An incident in a Virginia mosque on Friday initially seemed to bear out the Left’s increasing warnings about the rise of “extremism” among Hindus. As is so often the case with “anti-Muslim hate crimes,” however, reality turned out to be markedly different from what was initially reported.
Leftists have been warning about the alleged rise of “Hindu nationalism,” or “Hindutva,” for quite some time now. In September 2022, the far-Left’s flagship publication, The Nation, ran an article entitled “Hindu Nationalism’s Alarming Rise in the US Goes Beyond Texas.” The subtitle of this exercise in deflection and alarmism linked this supposedly rising Hindu nationalism to the person Leftists hate almost as much as they hate God: Donald Trump. The subhead darkly informed us that “the 2019 Houston rally—where Trump and [Indian President Narendra] Modi rubbed elbows—wasn’t the end of Hindutva’s ascent in the United States.”
Not to be outdone, the Huffington Post ran a markedly similar piece the following month: “Far-Right Hindu Nationalism Is Gaining Ground In The U.S.: Hindutva, an extremist ideology, takes many cues from white nationalism — and it’s endangering millions of Muslims and other religious minorities.” The Left’s reliable ally, the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), has also warned about the “threat” of “far-right Hindutva extremists” in the United States.
And so on Friday, which was Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the monthlong Ramadan season of fasting by day and gorging by night, an incident in a mosque in northern Virginia, the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (commonly known as the ADAMS Center), seemed particularly disturbing. One Twitter user posted video of the incident early Saturday morning with the caption: “A Hindu woman stormed a mosque in America during the Eid prayer and started screaming and insulting Muslims at the top of her voice. The security men tried to silence her but she did not respond so they forcefully took her out.”
Another said much the same thing: “An #Indian #Hindu extremist woman went inside d mosque in d #US during #EidUlFitr prayer and started shouting and assaulting the worshippers. The worshippers remained calm & peaceful n let d police do their duty. The then dragged this extremist woman out of d Masjid.”
#Hindu #Terrorist attacks mosque again.. this time in Virgina, USA during their #EID prayers. #hindutva #terrorism is real and is grave matter of concern for western world. pic.twitter.com/DGSWnxImRP
— The Sikh Empire (@sikhempire1) April 22, 2023
Still another asserted that the woman had denounced Islamic law: “A Hindu woman came to mosque during Eid prayers in USA and start shouting on Islamic Laws/Sharia!!” Others on Twitter went even farther. One wrote: “#Hindu #Terrorist attacks mosque again.. this time in Virgina [sic], USA during their #EID prayers. #hindutva #terrorism is real and is grave matter of concern for western world.” And one Twitter user was even more specific: “Hindu suicide bomber arrested in Virginia masjid, she was about to explode but Security staff arrested her right moment.”
*AS RECIVED*
Hindu suicide bomber arrested in Virginia masjid, she was about to explode but Security staff arrested her right moment . pic.twitter.com/gD4U8HXoKT— Sardar Zahid H Daudpota (@daudpota_zahid) April 22, 2023
These tweets are all still live as of this writing on Monday afternoon, despite the fact that they’re all false. The ADAMS Center issued a statement on Saturday that said: “We want to clarify that the recent incident at the mosque on Friday, April 21st, during the ADAMS Sterling, Virginia, Eid prayer involved an individual from the Muslim community struggling with mental health issues.” This wasn’t an act of “far-right Hindu extremism” at all. The woman involved wasn’t even Hindu.
This Muslim woman with a mental illness, was having a psychotic episode, she was irate, upset and shouting in a 🕌 on EID ..
Since yesterday this video has gone viral and circulating with claims of her being a Hindutva extremist etc. So many derogatory comments towards Hindus… pic.twitter.com/1k9Qdw6eEy— JIX5A (@JIX5A) April 23, 2023
Related: Biden Establishes ‘Interagency Task Force With Senior Government Officials’ to Stop ‘Islamophobia’
Yet the lie, as the old saying goes, is still out there and has gone twice around the world by now, while the truth is still tying its shoes. A similar scenario played out recently when a New Jersey Islamic school found, to its dismay, that the word “Allah” had been covered over with feces on the school’s sign. The perpetrator of this disgusting act, however, was quickly apprehended. He turned out to be a chap named Mohamad Behkeet. A shudder of horror also went through the United Kingdom not long ago, when two Muslim men were set on fire by an unknown passerby; here again, however, the perpetrator turned out to be Muslim himself.
One reason why incidents of this kind are seized upon by certain unscrupulous people on the Left (yeah, okay, that’s pretty much all of them) is that hate crimes are political capital in our petulant, victimhood-idolizing society: when real incidents don’t exist, there is incentive to invent them. They’re simply too politically useful to do without.
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