It’s not every day that two men from your own community face indictments on charges of attempting to sell firearms to ISIS. When I posted my story about the charges last Thursday, there was a lot of shock among residents of Fishers.
There is a mosque in Fishers with a number of Muslims residing here. I wondered what reaction local followers of Islam had after these arrests?
I contacted Muzaffar Ahmad, a man leading a multi-faith organization in Fishers to promote better understanding among the various religious faiths within the Fishers community. What are his fellow Muslims saying to him about these arrests? Most of them were not even aware of the indictments, he told me.
Muzaffar initially found out about the allegations through my blog post, then read other news accounts of the allegations against the two Fishers men. He could find no one in his social circle that knew either of the accused men.
“My guess is they were not really active in the community,” said Mr. Ahmad.
Ahmad did speak to one man that has been active within the Muslim community in Fishers for many years, and described people involved in activities such as providing firearms to ISIS as “lunatics” that “do not represent our religion.”
Through his multi-faith organization, Ahmad is trying to express his view on how people practicing different religious beliefs are more alike than one might realize.
“People think we are way different, we think differently, we feel differently, but that’s not the case,” Ahmad said. “We all have the same fears, same aspirations.”
After reading the various news accounts of the legal case against the Fishers men, he has an interesting take on the situation.
“My perception was these were just (alleged) crooks who were trying to sell guns. They were making guns and they were trying to sell them.”
Although he admits there could be some bias in this view, he says Americans on the far right of the political spectrum, such as white supremacists, are just as dangerous as Islamic extremists.
The Pew research Center conducted two national polls in recent years on concern about global extremism in the name of Islam. Both polls, conducted in 2011 and again in 2017, showed a high level of concern, but the general public in America and the Muslim community in this country had the same level of concern in both polls.
“I’m not surprised at all,” Ahmad told me about those polling results.