CAIRO – Setting up a role model for law enforcement officers, a US country Sheriff who reads Qur’an and joins Muslim prayers managed to build an unbreakable trust among Muslim community, helping him to tackle any problems or threats of radicalizing its members.
"There are so few Muslim extremists in America,” LA country Sheriff Lee Baca told Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, April 19.
“You can't burn all the hay to find the needle, because the people are the hay."
Noticing a change of attitude towards Muslim minority in the US after 9/11 terrorist attacks, Baca shifted the hard-line law enforcement of security checks and surveillance in favor of outreach and cooperation.
Unlike most law enforcement officers, he ignored thousands of tips that flooded after 9/11, choosing to read the Muslim’s holy book, the Qura’n to know more about the community.
“All of our lives have been changed by 9/11," Baca said. "We're the ones who will get slammed if something falls through the cracks."
"The one you don't follow will end up being the one that matters," Baca said.
He started attending all invitations from Muslim community, appearing in Pakistan day celebration wearing a traditional garb or speaking Farsi and Urdu during Iranian and Pakistani celebrations.
Keeping a Qura’n in his home and office, he managed to memorize some passages which he quotes from memory.
He even used to join Muslims in their prayers, taking off his shoes when entering the mosque and going to his knees and pressing his forehead to the ground in prayers.
"He might not understand what he's doing," said Deputy Sherif Morsi, a Muslim officer in his unit."But the point is he's letting people know 'I'm your sheriff, I support you.'"...
Just goes to show you can catch more flies with abject groveling than you can by flexing your backbone...or something like that. (Notice where onislam places the holy apostrophe in "Quran"--after the "a" and before the "n"--which is a new one on me: Apostrophe placement in the word Quran is fast becoming the "Gaddafi" of Islamic punctuation in that you never seem to see it written the same way twice.)
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