Sufis would say Charlie Kirk’s murder is a requiem for America

When news came in that Charlie Kirk had been shot while taking part in an outdoor debate on a Utah university campus, my mind went back to a long-time Sufi student’s articulation of peace.

The idea of peace, the Sufi student said, is the ability to go about freely and safely in the business of life. It is about ordinary people living ordinary lives and doing ordinary things. They can traverse the streets, pop into shops, go to school, college and work. Peace is the freedom to eat at restaurants, jog in a park, board buses, take your children to school. And yes, to engage in public political debate while knowing that not everyone agrees.

That’s what Charlie Kirk was doing on September 10, 2025, when he was brutally killed. The 31-year-old supporter of Donald Trump was a political commentator and podcaster who enjoyed the cut and thrust of debate. He articulated conservative viewpoints and seemed to enjoy being polarising, albeit in engaging vein.

That this young man was shot because someone disliked what he said, puts a new focus on the notion of peace in America.

As the Sufi scholar said, it is a rich life when a country has peace. No matter their GDP, many countries do not enjoy the luxury of peace.

In peace-impoverished places, monetarily rich or not, it is not possible for ordinary people to go freely and safely about their lives. They, or their loved ones, run the risk of being maimed, killed, kidnapped.

When news came in that Charlie Kirk had died of his gunshot wound, the Sufi student’s idea acquired urgency. Might this be a sign that America is emphatically not at peace? That the big red button is flashing?

Perhaps.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox has said the US is a “broken” nation in what is being interpreted as the rise of violence in politics. It’s true that political and social rhetoric is flaring to extreme levels and that it is normalising a broader culture in which Americans increasingly say they approve of political violence.

Governor Cox offered a laundry list of recent incidents of violence in US politics:

• In August, two children died and 20 injured when a shooter attacked a Catholic Church in Minneapolis.

• In June, Democratic Minnesota state lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were shot dead, while another lawmaker and his wife in the same place were wounded.

• In May, two attendees of a gala at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC were shot dead.

• In April, there was an attempted attack on Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and his family.

• In December 2024, Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was shot dead in New York.

• Donald Trump suffered two attempted assassination attempts during last year’s presidential campaign.

And now, it’s Charlie Kirk, whose young life has been snuffed out just like that.

Is Charlie Kirk’s tragic death a requiem for America?

As someone noted in the aftermath of the young man’s passing, a society that resorts to violence to solve its problems starts to surrender its claim on being a society.