Friday, September 15, 2006 I think all of us remember where we were on that fateful morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Too much happened that day for us to be able to forget. All of this past week, particularly on Monday, many people spoke about the impact the event had on the United States. I was not in the country at the time to be able to contribute to that discussion. But I was outside America that morning, and I can certainly share that experience. When I first heard about the event, it had been some hours since it had happened. I remember former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke speaking on CNN about what seemed to be definite American plans for reprisal for the attacks. At that point, the only thought that went through my head was: Where is the closest bunker? I was almost certain that Karachi, Pakistan (where I was living at the time) would be bombed. I had no time to digest the tremendous loss of life in Lower Manhattan or the Pentagon. I was worried about my own family. As events turned out, Karachi was not bombed and I was able to breathe relatively easily while living in Pakistan. Was it then that I mourned the dead in America? Not yet. I had yet to see and help the steady stream of refugees from Afghanistan into Pakistan. People who had their legs blown off by bomblets from cluster bombs were being carried all the way from Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan to Karachi on trucks for medical treatment. Faced with the blood of my neighbors, I had little time to ponder what had happened on the other side of the planet. When things finally calmed down in Afghanistan (or became as calm as they could in the unfortunate land), I was able to ponder and mentally digest what had happened. I was not unaware of the tragedy in the United States, mind you. I had seen the images just as much as anyone else. The only difference was that the images I saw of the victims of 9/11 had no people in them. I saw no human beings actually being hurt, and so it took time for me to realize just how many people had died in the attacks; how many lives had been erased in a just a few moments. When I saw the families talking about that day on the first anniversary, the magnitude of the suffering finally hit me. At that point, I mourned for the dead and injured in New York and Washington, D.C. I could relate to their stories because just a few months ago, my own grandfather had died in my arms. To have the life of a loved one taken away creates a void that never quite fills itself again. To have it done so by the force of hate would be an even more heart-wrenching experience, something that I have not experienced. I can only imagine the immense anger in this country against those who perpetrated those attacks. There was undoubtedly some reactionary discrimination against people who, well, look like me. But the fact remains that the country as a whole made a tremendous effort to separate the actions of a lunatic fringe from the majority of ordinary citizens who professed the Islamic faith. I cannot speak for others, but I feel very comfortable being a Muslim in the United States. And at this juncture, I want to take the opportunity to answer a question often asked by many Americans: Why have Muslims not vociferously condemned the attacks as being against the teachings of Islam? The answer is as follows: We have. You just have not been listening. I want to take this opportunity to present some more unequivocal responses by Muslims to the attacks on 9/11. I will begin with the name that most people will find surprising: the leader of Iran, Ayatollah Said Ali Khamenei, who stated in 2001 that “Killing of people, in any place and with any kind of weapons, including atomic bombs, long-range missiles, biological or chemical weapons, passenger or war planes, carried out by any organization, country or individuals is condemned. … It makes no difference whether such massacres happen in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Qana, Sabra, Shatila, Deir Yassin, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq or in New York and Washington.” The more significant condemnation, which I know of because I read its entire text, was that by an assembly of Muslim scholars in Karachi. Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, a participant, stated that “It is wrong to kill innocent people. It is also wrong to praise those who kill innocent people.” I could provide you with a whole list of uslims who, in no uncertain terms, condemned the attacks. The problem seems to be, however, that the members of the Muslim community who get attention in the media are not as intelligent and well-spoken as we would like them to be. Perhaps paying a little less attention to the verbally challenged and a bit more to our serious scholars and leaders would be in order. Farooq Tirmizi is a junior in the School of Foreign Service. He can be reached at tirmizithehoya.com. Fresh Off the Boat appears every other Friday.