Anti-Islam protestors are gathering in Lansing tomorrow for the March Against Sharia.
It’s one of a couple dozen such protests across the nation. There has not been a lot of media coverage about it, and the only coverage we've seen on the Michigan march has been in the MetroTimes.
These anti-Islam protestors point to the atrocities of ISIS and to the Dearborn cleric Ahmad Musa Jibril, whose YouTube videos might have inspired one of the men involved in last week's London terror attack, as proof that Islam is a violent religion.
But Imam Sohail Chaudhry of the Islamic Society of Greater Lansing said protestors aren’t seeing the full picture.
“The first thing that people need to know is that most of the people don’t even understand the basics of the religion of Islam,” he said. “There is a lot of ignorance in the country and groups like these, they play on that ignorance.”
Chaudhry said a $55 million Islamophobia industry exists in the United States.
“And they spread fears and lies and misconceptions about Islam and the Muslims,” he said. “And then on the other side, you have the ISIS, or these extremist organizations working within the Muslim world and the problem is that neither of them represent the Islamic community, or the Muslim community.”
“We have over 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. ISIS does not represent us and these Islamophobes do not represent us. So we have no representation and this is one of the biggest problems that we’re facing.”
Listen above for the full conversation. It includes Chaudhry’s explanation for why he’s not reacting to tomorrow’s march, but instead focusing on public education.
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