antiMuslim

Abdul El-Sayed made history this month in Michigan by becoming the first Muslim nominated by the Democratic Party to run for the U.S. Senate. But elation among many of his fellow Muslim Americans was tempered by awareness of persisting and widespread anti-Muslim sentiment across much of the nation.

Some Republicans, including President Trump, swiftly began referring to the nominee by his full name, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, while depicting him as a danger to America. “Every single Muslim holding public office in America is a Trojan horse, and a threat to both national security and our republic,’’ said U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., in a post on X.

El-Sayed says such attacks betray a weakness in those who launch them.

“We all pray for the same things. … We want what’s good for our kids and our families,” he told MS NOW after his primary victory. “They’re going to use Islamophobia, because their ideas are tired.”

The vitriol extends far beyond the political class. Tensions related to anti-Muslim sentiment have heightened in several communities around the country, where some residents have bitterly opposed proposals to build new mosques.

“American Muslims have made incredible political and societal progress in recent years,” said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. He cited increased visibility in entertainment and sports and the election of Democrat Zohran Mamdani as New York City’s first Muslim mayor.

“But there also is a very concerted backlash to this progress,” Mitchell said. “You’ve seen this in the resurgence of anti-Muslim hate and rhetoric, the targeting of mosques.”

A Dallas suburb is a flashpoint

McKinney, Texas, a large suburb in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, is one of the flashpoints. Despite angry anti-Islam remarks at a heated city council meeting on Aug. 4, the council voted unanimously to approve a site plan for the McKinney Islamic Association’s proposed new mosque, classroom building and gym.

Among those urging the council to give the plan fair treatment was George Fuller, a former mayor of McKinney, a nonpartisan position. Opponents of the mosque project booed him, and some shouted “traitor” as he left the council chamber. One woman could be seen on video physically accosting him.

“I have never witnessed so much hate, anger and lack of humanity in our beautiful community gathered in one place as I did today at City Hall,” Fuller later wrote on Facebook.

During the hearing, which lasted more than four hours, the speakers included U.S. Rep. Keith Self, a Republican whose district includes McKinney. To loud applause, he urged the council to reject the mosque proposal.

“I know you’re in the accommodation phase, but the intimidation phase follows quickly,” Self said. “Child marriage. Honor killings. Don’t tell me it can’t happen here.”

Fuller also went to the microphone, evoking the broader phenomenon of divisive political rhetoric.

“Sadly, we live in a time when some have discovered that the easiest way to gain attention or win elections is not by offering solutions but by manufacturing fear, dividing communities, demonizing neighbors and turning misinformation into a political strategy,” he said.

In North Carolina, anger flares over approval for a new mosque

The scenario was similar in Mooresville, North Carolina, when town commissioners held a public comment session on Aug. 3 about a proposed mosque that had already been approved, with early phases of construction underway.

Angry residents at the meeting voiced hostility to Islam and assailed the commissioners for not being more forthcoming about the project as it took shape over previous months. One speaker cited violence in Nigeria by Islamist extremists as a reason for concern in Mooresville. Another depicted Islam as “a political regime with the ultimate goal of takeover in regions and nations.”

CAIR’s regional manager, Al Rieder, issued a statement denouncing “the hateful and conspiratorial anti-Muslim rhetoric” that surfaced at the meeting and expressed concern about the safety of Muslims in the area about 25 miles north of Charlotte.

“Muslims are your neighbors, your doctors, your teachers, your local politicians, your police,” he said.

A few hours after the public meeting, the town commissioners released a summary of the mosque project, which calls for a two-building Islamic center on a parcel acquired in 2019 by a local Muslim organization.

The commissioners said that the parcel is in an area zoned to allow religious assembly and that the mosque proposal was handled the same way as a proposal for a new church.

“All decisions must be based on adopted ordinances, objective standards and legal requirements, which do not allow for different rules for different religious groups,” the commissioners said. “We encourage all members of our community to remain respectful in their discussions and interactions as this project moves through the appropriate processes.”

In Oklahoma, Muslim leaders fight against the rebuff of a new mosque

A mosque controversy has been raging for many months in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, Tulsa’s largest suburb.

