Competing claims about Islam on ABC’s ‘This Week’

ABC’s This Week with Christiane Amanppour on Sunday, Oct. 3, 2010 was a townhall meeting on whether American’s should fear Islam and full of competing claims. We decided to check a claim by Rev. Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham.

“I understand what the Muslims want to do in America,” said Graham, president of both the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) and the international Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse. “They want to build as many mosques and cultural centers as they possibly can so they can convert as many Americans as they can to Islam. I understand that…I understand what they’re doing. And I just don’t have the freedom to do this in most Muslim countries. We can’t have a church. We’re not able to build synagogues. It’s forbidden.”

Imam Osama Bahloul, leader of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, Tenn., and a panelist on the show, said Graham was incorrect.

“For someone to say we are not allowed to build a church in a Muslim country, this is absolutely not right. You can Google this,” Bahloul said.

We spoke to several experts on religion and government in Muslim countries. And the consensus was clear.