A state legislator’s social media post of a video of Muslims in Utah celebrating the Islamic tradition of Arba’in sparked a storm of outrage online, with dozens criticizing him as a racist and numerous others denigrating the faith and its followers.
On Monday, Republican Rep. Trevor Lee of Layton posted on X (formerly Twitter) a video of a group of Shiite Muslims observing Arba’een, a worldwide tradition that marks the end of the 40-day mourning for Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.
Lee’s only message on the post was: “In the small town of Taylorsville, Utah.” He later responded to his own post: “Not a single American flag in sight.”
Many of the women in the video wore a black chador – a cloak often worn by women in Shiite communities that covers the hair and neck but not the face. Some pushed strollers and children carried flags commemorating Hussein.
The video of the women and children was shot from the driver’s window of a slow-moving car. Later in the video, a horn can be heard.
Lee’s supporters further fueled anti-Muslim sentiments, calling Islam a “demonic ideology” and demanding that people be sent back to where they came from. Other reactions called Lee racist and xenophobic for marginalizing Muslim women and making them targets of hatred and bigotry.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Lee’s tweet had been viewed more than 5.4 million times, reposted more than 550 times – without further context – and had more than 2,400 likes.
Lee said he was sent the video by a Facebook friend who filmed it in Taylorsville, a town that had a population of more than 60,000 people during the 2020 census, and he decided to post it.
“All I wanted to say was that this is an interesting video,” Lee said in an interview. “This is the small town of Taylorsville, Utah, and I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.”
“What I find interesting, though, are the assumptions that both sides make, whether right or left,” Lee said. “I think that’s crazy. I’m not assuming anything.”
The women and children in the videos are praying at the Alrasool Islamic Center in Taylorsville. The mosque is located in a former meetinghouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a block from a chapel currently used by the Utah-based faith.
“We have done (the march in the video) every year for many, many years,” Hassan Mardanlou, a member of the Alrasool Islamic Center’s executive committee, told The Salt Lake Tribune.
The center’s congregation, he said, includes Muslims with roots in numerous countries, including Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mardanlou, who added that he has lived in the U.S. for half a century, said the Constitution protects Muslims’ freedom of speech and religion just as it does for all other Americans.
“Our door is open to everyone – please, please tell everyone that,” Mardanlou continued. “We have no animosity towards anyone. … Some people misunderstand our religion – until you visit us in person, you don’t know who we are.”
Mardanlou said elected officials, including Lee, were also invited to the mosque.
Lee said he has received threats during his political career and if anyone informs him of threats against the Muslim community or anyone at the center, he will remove the video. He added, however, that no one has contacted him so far.
Lee’s colleague, state Rep. Phil Lyman, who lost the Republican primary for governor but is running a write-in campaign for the office, later reposted the video, calling it “consequences of (Gov. Spencer Cox’s) ‘New American’ hoax, aka illegal aliens. … Words matter, accuracy matters, definitions matter. Branding illegal aliens as refugees, undocumented people, DACA recipients, ‘New Americans,’ asylum seekers, etc., only hurts our state. Lumping legitimate political refugees with all other types of illegal aliens only hurts those who are legitimate, legal asylum seekers.”
Lyman tagged conservative media host Tucker Carlson in his message.
Lyman did not respond to questions about his motives for releasing the video or whether he knew whether the people depicted in the video were refugees, asylum seekers or undocumented people.
Until 2022, Lee operated a Twitter account under a false name where he promoted election conspiracies, attacked women and members of the LGBTQ+ community, and frequently used the hashtag #DezNat, supporting a far-right nationalist philosophy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Earlier this year, Lee proposed a state constitutional amendment that would “limit public education to children who are U.S. citizens or legal residents of the United States,” but he later withdrew the amendment.
Explaining his reasoning to the Tribune, he said that children of immigrants are a burden on schools. “We say, ‘Hey, here are some kids who don’t even speak English, but that’s your problem. Here you go,'” Lee said. “And that’s not right.”
