“The notion that America is a war with Islam ignores the fact that the world’s religions are who we are”, Obama said.
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Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane, reporting from Baltimore, said Obama’s critics in the Muslim community have called the visit as “too little, too late”.
For the first time during his presidency, President Obama visited an American mosque in Baltimore, focusing on the importance of religious freedom and acceptance in the US and on anti-Muslim rhetoric.
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States after a California couple who killed 14 people last December were described by authorities as radicalized Muslims inspired by Islamic State militants.
He added that it was “no surprise” then that “threats and harassment of Muslim Americans have surged”. “I don’t know, maybe he feels comfortable there”, Trump said Wednesday on Fox News’ “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren”.
The speech to a Muslim audience comes amid an eight-day stretch during which he will have spoken to Jewish, Muslim and Christian audiences.
In recent times “unpardonable political rhetoric” against Muslims living in the United States was to hear, Obama said.
“I think the president’s own timidness in engaging with the Muslim community has done a fair deal of damage itself”, he said.
Obama has visited mosques in other countries, but never in the United States.
President Obama must live in a different plane of reality than the rest of us.
As he decried Republican counter-terror plans that would single out Muslims for extra scrutiny, Obama insisted that applying religious screens would only amplify messages coming from terrorist groups.
Fellow Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has also advocated Christian-only admissions and supported “Judeo-Christian values”. “Generations of Muslim-Americans helped build our nation”.
And “an attack on one religion is an attack on all religions”. Unfortunately, this mosque visit appears to be more about using Muslims as a political prop for a partisan agenda, giving the appearance of a commitment to diversity.
During-and after-the speech, the hashtag #MosqueVisit began trending on Twitter, with users voicing their opinions on the president’s controversial visit.
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Overall though, half of all Americans want the next president not to denounce Islam as a whole when talking about Islamic extremism.
