Not when Donald Trump proposed banning Muslims from entering the United States, a plan his own running mate called “offensive and unconstitutional.”
Not when Trump suggested monitoring mosques and torturing terrorism suspects.
Not even when Islamophobic incidents spiked to their highest levels since the 9/11 attacks.
In some ways, Ali, a 40-year-old mother of three, had been buffered from the long and brutal 2016 presidential campaign.
She trods familiar ground in her Virginia home. She drops her children off at school, where the teachers know her and she knows them. She shops at the same grocery store, where the people smile at her and she smiles back, her face framed by a hijab.
At her polling station on Tuesday, she was greeted warmly by neighbours, even the ones whose cars bore pro-Trump stickers.
As the editor of the Muslim section of Patheos, a website specializing in spirituality, Ali had edited plenty of stories about other Muslims’ distress. She knew their fears intimately. Until Wednesday morning.
“I woke up today and I finally felt it. It felt personal, like the election was a vote against me.”
Scores of imams, activists and scholars, commiserated over their concern and uncertainty, even as they pledged to hold fast to their faith and build stronger coalitions with fellow minorities.
Some said his election felt like a betrayal, as if half the country had turned on them.
“Our worst nightmare materialised last night,” said Wardah Khalid, a writer and foreign policy analyst.
“A man that built his platform on bigotry, misogyny, and the vilification of Muslims and minorities won the highest office in the land.”
– By Daniel Burke, CNN Religion Editor
