Husam Rabi travels once, maybe twice, a month for business as a Boeing engineer.

Trip number one: random-selection search at the airport – he goes along with it. Trip number two: random-selection search upon arriving home in Seattle.

“Why did you pick me from among all these people? Don’t tell me random.”

He’s told it’s routine.

Trip number three: random-selection search, and his frustration mounts. Trip number four: he’s met at the door of the airplane by security in front of his colleagues.

“They took me as if I was a terrorist.”

That time he made his feelings known, wondering aloud why he’s being treated like a threat, why his reputation is being ruined and why he continues to be harassed. Finally, he gets his answer.

The name “Mustafa” is on a list of names, not people, who are to be stopped and searched.

“My name is not Mustafa, my father’s name is Mustafa. Because my father’s name is Mustafa, they took me and have been picking on me… this is what the government is doing to me.”

After these repeated events, Rabi — one of three imams at the Islamic Center of Federal Way — was taken off that list. Still, Rabi wonders what happens to those not able, or too afraid, to speak up.

“Imagine the people who didn’t make a big fuss – they go through the same thing over and over,” Rabi said. “Why? Why punish innocent people?”

Mohammad Yasin, a member of the Islamic Center’s board of trustees, has had similar incidents of profiling at the airport, as well as in the city of Kent when the mosque attempted to landscape blackberry bushes and beautify its place of congregation.

Youcef Bennour, a 2014 Federal Way High School graduate, has family members who refrain from leaving the house in the immediate aftermath of attacks that ISIS claims ownership of, such as the Orlando nightclub massacre, that dominate Western headlines. His mother wears a hijab and has been told, “Go back to your country.” She spends weeks at a time after these incidents wondering about her place in American society.

“That brought her down because [she thought], ‘Where should I go back to when this is my country?'” Bennour said. “The religion is an important piece of her, the tradition and culture of this nation is important to us too… It makes me wonder, is the same story going to happen to me 20 years from now?”

Mariam Addish, a Black Muslim American, feels the wrath of racial and religious profiling when she steps out in her hijab as well — a garment of cultural significance to who she is as a person, not something she is forced to wear.

“At a young age we are taught to never judge a book by its cover, but society teaches us otherwise,” Addish said. “In many cases, I’ve had random individuals give me very penetrating glares and individuals approach me with provocative words, solely because they know I’m a Muslim.”

Rabi, Yasin, Bennour and Addish are part of the 1 percent: Muslim-Americans. Fatigue, mixed with the passion of a mother bear protecting her cubs, oozes out of their voices as they attempt to correct some of the misconceptions that have come as a result of Islam being constantly grouped with violence. It’s clear they’ve had to defend their way of life many times since 9/11 — and they’re exhausted.

“Our religion is a religion of peace, not a religion of terrorism,” Rabi said. “Any killing of innocent people is against the religion of Islam.”

All four agree it’s hard for the Muslim community to speak up like Rabi did at the airport. More often than not, the community ends up like Bennour’s mother — wondering what they did wrong when they express their rights and freedom.

“A lot of us are afraid to go out and be part of the society. Because we think the society doesn’t want us to be part of it, so we’re not going to be part of it,” Bennour said.

Their fear is largely borne of the frustration that comes from being forced to be held accountable for individuals who don’t represent their values. The frustration is matched only by the level of pain in each of their eyes to have seen the religion they devote their life to get dragged through the mud by the media, politicians and everyone in between.

“I don’t want Muslims to be punished for something we didn’t do,” Rabi said. “We should not be blamed for someone else’s mistakes. If I didn’t do it, why punish me?”

As terrorist attacks happen, Rabi said people — especially those who don’t research the religion themselves — take potentially biased (or flat-out wrong) information, perpetuate stereotypes off of it, and eventually begin to act as hatemongers.

