Probably the most distressing thing about the Times Square Bomber Faizal Shazad to me was how easily his faith was warped into something that could justify killing innocent people. Faizal went from being privileged, peaceful and pretty much non-religious (his friends remember he spent most of his time in night-clubs and didn’t pray) to being a violent radical in two easy steps.

In 2006, profoundly troubled by rampant injustice and Muslim suffering Faisal e-mailed his friends, “Can you tell me a way to save the oppressed? And a way to fight back when rockets are fired and Muslim blood flows?” Then, in 2007 he told them, “You must have a Sheikh, to understand the Quran!” and, “If you have no Sheikh, your Sheikh is Shaitan!” and, “my Sheikhs are in the field!”

I begin by praying that God’s peace be with each of you today and always.

At a recent Jumu’ah khutbah in Toronto, the khateeb asked the congregation a question: when are we going to stop professing and start confessing? My immediate thought was that confession suggests negativity as we automatically assume that we’re in the wrong and have something to confess.

But let’s take a look at this question from a different approach; one that will help us to take a closer look at ourselves through some introspective analysis. The Webster Dictionary defines the verb to profess to mean “to declare or admit (something) freely in words only”. By contrast, the verb to confess means “to tell or make known, to declare and acknowledge, or to give evidence of something”.