THE BIGGER PICTURE: I am not Muslim, but from time to time people have approached me believing that I am. To this experience of mistaken identity, I must say, I have pride. I am proud to be identified with this group. While not a Muslim, I have worked in my life to be an ally to Muslims.
It is not possible to set up a world based on connectedness and justice unless we decide to be allies to each other across our identities. We cannot move forward as long as we can count only on ourselves to believe in and fight for ourselves when the world gets confused about us.
To be an ally takes effort - a decision to get involved when it seems the injustice has nothing to do with us and to remember what is true about human beings in all situations. More so, it is essential that we who are not being targeted become allies to those who are.
Being an ally to Muslims means challenging ourselves. We are being given a lot of misinformation about them, and so it is our job to listen, learn and act by their side when they are forced to defend themselves against the lies.
We must create situations where they can rest from time to time, knowing that someone outside their group will continue to see the goodness in them and love them like their own. This is what it means to be an ally. This is what will bring our world forward.
It has not been straightforward for me to become useful in this situation. I am, you see, a Hindu from India, and the Hindus and Muslims of India and Pakistan have a particularly hurt-filled relationship.
I don't know how many people died in the partition of our countries in 1946, but I know it is more than this island could conceive of in its years of the Troubles, and I know it has left a deep scar on Indians and Pakistanis of the era - one that seems only to be dealt with by silence and which is handed down to the next generation.
Growing up in Canada, I didn't realise the depth of this legacy until I discovered that one of my friends at college was Muslim, and realised that I had never met a Muslim before. Our people were completely distant. As such, not only could I have known nothing about Muslims (having no personal relationships with them), but I was in no position to recognise or challenge any lies I might have been told about.
It was only later, through my academic work, that I came to gain greater insight into the relationship between conflicting political agendas in the Middle East and the West's nurturing of a misunderstanding of Islam.
Many might be surprised to learn that, in reality, Islam is a religion rooted in peace (just as, despite whatever abuses might go on in the institutionalisation of Catholicism, this is a religion rooted in love).
When I first studied Islam at university, my professor (not a Muslim) insisted we spend the first few weeks of term compiling an annotated bibliography of Islamic sources. The lesson he wished us to learn was simple: he informed us that of the entire world population of Muslims (now often quoted as 1 billion), about 5 per cent consisted of "fundamentalists".
However, they also were the most vocal group within the Muslim community. Thus, if we wanted to know about Islam, we would have to work hard to learn from the 95 per cent of people - the quiet, "common" community, people of a faith, consistent in every way with every other human being.
We must not be confused between a faith, the nature of human beings, and how any person can be manipulated to fulfil political agendas.
It makes no sense that people around the world, from a great variety of cultural and national contexts, would find value in a belief system that has "evil at its heart". What is true is that it is only ever a small group of our population who turn to violence in any consistent way, and that humans only do this when we feel we have run out of options.
Throughout the history of humanity, people across diverse identities have always found a desire to love and support each other.
Muslims whom I have spoken to are saddened by the current violence (as they are saddened by the lack of insight as to the offence of the cartoons). Violence is not an Islamic way of behaving. Catholics and Protestants have responded to this strategy and degree even on this island, let alone the world. Yet, we are not confused about what is at the "heart of Christianity".
It is time to stop believing we are threatened by this group. It is time to embrace and shelter the "95 per cent" of Muslims who have nowhere in the world to go where people see the difference between their faith and the political struggle some Muslims are entrapped in.
We lie to ourselves if we think we can understand ourselves or the world while making no effort to love and connect to our fellow human beings who are Muslim. In them, we will find people who are allies to us, and we must decide to be allies to them. Right now, they need us to know them.
Shalini Sinha has established Forward Movement, a social justice healthcare clinic, where she practises life coaching and the Bowen Technique.