Two Qurans stolen from interfaith chapel at Charlotte airport

CHARLOTTE, N.C.— Somebody removed the two hardback copies of the Quran from the interfaith chapel at Charlotte Douglas International Airport and left behind a note disparaging the Islamic holy book.

The Rev. Alice White, who discovered the theft and the note Tuesday, said Wednesday it wasn’t the first time the chapel’s inclusion of the Muslim book had caused an incident.

“Six months ago, somebody got so outraged that they put a hole in the wall,” she said. The cause of their outrage: “Because the Quran was up on the pulpit.”

White, a Christian Pentecostal minister who co-directs the chapel’s 18 volunteer chaplains, said she arrived at the chapel Tuesday about 1:30 p.m. and saw a white man in his 30s in the chapel.

She said he noticed her name tag and said “Hello, Alice White.”

She checked the chapel, which always has a Christian Bible, the Torah (the Jewish Bible) and the Quran on the pulpit. They were all there, she said.

But not long after she went into an adjacent office to do some work, she noticed that the man had left and that there was an envelope under the office door.

Inside, she said, she found a torn page from the chapel guest book and a letter.

It read: “Sorry to inform you, Alice White, but just because your tag says chaplain doesn’t make you one in the eyes of God. Or correct in your theology. Especially if you don’t take the Bible for its literal word—no lesbians, no Quran. If anything, you are a heretic. Love, Psalms 100. P.S. Deep down, you know this.”

White then noticed that both of the chapel’s copies of the Quran, one on the pulpit and one in a bookcase, were gone.

She reported the incident to George Szalony, a Catholic deacon and the chapel’s other co-director.