US
President Barack Obama visited a Maryland mosque on Wednesday to deliver a
simple message at a complex time. “We are one American family,” President Obama
told the gathered crowd at the Islamic Society of Baltimore. “We will rise and
fall together.”
Obama
sought to reassure Muslim Americans that the country considers their community
essential to the makeup of society, condemn the claim that all Muslims are
terrorists, call on the Muslim community to also condemn terrorism, affirm
religious freedom, and explain to the whole of America what Islam is and isn’t.
And
with the rise of ISIS and in the wake of the attacks in Paris and San
Bernardino, the president had a lot of ground to cover in the 45 minutes he had
to speak.
“We
have to reaffirm that most fundamental of truths—we are all God’s children, all
born equal with inherent dignity,” Obama said.
He
started by telling the story of Islam in the U.S. from a historical
perspective, bringing the audience back to the nation’s founding. “Islam,”
Obama said, “has always been a part of America.” Muslim slaves ripped from
Africa and brought to the U.S., Obama said, did not leave their religion at the
shore. He added that religious liberty guaranteed in the Constitution didn’t
come with an asterisk, quoting Thomas Jefferson’s declaration that “the Jew and
the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan [or Muslim]” were all to be protected.
Looking
out across the room, he marked the contributions of Muslims within American
society. He asked the service-members in the audience to stand and thanked them
for their service. He cheered Ibtihaj Muhammad, the champion fencer who will
become the first U.S. athlete to compete while wearing a hijab during the 2016
Summer Olympics.
“Muslim
Americans are some of the most resilient and patriotic Americans you’ll ever
meet, he said.
And
through the personal letters he gets from Muslims of all ages across the
country, he noted the fear many feel just being themselves.
President
Obama spoke of a mother whose “heart cries every night” thinking about how her
child could face taunts and bullying at school.
He
mentioned a 13-year-old girl from Ohio who simply wrote, “I’m scared.” Before
the speech, the president got a sense of how Muslims are feeling first hand. He
sat down with about a dozen people from across the country for open dialogue
about the state of their community.
Obama
slammed “inexcusable” anti-Muslim rhetoric. “An attack on one faith is an
attack on all our faiths,” he said. “We can’t be bystanders to bigotry.
Together, we have to show that America truly protects all faiths.”
The
president’s historic first visit to a mosque while in office had been long
awaited by many, but for some—like Sabah Muktar, the young woman who introduced
the President on Wednesday, it came just in time.
“This
visit by our president is an affirmation to all Muslims we are just as American
as any other,” she said.
Source:
Time Magazine
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