After he heard Thursday night about the attack inside a mosque in New Zealand, Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi said he grew worried. « I could not…
After he heard Thursday night about the attack inside a mosque in New Zealand, Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi said he grew worried.
« I could not even sleep last night, » Elahi, the religious leader of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, said. « It’s really a sad day, a dark day. »
But Elahi was determined to lead Friday prayers, the most popular gathering time for Muslims — and when the New Zealand shooter attacked, killing 49 worshippers.
The New Zealand shooting is one of the deadliest attacks against Muslims in a Western country in recent memory. Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old man born in Australia who is reported to have expressed white supremacist views, has been arrested and charged in the shootings; three others were arrested in connection with the shootings.
« This is not the time to give in, » Elahi said inside his mosque Friday afternoon after prayers. « This is not the time of showing weakness, silence; our silence won’t help us, it will hurt us. We have to come to prayer and show more devotion and more determination and… show that we are not scared. If we don’t come, we are giving a gift to the terrorists. »
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Elahi’s views were echoed in many of metro Detroit’s Muslim communities, where there is anxiety but determination to keep on attending their houses of worship and practicing their Islamic faith.
