Imam Azam Akram, who recently spoke at Town Hall, says Islam is open to interpretation. “Everyone’s understanding of their own Islam is different, and we have to come to learn to accept that.”

Azam Akram’s religion is one of peace. Of tolerance, compassion and empathy. It views Buddhists, Christians, atheists and Jews as brothers and sisters. It encourages followers to look inward to become better human beings and create a better planet. It means transcending the quest for the latest iPhone for a life of greater meaning and service.

But the rise of the militant group that calls itself the Islamic State (ISIS) in a post-9/11 world has bred violence abroad as well as fear and prejudice in the U.S., manifesting in hate crimes and social media trends like #killamuslim.

At a March 1 forum titled “Understanding Khilafat and ISIS,” Akram, a Muslim imam, played a Fox News clip where conservative TV personality Eric Bolling presents a plan to weed out terrorists among us: “Profile, profile, profile.” The next talking head in the clip conjured the image of Japanese-American internment camps and said profiling Muslims would be “at least a good start.” This is the kind of video, Akram told the audience, that ISIS will use to draw people to its cause.

Akram sat alongside U.S. Attorney Bruce Miyake, whose parents were in internment camps, Frank Montoya of Seattle’s FBI division, Rich Stolz of OneAmerica and Irfan Chaudhry of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Seattle.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is a worldwide organization of Muslims who believe the Messiah, prophesied by Muhammad, came in the late 19th century. Its members have launched current campaigns such as Stop the CrISIS to stem radical extremism and spread the message of Islam as a peaceful religion; Muslims for Life, to hold blood drives and honor victims of 9/11; and Meet a Muslim Family, to bring non-Muslims into the homes of Muslims and break down stigma.

Even as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi self-proclaims to be the leader of the Islamic State, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community follows the slogan: “Love for all, Hatred for none.” In September 2014, 126 Muslim leaders issued a letter to al-Baghdadi denouncing ISIS and refuting its religious arguments.

Via a call to his home base in Dayton, Ohio, after the recent forum, Akram told Real Change about his vision of Islam and a world where ISIS is not legitimized and all religions coexist peacefully.

One of the things that was clear at Town Hall is that mainstream media has, in many ways, presented Islam through a harmful lens. So rather than me ask you the first question, I’d love for you to tell me what you think is important for people to know.

The media actually does ISIS’ job. That’s what we’re trying to say. If you really want to anger and alienate people, you spread [ISIS’] rhetoric. The thing to understand about Muslims and Islam is that Islam has to do with the heart. Islam has to do with your personal religion: The way you think. Everybody’s understanding of the Quran is different. Everybody’s understanding of their own Islam is different, and we have to come to learn to accept that. What’s happening in the Muslim world is that everyone is saying, “My Islam is right, and your Islam is wrong.” And the ones who wield the most power and the most influence, they like to exercise their power. So Islam is becoming now a power struggle — a fight for political power. Our message is that even if we’re one tiny, little organization standing up against [ISIS], how about 100 others rise up, and that one drop of water on the stone on the exact same spot over time will make a dent. So it’s not that it’s impossible. It’s that we have to be willing to pull our resources together. And the answer is not army or military, with terror and power and firepower, because as soon as you eliminate ISIS, there’s another one waiting in line. So rather than physical warfare, there has to be an ideological warfare.

You said to me at the event that for every message ISIS puts out there, you want to at least match it. What is the message of Stop the CrISIS?

We have to recognize that the true

jihad is that of living and trying to struggle for peace and securing peace. That is our jihad. That is our message: That Islam is a religion of peace, and indiscriminate violence has no place in Islam. The term jihad does not mean going out, strapping on suicide bombs and blowing children up. If you think about it, jihad: It’s just the word for struggle. And the most important application of that struggle is within oneself, with one’s demons that one is dealing with, the daily struggles, trying to raise a righteous family, being honest and truthful to your spouse, raising kids who will be productive in the next generation. That’s the true jihad: to bring about a good change in this world, to try to make a better environment for us as human beings to live in.

Jihad is one of lots of terms you hear used in reports about ISIS, including sharia law and caliphate. If you could take those terms back and redefine them for people, what would you say?

Most people do not know what the term sharia means. They say, “Well, sharia is this type of law, and it’s Islamic and it’s very deadly,” and all that stuff. No. Sharia actually means “life-giving.” It’s something that gives you life: “life-giving water.” So how can it be that something that sustains life is actually used to kill people? That’s the misunderstanding of sharia, right there in its name.

What about caliphate?

Caliphate simply means “successor” or “representative.” God or Allah quotes in the Quran that “Adam is my caliph.” Now, I asked everyone [at Town Hall]: Do you know the name of the caliph of the Ahmadiyyah Muslim Community? No. [Editor’s note: His name is Mirza Masroor Ahmad] Nobody could raise their hands. Why? Because we’re building schools: boring. We’re teaching children: boring. We’re building hospitals all over the world: not enough. We are trying to raise the literacy rates in these poor, developed countries. I mean, it costs $5,000 to drill a well in Ghana, and we’re doing it and we are not asking for money or promoting it, because these types of virtues don’t need to be promoted. But we felt now is the time that we needed to show the world that there’s another caliph out there. Rather than focusing on [al-Baghdadi’s] work, look at [Ahmad’s] work and see how we can support him. We are in a lot of trouble: When we say al-Baghdadi is a caliph, we give him legitimacy. When we say ISIS is Islamic, we give them legitimacy. They want you to call them ISIS. But by you using “daesh” — and that’s what people [in the Middle East] are calling them; it basically means someone who stomps on something — they don’t like that. Words do influence people. Words do have power.

