US Muslim leaders in Janesville to host talk about Islam in American history

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Wednesday 13 Jan 2016 - 11:50 Makkah mean time-3-4-1437 Janesville Muslim Dawa Circle's photo Janesville, US (IINA) - Islamic leaders in Janesville city, in southern Wisconsin, United States are inviting their neighbors on Wednesday to learn about their religion and its place in American history, Beloit Daily News reported. The event, “Islam: American as Apple Pie with the Amir and Imam of Janesville’s Muslim Dawa Circle,” was organized in part by the Rock County Progressives. It starts at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Basics Cooperative Natural Foods Store, 1711 Lodge Drive, Janesville. Salih D.R. Erschen, the mosque’s leader, and his son-in-law, Ibrahim Jutmoud, who is the imam, will give a 40-minute lecture. “We will be talking about how integrated Islam is in the history of America,” Erschen said. “The biggest theme is to go against the stereotype that Islam is a foreign religion to America. It’s really not.” For example, Morocco, an Islamic nation, was the first country to acknowledge the independence of the United States in 1777. Alexander Webb, an American ambassador to the Philippines, toured India and converted to Islam in 1888, changed his first name to Mohammed, and returned to the United States to propagate his new religion. “Ever since I took on Islam 21 years ago, mainstream America hasn’t understood it,” Erschen said. “People now are becoming afraid. They’re not certain what Islam is about. When it gets down to it, the basics of Islam are very similar to American values.” He said the clash between the American value of free expression and Muslim value of not insulting the prophet is “hyped up.” He cited a historical example of Muslims, Christians and Jews living together in an open society under Muslim rule before Muslims were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula. He said history was rewritten after the Spanish Inquisition, but before then the Andalusian Empire was a Western Islamic state and a center of learning and culture. SM/IINA