Suzy Ismail spoke to a crowd in South Brunswick this week about misconceptions about the Islamic faith.
SOUTH BRUNSWICK -- Suzy Ismail stood before a crowd Sunday, tasked with explaining her faith in a time of great anxiety about it.
Ismail, a Muslim scholar, traverses the East Coast to educate people about Islam as worry about both radical Islamic terrorism and Islamophobia continues to send the country reeling.
One of the first things to know about Islam, Ismail told about 50 listeners at the South Brunswick Public Library, is that the Islamic State is not it.
"ISIS, in using the term 'Islamic' in its name, has completely hijacked the religion," she said, using an acronym to refer to the terrorist group that now controls large swaths of Iraq and Syria.
As ISIS commits atrocities that directly contradict the guiding principles of Islam, it also spreads misguided fears about Muslims, Ismail said.
"ISIS is not Islam," she said. "The actions of those who commit them under the banner of ISIS have nothing to do with our faith."
To Ismail, Islam is a way of life that challenges her to remain focused on her relationship with a God she says is loving and merciful. She said that faith is integral to her personality and manifests itself in all of her actions.
"It comes in serving those in need. It comes in smiling at someone, even when they frown in your face," Ismail said. "That is how we worship our God."
Ismail then sought to explain Islamic terms she said public figures often misuse.
"Sharia law," she said, is thrown around as a dirty word but is comparable to canonical law in Catholicism or Talmudic law in Judaism.
Ismail said sharia law is divided into three segments: the very personal, the individual and the public. She said it explains Islamic guidelines on prayer, fasting and charity, and it governs matters of marriage, birth and inheritance.
The first contingency of the public section of sharia law is that a Muslim must follow the law of the country he lives in. So any public element of sharia law is completely inapplicable to the United States, because American law prevails, Ismail said.
"Every faith has their set of laws that are based upon the religion, but they're not laws that change the laws of the land." she said. "They're laws that help guide people to better understand their faith."
Contemporary Islamophobia is bolstered by the human tendency to seek "boogeymen," Ismail said, pointing to the genocide of Jews in the Holocaust and animus toward Catholics in the 19th century United States.
"We say that we are much more tolerant, we are much more open," Ismail said. "But the reality is that history repeats itself, and fear is a powerful driver."
The media, she said, promotes this fear by rarely reporting instances of Muslims denouncing violence.
"That doesn't make for good TV," Ismail said. "So unfortunately, until we get into the media, until we become active participants in the process, we're going to consistently be subjected to what's more sensational."
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