“In the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.”

These are the first words of Islam’s sacred text – the Quran.  In fact, these are the opening words of 113 of the Quran’s 114 chapters.  These are the words that nearly 25% or 1.8 billion of the world’s 7.7 billion souls believe in and are inspired by as they capture the essence of the faith.

Compare and contrast that to Senator-Elect Edward Durr’s hate filled comments:  “Mohammed was a pedophile! Islam is a false religion! Only fools follow Muslim teachings! It is a cult of hate!.

Let these vile words sink in for a while and try to really understand where Mr. Durr’s “passion” is coming from.   He is essentially saying these 1.8 billion human beings are fools and follow a false religion.  These are not the words of, as Mr. Durr claims, a “passionate guy that sometimes says things in the heat of the moment”.  These are the words of a practiced artisan that uses hate-filled language to perpetuate a climate of fear and anger toward Muslims and Islam in general.  He did not just come up with these words in the heat of passion – he knew of and sourced these words from a veritable and thriving Islamophobic industry whose singular purpose is to manufacture hate.  This industry of hate was detailed and documented in a groundbreaking expose titled “Fear, Inc” in 2011 and subsequently updated in 2015 by the Center for American Progress (CAP). CAP goes on to identify and expose the organizations, scholars, pundits, and activists comprising a tightly linked network that spreads misinformation and hateful propaganda about American Muslims.  This multimillion dollar industry includes seven “charitable” foundations and a “small cadre of funders and misinformation experts that are amplified by an echo chamber of the religious right, conservative media, grassroots organizations, and politicians who sought to introduce a fringe perspective on American Muslims into the public discourse”.

Mr. Durr’s words and actions should be condemned by all as they are dangerous and put at risk hundreds of thousands of Muslim Americans that live in our great state.  Time will certainly tell if Mr. Durr’s weak response to the controversy (“If I said things in the past that hurt anybody’s feelings, I sincerely apologize”) – is replaced with a sincere desire to understand the faith and build relationships with Muslims in his district.

However it must be said that the Gloucester County Republican Party is off to an inauspicious start in their attempts to deal with the controversy.  Chairwoman Jacqueline M. Vigilante’s defense of Mr. Durr is in many ways even worse than his condemnable words.  He can at least claim a degree of ignorance, but her comments are laughable on their face.   Ms. Vigilante claims that the “issue is about politics and its element of cancel culture”.  This controversy is decidedly not about politics but it certainly does include an aspect of culture – not the one she is trying to deflect to –  but it’s the culture of hate that she and Mr. Durr whether knowingly or unknowingly seem to be very comfortable with.

It is the culture of hate that gets cheers as a President spews words like “Islam hates us” or tells a made up story about how an American General once used pigs blood soaked bullets to kill Muslims. It’s a culture of hate that so dehumanizes Muslims that as we rightly honor thousands of our brave soldiers who paid the ultimate sacrifice or who were seriously injured in combat – we completely ignore the hundreds of thousands of non-combatant / innocent civilians who were just trying to live their lives but were “collateral damage” during our decades long wars in the middle east.

And closer to home it’s a culture of hate that incentivizes deviants to throw a severed pigs head into a Philadelphia mosque’s courtyard which sits just a few miles away from Gloucester County.   Or finally a culture of hate where in New Jersey in the past 2 months in two separate incidents involving teachers – one where a teacher allegedly took off the head covering (hijab) of a young girl against her will and another where a teacher told a high school student that “he does not negotiate with terrorists” after the student asked to be able to continue his assignment at home.

This is the culture that needs to be ripped and torn apart from the roots.  We hope that both Mr. Durr and Ms. Vigilante are part of the change that our nation so desperately needs so that we all can live together as one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

In closing – a verse from the Quran (49:13) gives us the direction we need to help form “the more perfect union” that our nation’s forefathers dreamed about:

“O mankind, indeed we have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of God is the most righteous of you”

Salaheddin Mustafa

Islamic Center of Passaic County (ICPC) Outreach Director

 smustafa@icpcnj.org