Since 9/11, America’s relationship with people of the Muslim faith has been abysmal. No place is more representative of this than the state of Tennessee. In a recent BuzzFeed article, Daoud Abudiab discussed how Muslims are treated in Tennessee, specifically focusing on the burning down of the mosque he started by white supremacists.
Abudiab moved to Columbia, Tennessee in 1998 with his wife, who converted to Islam after coming from a Methodist family. Her family was hesitant at first, but in time had become accepting of her choice and treated her new husband like family. He met a group of Egyptians there who owned a clothing store and would regularly pray in the back room. Eventually, the group grew bigger and they rented out an auto garage with no heating to use for a place of prayer. The group grew bigger and bigger and eventually they felt they needed a bigger place, so, in 2000, they pooled money together and bought a place on Main Street to have an actual, bona fide mosque.
Now after 9/11, it was generally felt throughout the Muslim community that there would be bad blood between them and Americans and, for most places, they were right. As for Tennessee, surprisingly, Daoud’s wife, Robin, says strangers extended a warm welcome to her saying she had nothing to be afraid of. That isn’t to say that everyone was on board with that ideal. Of course there were some fearful people that connected the wrong dots after the attacks and blamed the local Muslim community for the attacks. Daoud remembers seeing a newspaper in Pulaski saying that Islam was “the evil religion,” but he says that didn’t affect him. “You’re already Christian, I have no plans to convert you,” he said. The mosque grew even bigger and started holding potlucks once a month and the community grew closer together because of it.
Eric Ian Baker was a malt liquor swilling, minority hating, 32 year old man in Columbia who, while having no real ties to white nationalism, shared many of the views of the average neo-Nazi. He collected up young men from the area that shared his views and kept a journal where he had a chart to organize an army for an “impending race war.” He and the young men started a group called the Aryan Alliance and went out to burn down Daoud’s mosque.
After defacing it with black swastikas and white power slogans, they proceeded to hurl molotov cocktails at the place of worship and burnt the one place that felt like home to more than 50 people down to the ground.
They were arrested 24 hours later, but that didn’t undo what they did to the mosque. Many Muslims, Daoud included, were left lost and without their spiritual home.
Afterwards, things started to turn sour between the American political system and Muslims. More and more anti-Islamic rhetoric started popping up in political debates. In Tennessee alone, mosques were stopped from being built in Murfreesboro, “anti- Sharia” bills were being passed that criminalized being Islamic, and Frank Gaffney, former Reagan era defense official, and now currently foreign policy advisor to Ted Cruz, Kevin Kookogey, moved to have Samar Ali’s hiring as a lawyer to the state’s economic development agency condemned by the people of Tennessee.
Then, former Saturday Night Live cast member Victoria Jackson put her hat in the running for a seat on the Williamson County commission, preaching anti-Islamic hate speech to get there. Daoud spoke out against her campaign on Facebook and she responded by accusing him publicly of conducting “stealth jihad” and revealing her address on Facebook and saying he just moved to her neighborhood (none of that is true.)
Every racist, Neo-Nazi, and white supremacist who was a fan of Jackson started sending him and his family death threats and asked Jackson to post his address. Daoud and his family started to feel unsafe in their own home, but more afraid to leave it.
Soon Islamophobia spread like the plague throughout Tennessee, not helped by the attack on Marines in Chattanooga by a Muslim raised man, even to his wife Robin’s parents. Her mom started to post hateful messages about her faith, calling Muslims “bloodthirsty.” The same people that at one time we’re accepting of their daughter’s new faith were now twisted by Fox News and other conservative fear mongers to turn their back on their daughter.
She is fearful to wear her hijab out in public now because of the hate her family receives, but she refuses to back down. She and her husband are a testament to the human spirit and should be looked up to not only by others in the Muslim community, but by every person who has a pulse and has been mistreated by the people in their own community.
Their refusal to give up in the face of a system against them in every way is what the idea of the American spirit could only hope to be. We should hold holidays for these people, but all they really want is a place to feel spiritually safe, and if we really are the great country that accepts all we would give it to them ten-fold.
Featured image posted by T’ruah via CCO Attribution 2.0 Generic
