Islamophobia is not just âfear of Muslims that non-Muslims haveâ it is also âfear that Muslims have.â  Islamophobia makes non-Muslims afraid of embodiments of Islam and it makes Muslims afraid of embodying Islam.  It makes Muslims afraid of non-Muslims, just as it makes non-Muslims afraid of Muslims.  Islamophobia is a disease of fear and we all share it, and we are all suffering from it, and we are all part of itâs healing, because all of our souls are connected. Â
We donât need to fight Islamophobia - to fight something is to believe that it is a power worth fighting. Â Islamophobia is a disease - it has reasons for being here, it is in context of our inherent health, and with good tools and guidance from the healing coordination of the Universe, it can be healed, like any other disease. Â We get to allow the healing of Islamophobia, in each of us, through each of us, for each of us.
Those of us who put forward Islamophobic ads, those of us who feel a wall between ourselves and non-Muslims or Muslims, those of us who are avoiding the toxic energy of our disease, those of us who know deeply in our bones that we are well, those of us who know deeply that we are long-lost siblings and arenât actually even warring religions, but donât have words or structures yet to live into it.
Fear is trauma which has settled into our bones. Â What are our traumas having to do with Islam, or terrorism? Â
I see beautiful movement to tell the stories of Muslim Americans - to say, âhey, weâre normal too, weâre beautiful people just like you.â Â Iâve been feeling this energy keenly, ever since the hours me and my parents spent at the G Street Fabrics on Rockville Pike deliberating between swaths of fabric to turn into headscarves - back in 2002. Â There was a great deal of attention paid to ânot looking like a morose, serious, somber, oppressed, or threatening womanâ - if I chose a grey scarf, I was quickly redirected to something with pink, orange, flowers, sparkles. Â Sparkles arenât threatening.
I think the beauty in this motion is vital. Â But it is only part of the beginning of a long healing journey. Â It is the first step, when you realize, oh, someone is safe to stand next to. Â Especially in a broken world, it helps when we donât re-traumatize each other.
But it wonât be sustainable for too long - it cannot replace the deep healing we all need to do. Â Sooner or later, the need to have Muslims stand shorter than they are, or be hyper-vigilant about everything they do lest someone else get re-traumatized (or even, instigated into aggression that steps from un-resolved trauma), takes away from all of our human-ness. Â The need to have Muslims constantly explaining Islam to everyone they meet is going to take a huge toll on an entire generation. Â This does not mean that these arenât real needs, in fact, the needs are more present than ever. Â There is a real need for all of us to have a healthy, grounded understanding of many things: Islamic theology, history, ways to hold the verses of the Qurâan in a grounded spiritual context, but also, how hurt we all are that this fear and pathological violence has been terrorizing us for so long.
The most important thing that happened when our land experienced the traumatic violence that happened in New York City and at the Pentagon is that we were deeply traumatized.
Trauma is when the whole world ceases to make sense. Â We are sustained by the understanding that we are safe in the world, that we can trust our neighbors, that we donât deserve to be killed and violated and for our buildings to be flown into, and that we donât deserve to be the recipient of violence that claims the name of God, or claims that we deserve it. Â When the traumatic violence on 9/11/01 happened, all of our basic truths were violated by that violence.
We couldnât wrap our minds around what happened. Â We all found different ways to understand, to re-integrate, to move on, to find a way to wake up and bring our feet forward and keep going. Â Some of that was through numbing our bodies to the intense grief we felt. Â Some of that was deciding that certain things werenât safe anymore, and avoiding them.
For some of us, it was no longer safe to feel free in our embodiment and celebration of Islam. Â For some of us, it was no longer safe to feel free in our trust of our Muslim neighbors. Â
When something unimaginable happens, it is important for the Being to find some way to understand what happened, so that the Being may continue to move. Â Continue to wake up and keep going.
When what happened was so traumatic, to understand it takes many years of healing. Â Most of us didnât have the time or resources to engage in this healing. Â We were either in elementary school or we had 9-5 jobs or we had to pay the bills. Â We probably donât know that much about how the deepest healing happens, as a culture, though the healing presence and practices are eminently available, thankfully, even if in secret sometimes.
If you donât have the resources to do the deepest, most integrity-filled healing, you still have to find a way to understand. Â To move on. Â For many of us, that religion that the people who flew those planes claimed to be their reason for doing this traumatic violence on us was an unknown religion. Â For many of us, it was our religion.
For those of us to whom Islam was unknown, it seems to have been useful to say âPerhaps this traumatic violence is explainable by the fact that an inherently violent religion exists and forms violent personsâ so that we would have some way to understand. Â Most of us who said this or who say this donât actually feel that we know what Islam is. Â Most people who say this are deeply unaware of Islam - people who feel like outsiders to Islam, people who arenât in on what this faith means in a real way, the way that I know, a person to whom aspects of the tradition were conferred in my childhood. Â When you grow with something from childhood into adulthood, you understand it, its history, its tradition, cultural baggage, social traumas, language, and in time, with Godâs help, those forms are infused with your own spiritual and mystical growth. Â They become alive. Â And hopefully, they become alive in a life-giving way: a way which frees you from the worship of that religion or form, and confers the forms to be earthly vessels of that which is uncontainable and boundless. Â
For those of us to whom Islam was known, to whom these forms became part of the garden which grew us into beautiful beings, it seems to have been useful to say âI will hide and apologize for being Muslim, because my sisters and brothers who do not know what Islam is are deeply terrified of my religion, because we have all faced this unimaginable trauma, and I do not want them to feel traumatized or violated by my being me.â Â For those of us to whom Islam was known, we had the resilience in the face of the traumatic violence of 9/11 to understand that â despite the intense messaging of the attacking persons that the violence was inspired by Islam â the violence was not in fact encouraged by God. Â In fact, we knew that these acts were deeply against what God showed us through the particular forms of Islam as they grew into our gardens. Â We had this resilience because we had our own relationship to Islam â we didnât need to buy into the terroristsâ message. Â
This is an invitation for the parts of our Body to become one - to come into one ground. Â For those of us who do not feel we have our relationships to Islam, such that we have to find some way to understand such trauma and we are relying on ideas that Islam is inherently violent, it is time for us to be together. Â To be in one land, rather than two. Â