Who would have thought something so loving to many would be badly disrespected and treated black-heartedly? Tragedies like this are the moments that make the world around us stop for a few minutes. In a bad way. Everything we are doing the moment we hear the bad news seems irrelevant. The heartbreak in knowing that the world is made up of people who have such low mindsets. It all seems surreal when we see humans killing other humans, with the justification of a God. What would past generations say about the world we are living in? Maybe this is what a modern day apocalypse looks like; what a dead world it seems to be when we are killing our own species.

Tragedy is what forces us to open our eyes. It opens our eyes to terrorism but it also opens our eyes to many other sore subjects. The main question to study and develop is, what do situations like this do for the large population of peaceful Muslims around the world who are practicing a beautiful religion with excellent messages? The substantial majority is not part of this apocalyptic situation. That's the society we should help. When you search the word “Islam” in Google, numerous articles titled with negative responses toward the religious group come up. In recent times, the line between Islam and Islamism is becoming blurred very quickly. Islam was founded based on the idea of harmony. It is shocking to know that a religion based on harmony is notorious to many for being anything but harmonious.

It is up to educated individuals to raise awareness to avoid this blurred line. Similar to almost every other religion, Islam has extremist groups. Many educated individuals hold the opinion that people in the Islamic State, commonly known as ISIS, are not true believers of the religion; they are terrorists who are using religion as an excuse to be violent. Which is accurate. However, for those who do not hold those opinions, here is an explanation of the difference between believers of Islam and believers of Islamism / Islamists.

The word Islam is derived from the Arabic root, Selema. Selema means peace, purity, and submission. Islam means absolute submission to God and absolute obedience to God’s law. In order to rightfully become a Muslim, one must conduct acts in order to be convinced that there is no God but Allah. Therefore, Muslims believe that the only way to obtain peace is through obeying Allah’s commands, which are written in the Qur’an.

Similar to any other “religion of the book,” there are different interpretations of the religious texts, which are the rooting formation of religious extremists. In Islam, these people are known as Islamists. Groups of this violent sort try to portray themselves as holy leaders of Islam and hold the brainwashed idea that many countries are at war with Islam and are discriminatory toward the religion as their method of navigating young people into their groups. They hold another brainwashed belief that the non-Muslims are set to exploit, control and destroy Muslim lands. These people believe that Allah instructs them to defend their faith by fighting back, with whatever extreme it must take. The extreme Muslims who believe there is no difference between Islamists and peaceful believers of Islam also believe that a Muslim who does not practice Islamism is truly not a Muslim, which causes them to target the non-extremist Muslim population. They believe that Allah is instructing them to act violently against people who don’t practice the religion the same way they do. Are these people really believers of the religion if they believe it is right to practice violence against their own people? Only 5 percent of the Muslim population is in groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda. Those 5 percent do not even represent the real Muslim community. So, what does the other 95 percent of the Muslim population do?

The majority of Muslims, who do not endorse intolerance against other religions, interpret the Qu’ran in a non-literalist way. There are many beautiful verses in the Qur’an indicating tolerance and friendship of other religions. Some examples are:

“O you who do not believe! I worship not what you worship, and you are not worshipping what I worship; nor am 1 worshipping what you wor­ship; neither -art you worshipping what I worship. Therefore, to you your religion; and to me my religion!” (Qu’ran, chap. 109)

And, “Beware! Whoever is cruel and hard on a non-Muslim minority, or curtails their rights, or burdens them with more than they can bear, or takes anything from them against their free will; I (Prophet Muhammad) will complain against the person on the Day of Judgment.” (Abu Dawud).

Another one is, “…There is no compulsion in religion…” (Quran 2:256)

Not only are there many verses in the Qu'ran that state that intolerance toward other religions is unjust, there are also many Muslims who prove how amicable the religion is. Obama said it best to Fox news, “No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim,” “ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.” Sometimes it is difficult for people to accept a religion that is not their own, which makes it hard for the 95 percent of peaceful, true Muslims to get their point across. But it must be up to us to avoid that feeling for them and accept them for the people they are rather than the religion they practice. We must not wear ignorant glasses and say that a religion's extremist group defines the religion. Let's continue to take refugees in with big arms and educate ourselves on the cordial Islamic religion.