Stage 4: Depression

After bargaining, the depression. It was felt by Muslims even half a world away, who experienced the 'vicarious trauma' and thought maybe they were right to worry about their safety after all.

This year a study out of Sussex University referenced the term 'vicarious trauma' to describe how Muslims react to events that happen in different parts of the world.

Because of a shared sense of community, a brotherhood, Muslims often feel a deep sense of sadness, even a personal grief, when they hear or read about the suffering of others.

These days, it's hard to escape. When looking at the headlines of events taking place around the world, it often feels to many in the community as if Muslims are a constant target for those with far-right ideologies, populist political figures growing in popularity by focusing on immigrants and refugees, and demagogues scapegoating Muslim minorities to expand their control.

As Muslims, we watch with a sense of growing dread and helplessness the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya in Myanmar, the millions of Uyghurs held in concentration camps in China, the lynch mobs hunting Muslims in India and the millions of Syrians fleeing for their lives only to face cruel and unsympathetic borders.

It often gets overwhelming.

On the day of the Christchurch attacks a year ago, Muslim communities around the world felt a very similiar shock to Muslims in New Zealand. The sudden and calculated attack on worshipers during Friday prayers felt to millions worldwide like it had struck the heart of their own neighbourhoods, their own mosques.

Poet and activist Suhaiymah Manzoor Khan remembers the day very well, and how she felt attending Friday prayers in London only hours after hearing the news.

"In the women's section of my mosque, there's a very narrow set of stairs. I've always thought 'oh God, this badly needs renovating', because it takes so long for everyone to get out," she says.

"It took on a more sinister meaning on that day, and I kind of thought 'wow, there are no escape routes in here'. Then you suddenly start thinking of fears you used to brush off before and think 'gosh, I'm so paranoid'."

Those fears included imagining scenarios where her local mosque would be attacked, or if members of her community and family were targeted on their way back home from prayers.

"It was this sudden realisation that it's not absurd, it's not crazy, it doesn't make us insane to imagine an incident like what happened (in Christchurch), happening."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details