Obama’s visits to mosques outside of the United States have included similar rhetoric.
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Before the speech, Obama met at the mosque with Muslim-American leaders from around the country.
Obama paid his first visit as president to an American mosque on Wednesday when he sat down with Islamic leaders at the Islamic Society of Baltimore.
In conversations with young Muslims, Obama said in today’s address at the Islamic Society of Baltimore.
A lot of Americans have never been to a mosque, the president said as he began his speech, shoeless per Muslim tradition, in the Islamic Center of Baltimore’s prayer hall on Wednesday (Feb. 3). Obama added that the rhetoric on Muslims coming from politicians “has no place in our country”. There has been a documented increase in hate crimes against Muslims in the USA since the Paris and San Bernardino attacks, while politicians have fiercely debated US policy to accept Syrian refugees, who are mostly Muslim.
Hopefully Obama’s visit will help highlight the obvious: Muslim Americans are American, and Americans should treat Muslim Americans like Americans.
He also talked about the basic tenets of Islam, which he said he believes many in the United States are not familiar with.
Amid intensifying Islamophobia in the U.S., the time indeed was ripe.
As NPR political reporter Jessica Taylor explained last November, Obama and the Democratic candidates all avoid referring to “radical Islam” or “Islamic extremism” when they’re denouncing terrorism, preferring to call terrorists “extremists” or “jihadists”.
“If we’re serious about freedom of religion – and I’m talking to my fellow Christians who are the majority in this country – we have to understand that an attack on one faith is an attack on all faiths”, he said.
“An attack on one faith is an attack on all our faiths”, Obama said.
“Groups like ISIL are desperate for legitimacy”, said Obama.
As the president took the podium to speak in front of the Muslim-American crowd, his staff members and White House officials in attendance were greeted to seats that were outfitted with a Quran. However, when respondents were asked which religion they consider troubling, Islam was the most common answer. We can’t give in to profiling entire groups of people.
For the first time during his two terms, President Obama paid a public visit to a USA mosque. “So I was not the first”, he said lightly as the audience laughed.
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“I also don’t want to leave you with the impression that the president’s remarks at the mosque are going to be focused on national security”, he said.
