Young British Muslims Tell the Islamic State: #NotInMyName

Impact

There's a new trend taking over the social media pages of young British Muslims, and it's aimed right at the Islamic State. 

As Mic has previously reported, there's something troubling about calling this terrorist group the "Islamic State," since they do not accurately represent Islam or Islamic beliefs, but a twisted and perverted interpretation of the global religion. 

So to combat this, young activists, led by Britain's Active Change charity, are telling the terrorists to stop acting under the banner of Islam by circulating the hashtag #NotInMyName and calling out the group for "hiding behind a false Islam."

"Young British Muslims are sick and tired of the hate-filled propaganda the terrorists ISIS and their supporters churn out on social media," the charity's founder, Hanif Qadir, told the Huffington Post UK. "They are angry that the criminals are using the platforms to radicalize young people and spread their poisonous words of violence in the name of Islam."

It's a simple but to-the-point hashtag that does an excellent job of summating one of the biggest problems of the increasing popularity and notoriety of the Islamic State: a glaring misrepresentation of an entire faith. As much as the Islamic State wants to claim it's defending its religion and people, the fact of the matter is that it's not, and it's very important for people to clearly see the difference between the Islamic State terrorist group and the Islamic religion.  

"Islam teaches us respect, mercy, peace and kindness, a faith we strongly believe in and one we want to protect from radicals and fanatics whose very existence threatens our religion," one young Muslim told Huffington Post UK.

Here's a look at some of the tweets and Instagram posts spreading the #NotInMyName trend. 

h/t Huffington Post