CNN’s Mosque Tolerance Roadtrip Backfires!
Within seconds, our CNN friends were out the door. Which left just Aman and I with the Imam. An awkward silence takes over the room and then he continues.
“Why didn’t you guys contact us before coming?” he said.
We apologize for the last minute visit we planned but tell him we tried to get in touch with the mosque but no one picked up.
The Imam stayed quiet.
“Is it okay if we pray here?” I ask.
“Ha, of course,” he says. “This is the house of Allah. I can’t stop you from praying.”
That’s it. That is all the young Muslims say about the event. They transform a screaming Imam into a guy asking people to politely leave. They make zero mention of the terrorist connection the mosque has. Ali and Bassam present the event as just a problem of not asking to visit first.
Herein lies the problem with this cultural battle over Islam right now. The side supporting the mosque at Ground Zero can’t seem to see real radicalism when it is staring them in the face. They gloss over it. Moderate Muslims seem to be wearing rose colored glasses when it comes to real issues with more fundamentalist followers of their faith.
We are told by the media and moderate Muslims that Radical Islam is rare. But after seeing one out of three mosques having terrorist connections, just how rare is it? Hopefully we can all (moderate Muslims and journalists too) get to the point where we start taking the dangers of the spread of Islamo-facism a little more seriously.
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Paul Cooper is a husband and father above all else. With a wife and 2 daughters he could use a dog, but sadly he only owns a cat – a female cat no less. Paul is also a pastor, blogger, and business owner. Find him on Twitter.