“People’s nature is, they get scared of the unknown. Islam, maybe, is unknown,” Rabi said. “But when they attach the name of the religion in the news to every act of terrorism, they make us [out to be] like terrorists — and that’s not fair and that’s not right.”

Rabi cites people’s “understanding” of the term “jihad” to mean “all things war” as an example of this slippery-slope that leads to hatemongering. In Arabic, “jihad” means to strive, struggle and exert effort — whether it’s against evil inclinations within one’s self or working to improve societal quality of life. Addish agrees, saying she notices these misconceptions becoming “programmed” into people’s heads to consider and treat a Muslim as a “terrorist,” or “dangerous,” or “unpatriotic.”

For Addish, things get complicated with how she’s perceived because of societal connotations associated with being a woman. Add that to being a Black Muslim American, and Addish said she’s treated even more as an outlier, especially by non-Muslims.

“Society treats women differently than men, if we are talking in general terms,” Addish said. “Being profiled for my religion or race as a Muslim Black American is inevitable in a country built off of white supremacy and the practice of discriminating minorities.”

When it comes to ISIS, or “NISIS” (non-Islamic State), as Rabi calls it, the Islamic Center condemns the group’s violent ways and jump at every chance to distance themselves from the group — including denouncing the attack in Orlando on its website the very same day.

“We were very sad about those incidents,” Yasin said. “They’re not Muslims.”

Rabi said ISIS claiming to be Muslim is hypocritical: Islam teaches that killing even one innocent person is as much a sin as killing all of mankind. He believes sadistic minds are warping Quran scriptures around their own violent, terrorizing motives, then recruiting vulnerable individuals with promises of wealth and sex to carry out attacks.

“People claim to be Muslim and do terrorist acts. People claim to be Christian, like the KKK. But do I consider them Christians? I don’t, because they commit terrorist acts,” Rabi said. “When it comes to terrorism and ISIS, all their acts, all their actions, is 100 percent against Islam and the religion of Islam.”

Each of the four worry Islamophobia will persist and cause damage to future generations of Americans, both Muslims and non-Muslims alike. All Rabi wants is unity for the country – his home – and he believes it can come with awareness and a true understanding of who Muslims are. They’re Americans too. They are not ISIS.

“People out there don’t know Muslims are good people… We want life to be good for everybody. We really appreciate the people who are fair and spread the good word that, ‘Hey, Muslims are not terrorists and Islam is not a religion of terrorism.’ That’s the message we want out there,” Rabi said. “We are here, we are all Americans, we need to live together.”

Rabi believes in using non-violence to challenge stereotypes and misconceptions, telling the people at the Islamic Center to be good citizens, get educated and show the world Muslims are hardworking and productive members of society.

That’s where Bennour feels the youth, himself and Addish included, come into play. Bennour speaks with a vision and belief for the future of America — when its citizens come together and talk on a humane level, there’ll be more common ground between one another than most people think. Through his work with the Muslim Students Association at the University of Washington-Tacoma and his time spent at Federal Way High School, Bennour has witnessed gaps being bridged simply through dialogue and the understanding of cultural differences. Seeing so many of his peers actively involved in politics gives him confidence too that progress, and unity, is right around the corner.

“The hope is within us youth, if we work together… me teaching you about my religion, you teaching me about your religion, me teaching you about my race, you teaching me about your culture — this is how the change happens. People profile without knowing the religion or the race, that’s where misconceptions happen. Those interactions are important [in moving forward],” Bennour said.

In the midst of so much fuel being added to the Islamophobic fire, Yasin said he still feels privileged to be a Muslim and for the respect his people have for the laws of the land, including the Constitution. He wants it known that, in Islam, women and men are equal, religious freedom is paramount and his is a religion of mercy.

As misconceptions persist, the Muslim community finds comfort knowing their humanity can only be judged by Allah, and being “the best” in His eyes means to benefit people around them at every opportunity.

“Islam asks us to build Earth, make it good and livable for everyone,” Rabi said. “This is the real Islam that people don’t know about.”