Voltaire warned that the most dangerous lies are not those shouted at us, but those we quietly accept. “Those who can make you believe absurdities,” he wrote in 1765, “can make you commit atrocities.” More than two centuries later, his observation reads less like philosophy and more like diagnosis.
What the death of Alex Pretti ultimately asks of us is not agreement, nor even unanimity. It asks for recognition. Recognition that a single human life, extinguished while acting on behalf of another, can still illuminate a shared moral horizon in an age dimmed by division. Recognition that courage, when it appears, often does so quietly—without choreography, without certainty of outcome, without promise of survival.
The vision that now guides Muslim Life Planning expanded mission—becoming an international repository and steward for human and community-building resources—draws inspiration from the enduring love and leadership of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed. His insistence that faith must enlarge the heart, rather than narrow it, offers a corrective to the politics of fragmentation that so readily divide “us” from “them.” “You are one community,” the Qur’an reminds us, “brought out for the good of all people.” This is not a theological abstraction; it is a civic charge.
From the perspective of the Muslim Life Planning Institute, this moment presses upon a truth long held within Islamic ethical tradition and affirmed by the lived experience of American Muslims: that the measure of a society is found not in its power and might, rather in how faithfully it safeguards human dignity—especially when that dignity is most vulnerable.
American Muslims—among the most ethnically and racially diverse populations in the nation—have long navigated these spaces with resilience, often without adequate institutional understanding or support. Religious values shape how illness is understood, how suffering is endured, and how death is approached. To ignore these realities is not neutrality; it is erasure. To attend to them is not special pleading; it is fidelity to the promise of equal regard.
Raising our voices, then, is not an act of defiance for its own sake. It is an act of cultivation. Words, when spoken with moral clarity and humility, are seeds. Some fall on inhospitable ground. Others take time—seasons, generations—to mature. But silence guarantees barrenness. In remembering Alex Pretti, we are called not only to mourn, but to plant: to invest in institutions that honor life, to insist on systems that reflect our shared humanity, and to imagine a future capacious enough to include everyone in its promise.
Toward global excellence is not toward perfection, but toward responsibility. It is the choice to believe that our differences—of faith, culture, race, and practice—are not liabilities to be managed, but resources to be stewarded. It is the resolve to act, even when the outcome is uncertain. A more perfect union does not emerge fully formed. It is assembled, imperfectly and persistently, by people willing to speak when it would be easier to look away—and to act when the cost is real.
Co-written by MLPI Founder Samuel Shareef.
