As a Pakistani-American who was raised Muslim, I’ve been abstaining from weighing in on the unrestrained anti-Muslim crusade that has recently metastasized to untenable proportions worldwide, partly because I don’t want to add another decibel to the din, but mostly because it’s hard not to feel utterly demoralized and alienated by the whole thing. What sense can possibly be made of a movement so obviously ill-informed, so outlandishly divorced from the facts and fueled by atavistic rage? Everyone seems to have an opinion, and worse, many people assume a sort of smug expertise–on both sides–on why Muslims are or are not a scourge on the civilized world.
Perhaps this is why even Nicholas Kristof’s recent apology to Muslims, in which he expressed the shame he feels for those of his compatriots who have lost their marbles, fails to really get at the issue. It is on behalf of the “gentle souls” in Islam that Kristof writes, the good ones who “have helped keep me alive, and they set a standard of compassion, peacefulness and altruism that we should all emulate.” Despite Kristof’s commendable attention to this debate, even his efforts fall short because they deny a reality that’s conspicuously absent from the wide array of commentary: the utter ordinariness of Muslims. Continue reading