I condemn Orlando, but don't apologise for Islam

As a Muslim, I condemn Orlando, but I don't apologise for Islam.

When I first learned about the mass shooting in a gay nightclub in Orlando, my first reaction was of sorrow for the victims and their families, but also of fear.

I feared the perpetrator would turn out to have an Arab name. I was sure, if that were to be the case, the heinous crime would be labeled an act of "Islamic terrorism" - regardless of whether the murderer had any link with any armed organisation.

I was sure the media and officials would immediately find a link between him and the Islamic State group or al-Qaeda.

My fears soon materialised. A few hours after the shooting, Orlando authorities disclosed the identity of the shooter as Omar Mateen, a US-born citizen of Afghan descent.

As soon as his name was identified, the media hastened to label the crime "Islamic terror". What was troubling is that the FBI claimed, without further investigation, that there were signs indicating the mass killing was indeed related to this "terror".

As has been the case following such incidents in recent years, there were those who jumped to conclusions, mostly negative, about Islam and Muslims, and tried to exploit the situation for political gain; there were those who immediately warned against this very ignorant or fear-mongering attitude; and then there were many voices who called on "enlightened Muslims" to come out and condemn "radical Islam" and "Islamic terrorism".

I, myself, received some private messages from friends asking me why I don't stand up and apologise on behalf of Islam for what happened.

To these friends and to the rest of the world, I would like to say that, while I condemn this atrocious crime in the strongest terms and feel sorrow and sympathy for the victims and their families, I have no intention to apologise on behalf of Islam.

Contrary to the narrative propagated by a Western media bent on brainwashing people, Islam does not condone the killing of innocent people. Islam, as a religion observed by over 1.6 billion people, is a religion of peace, tolerance and compassion. Any acts of violence committed by individuals who call themselves Muslims are the result of a multitude of factors, are not the result of the religious teachings of Islam, but to the contrary, are often due to isolation from the Muslim religious community.

In fact, the taking of innocent lives is considered the most condemnable crime in Islam. The Quran says "whoever kills a human being not in retaliation for murder or to spread mischief in the land, it shall be as if he killed all mankind, and whoever saves the life of one, it shall be as if he saved the life of all mankind".

No sane person follows a religion that calls for the killing of innocent people

This verse, and countless other texts, show clearly that Islam forbids the killing of innocent people. This verse applies to the victims of the Orlando shooting, regardless of their sexual orientation - since they are human beings.

No sane person follows a religion that calls for the killing of innocent people. If we apply the narrative inculcated by unscrupulous politicians and ideologues bent on controlling our lives and the way we should think, any time one of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims is involved in a crime, we should link it to Islam and label it "terrorism".

This leads us to the dangerous practice we have been witnessing in recent years. While in the past, the "terrorism" label was limited to organised groups with a clear political agenda who perpetrated targeted acts of terrorism in different places, such as al-Qaeda, this "privilege" has, in recent years, has been broadened to include any single Muslim person involved in any single killing or shooting.

Regardless of whether a Muslim perpetrator belonged to an armed organisation or was mentally impaired or had psychological problems, he is labelled immediately as a terrorist. The presumption of innocence does not apply when the murderer is Muslim. The fact that he belongs to this religion suffices to make him a terrorist. 

What is still more dangerous and shows a double-standard is that any time a Jew or a Christian is involved in a mass shooting, Western media and officials rush to emphasise the mental health status of the suspect.

Think, for example, of the case of Dylann Roof, a white supremacist who killed nine innocent people in a black church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17, 2015. Following the massacre, few if any news outlets or politicians described him as a terrorist - or even as a racist.

The same Senator Marco Rubio who rushed to condemn the Orlando shooting as an "act of terrorism" said he had been "saddened by the news from Charleston". Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina blamed the Charleston shooting on "one of these whacked-out kids".

For American politicians, Roof was not a terrorist, but merely a mentally deranged "kid". The term "terror" had no chance to be used in such a case. We can just imagine what their reactions would have been if the perpetrator's name had been Omar, Mohammed or Ali.

When Roof killed the nine innocent African American people, were other white Americans urged to apologise for the crime? They were not and they had no reason to be. Regardless of his motives, Roof could not represent the whole white American community.

The same should apply to cases where a person with a Muslim-sounding name is involved in an act of mass murder. We should call things by their name and place the debate where it should be placed. Why should I, as a Muslim, apologise on behalf of Islam?

Omar Mateen was born and raised in the US and went to American schools. He acquired weapons in the US. Islam has nothing to do with what a lone wolf can do in its name. As a Moroccan Muslim, I have no relation to this person. He was a criminal. He does not represent me and I have nothing to do with him, nor did anybody elect him to represent Islam.

If every Muslim has to apologize or justify themselves every time a "lone wolf" does something like that, then by the same token every American must apologise for the carnage George Bush left in Iraq - prompted by what he claimed was divine inspiration.

A whole country and the cradle of civilization lays in shambles in the name of Bush's religious beliefs. Have Americans apologised to Iraqis for this?

More than a million innocent Iraqis were reportedly killed by Americans, by American weapons, and more than five million were maimed. A whole country and the cradle of civilization lays in shambles in the name of Bush's religious beliefs. Have Americans apologised to Iraqis for this?

The same applies to American drones that kill innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan every day. Should we ask Americans to apologise for what their country is doing in violation of international law? No, I don’t think so.

Similarly, I don't think all Muslims are responsible for the acts of few.

To understand the Orlando shooting and more importantly prevent similar attacks in the future, one must understand that this is a gun proliferation problem, not a religious problem. Omar Mateen had been on the FBI radar for some time, so why was he able to acquire such weapons? There have been more than 1,000 shootings in the US since 2012; should we label those murderers as Christians?

The debate should be where it should be and Americans have to ask the right questions of their elected officials - why their government refused to ratify the arms trade treaty signed in the United Nations in March 2013, and why Congress is impeding any debate or progress in gun control in the country.

If weapons were not readily available to anybody willing to acquire them, Omar probably would not have killed 50 innocent people quite so easily.

To those who call on Muslims to apologise for something over which they have no control, I call on them to apologise to Muslims on behalf of their media and politicians who discriminate against and incite violence against Muslims.

The narrative prevailing in the West has locked Muslims in two categories: either moderate or radicals. That means a Muslim does not have the right to be mentally ill. If someone suffering from this commits a crime, he can only be called a terrorist.

Omar Mateen may have had a history of mental illness. He may have been a gay man in denial. But the publicity surrounding a phone call to the police to swear allegiance to the Islamic State group will never help America fight the scourge of mass shootings, or to understand the real motives that push people such as Omar and Roof to take the lives of innocent people. 

Samir Bennis is a political analyst. He received a Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Provence in France and his research areas include relations between Morocco and Spain and between the Muslim world and the West, as well as the global politics of oil.

He has published more than 150 articles in Arabic, French, English and Spanish, and authored Les Relations Politiques, Economiques et Culturelles Entre le Maroc et l’Espagne: 1956-2005, which was published in French in 2008. He is the co-founder of Morocco World News and lives in New York. Follow him on Twitter: @SamirBennis

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.