We may have narrowly escaped a tragedy on Christmas Day. Shortly after Friday prayers, a fire broke out at a mosque in Houston. Late Saturday afternoon, fire investigators ruled that the blaze was an act of arson. While an investigation is still very much in the early stages, this incident has the distinctive flavor of domestic terrorism.
Sometime around 2:45 p.m. Central Time, a fire broke out at the Savoy Mosque, located in a strip mall in southwestern Houston’s Wilcrest section. The fire started in the back of the building. Despite heavy flames and smoke, it didn’t take firefighters long to put out the two-alarm blaze. However, the inside of the mosque is so badly damaged that the building is unusable. A number of other businesses in the strip mall sustained smoke damage.
According to MJ Khan, president of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, the only objects that survived unscathed were the mosque’s copies of the Qur’an, which were “miraculously” taken out the previous night. Only an hour earlier, some 200 people were in the building for prayers. In other words–had this fire happened an hour earlier, this would have been a catastrophe.
From the beginning, investigators considered the fire suspicious due to the multiple points of origin, though fire department spokesman Ruy Luzano cautioned that “they’re not going to assume anything.” The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives quickly dispatched a team to Houston at the department’s request soon after the blaze was contained, though Luzano said this was standard operating procedure for fires involving religious facilities.
Less than 24 hours later, however, the fire department ruled the blaze was “incendiary,” meaning that it was intentionally set. Had this fire happened an hour earlier, we could have potentially been looking at an act of mass murder. The landlord of the strip mall graciously offered the mosque’s worshipers space in an empty storefront until they can rebuild.
The Houston chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations has called for an investigation into a possible bias motive, citing a spree of incidents in which mosques have been targeted. Just two weeks ago, a man was arrested for trying to burn down a mosque in Coachella, California.
However, from my layman’s prospective, whoever did this definitely knew what he was doing. Remember, this happened only an hour after prayers, and took place in a strip mall. Indeed, counting this incident, this may be at least the 15th time since the Paris attacks that someone has targeted a mosque. This looks like domestic terrorism and smells like domestic terrorism, and all indications are that it is indeed domestic terrorism.
Even in the unlikely event that it isn’t a hate crime, whoever did this is a maniac. After all, this happened at a strip mall, and whoever did this didn’t seem to care about collateral damage. Whoever did this needs to be locked up for as long as legally possible.
