Many Muslims may well have become used to apologising for terrorist attacks carried out in their name. But then there are others who are clearly sympathetic to extremist beliefs.

You may scoff at the suggestion but who in the past two weeks has not heard a conspiracy theory about people travelling to ISIS and killings?

It is Ramadan and many observations such as these have taken place at Iftari’s and after evening prayers across the country. If there is one thing about Ramadan it is how one is able to gauge the opinions of a wide range of people in a very short space of time at charity events and meetings.

The common theme we hear is how ‘Muslims are always made out to look bad.’ That terror attacks are in some way a set-up or planned to coincide with particular events. That such terror acts are made out to be more serious than they really are because it feeds into the western narrative that ‘Muslims are terrorists.’ Sorry, but we need get out of this mindset. This mindset amongst some is the most worrying concern as they do not want to admit that Muslims can be murderers.

Such comments are I'm afraid are commonplace. The problem is we can’t comprehend why someone who is a Muslim would want to walk around randomly killing people.

We will condemn it but let us be clear we have people in our community who will privately tell their friends and families how particular events never happened. Fuelling this paranoia breeds more ignorance.

But there is another side to this that we sense many news commentators have steered clear from publishing. And this is one of the major reasons such theories take hold.

Muslims are being told to speak out against injustices but not the ones committed by western forces.

One of the key aspects here is how those who deliberately want to kill innocent human beings must be condemned as much as those carried out by western armies.

Here, lies the conundrum.

We have come to point now where it is almost unspeakable to liken the actions of terrorists with those civilians killed by say a drone strike.

You can suggest it if you are not a Muslim, or maybe you are a respected Muslim in the media. But can a twenty-something Muslim with a beard, who prays five times a day and wears Arabic style clothes and works in a factory during the day say this publicly?

Is he allowed to criticise foreign policy? Is he allowed to blare out the odd conspiracy theory? Is he permitted to analyse and share this opinion online with other young Muslims?

To suggest it seems implausible. But you should, as a law-abiding Muslim, be permitted to state this without fear of any persecution.

What happens, therefore, is that a certain level of suspicion takes over. We become used to sharing our opinions in private and amongst friends. Then we become even more withdrawn as we tend not to trust our friends.

I meet people who have become almost obsessed with sharing theories on how foreign powers are butchering and killing Muslims. They tend to ignore the flip side about how Muslims are killing innocent people too.

They are not supporting violence against innocent people but state they are simply speaking the 'truth'.

What we need to understand here is that Muslims are and will remain very political. I'm sorry to say we are not about to let any sort of demonisation of Muslims stop that.

We have become used to hearing about nonsensical theories but at the same time there are valid concerns of young Muslims which many now will begin to share elsewhere because they feel to say anything puts them in a ‘danger’ bracket.

Which, I'm afraid is the most dangerous thing of all.