{"id":961,"date":"2016-07-14T12:32:53","date_gmt":"2016-07-14T17:32:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/?p=961"},"modified":"2016-07-17T19:42:20","modified_gmt":"2016-07-18T00:42:20","slug":"resist-generalizations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/resist-generalizations\/","title":{"rendered":"“You Know They Hate You, Right”? The Jihad Against Generalization"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Name of God: The Eternally and Extremely Loving and Caring<\/em><\/p>\n

“You know they hate you, right?”<\/p>\n

That’s what was repeatedly told to me as I cheered the French national team in their doomed bid to win the 2016 Euro Cup final against Portugal on July 10, 2016. They were referring to the generalized notion among many Muslims that the French hate Islam and all Muslims. Now, judging by the news reports about the discrimination of Muslims in France<\/a>, I can see how this perception can take root. I resisted this, however.<\/p>\n

“They never hated me,” I said.<\/p>\n

Indeed, when my wife and I traveled to Paris in the summer of 2015, I was only treated with kindness, respect, and honor. I left France an immediate Francophile, and I have embarked on learning the French language and have a special place in my heart for Paris in particular and France in general.<\/p>\n

That does not mean that I am not pained by the discrimination that French Muslims do face. It is a major problem that needs to be addressed. At the same time, however, I refuse to blanket all the French people as “racist” because of what I read in the news.<\/p>\n

We all need to do more of this.<\/p>\n

I hate it when all Muslims are tarred with the stain of the crimes of the savages acting in our name. I resent when fellow American Muslims are looked at with suspicion because of what is in the news. I am sick and tired of Muslims having to bear the brunt of backlash – including my own family – whenever a Muslim criminal does anything anywhere.<\/p>\n

Well, as the Prophet (pbuh) said, “None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.” If I resent that being done to me, then I cannot do the same to others. That is true for the French,\u00a0or African-Americans, or\u00a0Jews, or the police, or anyone else.<\/p>\n

I was horrified by the death of Philando Castile. At the same time, however, I refuse to paint all police as racist. I was horrified by the attacks on the Dallas police officers (and those in Baton Rouge<\/a>) who, as shooting survivor and Imam Omar Suleiman <\/a>said, “[The hearts of the Dallas Police]\u00a0were with us for that demonstration. They get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s hard. It goes against our natural tendency as human beings. Indeed, it is a jihad<\/em>, or struggle. But, it is one that is vital to our country, as the current hateful rhetoric of this Presidential campaign bitterly shows us. The words of Imam Suleiman ring so true:<\/p>\n

I truly do believe that as a country, this is a pivotal moment in the history of country. Are we going to be a pluralistic, tolerant, accepting nation that is guided by a unifying principle that everyone has the right to live with the same level of dignity, and be treated equally by the law, and be free to worship in a way that they please, and live their lives in the way that they please? Are we going to be united by that principal?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We have to be united\u00a0by that principal. Else, the very nature of who we are as a people, as a country, hangs in the balance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Name of God: The Eternally and Extremely Loving and Caring “You know they hate you, right?” That’s what was repeatedly told to me as I cheered the French national team in their doomed bid to win the 2016 Euro Cup final against Portugal on July 10, 2016. They were referring to the generalized…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":175,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[747,723,651,434,580,748,102,11,746,749,401],"class_list":["post-961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-common-word","tag-dallas","tag-discrimination","tag-donald-trump","tag-election","tag-france","tag-french","tag-hatred","tag-islam","tag-omar-suleiman","tag-police","tag-shooting"],"yoast_head":"\n"You Know They Hate You, Right?" The Jihad Againt Generalization<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We must resist, or wage jihad, against the generalization of others: whether it be police, or African-Americans, or Muslims. It is not who we are.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""You Know They Hate You, Right?" The Jihad Againt Generalization\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We must resist, or wage jihad, against the generalization of others: whether it be police, or African-Americans, or Muslims. It is not who we are.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/resist-generalizations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Common Word, Common Lord\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-07-14T17:32:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-07-18T00:42:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Hesham A. Hassaballa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@GodFaithPen\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\"You Know They Hate You, Right?\" The Jihad Againt Generalization","description":"We must resist, or wage jihad, against the generalization of others: whether it be police, or African-Americans, or Muslims. It is not who we are.","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\"You Know They Hate You, Right?\" The Jihad Againt Generalization","og_description":"We must resist, or wage jihad, against the generalization of others: whether it be police, or African-Americans, or Muslims. It is not who we are.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/resist-generalizations\/","og_site_name":"Common Word, Common Lord","article_published_time":"2016-07-14T17:32:53+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-07-18T00:42:20+00:00","author":"Hesham A. Hassaballa","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@GodFaithPen","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/resist-generalizations\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/resist-generalizations\/","name":"\"You Know They Hate You, Right?\" The Jihad Againt Generalization","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-07-14T17:32:53+00:00","dateModified":"2016-07-18T00:42:20+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/#\/schema\/person\/c2d50a46198edad19abb055001c4cd21"},"description":"We must resist, or wage jihad, against the generalization of others: whether it be police, or African-Americans, or Muslims. It is not who we are.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/resist-generalizations\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/resist-generalizations\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/resist-generalizations\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"“You Know They Hate You, Right”? The Jihad Against Generalization"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/","name":"Common Word, Common Lord","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Hesham Hassaballa","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/#\/schema\/person\/c2d50a46198edad19abb055001c4cd21","name":"Hesham A. Hassaballa","description":"Hesham A. Hassaballa is a Chicago doctor and writer. He has written extensively on a freelance basis, being published in newspapers across the country and around the world. He has been a Beliefnet columnist since 2001, and has written for the Religion News Service. He is also a columnist for Patheos. His articles have been distributed worldwide by Agence Global, and he was also a guest blogger for The Chicago Tribune and has blogged on ChicagoNow\" . In addition, Dr. Hassaballa has appeared as a guest on WTTW (Channel 11) in Chicago, CNN, Fox News, BBC, and National Public Radio. Dr. Hassaballa is co-author of The Beliefnet Guide to Islam (Doubleday), and his essay, \u201cWhy I Love the Ten Commandments,\u201d was published in the award-winning book Taking Back Islam (Rodale). His latest book, Noble Brother, is the story of the Prophet Muhammad told entirely in poetry, and it is now published in its second edition. In 2007, his blog \"God, Faith, and a Pen\" was nominated for a Brass Crescent Award for a blog that is \u201cthe most stimulating, insightful, and philosophical, providing the best rebuttals to extremist ideology and making an impact whenever they post.\u201d \"God, Faith, and a Pen\" has also received an award for being one of the \"Top Muslim Blogs for 2010\" by Awarding The Web. In addition to writing, Dr. Hassaballa helped found the Chicago Chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations and currently serves on their board of directors. He also co-founded the Bayan H. Hassaballa Charitable Foundation and now serves as its Treasurer.","sameAs":["https:\/\/x.com\/GodFaithPen"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/author\/hhassaballa\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=961"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":967,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions\/967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/commonwordcommonlord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}