The public comments at Broken Arrow's city council rezoning hearing Monday night were all over the map, coming from rizzed-up Muslim teenagers to fearful xenophobic weirdos and just about everybody in between. Watching the video today in light of the council's 4-1 decision to deny the Islamic Society of Tulsa's rezoning request, I'm struck by how badly Broken Arrow fumbled an opportunity to benefit from a minority culture with deep roots in Oklahoma. Included in the IST's plans for the 42,000 square-foot development were more than just a worship center: they wanted to build a strip mall and a free public clinic. What city in America says no to economic development and healthcare?
In light of this disappointing news, we've pulled a pair of stories from the This Land archives charting Oklahoma's multi-decade relationship with Islam. The first, from James Murray, was originally published in 2016 and centers Oklahoma City's Masjid Mu'min mosque, then the state's oldest.
In recounting the history of the mosque, Murray introduces us to its new leader Ibrahim Abdullah, who gave this stunning quote to The Oklahoman in August 1975:
People in Oklahoma—the mentality is not the same as in a big city—people are more humane and friendly here. We think the people are fair and will give us a fair hearing according to the facts and knowledge. Not sentimentality or emotion.
We'll set aside the concerns about our declining humanity and friendliness for another day. In the second story, Randy Roberts Potts captures all the proto-MAGA bigotry that the mainstream media elided from its coverage of Muslim Day at the state capitol in 2015. It's a doozy, and finds a direct analog to the spectacle around Monday night's hearing, which drew attendance from attention-seeking whackjobs like Jackson Lahmeyer and comment from Republican political hopefuls across the state.
