Sally Weeks Currier

Champion for schools and student-centered learning. Working on initiatives to re-imagine schools. At least my dog thinks I am pretty awesome.

[Imam of Peace @Imamofpeace]

A Statement of Conscience on October 7

I will not start by saying ‘as a Muslim’ or ‘as an imam’, but as a human being.

On October 7, over 1,200 innocent people were killed in a single day. Families were shot in their homes. Young people out dancing were hunted across open fields. Over 250 people, including children and the elderly, were dragged into Gaza as hostages. I think of a mother hiding in a safe room with her baby’s mouth covered. I think of a father listening as the line went quiet. I think of families who waited month after month for someone to come home, only to receive a coffin. I didn’t need my faith to recognize the evil of what happened. My heart told me first.

But I’m a Muslim and an imam, and I owe the world one honest sentence: what was done that day was a crime against God. God teaches that whoever kills one innocent soul, it is as if he had killed all humanity.

This day has an author: Yahya Sinwar. He planned it, ordered it, and knew what would follow. Every death of that day and war he started rests on him and Hamas leaders who sat in tunnels and foreign hotels and called slaughter a victory. It rests on every Palestinian leader who cheered, excused, handed out sweets, or said nothing. They chose this. They own it.

But Sinwar did not invent himself. He was the fruit of a tree planted almost a century ago by the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas named itself in its founding charter as the Brotherhood’s branch in Palestine. The Brotherhood’s poison is slow. It arrives through study circles, youth camps, charity boxes, and kind words to lonely young men. Drop by drop, it teaches him that his religion is a political party, his neighbour is his enemy, the Jew is the cause of his sorrow, and God is pleased by rage. By the time the gun arrives, the soul is already taken.

I have seen this poison in mosques where sermons became rallies and young men could recite slogans but not sit still for a verse on mercy. Every people that let the Brotherhood in has paid in blood and ruined generations. It has never built anything it did not first set on fire.

Behind Hamas stands another hand: the IRGC. It was the IRGC’s money, weapons, and training that turned a hateful idea into an army. One calls itself Sunni and the other Shia, and they may curse each other’s creeds, but they are united in what they worship. It is not God. It is power. The same IRGC that armed the killers of October 7 shoots Iranian girls for showing their hair, hangs young men for asking to be free, and has left graves from Tehran to Damascus to Beirut. They speak in God’s name. So did Pharaoh speak in the name of heaven.

So let me say this clearly. Hamas and the IRGC are not merely enemies of Islam. That would be too small a charge, as if their crime were only against us. They are enemies of God. God is the Giver of life, yet they deal in death. God calls Himself the Most Merciful, yet they have made cruelty a sacrament. God honoured the children of Adam, yet they look at a child and see a target or a shield. To murder what God created and sign His name to it is the oldest blasphemy.

And we Muslims have been too quiet. Some of us were afraid. Some told ourselves it was not our business. Some, God forgive them, felt something other than horror that morning and never confessed it. Silence was the soil this poison grew in. I will not add to it.

So on this anniversary, let us say plainly what our scripture already says. The Jews are not our enemies. They are our cousins in Abraham, and their dead were created by the same God who created us. Today belongs to them: the murdered, the hostages, and families who still set a place at the table. To them I say: I am sorry for what was done to you by men who used the words of my prayers. You’re not alone in your grief or remembrance.

The enemies of God are those who murder in His name. We know their names. It is time we said them from our own pulpits, in our own voices, before they speak for us again.

Imam Tawhidi

[Sally Weeks Currier @SallyCurrier]

@DeepDishEnjoyer Public Garden, not the Common

[Sally Weeks Currier @SallyCurrier]

Helicopters over downtown boston tonight why

[Sally Weeks Currier @SallyCurrier]

Common Start Coalition in the Boston Common today. Support for Early Childhood Education & Care!

[Beth Anderson @BethAndersonPCA]

…and here’s the proof @Springfield. Way to go @phoenixcharter @SpfldMACityHall #edthataddsup

[Beth Anderson @BethAndersonPCA]

Personally I think cops having fun and giving out free ice cream to kids at @phoenixcharter graduation is a pretty good place to start building new ideas of community policing. Thx @CityofChelseaPD and @ChiefKyes for being in it with us today.

[Beth Anderson @BethAndersonPCA]

Proving it possible for this tiny lady, to graduate with the Class of 2040(!) Every time a teen parent graduates, their child’s chances of graduating AND delaying childbirth increases exponentially. You’re a game -changer, Essence. Bravo @phoenixcharter Springfield #edthataddsup

[Beth Anderson @BethAndersonPCA]

Admittedly, the @phoenixcharter graduations over the past week were the absolute best time I’ve had all year. Beyond proud to support these warriors in Chelsea, Lawrence and Springfield MA @mass4charters #edthataddsup

[Sally Weeks Currier @SallyCurrier]

I am inspired by participating in the YW Boston’s 26th Academy Achievers Celebration, listening to this year’s outstanding honorees.

[Sally Weeks Currier @SallyCurrier]

Sign the Group Greeting card for Susan W. Paine https://t.co/CniOW8VanA

[Jason Nichols @drjasonnichols]

Retweet if you think @JoeBiden should award Officer Eugene Goodman the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

[Kim Mangone’s Spirit @KimMangone]

Kevin McCarthy congratulated Biden and Harris as if he didn’t spend the past year stoking fear and election misinformation. Retweet if you won’t forget.

[Julia Ioffe @juliaioffe]

Listen, there are some of us on here for whom both the Holocaust and Soviet totalitarianism are very real, non-metaphorical things, and it would be nice if people stopped invoking them in bad faith to describe losing Twitter followers and having to walk through metal detectors.

[Adam Parkhomenko @AdamParkhomenko]

they should play this on the house floor before voting

[. @GregTSargent]

Wall of sedition:

https://t.co/Yi6xE05Zuu

[Hillary Clinton @HillaryClinton]

People who stood by Donald Trump for the last four years are now claiming to be offended that a Democratic campaign manager used a curse word? I don't think so.

[Joe Lockhart @joelockhart]

Enough of this both sides are responsible for chaos in DC. Dems are playing by the rules of a mature and established Democracy. Republicans are acting like they're running a banana Republic. It's not both sides -- it's one side.

[Inversant @InversantTweets]

#Highered is often seen as a way to close the racial wealth gap. But it's not as simple as it sounds.

Dr. Charles Desmond & experts from @stlouisfed William R. Emmons, Ph.D., Ana Hernández Kent, Ph.D., Lowell R. Ricketts explore structures in #highered. https://t.co/Nasro8zVz8

[Inversant @InversantTweets]

At #Inversant, we believe that parent involvement leads to student success.

#Highereducation is attainable for all regardless of income. Family engagement is crucial to students’ educational achievements. 🎓 https://t.co/fRGogIhAmZ