Reuters, Catonsville :US President Barack Obama visited a US mosque on Wednesday and declared that attacks on Islam were an attack on all faiths in a move to counter rhetoric from Donald Trump and other Republican presidential candidates that have alienated Muslims.”We have to understand that an attack on one faith is an attack on all our faiths,” Obama said at a mosque outside Baltimore. “When any religious group is targeted we all have a responsibility to speak up.”Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States after a California couple who killed 14 people last December were described by authorities as radicalise Muslims inspired by ISIS terrorists.Republicans vying to be the party’s candidate for the November 8 presidential election also have argued against Obama’s plan to accept 10,000 refugees fleeing Syria’s war, saying it raised national security risks.Obama urged people watching who had never been to a mosque to think of it as similar to their own houses of worship.”Think of your own church or synagogue or temple, and mosques like this will be very familiar. This is where families come to worship and express their love for God and for each other,” he said.The president, who is a Christian, said it was important to have more Muslim characters portrayed on television who were not related to national security themes, and he said engagement with Muslim American communities must not be a cover for surveillance.For Muslim advocates, Obama’s visit was a long-awaited gesture to a community that has warned of escalating vitriol against them that has accompanied the public’s concern about the Islamic State and other extremist groups. Although Obama has visited mosques overseas in the past, he waited until his final year in office to make such a visit at home, reflecting the issue’s sensitive political implications.In this year’s Republican presidential campaign, Donald Trump has called for banning Muslims from the US temporarily and Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio warned of “radical Islamic terrorism.” Muslim-American advocacy groups have warned of a growing number of attacks on mosques and on individuals following attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, by those purporting to act in the name of Islam.”We have to understand: An attack on one faith is an attack on all our faiths,” Obama said. Denouncing a political dynamic that incentivizes attacks against certain religions, he said it fell on all Americans to speak up.For Obama, the visit in his final year in office reflects a willingness to wade into touchy social issues that often eluded him earlier in his presidency. For years, Obama has fought incorrect claims that he’s actually a Muslim and was born in Kenya, beliefs that polls suggest remain prevalent among many Republicans. Obama, a Christian, was born in Hawaii.
