Among the guests sitting in the House chamber balcony for President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address will be a Connecticut Muslim doctor whose mosque was shot at the night of the Nov. 13 Paris terror attacks.
Dr. Mohammed Qureshi, president of the Baitul Aman Mosque, is the invited guest of Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.).
The congressman knew Qureshi from his medical work at a center in his district that provides affordable care to low income families and the elderly. When Courtney read in a news account that the doctor’s mosque had been targeted, all the recent anti-Muslim rhetoric became intensely personal.
“It made the heightened anti-Muslim fervor out there even more despicable to me,” Courtney said. “This year obviously there’s this very ugly, nasty un-American rhetoric that can trigger not just insults and ideas about policies … but also trigger acts of violence. He is the perfect antidote.”
Categories: Americas
The Muslim Times 