Triumph Over Terror (TOT) Project

The Texas Islamic Council (TIC), an independent statewide coalition of Islamic Centers (Mosques) across the Lone Star State coordinated by the Freedom and Justice Foundation (F&J), voted in June 2006 to build expansive interfaith partnerships that include all of civic and political society in order to clarify the language used in the Global War On Terror (GWOT) in order to accurately define our enemy. To learn more, read the background information to the right.

What's  New

Key Milestones

Our Grassroots Strategy:

Editorialized Background information on the GWOT's Public Diplomacy Challenge:

The demonization of Islam by its editorialized association with Terrorism in the mainstream media started taking off approximately 10 years ago and hasn't stopped since. Today it has reached such a fevered pitch that it makes our job of defeating terrorism stemming from the Muslim world a much more difficult task.

Though this TOT Project was initiated by American Muslims to highlight a drowned out perspective as to why this Global War on Terror's enemy is misidentified; it has now grown to include Americans in all walks of life.  This misidentification with Islam has allowed hate/pressure groups to perpetuate a vitriolic assault on the Religion of Peace, Islam, and its founder, Prophet Muhammad.  Misidentification with Islam, a global religion with over a billion adherents, has also left many Americans fearful and willing to curtail the precious civil liberties of their fellow American Muslim Citizens.  This sense of fear has left Muslims in a very vulnerable position to overzealous and selective prosecutions coupled with an under siege feeling brought upon by misguided law enforcement tactics.

We fully recognize the threat posed by al-Qaeda's global militant anarchist movement to our American way of life. Though America might have awoken to al-Qaeda's threat on 9/11, many were combating their propaganda many years earlier.  Many people involved in this project are coordinators of federal law enforcement homeland security community relations efforts, have served our nation with honor in the US Armed Forces or have voluntarily aided our nation's Public Diplomacy efforts oversees post 9/11. 

What we are united in calling for is that all Americans wishing to aid our global struggle against politically motivated violence targeting civilians by groups like al-Qaeda or individuals espousing its ideology should terminate the usage of the word "Islam" as the root of terms describing the terrorism our nation confronts today.

We encourage our fellow Americans to read the Triumph Over Terror interfaith statement, share it with family and friends and join its growing signatories list. Our nation is fighting a determined enemy with strategies that repulse the average human being and therefore could never win through the ballot box. Alienating large populations with inaccurate terminology, whose broad brush tarnishes millions, makes the terrorist recruitment efforts to "defend the faith" easier not harder. That, after all, harms our national interest and endangers American lives.

We know that some will view this as a trivial cosmetic change, but to those we would answer that whether it was the Congressionally mandated 9/11 Commission or the White House Administration of George W. Bush the message that this war will be won or lost amongst Muslims has been clearly articulated. This is a struggle for hearts and minds; speaking what we mean will help tremendously at home and abroad.