On the late afternoon of Tuesday, October 31, 29 year-old Uzbekistani immigrant Sayfullo Saipov rented a pickup truck from a New Jersey Home Depot, drove across the George Washington Bridge into Lower Manhattan, forced the truck onto a bike path nearby the World Trade Center, and rammed the truck into as many people as he could. Six of Saipov’s victims were killed on impact, while two died later under hospital care. Nine victims survived with levels of injury varying from severe trauma in the head, neck, and back to the necessary amputation of multiple limbs.

Saipov’s rampage ended when he crashed into a school bus nearby Stuyvesant High School on Chambers Street and jumped from the vehicle, waving a paintball gun and pellet gun while screaming “Allahu Akbar” (“God is Great”). As police were already converged on his location at this moment, it is now clear that Saipov was attempting to commit suicide by police shooting to end his murder spree. He was shot and incapacitated before being brought into hospital care under police custody.

In under 24 hours, Saipov, who admitted to being inspired and instructed by ISIS on the procedure of his attack, was brought to trial with charges of material support to terrorists and destruction of a motor vehicle causing death—charges that may potentially warrant the death penalty. Even in the face of all of this, Saipov remains resolute on his position, that he “felt good about what he had done”.

*deep breath*

Now—with all of this in mind, it is wildly easy to pass an all-too-easy judgment on this situation and just attribute this to another act of violence by a Muslim. I mean, it all happened within blocks of the World Trade Center, right? That’s the Ground Zero of the worst terrorist attack in the history of the US, after all.

I know too many people who have irreversibly connected these horrific acts of violence within the past few decades to the religion of Islam itself, particularly conservative Christians. A pastor in my childhood rather infamously preached that the violence of these extremists was inseparable from Islam itself—that merely studying and considering Islam required you to consider personally enacting violence against infidels. People of this position would happily latch onto the fact that Saipov himself stated that he felt good about what he did and claim that this is the mentality born from adhering to Islam—the kind that would produce a person who would plan this attack on Halloween, when more pedestrians and cyclists would be available to kill.

However, upon delving into Saipov’s case, it becomes immediately clear that it was not standard Islamic doctrine that motivated his hatred and decisions, but rather extremist propaganda produced by ISIS. It has been revealed that a Florida-based imam (Islamic prayer leader) who knew Saipov personally took time to fervently advise him to temper his increasingly radicalized views in the months leading up to the attack. The imam warned Saipov against misinterpreting the nature of their religion and urged him to study the Quran more.

Honestly, if a person tries to claim that these acts of terrorism are indicative of how all Muslims feel and operate, it is no different to say that the actions of Westboro Baptist Church, the KKK, and every Nazi soldier with “God with us” carved into his helmet are indicative of how all Christians feel and operate.

I was six years old on 9/11. My father was mere blocks away from Ground Zero when the planes struck the towers. Being raised in a conservative Baptist environment, I knew plenty of people who simply forswore Islam as being an inevitably violent religion—despite the fact that the gentlemanly cashier at the local grocery store with 2-3 jobs and deep stress wrinkles etched under his eyes was a devout Muslim and is still one of the kindest people I have ever met.

Look, there will never be an easy answer to question of the amount of good versus the amount of evil done in the name of any religion in existence. As a lifelong Christian, all I know is that hatred, persecution, and alienation against innocent people can never be the answer to any perceived woe.

In conclusion, this New Yorker sincerely asks you to separate this nightmarish mass murders from a global religion with over 1 billion perfectly peaceful adherents.

Stay safe, friends and readers. Godspeed.

Primary source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/nyregion/driver...