So I am not the world’s most devout Muslim. I do not always pray five times a day, and when I do have time en route to class or the gym, I am not facing Mecca or haven taken my wudu, which is the ablution Muslims partake in prior to prayer by using water. Before declaring myself to be a vegetarian in the seventh grade, I had my fair share of run-ins with pork, and sometimes the horrible news of what is going on in the world makes me question what entity I am putting my faith into.

Nonetheless, I consider myself a Muslim. Leaders of the major monotheistic religions will tell you the same thing: having faith is one of the most important possessions in this world. Unfortunately, these other major religions and their followers are not subjected to cruel interpretations of their faith and false accusations of what they believe in.

In light of the mass shooting outside of San Bernardino, the political sphere has revived its already prevalent Islamophobia after Donald Trump demanded a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on,” begging the question of, what really is going on?

Remember how our parents would tell us a single instant or person is not a representation of the whole? On Sunday, December 6, the day before Trump offered his proposal to the American public after his coincidental drop in the polls, President Obama asked the American Muslim population to condemn the radicals that have sabotaged the faith. I do not think the American people realize that the individuals claiming jihad on the west are actually condemned by the majority of Muslims to not be true followers of the religion.

In addition to Muslims already critical of these radicals, there is a multitude of individuals whose exposure to the fanatics has led them to understand how their interpretation of Islam is not an interpretation at all. For instance, Didier Francois — a journalist held captive by ISIL for over 10 months — told Christiane Amanpour of CNN in February that while he was captive, “there was never really discussion about texts…we didn't even have the Quran; they didn't want even to give us a Quran."

Back to Trump’s question for Congress of what really is going on here. The answer is simple: Trump is treating the livelihoods of many innocent citizens and visitors as disposable. I have scrolled through my Facebook feed for the past week and come across many parallels between Trump and Hitler — both dangerous demagogues.

The only difference between the two men is that Trump’s manipulation of the general public is purely lip service. He would never actually put all of the Muslims in the nation into a database to track them or prevent them from entering the country; rather, Trump’s statements were to act as a political tool to boost his poll numbers. He has too many business interests in the Middle East to risk losing any money over holding the Oval Office.

Sadly, he and the other GOP primary candidates do not recognize that while there are too many loopholes to create the kind of discriminatory legislation Trump would like, there are individuals in the American public that will take the lack of public condemnation to be a green light to make the lives of Muslims more difficult or to take some kind of violent action against them.

I should not have to say it, but not every Muslim is a terrorist. Our faith asks us to be good human beings; to give charity; to believe in a higher being than ourselves; to be mindful of others and to respect them no matter the differences evident between one another. My purpose in writing this article is for it to serve as a call to action; to ask of anyone reading this to take a minute and reflect on the predicament Muslims of this nation now find themselves in.

While it has already been so hard to openly practice the faith in some areas of the country since 9/11, simply stating one is a Muslim can now be seen as the equivalent of a four-letter word, which breaks my heart because many of the followers of my faith are forced to hide a piece of themselves.