sound selfish but I am being complete honest with ya. Again, I am sorry what this religion does to innocent people and sorry does not really do much. I want to join the army to help to get rid of these fucks out of this world. My heart goes out to the families of the victims. I hope in the future this will never happen again.



I think "Fuck Saudi Arabia".
They fund and train the Wahhabis that come and brainwash people in my own country with a hateful, narrow, literalist and militant interpretation of Islam.
Their fuckery destabilises the whole world.
But they get away with it, because they enjoy the protection of the world's only superpower.


The moment you hear some thing like France, you start hoping that it has nothing to do with Muslims. That hope against hope only last for few minutes. Then you start cursing all the corrupt leaders of Islamic world who are mainly responsible for bringing this on Muslims. In the end you rehearse how you will separate yourself from all this if any one asks you the next day about it. It's a fear of being looked down upon in spite of not having anything to do with it and fear of retaliation knowing that not many will come to help if God forbid that happen.




Grew up in the middle east muslim living in the us. Every time there is an attack I had to flip my name badge at work (retail) while i worked there. Being named Ahmed is even worse around attacks like these as the customers feel the need to get your anger on you. Shitty thing is when you're not even religious to begin with but your name brings you so much shit because some fukin uneducated moron goes on a rampage. As of religion those kind of attacks opened my eyes to question, question anything and everything. In the middle east your are born with only one solid culture, you're not mixed with other people meaning you're not exposed to other ideologies. So you go on in life believing in what the culture goes with as you never seen anything different and can't think for yourself. In the west as a teen I got into philosophy and religion and tried to sort this bs. After many questions I asked my self I stopped praying, and started doubting things in life, became an agnostic pretty much. But in the end it still hurts every time such attacks occur as I see how divided and cruel we became as a specie and the loss of more people. Even when I changed my ideologies and beliefs I can't stop caring about my culture so long as it remains in the past. Forgive my typing this was typed from a phone.




"Well shit... Again!? Fukin assholes gotta make the rest of us look bad"




American Muslim in high school, this always messes with me whenever a tragedy like this occurs. Sometimes, I feel like something is wrong with Islam if so many people can misinterpret the words of the Prophet and God and feel that they should kill others when Islam specifically teaches NOT TO DO THAT. It got personal for me last night when I heard about the EODM hostage situation. At this point, I just don't want to deal with this anymore. It's also sad that I have to defend my religion when others don't


"Fuck" and every other expletive I know because now I'm going to get the awkward questions, the disapproving glances, and the occasional shouting. I wish people knew that I'm against this and that I've condemned it. I wish people knew that this isn't me.



I am an American Muslim In 11th grade and I am really not looking forward to going to school on Monday...



I am ex muslim but honestly complete and utter shame.


Just feel depressed because here we go with another round of hating and generalising. People don't realise that ISIS has killed about 10,000 times more muslims than christians but muslims still are expected to answer for them.


We've tolerated the radicals (much) longer than we should have. This shit starts in the mosques, where "normal" (read not violent Muslims) tolerate the salafis and other shitgroups like them. We should have stopped them, this is on us.



All they do is make life harder for good and honest muslims who just want to live their lives peacfully. Everytime this happens it just makes me feel sick to the stomach because of those poor people who are getting killed by a bunch of idiots that set out to accomplish nothing other than spread hatred and violence in the name of my faith.

[Warpy]

1. These comments are entirely consistent with all but one of the Muslims I've ever known

and that one was a kid I went to high school with and everybody knew he had a major screw loose. He ended up in Black September. The rest of them were good kids, good friends, good neighbors and good coworkers.

Veiled ladies were conspicuous by their absence when I went grocery shopping on Sunday. Usually the grocery is full of them picking over the veg right next to me. This week they stayed home. I feel terrible about this, they don't deserve any flack at all for what a bunch of patriarchal idiots did in Paris.

[FLPanhandle]

3. The comments for the Muslims in High School struck me.

HS can be tough for many teens. I can't imagine how tough it is for Muslim teens after a terrorist attack.

[justiceischeap]

2. It's really quite sad that this Reddit even exists. nt

[bullwinkle428]

4. K&R. Not surprising at all, given that the large majority of ISIS's victims

ARE MUSLIM.

[MosheFeingold]

5. I actually get it, in a small way.

When Bernie Madoff (arguably biggest Ponzi scheme ever; stole from charities and celebs) hit the news, my first reaction was "don't let him be Jewish." Well, he was/is. Nice of him to fit into the asshole bigot stereotype idea of Jewish people as money grubbers. Makes me feel just swell.

Same with normal African-American people when some asshat (who happens to be black) goes on a rape/murder/theft spree, I am quite sure.

Or rural white Americans when some redneck asshat burns a black church.

And same with good, normal, white Christians when that douchebag church goes and protests at soldiers' funerals because of homosexuals.

Etc.

The real fight in this world is normal people vs. douchebags.

A lazy media that likes to group people together to fit a meme, with their pre-written themes is a huge part of the problem.

[snagglepuss]

6. The real fight in this world is normal people vs. douchebags

Exactly! That jerks come in all colors and creeds is my way of putting it. It's character not color or creed that counts.