The last few days have been a blur for me. (True I did go on a 2000 mile road trip in 3 days, but still).....
When I heard the news at Fort Hood, everything went numb.
Such a horrible tragedy. So many questions. Could it have been avoided? Why would a physician, a psychiatrist who treats his own colleagues, go and mercilessly mow down his colleagues? Did he himself have issues? If he was against deployment (as has been portrayed in the media as a possible motive), why not just take the conscientious objector route?

I can't answer these questions. All I can say is lets all pray for an end to these senseless crimes (the next day a guy in Florida shot 6 people. And a few days before, a guy in Ohio was found with many bodies in his house. and thats just the domestic news.). Lets pray for the victims who survive to have a full and speedy recovery. Lets pray for those who passed and their families.

For me as an American Muslim, this, like the sniper episode, puts another stain on the face of our community when we need it least, when the rabid Islamophobes are pushing harder and harder to demonize our community. And for our men and women in uniform, I can't imagine the pressure they are under now. I am sure they, if they haven't already experienced it, are viewed with suspicion by even those who are not bigotted, let alone the bigots. I pray for their strength, perseverance, and the ability to set the record straight about the service of Muslims in the armed forces to our nation, and about what Islam truly stands for. As God tells us in the Quran, "whosoever takes one life, it is as if he has taken the life of all of humanity, whosoever saves one life, it is as if they have saved the life of all of humanity". This is also the irony of a Muslim physician perpetrating such an act. It violates every moral, religious, occupational or other principle that he stands on.

My friend Junaid Afeef put together an excellent perspective on the event, read it here at
http://americanmuslimjournal.typepad.com/an_american_muslim_journa/2009/11/nidal-malik-hasan-the-ft-hood-massacre-responses-reactions-the-day-after.html