I Am a Muslim

I am a Bangladeshi Bengali Muslim

We often face a set of questions. Sometimes people ask me am I a Muslim first or Bangladeshi first. Even they ask me am I Bangladeshi or Bengali. It seems to me that many of you have such experiences of facing all these stupid questions. Why am I saying stupid questions? Those who ask these questions, basically they believe in one dimensional identity or they may not understand that man can have multi-identity and each identity has valid, strong and solid base.

Problem is that when people face these questions we find two types of people. First group say I am a Muslim and second group say I am a Bangladeshi or Bengali. In fact, both groups are wrong because a person can have multi-identity and there is no problem to go with this multi-identity. So if someone asks me this question again I would say I am a Bangladeshi by birth and citizenship, a Bengali by culture, and a Muslim by Religion. In total, I am a Bangladeshi Bengali Muslim. Likewise, my friend Aunik should identify him as a Bangladeshi Bengali Hindu or my friend Sumanta should say he is a Bangladeshi Bengali Christian and so on. In this way, we can live a society where we have more common than uncommon and that’s the way to go forward. Here we are same on the ground of Bangladeshi and Bengali. It helps us to be united with same Bangladeshi Bengali principles and values. What is the difference? Difference is in religion. How do we deal with this issue? Answer is very simple. We have to believe in two things. Firstly we have to respect each other and then sharing values. It is essential to gather mutual knowledge to respect each other. When as a Muslim I will start to be known with other religion, my respect to them will grow as we can share our values.