Omar Suleiman

It was one of the New York Times pictures of the year when we did our prayer.

Because when we had to do our prayer, it wasn't just Muslims that came to the airport.

It was many people that came to the airport of different faiths that were outraged by what they had seen.

So when we do our prayer, there was a protest chant that you pray, we stay.

And so the airport had to make room for us because like a thousand people that needed to have our five daily prayers.

So we would do our prayers in the airport.

We waited.

We continued until the detainees were freed, at least temporarily.

Unfortunately, some elements of that legislation remained, and it was an ongoing struggle.

But look, what I'll say is that those are some of the more obvious manifestations of anti-Muslim bigotry.

But again, there's hypocrisy on all sides of the political aisle here in the United States.

There is Islamophobia of different flavors.

I think even the term Islamophobia can become contentious because there are people that attack us in different ways and that might not be as overtly bigoted, but

nonetheless are infringing on our rights to be full American Muslims.

And Muslims find themselves in a very strange political place where you've got one side that seemingly wants to annihilate you and another side that only accepts you if you're willing to assimilate, but no one really allows you to be a full on American Muslim.

And so Muslims find themselves in a very strange place right now.

with all of the political sides, with the political parties.

So Muslims find themselves in an awkward place politically.

That's the best way to put it.

We are a religious community.