Obama visits Baltimore mosque
In a show of unity, the president makes trip to urge an end to anti-Muslim bias.
WASHINGTON — First came an honor guard of Muslim Boy Scouts proudly carrying a U.S. flag. Then a rousing pledge of allegiance from hundreds of Muslim-Americans. Then an introduction from a Muslim college student, wearing a hijab, who wants to be a doctor.
The symbolism was unmistakable Wednesday when President Barack Obama visited the first American mosque of his tenure, a politically-fraught trip to the sprawling Islamic Society of Baltimore, where he condemned Islamophobia on the campaign trail and tried to reassure Muslim-American not to become isolated in their own country.
Though he never mentioned Donald Trump or other Republican presidential candidates, Obama called for an end to invective that confuses millions of patriotic Americans with a “radical, tiny minority” who engage in violence.
“Since 9/11 and more recently, since the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino (Calif.), you’ve seen too often people conflating the horrific acts of terrorism with the beliefs of an entire faith,” he said. “And of course, recently, we’ve heard inexcusable political rhethroic against Muslim-Americans that has no place in our country.
“We have to reject a politics that seeks to manipulate prejudice or bias, and targets people because of religion,” he said. “We can’t be bystanders to bigotry.”
Muslim-Americans “keep us safe” as police, fire fighters, intelligence officers and members of the military who “fight and bleed and die for our freedom,” Obama said.
“So the first thing I want to say is two words that Muslim-Americans don’t hear often enough — and that is, thank you,” he said.
The 45-minute address mirrored Obama’s outreach to the Islamic world in 2009, when he stood at a pulpit in Cairo and sought to explain America to Muslims skeptical of Western values. His goal then was to rally Islamic allies to help stabilize the Middle East and fight terrorism.
On Wednesday, Obama tried to explain Islam to Americans, quoting Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and other Founding Fathers who welcomed the ancient religion to the new nation.
“Islam has always been part of America,” he said.
Two Muslim members of Congress joined him at the mosque, which serves about 3,000 Muslims in Baltimore’s western suburbs and is one of the largest in the Mid-Atlantic region.
The event was a personal milestone for a president who was elected only after convincing Americans that he was not an adherent to the religion of his Kenyan grandfather. Polls show millions of Americans still believe, inaccurately, that he is a Muslim.
In the kind of joke he never told in his early presidency, Obama noted that Jefferson’s opponents “tried to stir things by suggesting he was a Muslim — so I was not the first. … I’m in good company.”
But he also batted back charges from GOP candidates that he is downplaying the threat of terrorism by refusing to refer to Islamic State as “Islamic radical extremism.”
“The suggestion is somehow that if I would simply say, ‘These are all Islamic terrorists,’ then we would actually have solved the problem by now, apparently,” he said, to laughter.
“We must never give (terrorists) that legitimacy,” he added.
The choice of the west Baltmore mosque was a study in how difficult that exercise that can be. After the White House disclosed the planned visit last weekend, conservative groups quickly cited its supposed links to extremists.
Mosque attendees have included Majid Khan, an al-Qaida member who pleaded guilty to transporting money that helped pay for a deadly hotel bombing in Indonesia, according to reports.
“I don’t think anyone is surprised that a visit to a mosque by the president will be used by his political opponents,” press secretary Josh Earnest said in reponse to critics.
Others believe Obama’s visit is long overdue.
“He probably should have done it seven or eight years ago,” said Saba Ahmed, president of the Republican Muslim Coalition based in Washington.
Still, she cheered the decision given what she sees as a frightening turn toward anti-Muslim sentiment.
“Obama coming to a mosque is a perfect counter message” to Islamophobia, she said.