A LOYALIST of US president Donald Trump has taken to the social media to chastise one Imam Frederick Qasim Khan for self-imposing a 30-day rule to shop owners in Houston, Texas “to get the booze, pork and gambling out of their stores or face protests”.
At a glance, this could be perceived as an act of blackmailing but then again the prominent educator, author and community organiser who converted to mainstream Sunni Islam in 1975 has not barged into any store but those owned by people of his faith.
Even if the sentiment is understandable given Texas is America’s most-populous Republican state, the logic behind the online bashing of Imam Qasim Khan by the pro-MAGA (political slogan “Make America Great Again” popularised by Trump) poster is seemingly flawed given he has not infringed on non-Muslim businesses interest at all.
What right then does the poster have to accuse the 76-year-old Houston-based cleric who was born Frederick Raleigh Spencer in Sewickley, Pennsylvania for radicalism or wanting him to be deported as per his tweet:
“Time for @SenTedCruz (junior Texas senator Rafael Edward Cruz) and @GregAbbott_TX (Texas governor Greg Abbott) to identify this radical Imam and see if he’s in this country illegally.”
According to Grok (@Grok) which is Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, the said video which first went viral on Sept 7 depicts the underlying campaign which began in May 2025 by Imam Qasim Khan to urge Muslim-owned stores to remove haram items.
Imam Qasim Khan has described his so-called “Sharia patrols” to warn Muslim-owned stores “to stop selling alcohol, pork, and gambling products within 30 days” as part of his dakwah (Islamic preaching) although US officials and detractors call it harassment and an attempt to impose foreign law.
But alas. the poster’s poor fact-checking skill on two fronts – (i) Imam Qasim Khan is only ‘imposing his authority’ on Muslim shop owners as opposed to across the board; and (ii) he is a born and breed American NOT an immigrant – has sparked furore as well as incited hatred towards the cleric, Muslims and the immigrant community.
Unfortunately, the damage has been done to quite a substantial scale no thanks to the poster’s insensitivity as can be seen from the following memes and text comments:
Welcome to America. – Focus Malaysia
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