As a Muslim-American, it’s personal for me: Donald Trump’s dangerous comments on Islam and Muslims make me fear for my country. The original ownership and authority over Jerusalem are highly contested due to the presence of holy sites for Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the city. Currently, Israel issues marriage licenses if performed under an official religious authority (whether it be Orthodox Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Druze, etc.) only between a man and a woman of the same religion. In ancient Greece, Pan the wild god of nature, was depicted as half goat and half man. Since ancient times, Japanese philosophers have pondered basic, unanswerable questions about their natural environment. If salvation is through Christ and Christ alone, then there is little need for the state to regulate private and public behavior beyond providing a conducive environment for individuals to cultivate virtue and become more faithful to Christ. In an attempt to codify and control what had been an organic and constantly evolving body of law, the state was strengthened and centralized, its authoritarian tendencies exacerbated, and the clerics weakened. If following the sharia-for example, refraining from alcohol and adultery, observing the fast, and praying five times a day-is a precondition for salvation, then political leaders and clerics alike have a role in encouraging the good and forbidding evil, a role they played, to various degrees, for the entirety of the pre-modern period.

As more revelations enjoined him to proclaim the oneness of God universally, the Prophet Muhammad’s following grew. One night, while the Prophet was sleeping, the Archangel Gabriel came and led him on a journey. If embracing secular nationalism had led to Europe’s ascendance, they argued, then why shouldn’t it do the same for the Middle East? That led transcendentalists to become an important part of other activist movements in America that sought to abolish slavery and achieve women’s suffrage. When we were growing up and going to Sunday school (yes, Muslim Americans have Sunday school, too), Abu Bakr, Omar, and Ali didn’t feel like historical figures but, rather, people who were a part of our lives, reminders of both a glorious history and the internecine killing that threatened to undo it. Even if it takes a little imagination to see the cat peering back at you from that blocky, triangular outline, that’s part of the fun. Islam is distinctive in how it relates to politics-and this distinctiveness can be traced back to the religion’s founding moment in the seventh century. Soon enough, we were talking about Yazid, the second caliph of the Umayyad Empire, killing and beheading the prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Hussein, at the Battle of Karbala in the seventh century.

The Ottoman Empire, hoping to stave off decline in the 19th century, launched a series of internal reforms, known as the tanzimat. Was the decline some sort of divine retribution? Perceptions of decline were often overlaid with a kind of theological determinism. After all, God had promised glad tidings for those who followed his commands, and he had, seemingly, delivered for centuries. Islam and Christianity are, after all, meant to do different things. Jewish or Mosaic law was provisional, meant for a particular place and time, and for a chosen people, where Christianity was universal and everlasting. But could events that took place 14 centuries ago really matter all that much to a modern predicament? The dismal state of the Middle East is all the more difficult to accept knowing that, for much of the past 14 centuries, there was a great deal for Arabs and Muslims to be proud of. Because of this exceptionalism, a Middle Eastern replay of the Western model-Reformation followed by an Enlightenment in which religion is gradually pushed into the private realm-is unlikely.

Islam is different. This difference has profound implications for the future of the Middle East and, by extension, for the world in which we all live, whether we happen to be American, French, British, or anything else. And, as if that weren’t enough, Shazam is also invulnerable, resistance to magic, has a healing factor, can fly, and is capable of hurling thunderbolts. You’ve already used us as best as you can. The moment of death, life in the grave, the Day of Judgement, Heaven and Hell. It wasn’t dissimilar from the other questions we were asking ourselves that day about the rise of the Islamic State, civil war, and the seemingly endless shedding of blood: How could Muslims do this to each other? Over generous helpings of turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, and stuffing, we found ourselves talking about the scourge of terrorism and the responsibility of Muslims to say and do something about it.