(Boston Globe) Stepping before the congregation, Governor Charlie Baker took the microphone at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center and softly offered “Salam,” a greeting of peace.
“How’d I do?” he then asked, as light laughter rippled through the crowd.
Weeks into his second term, Baker on Friday made his first visit to New England’s largest mosque, where he delivered a message of inclusion and embracing a community’s differences to hundreds of congregants.
Baker attended the prayer service in Roxbury at the request of senior imam Shaykh Yasir Fahmy, making him the first sitting Republican governor in Massachusetts to appear at a Muslim house of worship, according to organizers. Then-governor Deval Patrick, a Democrat, visited the mosque in the spring of 2010.
