patrick.net

In late August, Indiana State University professor Azhar Hussain received one year's probation for fabricating anti-Muslim threats and an assault.

He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of obstruction for justice and harassment after lying to cops this spring about being attacked and sending anti-Muslim hate mails to the school.

"Based upon the investigation, it is our belief that Hussain was trying to gain sympathy by becoming a victim of anti-Muslim threats, which he had created himself," the campus police chief concluded.

In June, a small fire at a Des Moines, Iowa, mosque generated national headlines — until a young Muslim woman was arrested for starting it.

"Security cameras in the mosque showed a woman, later identified as Aisha Ismail, 22, pouring lighter fluid on the carpet and then starting the fire," police reported.

"It doesn't appear that she was trying to burn the place down," the local chief said. "It seems like she was trying to make a statement."

In Houston, a "suspicious" fire at a Houston mosque in 2015 turned out to have been set by one of the center's own worshipers who prayed there five times a day for five years.