"Muslims are good people." What Does That Mean?

[Note: This first paragrpah is from a blog I wrote in 2014.]

In May this year, my wife and I were returning to Virginia from a visit to Arizona. On the plane across the aisle sat a woman who turned to my wife and asked if she was Muslim. Getting an affirmative answer, she volunteered that she was Mormon and that she was on her way to Virginia to attend the wedding of her son to a Muslim young woman. We congratulated her and wished them well. She explained that her ex-husband, who sat in the row in front of her, was against this marriage and did not want to go to the wedding at all. Then they decided to ask their church leader about this. The church leader told them, “Muslims are good people.” That changed the ex-husband’s mind, and now they and their two sons were headed to Virginia to attend the wedding of their newly converted Muslim son with a Muslim woman. It so happened that as we waited in the baggage area, my wife was even able to meet this young Muslim women who had come to pick them up. All because the good church leader expressed his sentiment clearly: “Muslims are good people.”

Lately, now in 2024, I have been thinking about what the church leader meant when he said, “Muslims are good people?” 

How do we define goodness that make people good? Did the goodness that the Mormon church leader employ to define Muslims as good people the same as the goodness that a Muslim faith leader would employ? Do Mormon good people and Muslim good people have enough in common for that church leader to define Muslims as good people? How was the church leader so confident about goodness in Muslims all around that he unhesitatingly sanctioned the goodness in that one single Muslim based on his perception of all Muslims being good people?

We know that many church leaders do not think that all, or even some, Muslims are good people. Even some Muslims faith leaders may wonder whether all Muslims are good people. Some are and some are not. That’s the way life is. Perhaps the absence of goodness in some defines the presence of goodness in others. Or is there a yardstick that measures goodness?

That raises a question to think about. Was the church leader using the biblical yardstick or the qur’anic yardstick to define Muslims as good people? Did he know the difference between the two? Did it matter to him, even if he was familiar enough with the Qur’an to know the difference? Finally, from the Muslim perspective, is there a difference? If not, are good Muslims and good Mormon or good Christians or good Jews on the same wavelength?
Is goodness a common trait that runs through Islam and through the whole spectrum of faiths and creeds that humanity espouses? Is goodness a faith, apart from a system of beliefs? Perhaps not. Divine scriptures ties faith as commitment with goodness as action.

The advice that “Muslims are good people” advanced a matrimonial bond that may lead to a generation of good people. One may hope more faith leaders can offer such advice to their congregations, not superficially but sincerely.