{"id":80089,"date":"2017-03-28T09:10:37","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T09:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=2ebf1fd4d4e4dddf052ecda19509d009"},"modified":"2017-03-28T09:10:37","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T09:10:37","slug":"speech-inspirational-muslims-and-the-fight-against-terrorism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=80089","title":{"rendered":"Speech: Inspirational Muslims and the fight against terrorism"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

I think it\u2019s fitting that the trophies being given to the winners tonight are based on an astrolabe.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an ancient device used by navigators.<\/p>\n

A tool that shows you the way even in the darkest night.<\/p>\n

And right now, in this city, in this country, at this moment in time, I think we need that more than ever.<\/p>\n

After the Charlie Hebdo killings, I remember having to explain to one of my daughters that the terrorists who attacked Paris called themselves Muslims.<\/p>\n

That they claimed inspiration from the religion of my family, my parents, my grandparents, and countless generations of Javids before them.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t need me to tell you they had no right to do so.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m no religious scholar.<\/p>\n

Many years have passed since I studied the Koran as a child.<\/p>\n

But even I know it offers no justification for what happened in Paris, or for the kind of indiscriminate slaughter that came to Westminster last week.<\/p>\n

You literally cannot be both a Muslim and a murderer.<\/p>\n

Nor do the views and actions of the extremists have anything in common with our daily lives.<\/p>\n

As one Muslim put it on Twitter: \u201cI don\u2019t even know what the third compartment on the washing machine is for, let alone how to build a caliphate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet we can\u2019t deny that these people THINK they are Muslims.<\/p>\n

They identify as Muslims.<\/p>\n

They genuinely believe they are acting for the glory of Islam.<\/p>\n

So how do we deal with this?<\/p>\n

How do we respond to the fact that so many Muslims do so much good, while a handful of people use Islam to justify such evil?<\/p>\n

That Muslims proudly walk into Parliament as MPs and Ministers, while a man calling himself a Muslim walked in as a cold-blooded killer?<\/p>\n

The answer lies in this room tonight.<\/p>\n

In the wake of the attack on Westminster, there was a lot of talk about \u201cbusiness as usual\u201d.<\/p>\n

About carrying on as normal, because if we change our behaviour the terrorists win.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s especially true of Muslims.<\/p>\n

Look around this room tonight.<\/p>\n

Educators, scientists, entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

Leading figures in sport, media and the arts.<\/p>\n

Muslims saving lives as doctors and changing lives through politics.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m talking about incredible people who show to the non-Muslim world what Muslims are capable of.<\/p>\n

The good that our community can do \u2013 and does \u2013 day in, day out.<\/p>\n

As for the terrorists\u2026<\/p>\n

As for those who would seek to hijack and pervert our religion, our culture and our history\u2026<\/p>\n

Well, to them it shows that they don\u2019t speak for Britain\u2019s Muslims.<\/p>\n

That they represent nobody but their sad, twisted selves.<\/p>\n

The extremists want to drive a wedge between Muslims and non-Muslims.<\/p>\n

They want us to turn on each other.<\/p>\n

They want us to join in their hate-filled assault on everything we hold dear.<\/p>\n

So just imagine how it must anger them when they see Muslims playing such a positive role in this great nation.<\/p>\n

How it must stick in their craw when they see us celebrating what we do for the country we love.<\/p>\n

They will hate this event because it shows, once again, that they have failed.<\/p>\n

And it shows that they will always fail.<\/p>\n

\n

Many of us here tonight \u2013 probably most of us, in fact \u2013 are the children or grandchildren of immigrants.<\/p>\n

Of people who came to this country to work hard, build something positive and give their children and grandchildren a better life.<\/p>\n

They didn\u2019t give up their identities.<\/p>\n

They were proud of their heritage, proud to be Muslims.<\/p>\n

And they recognised that the values they held dear \u2013 hard work, honesty, integrity, and a determination to do good\u2026<\/p>\n

They recognised that those weren\u2019t just Muslim values, they were British values too.<\/p>\n

They were the pioneers of our community, and we owe them all a debt of gratitude.<\/p>\n

Not just for what they have done for us in the past, but for the way in which their lessons will endure for many years to come.<\/p>\n

Because tonight, when the night seems darkest, the beliefs, ideals and values that we learned from our faith and from previous generations can serve as our astrolabe.<\/p>\n

They can guide us.<\/p>\n

They can show us the way.<\/p>\n

If we abide by them, they will help lead our community through stormy seas, just as they did for our parents and our grandparents.<\/p>\n

The people in this room exemplify those values.<\/p>\n

So thank you to all the winners and nominees for all the good that you do.<\/p>\n

Thank you to Ahmed and everyone at Muslim News for bringing us all together this evening.<\/p>\n

And thank you to everyone here tonight for coming out and showing the world that, even in troubled times we can all be proud.<\/p>\n

Proud to be British.<\/p>\n

And proud to be Muslim.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speaking at the Muslim News Awards For Excellence, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid discusses how we should respond to terror attacks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80089"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80089\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}