Murfreesboro, Tennessee is known for being a melting pot with a vibrant Muslim American community while also being a “buckle on the Bible Belt.” Sounds, uh, complex? Well according to the Washington Post, it definitely is all that and more. “It was here, in this midsize college town in the dead center of Tennessee, that a right-wing effort to ban Islamic law found one of its first sponsors. Here, too, a congressman co-sponsored a plan to “defund Muslim ‘refugees’ ” and local residents sued to block construction of the only mosque, a fight that ended at the Supreme Court.”
Abdou Kattih is one of the founders of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro who just a few years ago, faced off with Jason Bennett, an evangelical advocate for the homeless, who was also a onetime opponent to the mosque. But now? The two consider one another close friends. James McCarroll Jr., a pastor at First Baptist Church, comments that “we’re seeing more of an acceptance, a lot of it being spurred by the university having a large community of Muslims.”
College student Basant Salem says that he recently hosted a “Meet-a-Muslim event” at his college, and found that many people had never met a Muslim person before. “We don’t have to change their views,” said Basant’s sister, Samar, 21, “but just make them aware that we aren’t what they think we are.”
Mr. Kattih started a new community group called Murfreesboro Muslim Youth which aims to make Muslims “visible and familiar.” “What people in America are failing to realize is that most immigrant Muslims lived under dictatorship. Fear is embedded in their skin. So when they’re afraid, they retract,” explains Mr. Kattih. “And I think that’s the opposite of what needs to happen. You need to stretch out your hand to allies. And you’ll be surprised what hands reach out back.”