Back in January, at a stormy meeting attended by hundreds of people, the city council voted 4-1 to reject a rezoning proposal by the region’s Islamic Society to build Broken Arrow’s first mosque. Before the vote, dozens of residents voiced anti-Muslim views while opposing the project.

Council members who rejected the mosque had raised concerns about its potential impact on infrastructure such as roads, sewers and flood plain management.

But the Islamic Society is persisting with its quest. On Aug. 3, it filed a lawsuit against the mayor and four councilors, alleging that the vote reflected “a wave of bigoted opposition from members of the community and local politicians.” The lawsuit contends that the council violated state and federal laws governing religious land use, treating the mosque proposal differently from other comparable rezoning requests.

“They did not want a mosque in their city. They did not want Muslims here,” said Meghan Murphy, an attorney with CAIR’s Legal Defense Fund, at a news conference announcing the lawsuit. ”So they made up a reason, and in doing so they violated the law.”

Some see a terrorism threat while others see baseless scaremongering

Opposition to mosque construction isn’t a new phenomenon: In Murfreesboro, Tennessee, an effort launched in 2010 to block a mosque project dragged on for more than three years. The mosque was built anyway as the case moved through the courts, but members of the Muslim community faced public protests, vandalism, arson and a bomb threat during that span.

The latest anti-mosque campaigns coincide with a broad wave of anti-Muslim rhetoric from Republican officeholders over the past year. In Congress, several bills were introduced targeting sharia, the moral and spiritual framework that guides Muslims in prayer and ethical conduct. Some Republicans say they’re concerned about growing Muslim populations in major cities and potential ties to terrorism — fears that CAIR and other civil rights groups say are unfounded and being exploited for political purposes.

Republican governors in Texas and Florida have endorsed efforts to shut down CAIR, saying it has ties to terrorism. CAIR has denied the allegations and filed lawsuits calling the governors’ efforts unconstitutional.

Muslim American leaders view the vitriol as political scaremongering.

“Every election year, we expect a rise in anti-Muslim hate,” said CAIR’s Mitchell. “It’s been worse this year than it has been in years.”

Crary writes for the Associated Press.

MINNEAPOLIS — Somali and Muslim communities in Minnesota are once again condemning a social media post by President Trump, alleging it communicates “anti-Muslim bigotry” toward children.

Trump posted a 14-second video clip showing children singing in graduation outfits, with girls also wearing hijabs. The children had sashes that read “kindergarten” on one side and “graduate” on the other. The video posted Monday appears to be from a Somali TV Minnesota news clip filming a ceremony at a charter school in St. Paul.

Included in Trump’s TruthSocial post is a screenshot of a caption from an X account that first posted the video in June. The caption said, “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”

The post drew statements from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Somali American Partnership and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

“By using his global platform to amplify anti-Muslim bigotry and target Muslim children at this elementary school, President Trump is putting lives at risk,” said a statement from the national and Minnesota chapter of CAIR.

Trump and other Republican leaders have repeatedly been accused of making xenophobic and racist attacks against Muslim Americans in recent months. Trump has specifically singled out the Somali community in Minnesota numerous times, calling them “garbage” in December.

“Somali Americans are an integral part of Minnesota’s past, present, and future,” the Somali American Partnership said in a statement. “Our children deserve to be recognized for their potential — not used to fuel fear, division, or anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant narratives.

“Those with public platforms have a responsibility to protect children, not endanger them.”

In a statement on X, Walz accused Trump of “attacking a group of kindergarteners because of the clothes they wore to school.”

The Somali American Partnership, a collection of Minnesota-based nonprofit organizations that assist the Somali community, plans to hold a news conference Wednesday to address “the growing climate of anti-Somali and anti-Muslim rhetoric.”

Members of the Muslim community in Minnesota have expressed fear for their safety numerous times in recent months, citing such rhetoric. In May, community members tied the rhetoric to a disturbance at a mosque in Lakeville, days after three people were killed at a San Diego mosque.

Last fall, Jaylani Hussein, the executive director of the Minnesota chapter of CAIR, said there had been more than 40 instances of vandalism, arson or other disturbances at mosques in the last three years, higher than any other state. Damage totaled more than $3 million, Hussein said.

He said at the time that Islamophobic comments directed at Muslim institutions in Minnesota were “completely on a new level.”

Hughes writes for the Minnesota Star Tribune.

