The day after six Muslims were killed by a terrorist in a Quebec mosque, the Methodist church in Voorheesville was filled with people who had come to hear a Muslim woman talk about her religion.

“There were people from all walks of life and religions,” said Dianne Luci, an organizer from the church. “A lot of them, I didn’t know.” Among those filling the pews were young children with their parents.

They were there to listen to Fazana Saleem-Ismail, of Guilderland, who has evolved into an activist, educating others about the religion in which she was raised. We last wrote about her when she helped organize a march to run at the same time as a Ku Klux Klan celebration of Donald Trump’s election. She got involved in educating people as the hateful rhetoric against Muslims increased.

“She gave the basic structure of Islam but her focus was about all the different things we share in common,” said Gail Sacco, director of the Voorheesville Public Library. The library co-sponsored the event as part of a series on diversity. “She said ‘“Allah” means “God,” like “Jehovah” — the one God we all believe in.’”

When the period for questions started, a man in the audience said he was a Muslim and called Saleem-Ismail “sister.” She thought he was there for support and so felt “disarmed” when his questions took an odd turn. He asked about Muhammad marrying a 9-year-old girl and asked if it wasn’t true that Muslim men could fondle the genitals of 7-year-olds.

Saleem-Ismail answered evenly that, 1,000 years ago, in many different cultures and religions, people married young; she also said that Muhammad’s marriage wasn’t consummated until his wife was older and ready to consent.

Saleem-Ismail told us that wasn’t the sort of question a Muslim interested in dispelling stereotypes would ask. She told him it was inappropriate with children in the audience.

She said of the questioner, “He seemed satisfied.”

“She did just what I was taught to do: She validated the question and moved on,” said Sacco of the exchange.

The next question came from a 10-year-old girl who stood up and asked Saleem-Ismail, “How do you feel about the law Trump signed that doesn’t allow people from some countries to come to the U.S.?”

“It’s not a law!” yelled the man who had asked the earlier questions.

“I tried to calm him down and said, ‘I think she’s referring to the executive order,’” recalled Saleem-Ismail. “He started screaming at me in a rant...I was so shell-shocked. ‘You’re not a real Muslim. You don’t wear a hijab,’” he screamed.

“It was scary,” said Luci.

“He became physically aggressive, shouting, ‘You people have to leave. You’re ruining our country...I’m an apostate.’ He was quite out of control. He started waving his arms,” recalled Sacco.

“He kept yelling, something about liberals — and wait until they all start coming in,” said Saleem-Ismail.

At that point, the church’s minister, Sacco, and a couple of men from the audience walked to the man and asked him to leave. He left and so did a half-dozen other audience members.

The sheriff’s office was called and a deputy was stationed quietly in the back of the church for the rest of the session.

“We all took a deep breath after he left,” said Saleem-Ismail. Then, through tears, she answered the little girl’s question. “I told her I thought it was wrong to deny refugees a safe haven.”

Saleem-Ismail went on, “That same girl — she’s incredibly brave — asked another question. She asked, ‘Who are your allies?”

Saleem-Ismail answered, “You are.”

At the close of the session, both of the event’s organizers spoke. Luci read what she called “a pledge of tolerance.” “I will seek to deepen my understanding of other cultures, religions, sexual identities, and races that I don’t understand,” says the pledge, drafted by the Schenectady Clergy Against Hate. The pledge concludes, “I firmly believe that one person can make a difference and that no person can be an ‘innocent bystander’ when it comes to opposing hate.”

Luci also said, “I was adamant and worked up at that point….All this hatred was hidden until the election; now people feel they have free rein...These people are frightened,” she said of Muslims “We prayed for Fazana last night at Bible study.”

Sacco, at the close of the session, related a story about the curator of the Anne Frank Museum, which she learned as Temple Israel honored righteous gentiles who helped Jews during the holocaust. “He witnessed a round-up and became committed to helping...It ripped his family apart. It was a society where your world was your church. We have an opportunity here not to live in those silos.”

Sacco told us later of the disruption during Saleem-Ismail’s talk, “I agreed with the general sentiment that the man’s behavior was out of order. But I think he was talking from a place of deep belief and one has to recognize that.” She said of herself, “I come from a world of free speech — where people argue but their speech is respected.”

Saleem-Ismail went home with her two children — her 12-year-old daughter and her 7-year-old son. “They were scared,” she said. She was scheduled to go that night to a meeting of the Coalition Against Islamophobia.

“My daughter asked, ‘Do you have to go? I’m just worried about you.’ I stayed home. She said, ‘Can we watch a silly happy movie, avoid reality for a few hours?’” They did.

We’re pleased that all three women told us they will carry on in their work. “We need to speak up and encourage peaceful things,” said Luci.

“We talked to the library board about this,” said Sacco, “and we’re going to go ahead with our programs. In these times that are in so much upheaval, we all need to do what we can do...You need to put all the views out there to get understanding.”

Saleem-Ismail told us just after the incident that it was the most scared she had been; she worried about her family’s safety as well as her own. But then she reasoned, “Instilling fear in people is a tactic to shut down diversity. I can’t fall prey to that.”

She has learned the identity of the Voorheesville man who disrupted the session but did not want to share his name with the newspaper “especially since the person who caused trouble has a family himself.”

She has received messages of support in emails from people who were at the session. The mother of the 10-year-old girl wrote of the impact of Saleem-Ismail’s “simple and profound answer” to her daughter’s question about who the Muslims’ allies are — you.

“My daughter took that to heart — at that moment, she consciously accepted personal ownership in standing up for those who are bullied or discriminated against,” the mother wrote.

There are lessons here for all of us. Free speech is essential to understanding, but so is respect. We don’t have to agree with each other but neither should we purposely make others uncomfortable or be so out of control we frighten them.

What the library and the church are doing is not only admirable but essential if we are to move forward as a nation. The First Amendment to our Constitution guarantees not just freedom of speech but of religion.

None of us should be idle bystanders. We should, each of us, seek to understand others, and stand up against hatred when we see it.

Fazana Saleem-Ismail has given us a valuable gift in sharing her faith and good will. Speaking up at a time when Muslims are being banned without cause and are being hurt by scorn and worse is an act of heroism.

We’re glad she is taking some precautions, like requesting security at future events and using her work address for gifts. “I’m a trusting individual,” she told us. “For me to put up walls is hard.”

But she concluded with some advice from her Prophet: “Trust in God but tie your camel.”

— Melissa Hale-Spencer