My religion does not define terror. It defines peace, compassion, and humanity. And millions like me are living proof.

Growing up, I often noticed a painful pattern — whenever something goes wrong in the country, a section of society immediately looks at Muslims with suspicion. A bomb blast happens, a conflict rises across the borders, or a headline flashes — and suddenly every ordinary Indian Muslim becomes answerable for something they never did and never supported.

We proudly call India an independent nation, and yes, independence is beautiful. But true independence is not just about flags and borders — it is about dignity. India will be fully free the day every hand, every face, and every identity is treated with equal respect, opportunity, and recognition in society.

People rarely talk about this: many Muslims in India still experience subtle and silent forms of discrimination. Not everywhere, not by everyone — but enough for a young girl like me to feel it deeply.

I am not generalising. I am not blaming. I am simply sharing what I lived.

I grew up in Mumbra, one of Mumbai’s largest Muslim-dominated neighbourhoods. So, I never felt a religious distinction before. I had many non-Muslim friends, but I never behaved or felt any different. However, after my parents’ divorce, I moved to Ulhasnagar to live with my maternal grandparents — and that shift introduced me to something new.

In school, there was a different gaze on me and on many other Muslim students — a gaze shaped by media headlines, not by who we truly were.

For the first time, I realised stereotypes are not always loud. Sometimes they are quiet. Sometimes they come in a casual comment, a question asked out of ignorance, or an assumption made without understanding.

Questions like:
“Sab Muslims Pakistan kyu nahi chale jaate?”,
“Pakistan ko kuch bolo toh tum log bura maan jaate ho na? You guys support Pakistan?”,
“Muslims itne bachche kyu karte hain?”,
“Tum logon ko forcefully hijab pehnaya jaata hai na?”,
“Aap log jaldi shaadi kara dete ho na? Tum log zyada padhte nahi hona?”,
“Tum log jaise jaanwaron ko maar kar kha lete ho, bura nahi lagta kya?”

There was always a separation between “they” and “us” in their conversations. And those moments stayed with me.

Today, when the idea of banning hijab trends in discussions, or when Muslims get targeted online for things beyond their control, I ask a simple question: Is this the secular India our Constitution promised?

A country where every religion, every culture, and every citizen has equal space? My intention is not to create division. My intention is to create understanding.

I am Umme Hanee Ibrahim — an Indian Muslim girl, a student, a writer, a daughter, a dreamer.

When injustice was done to Dalits, Babasaheb Dr. B.R. Ambedkar raised his voice for them and gave them their rightful place in the Constitution.

Now, I wonder who will raise their voice against the discrimination faced by Muslims today.

My religion does not define terror. It defines peace, compassion, and humanity. And millions like me are living proof.

I am not a terrorist.
I am a citizen.
I am a human being.
I am someone who wants this country to grow, not break.

India is my home. And homes thrive on equality.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

Since the end of the Cold War, much of the Muslim world has framed terrorism carried out in Islam’s name as an “American-Zionist conspiracy.” This argument draws on the undeniable reality of U.S. imperialism in West Asia, from Washington’s support of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s to its disastrous interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, which helped incubate groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS.

It is undeniable how American foreign policy not only created conditions for militant Islamism but at times directly facilitated its growth. Yet to reduce all Muslim terrorism to an American creation is dangerously simplistic. Many Jihadists act from their own interpretations of Islamic texts, local grievances, and visions of a divinely mandated order, not to serve what the left-liberal have been calling American Imperialism.

Muslims globally have worked hard to defend their religion against the stigma of terrorism, insisting that Islam teaches peace and condemns violence. But crucial questions remain unanswered, questions that the far-right in India exploits and is using to perpetuate misconceptions against Muslims. The community’s defensive posture often remains confined to echo chambers, leaving outsiders unconvinced. 

Moreover, the demonization of Muslim identity in India is not simply the product of hatred for Islam as a religion; it also emerges from socio-political matters that are shown as a pattern of a global conspiracy. Yet Islamism cannot be understood merely as a reaction to deprivation, it derives itself from the interpretations of scripture that demand serious engagement.

This is where a major weakness lies. Muslims who commit acts of terror openly identify their violence with religion. If ordinary Muslims want to challenge them, they must engage with the ideological and theological claims rather than dismiss them as conspiracies against Islam. 

A friend of mine, once an Islamist and now a humanist, recalls that when he quoted scripture to justify his radicalism and impending desire to kill Kafirs and make Allah’s word supreme, his parents simply said, “This is wrong,” without offering any substantive rebuttal from the Quran or Hadith. 

Their inability to engage with the texts and his ideas and by extension the ideas of thousands of young muslims across the world, left him more convinced than before of his righteousness. This gap between religious conviction and theological illiteracy of ordinary Muslims is what Jihadists have been exploiting .

In India, this dynamic has produced troubling patterns. The 1993 Mumbai bombings, which killed 257 people and injured over 700, were often justified within sections of the Muslim community as “necessary retaliation” for the demolition of Babri Masjid and subsequent riots. Such selective justification creates a dangerous double standard: if killing innocents can be rationalized in one context, then why not in another? By this logic, pogroms, lynchings, and bulldozing of Muslim homes could also be justified as retaliation. This moral inconsistency weakens the Muslim community’s credibility and inadvertently plays into the hand of the far-right.

The way forward requires honesty and courage. Muslims must acknowledge that some within their community do commit acts of terror in the name of Islam and their motivation as an individual is purely religious,and that extremists draw solely from  scripture to justify themselves, which an average Muslim also derives his peace and brotherhood from.

These claims must be confronted theologically, politically, and morally, not brushed aside. The task is to reclaim religious texts from radicals through serious scholarship, foster intra-community debate, and build a universal moral compass where the life of a Hindu, Christian, Jew or an atheist is as sacred as that of a Muslim. 

Selective outrage, and Humanism condemning violence against Muslims while justifying violence committed by Muslims and even some situations even glorifying, only entrenches radicalism, fuels Muslimophobia, and strengthens hatred against Muslims. Unless Muslims embrace a consistent, universal ethic of non-violence against innocents as a rule with no ifs and buts, without this they will remain trapped in denial and conspiracy theories, deepening and perpetuating the very cycle of hate they seek to escape.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.