“I also hope you realize just the opportunity here that Allah has given us to show the power of Muslims in Georgia,” said Rep. Rashida Tlaib.
By Josh Plank, World Israel News
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) told voters Sunday that Georgia’s Senate runoff elections are an opportunity given by Allah to demonstrate the power of Muslims.
Tlaib made the comments in a virtual vote-a-thon event hosted by the Georgia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Georgia Muslim Voter Project (GAMVP) on the eve of the first day of early voting.
“I also hope you realize just the opportunity here that Allah has given us to show the power of Muslims in Georgia,” Tlaib said.
“I want people to be like, oh, my God, I didn’t even know Muslims are in Georgia. Exactly. Because we’re going to show them in droves of numbers,” she said.
Muslims are a small but growing minority in Georgia, and organizations like GAMVP have been working hard to register Muslim voters and encourage them to cast ballots.
“I feel like you all have this opportunity that has just been given almost like in a gift that has been given to all of you to represent the Muslim community nationally. So I hope we succeed, inshallah [if Allah wills],” Tlaib said.
She indicated that she viewed voting as a religious duty. “What is happening in our country right now, this form of darkness and hate, is something that our faith is always asking us to push back,” she said.
Tlaib said that “a tsunami of hate” had been directed towards her and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who was also a speaker on the virtual event.
“As Muslims, I know that since 9-11 so many of us have risen up and said you might push us to live on the margins of society, you might vilify us, and you might silence us, but we internally are going to fight against that and we’re going to show up and participate in ways that nobody really expected us to,” Omar said.
She said that the results of the November 3 election were due to Muslim participation in Georgia.
“Georgia made history this last election cycle because everybody decided that it was important for them to respond to the hatred that the Republicans and Trump were spewing with their vote,” Omar said, adding, “And we now have an opportunity to do that again in these runoff elections in the Senate.”
Anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour, who was also a speaker at the event, said she will be knocking on doors in Georgia to help turn out the vote for Democratic Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.