The Necessity of Speaking

Farid el Asri

Translation Canon Tony Dickinson

Horror and firm condemnation of a hateful act, that is the immediate reaction and the bitter feeling of the moment. A profound thought for the victims and their families. However, it was an ordinary Friday evening in Paris and its suburbs where a weekend’s leisure was struck to the heart and where a macabre accountability imposed itself on us in a nameless heartbreak. Most often, it’s the silence of the indignant which seems to speak best in such moments. How can we comment on the unspeakable? The fact that these despicable terrorists appear to be Muslims only adds more anger to our confusion. These avengers for a senseless cause were unleashed with heavy weaponry on the innocent. It seems they shouted “God is great”. God is indeed much greater than their criminal acts. We had already remembered that during an interfaith conference in Paris, in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo events (at Batignolles in February 2015). The aim which they envisaged was to produce the greatest possible number of deaths without any thought for the profile of the victims. But who then are these beings who transgress all the principles of our faith, inspired by an apocalyptic theology and a strategy of chaos?

So, I murmured to myself the verse in the Qur’an which states that killing one soul is equivalent to the murder of the whole of humanity and saving one saves all of humanity (Qur’an 5:32).

The awareness of our powerlessness does not spare us from the necessity of speaking. Speaking, in order not to allow oneself to be reshaped by the climate of fear. Speaking, in order to remember that we are Muslims and that these acts are radically foreign to us. Speaking, in order to share with my Muslim co-religionists the necessity of a joint effort to reclaim for ourselves the field of thought and speech which has been confiscated by a few fanatics. Speaking, in order to work on educating others in mutual recognition and in vigorous dialogue. Speaking, in order to bear witness that God is on the side of justice and of the innocent and not on the side of the “theologians of the Kalashnikov”. Speaking all this in truth, in brotherhood, in trust and in compassion.

We will resist with strength and determination and we will continue to stand up together against all arbitrary criminal acts, anywhere else on the planet.

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