This Is What It Really Means To Be A Muslim – Watch Video Clip

   King Abdullah II Ibn-Hussein of Jordan - todayszaman.com

Speech of King Abdullah II of Jordan at the European Parliament Strasbourg, France

This is why it is important to clarify what it really means to be a Muslim. I and countless other Muslims, have been taught from our earliest years that our religion demanded respect and caring for others. The Prophet Mohammad, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “None of you has faith until you love for your neighbour what you love for yourself.”

This is what it means to be a Muslim.

Among the very names of God, we hear: the Compassionate, the All-Merciful. All my life, every day, I have heard and used the greeting, Assalamu aleikum — a wish for the other to be blessed with peace.

This is what it means to be a Muslim.

More than a thousand years before the Geneva Conventions, Muslim soldiers were ordered not to kill a child, a woman or an old person, not to destroy a tree, not to harm a priest, not to destroy a church.

These are the same values of Islam we were taught in school as children: not to destroy or desecrate a place where God is worshipped, not a mosque, not a church, not a synagogue.

This is what it means to be a Muslim.

These are the values I teach my children and they will hand on to theirs.

“Our regions, our people, can find no better partners and neighbors than each other. History, geography and future bind us. Let no one separate us, Abdullah said. " Together, we can create pillars of mutual respect that will support the common good for generations to come.”