Bystanders captured the moment police arrested a machete-weilding man, believed responsible for a suspected anti-Muslim stabbing rampage in Edinburgh. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has denounced the attacks as “absolutely appalling.”

June 20 (UPI) — Police arrested a man after stabbing five people in Edinburgh, Scotland, in suspected anti-Muslim attacks.

The man was allegedly roaming the streets of the city Friday night and stabbed five people and damaged a car and business. The attacks began near a mosque in the west of Edinburgh, where two men were injured. The Scottish Association of Mosques said two worshippers were attacked in a park after leaving the Broomhouse mosque.

Police said that five men in total, two of them 22 years old, and others ages 24, 27 and 39, suffered a range of injuries. Three of them were treated at a hospital, though none of the injuries was life-threatening.

A 36-year-old white man was arrested, and counter terrorism officers have joined local Police Scotland in an investigation.

Assistant Chief Constable Catriona Paton said in a statement that there is “no place for racism or faith-based hate in Scotland.”

Police got reports of attacks near shops in the west and north of the city, and said three other men were attacked in the Telford Road and Leith Walk areas. Police eventually confronted the man with a taser and arrested him, though they said the taser was never used.

“There is a profound sense of shock, alarm and anger within Muslim communities across Scotland today,” Omar Afzal, director of public affairs for the Scottish Association of Mosques, told The Scotsman. “These latest attacks are deeply disturbing. However, they do not exist in a vacuum. For years, Muslim communities have warned about the consequences of anti-Muslim hatred becoming normalized in public discourse. When prejudice is left unchallenged, it creates an environment in which some individuals feel emboldened to act on that hatred.”

As a candidate, Barack Obama passionately defended the importance of religion in his life and in the nation’s politics. As president, Obama on Friday called for a renewal of religious tolerance and a cooling of tempers against Muslims as he tried to defuse the furor over plans to build an Islamic prayer center and mosque in New York and threats to burn copies of the Koran in Florida.

Obama, a Christian whose Muslim name inflames some of his fringe opponents, didn’t have to get involved in either dispute. But because of his responsibilities as president and commander-in-chief, Obama said he did.

“This country stands for the proposition that all men and women are created equal; that they have certain inalienable rights — one of those inalienable rights is to practice their religion freely,” Obama said.

“And what that means is that if you could build a church on a site, you could build a synagogue on a site, if you could build a Hindu temple on a site, then you should be able to build a mosque on the site.

Obama said he was aware that some of the 9/11 families were still in pain over the attacks, making a mosque nearby so sensitive.

“Tomorrow we as Americans are going to be joining them in prayer and remembrance,” the president said. “But I go back to what I said earlier: We are not at war against Islam. We are at war against terrorist organizations that have distorted Islam or falsely used the banner of Islam to engage in their destructive acts.

The Islamic prayer center and mosque would be built blocks from the World Trade Center, which was brought down two jetliners seized by Islamist terrorists. A third plane was intentionally crashed into the Pentagon, and another plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

Obama began the news conference by saying that the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks should be a day of remembrance and service. The mosque controversy has become linked to the furor over a Florida pastor’s decision to burn copies of the Koran to protest the 9/11 attacks.

“The idea that we would burn the sacred text of somebody else’s religion is contrary” to American principles, said Obama, who earlier this week called it a “stunt.” “My hope is that this individual prays on it and refrains from doing it,” he said.

Obama spoke of his duty as commander-in-chief to protect troops and U.S. interests around the world from Muslim anger over the planned Koran burning. Demonstrations have increased in Muslim countries, especially Afghanistan, where thousands have taken to the streets.

“This is a way of endangering our troops, our sons and daughters,” Obama said. “You don’t play games with that.”

How the threatened book burning by Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., took on world-class dimensions is subject to debate. Many, including some in the Obama administration, have blamed the media’s coverage for helping to elevate what is a small church with perhaps 50 members, into a global player.

“It is in the age of the Internet that something can cause us profound damage around the world, so we have to take it seriously,” Obama said.

In televised interviews, Jones has gone back and forth, saying he would suspend the burning so he can meet on Saturday in New York with Muslim leaders seeking to build the controversial mosque.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, in charge of the New York effort, said he has no plans for any such meeting.

michael.muskal@latimes.com
Twitter.com/LATimesmuskal