Whoever was in the mosque in Chirstchurch – or in Bataclan in 2105 – could have been me, or you.

What happened in Chirstchurch, New Zealand, is heartbreaking.
We ask Allah to have mercy on the victims, forgive their faults and cover them with His Mercy; and to bring down His Sakinah on the affected families, cover them with His Magnanimity and bring them through this time of hardship with presence of mind and acceptance of His decree.
There are no words to justify the killing of innocent lives, regardless of who the victims are.
There is no religious, moral or human foundation that can support such an act; rather it is the result of precisely the opposite, the lack of humanity, morality and religion.
This is true when it happens in New Zealand and the victims are Muslim, when it happens in France and they are not, or when it happens anywhere else in the world.
Also when it happens in Pakistan, Iraq or Afghanistan and innocent victims are killed by drone attacks.
In these days, the analyses of what happened will follow one after another and will highlight, as they are already doing, the polarized and extreme positions that, unfortunately, are becoming a tonic of the current moment.
The double standards of many media and politicians, of one denomination or another, will want to take advantage of what happened to promote their discourses.
But the victims, of this and all similar events, deserve more than that.
They deserve our respect, they deserve our consideration -for them and their families-, they deserve not to be used to promote precisely what has caused them such a tragic end, they deserve our empathy, our generosity and our humanity.
And they deserve our reflection and our decisive action to do, to the best of our ability, everything we can to prevent this from happening again.
Who has attended Friday prayer, the Yumuah, in New Zealand, could have been me, or you.
And whoever meets a similar fate at a concert, when herding goats or going to school, it could also have been me, or you.
There is no ultimate reason why our roles could not have been interchanged, why I would not be in Crhistchurch today to do the Yumuah, in Bataclan in 2015, in Atocha in 2004, or in the Middle East any day of the year.
There is no ultimate reason other than it is part of our decree – our circumstances – to be there or not, and neither I nor you have chosen it.
We ask Allah to cover with His mercy the victims of this tragedy and all tragedies in which innocents die.