After the news of the horrific murder of Muslim student Nahid Almanea, who was stabbed 16 times, Muslims all over the world were in a state of shock

At this point we don’t know the motive or who murdered her, but if you talk to most Muslims they’ll tell you that they think it probably had something to do with her looking like a Muslim woman (i.e. wearing clothing that made it easy to identify her as a Muslim — e.g. hijab, abaya).

For most Muslims this incident was just a reminder of something we all know to be true but most don’t want to really think about — that there is a growing trend of violent attacks against Muslims.

Hate speech against Muslims is spilling over into hate crimes on a regular basis.

And due to the lack of political organisation within the Muslim community (and the overall uselessness of UK mosques), there has been no organised attempt to stop this tide of Islamophobia.

Sadly, it’s been left to the few Muslims who are politically awake to raise awareness about the issues affecting our community and to demand our equality in today’s society.

It’s also meant that shocking comments made by people, like Ed Husain, have been allowed to go mainly unnoticed.

For those of you who don’t know, here’s what Ed Husain had to say after the brutal murder of Nahid Almanea:

He has since deleted the tweet (which I’ll come back to later) but let’s look at what he’s trying to say. Basically he meant:

There is a growing hatred of Islam. If Muslims are going to get attacked for their religion, the best thing to do is stop looking so Muslim

Now, I want that to really sink in.

Rather than say that more needs to be done to deal with hate towards Muslims, Ed is saying Muslim women should consider looking less Muslim so that they won’t be victims.

In other words — certain things set Islamophobes off and you need to make sure you don’t do things that will set them off otherwise you’re asking for it.

If we applied that same, twisted thinking to rape crimes, what you would be basically saying is if women don’t stop doing things that set off rapists (you know the typical sexist comments, the clothes that women wear, the way they behave with men etc), don’t be surprised if they get raped.

This shocking way of thinking that puts the blame on the victim, rather than the criminal, should have led to Ed apologising or being forced to resign from his position of Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

But it didn’t.

And to top it all off? Here’s the reason why Ed deleted the tweet:

He didn’t deleted it because he was wrong and insensitive for making his comments.

He deleted his comments because our brains aren’t able to handle what he is saying.

We can’t handle a discussion on why Muslim women should look less Muslim in the current climate of hate .

Guess what, Ed? We’re never going to have that discussion.

Rather than starting a discussion on what can be done to tackle Islamophobia, you thought it was the ideal time to tell Muslim women that they should consider taking off the hijab to protect themselves?

What is wrong with you?

No one believes that you made these comments out of concern for Muslim women — your track record of making stupid comments leads most Muslims to believe that (a) you are actually that deluded to believe taking the hijab off is part of the solution and (b) you do not have the Muslim community’s interests at heart.

Shame on you for blaming the victim, shame on you for not apologising and shame on you for blaming Muslims for not being ready to have the so-called “intellectual” discussion you want to be had.

If we want to see an end to the attacks on Muslims we need a genuine discussion to be had, not one where the solution is ‘stop looking like Muslims that the general public is being taught to be more intolerant of’.

Where are the Muslims and where are the feminist groups to hold Ed Husain to account?

Muslims should not allow Ed’s comments to be forgotten.

The Council for Foreign Relations, where Ed is a Senior Fellow, should be make aware of Ed’s comments. If this is what one of their “experts” thinks, do they agree with his comments? Or do they find them deplorable as all other decent people do?

Tweet them, FB them or email them, and get others to do the same. There needs to be some pressure on Ed Husain.

And now on to the feminist groups.

Where are they? Why aren’t they leading the condemnations of Ed’s comments?

Ed is suggesting that Muslim women need to be careful about what they wear in today’s climate — why are they not condemning such a suggestion?

That same logic could be applied to rape victims — in both cases it is deplorable and in both cases I would expect feminist groups to hold Ed to account.

But they’re not in this instance, and all it does is confirm what most Muslims think about most feminist groups — they’re opportunistic, and happy to jump on the anti-Islam bandwagon but never speak out when Muslim women are the victims at the hand of non-Muslims.

I’ll cover my thoughts on feminist groups and Muslims in a future article but essentially, if they’re only going to speak out against attacks on Muslim women when it’s politically expedient, don’t be surprised that most Muslims don’t trust them or want their support.