An Oregon woman who burned a Quran outside a mosque in Dearborn says she plans to return to the city later this summer to burn the Muslim holy book again.

Sorbeah Almosa set fire to a Quran on a sidewalk outside the Al-Huda Islamic Association, a mosque on Warren Avenue, at around 4 a.m. on July 13 to protest what she called extremist statements made at rallies in Dearborn in recent months. Almosa is an outspoken anti-Islamist, claiming that Islamic law, Sharia, poses a threat to the United States. She has participated in several conservative protests in Oregon in recent years.

“I’ll be back,” Almosa told the Free Press on Wednesday. She said the next time she’s in Dearborn, she plans to protest Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud and burn a Quran again, because he issued a public warning about her the day before she burned the Quran.

Her Quran burning was the latest event in Dearborn in the past 15 years in which anti-Muslim protesters have targeted the city, which has the highest percentage of Arab-Americans of any city in the United States. The majority of Dearborn’s Arab-American population is Muslim. In previous years, anti-Muslim protesters have occasionally been met with protests and throwing of objects, but this time there was no such incident.

Almosa said officers approached her as she was walking to the mosque in the early morning hours of July 13. There were nine officers in total in five cars who eventually arrived, she said. A Dearborn officer spoke to her about her plans and then had her burn the Quran she was carrying.

“That’s protected free speech under the First Amendment,” the officer said in a video Almosa recorded and posted to X. “If you’re burning like the Quran or the Bible or the American flag, that’s protected free speech under the First Amendment.”

The officer asked her if she had any accelerants, saying he wanted to make sure the fire didn’t spread and cause any damage. Almosa said no, and a few minutes later burned the book.

“I finally made it to Dearborn, Michigan,” she said in a video, holding a burning Quran. “I had police protection while I burned this Quran outside of Al-Huda.”

A few hours later she flew back to Portland.

Almosa was not charged, arrested, or cited by police. In the past, Dearborn authorities have been tougher on anti-Muslim protesters. In 2011, Florida Christian minister Terry Jones, known for burning Korans, was tried after he attempted to hold a rally in Dearborn, briefly jailed, and then ordered not to protest outside a Dearborn mosque, the Islamic Center of America, for three years. At his trial, then-Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad testified that a Muslim cleric in Dearborn had told him he was concerned about the potential reaction from young people, and that for some Muslims, burning a Koran is worse than a thousand deaths. In 2010, several Christian missionaries were arrested by Dearborn police at the Arab International Festival for disturbing the peace; after they filed a lawsuit, the city of Dearborn publicly apologized and reached a settlement in 2013. In another case, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of a California pastor who was banned by the city from distributing leaflets.

City spokesman Hassan Abbas confirmed that Almosa burned the Quran at 4 a.m. and left shortly afterward. Dearborn Police Cpl. Dan Bartok did not respond to messages seeking details about the incident.

After arriving in metro Detroit, Almosa posted a video on X around 6:30 p.m. on July 12 of her riding outside the Al Huda Mosque and a mosque in the southern part of Dearborn called the American Muslim Society. About an hour later, Mayor Hammoud posted a public warning on his Facebook account on the evening of July 12 warning her.

“Please be vigilant and report any sightings of the person in the photo below,” Hammoud wrote, with photos of her below. “She recently arrived in Dearborn and has stated her intentions to burn Qurans. There are reports of her driving around neighborhoods and monitoring religious institutions.”

Hammoud added that the city has increased police patrols at places of worship.

“For your own safety, please do not approach her. Instead, contact the Dearborn Police Department immediately if you have any information,” Hammoud wrote.

Almosa said she didn’t learn the mayor had issued a warning about her until she got back to Oregon.

“You made it incredibly dangerous for me,” she said of Hammoud’s warning. “I was not aware of that. And he had alerted the police and the police were at that specific location waiting for me. They were already there when I got there. And I don’t know how long they were there because I didn’t tell anyone what time I was going to be there.”

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Almosa said that as she walked down the sidewalk to the mosque, a police officer approached her and surprised her.

Almosa said she will speak with a lawyer and research Michigan law before returning to Dearborn to protest Hammoud, either at City Hall or another address. She plans to burn the Quran.

“As long as I’m not on his property, I can stand on the sidewalk and yell at him, I can go to city hall, I can go to his work,” she said.

A message left at the Al-Huda Mosque went unanswered. In another case in 2022, Ahmed Taqi, 37, of Dearborn, set fire to part of the mosque and was then killed by police after shooting at them first, police said. Taqi had mental health issues, Hammoud said at the time. The FBI ruled out ideological or sectarian motivations.

Contact Niraj Warikoo: [email protected] or X @nwarikoo

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Oregon woman burns Quran in Dearborn, wants to protest again

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