INDIANAPOLIS -- About six weeks after an anti-Muslim billboard went up on I-465, a Midwest-based group is putting its own billboard to counter it and spread information about the Prophet Muhammad.
The first billboard featured the words "The Perfect Man" – apparently in reference to the founder of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad – followed by a list of attributes including "rapist" and "slave owner."
Sabeel Ahmed the executive director of Gain Peace, part of the Islamic Circle of North America, said putting the new billboard up is important to correct the misinformation in the first one.
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The billboard says "The truth about Muhammad" and "Get a free book about his life 1-800-662-ISLAM."
"We want to make sure that when people see that other billboard, that is full of lies, we want to give them the opportunity that when they look at our billboard, it's an educational billboard, it's a positive billboard," Ahmed said. "We want to build bridges. We want to educate our fellow Americans so we can live in peace and harmony."
It was put up on I-465 near Washington Street on Indy's east side, will be up for about a month.
The group is also sending people two books -- a Quran and a biography about the Prophet Muhammad. Ahmed said he wants people to learn about Islam from the correct sources, not "from some diluted sources."
The group is also releasing an educational video about Islam.
Similar billboards went up in Chicago, and the group has received more than 500 calls from them.
The majority of calls come from nice people who are genuinely interested in learning more about the Prophet Muhammad and Islam. But the group does receive some negative calls.
"Some people, they just call, and they just yell at us," Ahmed said. "'You Muslims, you just go back home!' and whatnot, right? But we nicely and politely and kindly -- those are the ways that Muhammad used to deal with people who were anti-Islamic, even those in the seventh century. ... We want to educate them on what they had been hearing, perhaps in the media, perhaps on Facebook or some other channels. We want to educate them that Muslims are not foreigners. We are not 'the others.' We are Americans as much as any other American. We educate them that Muslims have been living in this country for the last five centuries. We are not fresh off the boat. In fact, Muslims have been living in this country long before Donald Trump's grandparents came to this country."
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