From Toledo Blade
BY DR. S. AMJAD HUSSAIN
You would never think that bricks and mortar would have such a deep emotional and spiritual pull on people. But they do.
The people who built the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo in 1982 were devastated when an arsonist set fire to the prayer room at the Perrysburg Township center six months ago.
These people had worked hard to make the center a welcoming place for people of all faiths. The center became the face of progressive Islam in America.
Yet in the 30 years of the center’s existence, the tide would turn and someone brimming with hatred and misplaced patriotism would want to burn the place down.
Randy Linn, the confessed arsonist, claims he was under the influence of alcohol when he set the prayer room on fire. Instead, he was in a haze of self-righteousness and Islamophobia that has been generated and perpetuated by extreme right-wing politicians, certain clergy, and their willing surrogates in the media.
Linn said he wanted to avenge the deaths of American soldiers overseas. In his mind, Muslims were responsible for those deaths. He claimed that Muslims have had a free pass in this country.
He decided to avenge the deaths of U.S. soldiers by torching a mosque in the heartland of America. Whether Muslims in general and American Muslims in particular had anything to do with those deaths was irrelevant to Linn.
