This is false. Radical Islam hates us. The Islamic fundamentalists hate us. The Islamists hate us.The Jihadists hate us but Islam does NOT hate us.
ISIL, Al Qaeda, Al Shabab, Hamas, Boko Haram, the Taliban, Islamic Jihad, the Fulani militants/herdsmen and all the other terrorists and terror groups in the world hate us but the overwhelming majority of muslims do not and neither are they terrorists.
As pained and concerned as we are about what is going on in the world today and the atrocities that the terrorists are committing on a daily basis, we must learn to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Adolf Hitler did not represent Christianity when he murdered 6 million Jews and caused a global war in which 50 million people died. The other great monster of human history, King Leopold 11 of Belgium, did not represent Christianity when he ordered the slaughter of no less than 10 million Africans in the Belgian Congo. Pol Pot and Josef Stalin, both leaders of ruthless communist states that did not recognize or believe in the existence of God, did not represent their fellow atheists when they murdered no less than 25 million and thirty million people respectively.
In the same way the late Osama Bin Ladin and Ayman Al Zawahiri of Al Qaeda, Abu Bakr Al- Baghdadi of the Islamic State In The Levant,(ISIL), the late Mohammed Yusuf and Abubakar Shekau of Boko Haram, the late Mullah Mohammed Omar and Aktar Mansoor of the Taliban, Ahmed Abdi Godan of Al Shabab, Ismael Haniye of Hamas, Abu Mohammed Al Julani of the Al Nusra Front and all the other Islamist leaders that have shed oceans of innocent blood and that have unleashed terror on innocent and defenseless citizens all over the world do not represent Islam or Muslims. That is the point that people like Donald Trump fail to appreciate and are unable to grasp.
If we do not make this distinction very clear and emphasis the fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, we run the risk of alienating millions of decent God-fearing Muslims all over the world who hate the Islamists and terrorists as much as we do and who deplore their actions.
Let me bring this closer to home. There are millions of Muslims in the south-western part of Nigeria where I come from but, as far as I am aware, not one of them is a terrorist.
There are many Muslims in my mothers family, the Sa'id family of Ilesa and the Isa Williams family of Isale Eko, and not one of them is a terrorist or extremist.
Unlike those from other parts the Yoruba Muslims are not and have never been jihadists. We in the south-west preach and practice love, tolerance and unity among our people and particularly between the adherents of the two great faiths of Christianity and Islam. Even the pagans amongst us are tolerated and to us it is a mark of enlightenment and civilization that this is so.
It is confirmed by the fact that we often marry across religious lines. As a matter of fact I doubt that there is any
family in south-western Nigeria today that does not have both Christians and Muslims within its ranks.
The Muslims in Yoruba land often celebrate Christmas with those of us that are Christians just as we often celebrate Ileya and other Muslim festivals with them. It has been so for centuries and it is a beautiful thing.
Our unity, love, tolerance and respect for each others faith is our strength and the end-product of that harmonious existence is peace and harmony.
How then can anyone in their right mind suggest that the Muslims of south-western Nigeria, or indeed any other moderate secularist Muslim from anywhere else in the world, hates the rest of us or hates America and all that she stands for?
How can anyone describe yoruba Muslim sects like the Ahmaddiya, Ansar Ud Deen, the Sufi, NASFAT, just as a few examples, as bloodthirsty murderers and terrorists?
Such an assertion is not only baseless but it is also, at best, intellectually dishonest and, at worst, blatant and premeditated disinformation and falsehood. It is nothing but perfidy and can be comfortably and conveniently described as utter and complete garbage.
We must appreciate the fact that the only way we can win the war against terror and resist the revival and practice of the most evil, virulent and extreme form of Islamic fundamentalism that the world has ever witnessed is if we all stand together as one against it.
We must resist the urge and temptation of lumping all Muslims together and tarring them with the same brush.
The bottom line is this: not all Muslims are bad and not all terrorists are Muslims. In the same way not all Christians are good and not all peacemakers and righteous men are Christians.
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