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 At the Islamic Institute of Orange County, which houses a mosque
and a school in Anaheim, in southern California, tensions were
already mounting since a group of white men screamed at mothers and
children arriving at the center on this year’s anniversary of the
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, calling them cowards who did not belong in
America.
Many of the country’s 2.8 million Muslims say such tensions could
become uglier during a presidential race that they fear is already
tapping a vein of anger and bigotry.
“It’s pretty troubling that someone running for president would make
those claims,” Zuhair Shaath, Palestinian-American, said of Carson,
a retired neurosurgeon who on Sunday said Muslims were unfit for the
presidency of the United States.
Carson's campaign defended his comments on Monday, saying he was not
suggesting a Muslim should be barred from running for president. But
his campaign said he would not advocate for that person becoming a
leader and would not support it.
 Later on Monday, Carson said he "absolutely" stood by his comments
but would be open to a moderate Muslim candidate who denounced
radical Islamists.
The remarks by Carson, who is near the top of opinion polls for the
crowded field of Republican candidates for the 2016 election,
followed billionaire Trump’s failure to challenge comments made on
Friday by a supporter who labeled U.S. President Barack Obama a
Muslim.
Trump later clarified his silence, saying he was not obligated to
correct an audience member and that “the bigger issue is that Obama
is waging a war against Christians in this country. Christians need
support in this country. Their religious liberties are at stake.”
Some Muslims say they fear that the remarks could strengthen the
appeal of Carson and Trump, who have cast themselves as
non-politicians in a race in which blunt comments laced with
misogyny and xenophobia have done little to derail the popularity of
Trump, who is leading in opinion polls of likely Republican voters.
The comments also come after a 14-year-old Muslim boy from Texas was
taken away in handcuffs last week for bringing to his Dallas-area
school a homemade clock that staff mistook for a bomb. Ahmed
Mohamed’s arrest sparked allegations of racial profiling and turned
his school into an object of online outrage that culminated with
Obama inviting Mohamed to the White House.
Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic
Relations, called on Carson to "withdraw from the presidential race
because he is unfit to lead, because his views are inconsistent with
the United States Constitution."
In an Anaheim neighborhood known as “Little Arabia”, Abdallah
Soueidan said the comments will inevitably cause trouble. “They are
stirring things up," said Soueidan, 57, who moved from Lebanon 37
years ago.
His 18-year-old son, Radwan – a college volleyball player in jeans
and T-shirt – said he reads hate-filled anti-Muslim screeds online
all the time. But, referring to Carson, he said: “I don’t know how a
presidential candidate could say a thing like that. It doesn’t sound
American at all."
"WE ARE ALSO VOTERS"
While the U.S. Constitution forbids religious tests for those
seeking public office, religion and presidential politics have long
been a combustible mix.
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In 2007, as Republican Mitt Romney campaigned for his party’s
nomination, he faced fears among Evangelical Christians over his
Mormon faith. In 1960, John F. Kennedy stressed the separation of
church and state while campaigning to become the country's first
Roman Catholic president.
Aicha Fokar, 20, said Carson's comments perpetuated "a really sick
stereotype that's been kind of embedding itself in the American
culture.”
"It discourages young Muslims from standing up for their rights or
for being proud about their faith," said the student n Lubbock,
Texas. "Everyone’s just trying to say things to get as many votes. I
don't think they understand what happens to us.
They don't understand that we are also voters.”
In Dearborn, a Detroit suburb home to the country's largest Muslim
population, Marshal Shameri said Trump should have done more to
dispel misconceptions of Islam. But he did not view the comments as
an attack on his faith.
"As a candidate, as a businessman, as a man who is running for
president, he should have been much, much sharper and clearer in his
response and he wasn't," said Shameri, originally from Iraq.
Anti-Muslim tensions have been on display in another Detroit suburb,
Sterling Heights, where city officials this month denied an Islamic
group's request to develop a mosque in a residential neighborhood.
The mosque’s backers faced protests and filed a petition on Monday
with the U.S. Department of Justice, seeking an investigation into
whether their civil rights were violated.
In Kentucky, tensions flared last week when vandals defaced a mosque
by spray-painting in bright red the words "Moslems - Leave the Jews
Alone," "This is for France" and "Nazis Speak Arabic". Waheed Ahmad,
president of the Louisville Islamic Center, played down the
vandalism, blaming it on "a bunch of little rascals" who "got drunk
or something".
At Texas Tech University, Saba Nafees, 23, saw some irony in
Carson’s comments.
“What is being portrayed in the media is extremism,” she said.
“That’s what Islam is mistaken for, even though it's not.”
(Additional reporting by Serena Maria Daniels in Dearborn, Michigan;
Steve Bittenbender in Lousville, Kentucky and Alicia Keene in
Lubbock, Texas. Writing by Jason Szep, Editing by Ken Wills)
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