March 19, 2021
As-salaamu ‘alaykum:
This past Tuesday, as we were hosting a panel on Gendered Islamophobia here at the American Islamic College, news began to surface of a vicious, murderous, misogynistic, racist attack on Asian women in Atlanta. Now, as the U.S. House of Representatives holds its first hearings on anti-Asian discrimination in three decades, we at the American Islamic College join our sisters and brothers worldwide in praying for the victims – the murdered, wounded, and forever traumatized survivors – and we raise our collective voice to condemn these criminal acts and the ideologies of misogyny and anti-Asian racism that inspired them.
The faculty, staff, and students of AIC stand committed to diversity, equity, and the inclusion of all individuals, genders, groups, races, and faiths, and so we stand against the bigotry, supremacism, misogyny, and violence that plagues our nation and our world. This is truly a pandemic of another kind, a sickness that afflicts our souls and infects the systems in which we live. The Qur’an teaches us that the unjust killing of a single soul is tantamount to killing all of humankind, and so we mourn these victims and embrace their families as our own. More, we pledge to make their lives matter by working harder to transform our nation and our world in our commitment to the dignity and sanctity of every life, in our commitment to love, to mercy, to justice, and to pathways of peace.
Timothy J. Gianotti, Ph.D.
President