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The Baltimore mosque that President Obama will visit this week to show support for American Muslims has historical ties to radical Islamic groups. The Islamic Society of Baltimore had an imam who was a leading figure in the extremist Muslim Brotherhood. The organization also is connected to the Islamic Society of North America, a Muslim civil rights group named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a 2008 criminal prosecution in which several individuals were convicted of funneling money to the terrorist group Hamas.

President Obama is set to speak next week at a mosque which was led for over a decade by an Imam who justified suicide bombings in some circumstances and who helped found a mosque with ties to Al Qaeda. The President will visit the Islamic Society of Baltimore on Wednesday and deliver remarks there, the White House confirmed on Saturday. This will be the first time the President has paid an official visit to a mosque during his seven years as President. However, Obama has toured mosques while on overseas trips. "The president believes that one of our nation's greatest...

The Baltimore mosque President Obama has chosen as the first U.S.-based mosque to visit during his presidency has deep ties to extremist elements, including to the Muslim Brotherhood. The White House announced on Saturday that Obama will visit the Islamic Society of Baltimore (ISB) on Wednesday. He has visited several mosques overseas as president but has resisted visiting one in the homeland. The purpose of the trip, according to the White House, is to “celebrate the contributions Muslim Americans make to our nation and reaffirm the importance of religious freedom to our way of life.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a public show of support, President Barack Obama will meet with Muslim community members Wednesday in Baltimore on his first presidential visit to an American mosque. Obama plans to hold talks with Muslim leaders at the Islamic Society of Baltimore, the White House announced Saturday. The visit will amount to a public embrace of Muslims by Obama at a time when public sentiment against them seems to be growing, largely fueled by fears of terrorist acts carried out by extremist groups. Obama has largely put distance between himself and U.S. Muslims, opting against fueling the rampant...

When a Christmas day fire broke out at a strip mall mosque in Houston Texas, the media was quick like a bunny to begin speculating on the “suspicious nature” of the fire and looking for a motive. CAIR was one of the first out of the gate to call it a hate crime. (NBC News) The Houston chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called on authorities to investigate a possible bias motive in the case, citing what it called a “recent spike in hate incidents targeting mosques nationwide.A mosque in Coachella, California, was damaged in an intentionally set fire...

LAS VEGAS - The FBI is offering a $5,000 reward for information that helps them find the person who put raw bacon on the door handles of a Las Vegas mosque. The FBI said in a statement Wednesday that agents are trying to find the man seen in a surveillance video putting the meat on the entrances of the Masjid-e-Tawheed mosque. Authorities call it a desecration of the Islamic worship center. The Quran, the holy book of Islam, prohibits Muslims from eating pork, and pigs have been used to taunt or offend Muslims. Both the FBI and Las Vegas police...

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Gary Nathaniel Moore, who investigators say also used the name "Jamal" Moore, now faces a charge of arson for setting fire to a southwest Houston mosque on Christmas day. "There's no motive that's clear to us right now. Nothing's been revealed," said the Houston Fire Department's chief arson investigator. "He was a member of that mosque. He was there for several years."

A crowd vandalized a Muslim prayer room in Corsica a day after an ambush injured two firefighters responding to an emergency in a housing project, the state prefect on the French island said Saturday. Prefect Christophe Mirmand said police reinforcements were being called into the Corsican capital of Ajaccio from mainland France, and prayer rooms and mosques were being guarded. Two separate investigations were opened, one into the attack on firefighters Thursday and the other into the damage to the prayer room Friday, he said on iTele TV station. ...

HOUSTON, Texas -- Houston Fire Department responded to a two-alarm fire at a mosque in southwest Houston on Friday afternoon, reports CBS affiliate KHOU. Officials said the cause of the fire is suspicious. KHOU reports that officials say they they are currently checking surveillance footage. The fire was put out shortly after crews arrived on the scene and no injuries were reported. Officials said they received a call about the fire around 2:45 p.m. and by 3 p.m. it was moved to a two-alarm fire. The Houston chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Houston) called on local, state and...

CNN editor Arsalan Iftikhar, formerly of CAIR, blames Donald Trump for anti-Muslim acts.

COACHELLA, California — Holy prayers at a mosque here on Friday were canceled with families gawking behind fire lines after discovering the front of their holy house had become one big fireball. Late Friday night, authorities announced that they believe the fire was deliberately set, and the local branch of the FBI is investigating as a possible hate crime. In addition, a person of interest has been detained, but not identified. Members of the congregation are blaming GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump for setting the ugly tone that charred their house of worship. The mosque began to burn at around...

A Southern California mosque was damaged by fire on Friday, and its leader said people there at the time believe it was intentionally set. Flames were reported just after noon at the Islamic Center of Palm Springs, according to the Riverside County Fire Department. The fire was contained to the small building’s front lobby, and no one was injured. Its cause is under investigation. People there described hearing a loud boom and seeing flames, said Reymundo Nour, the mosque’s acting imam, who was not on the site at the time. He said the mosque had been fire-bombed. The FBI was...

After the latest Paris terror attack, French President Hollande swore he’d go after radical Muslims who pulled off the mass slayings. Now, we’re learning what he meant by that. As HotAir reports: “[T]he French have kicked in the doors on 2,235 homes and taken 232 people into custody or placed them on house arrest.” In the sleepy French town of Lagny-sur-Marne, just 18 miles from Paris …French police went to the local mosque where they found: The Salafist mosque in Lagny-sur-Marne, about 30km east of the French capital was closed down by police on 2 December. In subsequent raids the...

A Southern California mosque was damaged Friday in a fire reported to authorities as a possible arson. Flames were reported just after noon at the Islamic Center of Palm Springs, according to the Riverside County Fire Department. The fire was contained to the small building's front lobby, and no one was injured. Its cause is under investigation. ...

I was born a Muslim and lived all my life as a follower of Islam. After the barbaric terrorist attacks done by the hands of my fellow Muslims everywhere on this globe, and after the too many violent acts by Islamists in many parts of the world, I feel responsible as a Mus-lim and as a human being, to speak out and tell the truth to protect the world and Muslims as well from a coming catastrophe and war of civilizations. I have to admit that our current Islamic teaching creates violence and hatred toward Non-Muslims. We Muslims are the...

France is planning on shutting down dozens of mosques, and a top Islamic leader is staunchly supporting the move. Hassan El Alaoui, who's in charge of all Muslim prison chaplains in France, told Al Jazeera anywhere between 100 and 160 Muslim worship centers will be closed. He added that the mosques would be shuttered "because they are run illegally without proper licenses, they preach hatred or use takfiri speech," meaning they denounce other Muslims for not being truly adherent to the Quran. The crackdown on extremist speech would affect roughly 4 to 6 percent of the countries 2,600 total mosques....

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Police discover "bullets, Islamist propaganda and unauthorised madrassa" in raid after closure of mosque in Lagny-sur-Seine, outside Paris, in wake of Paris terror attacks.

The time has come that when people ask, “Where are the Muslim voices?” everyone should be able to say “here they are!” There is a buzz on social media today about a new Muslim Reform Movement, and any of you are wondering what this is all about. Here is some background: The Paris terrorism attacks seemed to be the last straw for many Muslims like us who abhor violence in the name of our faith. So we decided to do something about radical Islamist extremism growing by the day and threatening the future of our next generations. A group of...

A group of House Democrats attended a prayer service at a Northern Virginia mosque on Friday and expressed their solidarity with the country’s Muslims. “We don’t all have the Donald Trump version of Muslims in America,” Beyer, who encouraged other House members to attend services at mosques across the country, said while at Dar al-Hijrah Friday.