Oklahoma Muslims receive special praise from White House officials

Posted 3:26 pm, October 4, 2014, by Andrew Donley, Updated at 07:31pm, October 6, 2014

OKLAHOMA CITY – Oklahoma Muslims marked the end of the yearly pilgrimage to mecca with communal prayer and celebration called Eid Ul-Adha on Saturday.

Leaders of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City say it’s been a tough month for Muslims here in Oklahoma after being associated with the beheading at Vaughan foods in Moore.

Leaders of the faith here in the state say vicious messages are being left for Oklahoma Muslims, telling them to get out of Oklahoma and threatening to behead them all because the man behind the beheading claimed to be Muslim.

But the Muslim community received the highest form of praise from the White House for their hard work in helping rebuild the Moore community after a destructive tornado tore through the city in 2013.

Today, an official from Washington D.C. flew in to Oklahoma to present a special thank you to the Muslim congregation.

He read a message from President Barrack Obama, extending warm greetings from the American people during the Muslim holiday.

“Your service is a powerful example of the powerful roots of the Abrahamic faiths and how our communities can come together with shared peace with dignity and a sense of justice,” President Barack Obama said.

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"In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific reassurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction." - Barack Hussein Obama from The Audacity of Hope Page 261