If they are convicted of the spate of random killings in the Washington, D.C.-area that left 10 people dead, James Allen Muhammad and Lee Malvo will join a long list of serial killers. We know them by their names and nicknames.

Timothy McVeigh, Charles Manson, “the Boston Strangler (Albert De Salvo),” Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, “the Son of Sam (David Berkowitz),” Jeffrey Dahmer, “the Unabomber (Ted Kaczynski),” Richard Speck, the “University of Texas Sniper (Charles Whitman)” and the “Atlanta Child Murderer (Wayne Williams).”

Yes, we know the names and the crimes. But there is something that we don’t know: What is the religious affiliation of each killer? Baptist? Methodist? Catholic? Jew? Lutheran? Mormon? Episcopalian? Presbyterian?

Of course, we don’t know. We don’t know if any of them were agnostics. So why are reporters spending so much time pointing out that Muhammad was once a member of the Nation of Islam? Or, incorrectly, that he provided security for Minister Louis Farrakhan during the Million Man March.

I remember when we first heard news of the Oklahoma City bombing and some so-called analysts were speculating that the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building had been blown up by members of the Nation of Islam. There was no poof, but some people felt it was safe enough to make such a wild prediction without a shred of evidence.

We now know that in Muhammad’s case, he was a member of the Nation of Islam for approximately two years, from 1997 to 1999. So what?

At a news conference in Chicago, Farrakhan told reporters: “There are Muslims who wear the name Muhammad who are being stigmatized, who are suffering some kind of alienation. Some have had their tires slashed. Some are suffering things because they may be named Muhammad.

“Or, as the media has been saying, he’s a member of the Nation or he has had some affiliation with the Nation, and (some say) somebody who knows the Nation’s teaching (that) it’s automatic that he would be a sniper, this is ridiculous.”
And it’s unfair.

“It is horrific for us to learn that someone who once was a part of our ranks may be involved in something as horrific as this,” Farrakhan said. “But I respectfully say to the members of the media and to the American people, Timothy McVeigh confessed that he was a Christian but nobody blames the church for his misconduct.

“Ninety-five percent of the nearly 2 million inmates in the prison system in the United States will tell you, if you ask them, ‘What is your faith?’ They will say, ‘I’m Christian.’ But no one would blame Jesus or their pastor for their behavior that is contrary to the teachings of Jesus. And nowhere in the teachings of Islam, nowhere in the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, would we countenance any man taking the lives of innocent human beings. That is against our law.”

This stigmatization of our Muslim brothers and sisters in the wake of the D.C. sniping adds pressure to a group that was already under the public microscope because of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks carried out by zealots who claimed to be acting in the name of Allah.

Leading the anti-Muslim crusade in the United States have been some of the nation’s best-known religious leaders.

Rev. Franklin Graham, the son of Rev. Billy Graham, said in a television interview, “…It’s not just a handful of extremists. If you buy the Koran, read it for yourself, and it’s in there. The violence that it preaches is there.”
In an interview on the television program “60 Minutes,” Rev. Jerry Falwell said, “I think [the prophet] Muhammad was a terrorist. I read enough of the history of his life written by both Muslims and non-Muslims, (to know) that he was a…a violent man, a man of war.”

Rev. Pat Robertson said: “To see Americans become followers of, quote, Islam, is nothing short of insanity.”

Farrakhan accused the three ministers—who have been repudiated by many national religious leaders and organizations—of “saying very ugly things about the prophet Muhammad and ugly things about Islam and the God of Islam, as though Christianity has no spots or blemishes.”

He added, “Who was that man that murdered all the nurses? What was his name? Speck? And Bundy. What was their religion? John Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, we don’t know what church they attended. It’s not important because religion does not teach their behavior. Their behavior is an aberration. Their behavior is violation. Their behavior is absolutely rebellion toward what God teaches through the mouth of His prophets.”