NH artist, writer and speaker Robert Azzi writes for the website Open Democracy on his responses to the “frequently asked questions” at his Ask a Mulsim Anything program. Robert is an engaging speaker and discussion leader. Please reach out to him and invite him to come to your church for this program to your people!
From his article:
Hearing Muslims being ignorantly targeted is like waking up to see a cross burning on the communal front lawn. I want to help put out that fire.
“May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land,” wrote President George Washington to Rhode Island’s Touro Synagogue in 1790, “continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig-tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”
Today, as a child of the “Stock of Abraham,” as a Muslim whose faith tradition traces to Prophet Abraham and as a first-generation American, I’m increasingly uncomfortable with the rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric I see in the United States. I’ve become increasingly distressed by witnessing individual and institutional actions that attempt to marginalize, delegitimize, and disenfranchise America’s diverse community of Muslims.