So if you could really boil it all down to something, what is the biggest problem with the way the media portrays Islam?

What was that film that was released just recently?

“American Sniper”?

Right. So the media is portraying Islam as being the enemy, even when they don’t overtly say it. Just by insinuation and the images and glimpses we are shown. After the movie came out, did you follow Twitter and see #killamuslim? How hot that was and how much it was trending? It was like, “I just finished watching ‘American Sniper,’ and I want to kill a Muslim.” And there’s another problem with social media that allows people to hide their faces, and that element of anonymity emboldens people. It emboldens them to say stupid things that they otherwise wouldn’t say. Even after the event that we did [in Seattle], one of the Facebook posts was “all Muslims should be rounded up and sent back to their country.” Another telling thing is that, how is it possible that educated people like George Bernard Shaw had so many great things to say about Islam? Mahatma Gandhi. Who could be more peaceful than Gandhi? What books were they reading? People should educate themselves not on what somebody else is telling them about what Islam is, but go and talk to a Muslim. There are over three million Muslims in the United States. You work with Muslims. They are your coworkers. Talk to them, and you’ll be surprised that they don’t even share any of these ideas that ISIS does. They don’t believe that jihad means fighting or killing or maiming. They are peace-loving people.

At one point, you said you’d know you’ve won when, if someone hears a story about ISIS, they turn their TV off.

A man in Indiana a couple months back went and [set a mosque on fire], and one of the questions during the trial was, “Why did you do it?” His response was something about how Fox made him do it. The whole story is that he was drunk and watching Fox News and something came up, and he just felt so much hate that he wanted to spew it, and his outlet was to go and burn this mosque. So this is the way people are being incited. Maybe not intentionally, but it’s happening.

What do you say to people who [present] what they see as a violent passage of the Quran?

Behind every verse, every commandment, there is a story, a context, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So when the media has a little knowledge and their little knowledge is very little and then they forward that little knowledge onto the next person, they only get bits and pieces. So where it says, for example, “Kill them wherever you find them” in the Quran, that’s all they’ll quote. But [they] forget that before that, it says you should be good to people, you should be nice to people and how, when you’re being good and nice to people, there will be people out there who want to spread violence and hate and religious persecution. It’s those people you should go after and “kill them wherever you find them.” Now, do you understand how those stories are totally different? It doesn’t stop there. After it says kill them wherever you find them, it says, if they give up their transgressions, make peace with them. And it is better for you to forgive than to retaliate. Now, I can just quote one verse in there, which is very sensational. Nobody wants to hear the previous part or the later part.

You told me that the most important question is: “What can I do?” So, what can I do?

It’s that concept of pay it forward. If you learned something [at Town Hall] or ever learned something good from a Muslim, share it with just one other person. And let them know,” “If you want to see who real Muslims are, see this Muslim. Yes, he prays five times a day — he also coaches the soccer team and helps out at the food bank.” Whatever good you learn about Muslims, pass it on. Make sure you educate those around you. Let’s start with ourselves, our own little circle, our own little family members. Let’s have a discussion. Another way you can help out is just don’t perpetuate the common stereotype that all Muslims are inherently violent, that all Muslims practice taqiyya [which means to lie about their faith]. No. There are a lot of hot topics out there; try to understand that topic from an Islamic point of view. Muhammad was a liberator of women. So, you feel that Muslims are oppressing their women. Go out and talk to a Muslim woman. A journalist came up to me and said, “Well, I’ve never really thought about this, but I actually went and asked a Muslim woman why she was wearing that head covering. And I got a really profound answer from her and that answer was ‘It really liberates me. It makes me feel secure, it’s sort of like my armor.’”

You talk about the beauty of Islam. What is the beauty that you see in Islam and in the Muslim faith?

The beauty of Islam is that it teaches you to serve humanity first, because serving humanity is the service of God. Islam teaches you a holistic approach to spirituality where it’s all about working within yourself first before you can help somebody outside you. Sort of like when you’re on an airplane, and they’re going through all their checks and their safety presentation. And then they say, “If the cabin pressure drops, these masks will pop down from the ceiling. Please make sure to put it on yourself first before helping out others.” So that’s what Islam tells us: Please make sure you help yourself out: Get rid of all the hatred and all the ambiguities and all the illnesses from your heart first before you can go and preach that message to somebody else. So to these terrorists, I say, have they purged their hearts of all that anger and hatred, which is what Islam truly teaches them? If you sincerely purge your heart of all anger and hatred and all the ignorance, you can do nothing but to love your fellow brother, you can do nothing but love your fellow neighbor and forgive their trespasses. So this is the message, and this is the beauty that lies in Islam that gets me waking up every day so passionate about what I do. n

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.