A Colorado mosque was vandalized, prompting an overwhelmingly supportive response from the community. pic.twitter.com/MKbaoHpZaR
— AJ+ (@ajplus) March 30, 2017
On Sunday afternoon, just 12 hours after a mosque in Fort Collins, Colorado was vandalized — its glass front door shattered and a bible thrown into it — around 1,000 local residents showed up to a prayer service held in solidarity with the targeted community.
At the end of the gathering, the Coloradoan reports, those who had come in support of the Fort Collins Islamic Center formed a human shield around the mosque, linking arms and singing “America, the Beautiful.”
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The attack took place before 5:30 in the morning on Sunday, March 26, and, as of Tuesday afternoon, a perpetrator has been apprehended. It was one of 35 such attacks or threats of violence against a mosque in first three months of 2017, according to CNN.
“We belong here, we are not going to cow down, but please do something about it,” President of the Islamic Center of Fort Collins Tawfik AboEllail said, calling on police departments to step up security at centers of worship.
The increase in Islamophobia in the United States in the past several years has been well-documented. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported a significant rise in the number of anti-Muslim hate groups across the country. While there were just 34 such groups in 2015, that number had risen to more than 100 by the end of 2016.
In 2015, there were 78 reported attacks at mosques in the United States, according to a study by the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the UC-Berkeley Center for Race and Gender. Already, 2017 is on pace to surpass 140 incidents, if current rates of anti-mosque violence continue.
This is how members of the Islamic Center in Fort Collins found their mosque this morning. They say a bible was thrown inside as well #9newspic.twitter.com/MjVQUpfRfX
— Dan Grossman (@Dan_Grossman) March 26, 2017
But for every nearly act of violence there seems to be an equal and opposite outpouring of support for the Muslim community.
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In Fort Collins, this community outpouring was not limited to linking arms and singing. More than $20,000 was raised to help the community repair the damages and beef up security at the mosque, CBS Local reports.
Representative Jared Polis (D-CO) tweeted his support for the community and call for an end to acts of violence:
The vandalism that occurred at the Islamic Center in Ft. Collins is unacceptable. It's time for us to stand in unity. These acts must end.
— Rep. Jared Polis (@RepJaredPolis) March 26, 2017
Signs left outside the prayer room read “Not in my city” and “We stand with you.”
“There were a lot of people out here, and we were able to hold their hands together and make a human chain around the Islamic Center of Fort Collins,” the mosque’s treasurer Saiq Majeed told Forward Magazine. “It was quite emotional.”
In a time of enduring tension and distrust, these Americans are leading by example, and following the words of the song they sang together:
“And crown thy good with brotherhood / From sea to shining sea!”