We are not going to toy with our religion or any other. Nor are we going to barter. We are here to extend our hands to build peace and harmony.

There are individuals who are working very hard to promote fear and antagonism towards Islam and Muslims in this country. It's fueled, in part, by the first African-American president that we have. Obama's father was a Muslim and people have used this to arouse hostility against him.

A kind of racism still exists in the United States, and Islamophobia is a more convenient way to express that sentiment. There has also been an attempt to paint Muslims as enemies of the United States.

The Islamic method of waging war is not to kill innocent civilians, but it was Christians in World War II who bombed civilians in Dresden and Hiroshima, neither of which were military targets.

When I arrived in America, I experienced serious culture shock. For someone with a religious upbringing, the 1960s were an extremely difficult time. Even though religion was a big part of the civil rights and peace movements, in my college religion was treated as irrelevant, hopelessly stodgy, and behind the times.

I condemn everyone and anyone who commits acts of terrorism. And Hamas has committed acts of terrorism.

We tend to forget in the West that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than Al Qaeda has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims.