Raheel Raza

There, I said it: Donald Trump is right.* With an asterisk.

Before we get to that asterisk, you may be asking yourself: Why is a female, practicing Muslim human rights activist like myself saying what many in Trump’s own party cannot bring themselves to say?

Because Trump is right. About certain things. Certain things about radical Islam, which I have been calling to the world’s attention for the past 20 years.

And I am not just saying this because like Trump, I too proposed “a moratorium on immigration from Muslim countries for a set period till matters here settle down.” A year before he did.

For two decades, through various organizations including the Clarion Project, I have warned about the threats of radical Islam: to women, children, innocent civilians, civilized society, and to the free speech rights of people who dare to speak up.

When Trump speaks up, he gets criticized. When I speak up — about radical Islamist ideology, the jihadis and honor-based violence against women — I get a Fatwa and death threats. Why? Because radicals in my own Islamic faith want me dead.

By the way, if you are reading this in the West, there is a pretty good chance they want you dead, too. Why? ISIS spells it out for you, in the July 2016 issue of its English-language magazine Dabiq, in an article entitled "Why We Hate You & Why We Fight You." Their members hate you because of “your disbelief in Islam,” because your “secular, liberal societies permit…gay rights,” because you are atheists, because you don’t submit to Shari’ah law, and for your “crimes” against the Muslims.

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They finish by saying their “primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam. Even if you were to pay jizyah and live under the authority of Islam in humiliation, we would continue to hate you.”

Not all Muslims believe these radical things. But a certain number do. We provided all of those numbers, with sources, in our film By The Numbers.

Now for the asterisk.

How could I, a female, practicing Muslim human rights activist, say that Trump is right? Because Trump, as politically incorrect as his language may be, has succeeded in sparking an international conversation about radical Islam that we must have now.

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When First Lady Michelle Obama took up the plight of 276 schoolgirls kidnapped by radical Islamists Boko Haram, with the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, I thanked her. When President Obama called female genital mutilation “a tradition that is barbaric and should be eliminated,” I thanked him. And now that Trump has made the issues that we moderate Muslims care about front-page news, I must do what is right for my faith and for my calling. I must do what is right for my long-suffering Muslim sisters and say — without an asterisk this time — that Trump is right: for sparking a conversation about radical Islam.

Because until we really do #BringBackOurGirls, until 500,000 girls in America are no longer victims of genital mutilation or at risk of it, until we stop radical Islamists from killing us for being open, tolerant and liberal, we must continue the conversation that Trump has helped bring to every news broadcast, water cooler and dinner table around the world.

Now it’s time for Mr. Trump to step up and put moderate Muslims on stage, to amplify our voices and make our issues part of the conversation. Because we moderate Muslims are the solution to the problem of radical Islam.

Raheel Raza, a Toronto-based Muslim human rights activist, is featured in the Clarion Project films By the Numbers: The Untold Story of Muslim Opinions & Demographics and Honor Diaries.

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