After coming to America and learning English, I began to read poems, essays, and books by American and British writers including Robert Frost and Lawrence Durrell. Growing up in Tennessee and Texas, it was my father, a linguist and translator, who empowered me with the English alphabet and a love for literature and world-class poets. And I was inspired by my late grandfather, who wrote me letters in English because he believed the language would gift me a voice and wider audience. My mother tongue is Punjabi, which I have forgotten, and Urdu, a rich language laced with emotion. To this day, I speak Urdu to express love to my closest friends.

In school, a creative writing instructor and my English teacher discovered my poems and short essays, which were published in the school’s literary magazine and for boys who asked me to write love notes to their girlfriends. Along the way, I learned French and wrote essays and poems though never published them. Throughout my early years, English fed my curiosity and I read books in every genre to expand my knowledge and learn new words. The more I read, the more eager I was to write and explore my creative art. Over time, English became natural to me.

Writing is an expression of the heart. My first essay on a trip to Pakistan published in The Austin American Statesman newspaper when I was fifteen years old. In the essay, I explored travel writing to a foreign place—while I was born in Pakistan, I have never lived there and so, my journey into Pakistan has always felt foreign and fantasized.

Years later, I published other essays, articles, short stories, poems, and then my first book. Writing is a silent journey into myself and in that silence, I can sense everything more deeply. Every experience is heartfelt, laced in words that evoke emotions: loss, love, hope, faith, fear, helplessness, compassion, and much more. Living life through words and then sharing it with the world is beyond language.

The first one is the word ‘jihad’ which is not holy war. Jihad is a living, breathing concept. The Arabic root word of jahada means struggle or effort. The greatest jihad is a personal, spiritual struggle of each Muslim to do good and forbid evil. The Prophet Muhammad famously said, “The best jihad is the one who strives against his own self,” known as jihad bil nafs (jihad of the Self). Jihad of the pen or jihad bil qalam refers to the struggle to learn—to acquire knowledge and spread it to others.

Jihad of the sword or jihad bil sayf is a specific reference to ‘defensive warfare’ that gave permission to the first Muslims to fight when and only if they were attacked by the enemy. The Quran says, “Fight in the way of God those who fight against you; and do not exceed the limits. Verily Allah does not love those who exceed (the limits).” (2:190). God allows Muslims to defend their homes and honor but warns against aggression—Muslims are told not to exceed the limits. Thus, jihad is a system of checks and balances that ensures transgression does not occur. Several verses in the Quran make this clear: “And did not Allah check one set of people by means of another, the earth would indeed be full of mischief; but Allah is full of Bounty to all the worlds.” (2:251)

Western media accounts of jihad as ‘holy war’ is inaccurate and misleading. Jihad is not a violent concept nor is it a declaration of war against other religions. This usage of jihad as ‘holy war’ is a call for Muslims to fight against non-Muslims and other secular Muslims in the name of religion. This is not unique to Islam. Other faiths have used religious justifications to wage wars against other faith-based followers.

If jihad is not holy war, then why do some Muslims kill?

Violent extremists are ignorant of Islam. They have misread, misunderstood and misapplied the Quran and the hadith literature, a collection of sayings about the life of Prophet Muhammad.

Extremist groups’ practice of Islam is based on principles of justice, jihad and Jannah (or Paradise), all of which are misplaced in a violent context to achieve the political goal of creating a Muslim state. Aside from killing non-Muslims, extremists have killed more Muslims in local and regional conflicts. Extremists justify violent attacks against Muslims by claiming that they are not Muslim enough, denouncing them as apostates for their relationship with non-Muslim leaders and peoples.

In addition to their ignorance of Islam, extremists are motivated by multiple factors. The political driver is the denial of basic political rights and civil liberties as well as widespread corruption in poorly governed and ungoverned areas. Another key driver is the presence of protracted, violent local conflicts as well as new conflicts with autocratic regimes. Individual motivations point to personal grievances that could include revenge and ideological fervor. With nearly twenty years of research, I have argued that the drivers of violence will vary from one individual to the next and one conflict to the next. Despite these differences, key patterns exist to help explain why some Muslims kill. To read more, see Invisible Martyrs.

Before Islam, women and girls had no rights. Pagan Arab tribes governed women and girls. Tribal men believed in female infanticide, for example, and men traded their wives like cattle. After Islam, Prophet Muhammad honored women by giving them the freedom of choice: women have the right to choose a spouse, inherit property, fight in battle, earn a living and much more. “Whatever men earn, they have a share in that and whatever women earn, they have a share in that,” according to the Quran (4:32). And in marriage, a girl has the right to say yes or no.

Muslim women considered the Prophet the first feminist for granting them dignity at a time when women were disgraced and defamed by local tribes. Therefore, Islam’s message for women was revolutionary at the time (610 AD) and the religion uplifted women from the status of underprivileged and poor to reverence and respect. After Islam, women gained the honorific title of ‘mothers of the believers’ and were prized persons of faith, not the petty possessions of men.

Today, across the Muslin world, different countries treat women differently. One female Muslim scholar says that some Muslim women are oppressed by men, which does not come from Islam but from laws made by men. For example, some countries’ family law marginalizes women by confining women to the private space (the home) and prevents them from entering the public space. Honor killings, child marriage, easy and unfair divorce, and rape are abuses committed by some men in the name of Islam. However, these savage acts are unjustified and unwarranted by Islamic scripture. Abusive men are held accountable by Islamic law for this extreme behavior.

The Quran is clear on speaking out against injustice and ending oppression (5:8; 42:42-43), as well as reminding victims of abuse to seek help and find a place on God’s earth free of oppression (4:97).

Heaven in the Islamic faith does not include 72 wide-eyed sex goddesses. The Arabic word for ‘virgin’ is a mistranslation; the original word is ‘raisin’ or ‘closest companions’ according to Muslim scholars, not virgins. The number ‘72’ does not appear anywhere in the Quran. Nor does the word “suicide” (intihar in Arabic) appear, which is a word used interchangeably with martyrdom. The confusion that exists arises over one oral tradition by Imam Tirmidhi. He cleverly crafted the “72 virgins” that has now become instilled in the minds of radicalized and misinformed Muslim men. The real tragedy is that so few scholars have accepted that this controversy exists or have failed to challenge the misinterpreted verse “of the 72 virgins” in the Quran.

First, a fatwa is a legal pronouncement issued by a highly regarded expert in Islamic law, also called a mufti. Fatwas can relate to a specific issue and/or a singular intention. It is non-binding although the Muslim community is expected to follow a mufti’s ruling.

Second, muftis are chosen. To be a mufti, a scholar needs to meet the following qualifications: know the Quran, Islam’s holy book; learn the hadith, a body of literature containing the sayings and deeds by the Prophet Muhammad; master the Arabic language, including syntax, morphology, grammar, idioms, linguistics, and rhetoric; know the scholars’ legal precedents including arguments or consensus on a given topic; distinguish between supportive and oppositional verses in the Quran; and know the culture and customs at the time of the Prophet and succeeding generations.

Undoubtedly, only a few gifted men and women will be able to meet the essential requisite for a mufti. An additional prerequisite is an understanding of the context and culture of the community to which a scholar resides. After all, no two fatwas are alike, nor will they be relevant to everyone. For example, a fatwa issued in Indonesia may be irrelevant to Muslims in Ireland.