Terrorism and Healing

Terrorism and Healing

Americans remain angry and in mourning over the 9/11 destruction of the twin towers and the death and injury of thousands of people. They have great compassion and support for those whose loved ones were killed or injured there. The ground zero site of the tragedy is a memorial to those dead and injured and to these feelings. As the twin towers collapsed into rubble and dust, the Muslim prayer room in the towers was destroyed along with the lives of people of many faiths. Americans share this tragedy and our feelings with others who are experiencing such wanton terror around the world.

On July 1, 2010 in Peshwar, Pakistan twin bombings killed 41 and injured 175 at a religious shrine considered a symbol of peace and tolerance where the message is love of God, respect for neighbor, peace, and harmony with emphasis on the indivisible equality of man. The first bombing took place at 11:20 P.M. in the basement of the tomb, an area reserved for ablutions. The second bomb exploded minutes later in the main prayer area which was crowded with worshippers who gather every Thursday for special rituals.
Pictures of the slaughter at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2010/jul/02/lahore-sufi-shrine-suicide-bombs#/?picture=364478247&index=2

This was the shrine of Persian Sufi saint Syed Abul Hassan Bin Usman Bin Ali Al Hajweri. He is also known as Data Gunj Baksh, a descendant of the Holy Prophet, born in 1010 AD. This was an attack by Sunni Taliban extremists. These hard-line religious militants oppose the Sufi interpretation of Islam, a belief system based on mysticism and exhorting a close personal relationship to God, love, peace, and tolerance.


Sufism is a mystic branch of Islam that has adherents in both the Sunni and Shia sects of Islam and has attracted both conservative and liberal Muslim to its tenants of love and a personal path to experience of God. Its message is conveyed with meditation, music, poetry, and dancing.

                                                                                          
This was just one in a continuing series of bombings. On March 5, 2009 in Lahore, Pakistan’s cultural capital, the Taliban bombed the shrine of the 17th-century Pashtun language Sufi poet, Rehman Baba, beloved all over the province and in neighboring Afghanistan. He is a symbol of peace and tolerance, and his writings are still studied today for their message of love of God and respect for neighbor as you can read in “Sow Flowers”.
                                           Sow Flowers
                Sow flowers so your surroundings become a garden.  
                Don’t sow thorns; for they will prick your feet.
                If you shoot arrows at others,
                know that the same arrows will come back to hit you.
                Don’t dig a well in another’s path
                in case you come to the well’s edge
                You look at everyone with hungry eyes,
                but you will be first to become mere dirt.
                Humans are all one body.
                Whoever tortures another, wound himself.
                                    Rehman Baba 17^th Century

 The great philosophers from Aristotle to Immanuel Kant have deduced the same rule. Scientists of human behavior like Erik Erikson have induced the golden rule from observation. Many of the world’s religions have a form of the golden rule as their basis for human behavior. The story in the Christian gospels that illustrates the golden rule is set on the desolate, robber infested road from the heights of Jerusalem down to sultry Jericho, near the Dead Sea. It was the Samaritan, hated by Jews as apostate, who reached out to the injured Jew by the side of the road with empathetic healing care.

The Imam and sponsors of the proposed "Cordoba House" overlooking the World Trade Center site are Sufi and Americans. They are victims of terrorist acts and lost loved ones on 9/11 and in the destruction of their shrines during worship. They reach out to Americans in shared pain over the slaughter of all the innocents, to build a home at ground zero where we can empathize over our losses and join in celebrating peace, love, and tolerance in our own ways.

We, all people harmed by terrorism, can heal with one another!

Dr. David W. Oliver 9/11/2