I had long planned to become a corporate lawyer. Two years later, I enrolled in law school, only to leave within months. There were many reasons why, but among them was this: I could no longer go down the path I’d imagined, a quiet professional life in suburban America. This realization grew from the first impulse to grip our city that day, a desire to help, in whatever way possible, in the face of horrific attack; it was a mark of a courage and goodness common to New Yorkers of all types on that day and in the months and years that followed. [...]
I still think back to that day, and wish I’d stood up and said: Those people are not us, and their beliefs are not Islam. But these are the kinds of moments we learn from. It may not be fair to American Muslims that we must prove we are not those who have tortured Islam into a hideous thing. In fact, it is not fair. But this is the reality of our time: We must direct our lives into fighting the capture of our religion by those who, claiming Islam, have nothing to offer the future but barbarity.
-Haroon Moghul
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/3301/%22you%27ve_never_met_a_muslim%22/
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