Detroit — Leaders in southeast Michigan’s Muslim community on Wednesday condemned an attack this week on a San Diego mosque by a pair of teenagers who authorities say espoused White supremacist rhetoric, characterizing the attack as a symptom of a renewed wave of Islamophobia.
Two teen attackers, who California authorities have identified as a 17-year-old and 18-year-old, opened fire on Monday at the Islamic Center of San Diego, California. They killed three men outside the mosque, one of whom was a security guard. The attackers were later found dead, having apparently shot themselves. Police have been investigating the ambush as a hate crime, saying “hate rhetoric” had a role in the attack.
“Any attack on a house of worship is an attack on the fundamental values of religious freedom, human dignity and peaceful coexistence,” said Imam Steve Mustapha Elturk, a co-chair of the Imams Council of Michigan, at a news conference Wednesday. He appeared with other members of the Imams Council at the Dawah Institute in Detroit, and with U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
The group of Muslim leaders has spoken out several times in recent months about violent upheaval in the Middle East that has led to humanitarian crises and mass deaths of civilians, including the U.S. and Israel’s attacks on Iran, Israeli strikes in Lebanon and the war in Gaza.
Authorities have identified the three men killed at the mosque as Amin Abdullah — the security guard —Mansour Kazlha and Nadir Awad. They have been called heroes for confronting the attackers.
Sayyid Ali Jafri, a scholar at the Zainabia Center of Michigan, a community center and “spiritual home” that serves Metro Detroit’s Muslim population, called the two shooters “victims of a system” of hateful and anti-Islam rhetoric in the U.S., perpetuated by some politicians and media.
He said at times, the U.S. has come up short in its Constitutional goals of domestic tranquility and justice, and sowing divisiveness is a disservice to the country’s citizens. Jafri is a scholar at the Zainabia Center of Michigan in Commerce Township, a community center and “spiritual home” serving metro Detroit’s Muslim population.
“But this continues to be a goal for all Americans, whatever our color, whatever our background, whatever our race, whatever our religion, to try to aspire to,” said Jafri, who is also the director of Dar al-Dhikr, an initiative about sharing spiritual and intellectual heritage of Islam.
San Diego’s police chief said the mother of one of the teenagers called police two hours before the attack to report her son as missing. Her guns had also been taken, and she initially believed her son was suicidal, but authorities realized the possibility of more sinister plans when the woman said her son had taken three guns, left with a friend and they were both dressed in camouflage clothing.
The attack came the week before the major Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, or “Feast of the Sacrifice,” which begins next Wednesday evening, and the annual Hajj pilgrimage of Islamic faithful to the holy site of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
El-Sayed questioned “what kind of ideology (the attackers) are being soaked in” that led them to open fire on the mosque end and their own lives.
“You have to ask yourself big questions about why people attack places like this. What does it say about society?” said El-Sayed. “In what world, in what kind of America, are we turning teenagers into terrorists?”
El-Sayed is running for the U.S. Senate seat that will be vacated by Democrat Gary Peters.
jcardi@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Southeast Mich. Muslim leaders condemn San Diego mosque attack as new wave of outward Islamophobia
Reporting by Julia Cardi, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
