Mother of US Muslim soldier hits back at Trump over speech silence

The mother of a dead US Muslim soldier has
hit back at presidential hopeful Donald Trump
for questioning her silence during a speech by
her husband.
Ghazala Khan said Mr Trump was ignorant
about Islam and that he didn't know the
meaning of the word sacrifice.
Her husband Khizr Khan attacked the
Republican nominee in an emotional speech
to the Democratic National Convention on
Thursday.
Mr Trump later suggested Mrs Khan may not
have been allowed to speak.
The couple's son, US Army Capt Humayun
Khan, was killed by a car bomb in 2004 in
Iraq at the age of 27.
In an opinion article for the Washington Post ,
Mrs Khan said her husband had asked her if
she wanted to speak at the convention but she
had been too upset.
"Walking on to the convention stage, with a
huge picture of my son behind me, I could
hardly control myself. What mother could?
Donald Trump has children whom he loves.
Does he really need to wonder why I did not
speak?" she wrote.
"When Donald Trump is talking about Islam,
he is ignorant. If he studied the real Islam and
Koran, all the ideas he gets from terrorists
would change, because terrorism is a different
religion."
She added: "Donald Trump said he has made
a lot of sacrifices. He doesn't know what the
word sacrifice means."
Mrs Khan said that although she did not
speak, "all the world, all America, felt my
pain".
Analysis by Anthony Zurcher, North America
correspondent
There simply is no way for a politician to get
into a war of words with the parents of a
soldier who died a hero on the battlefield and
not come off looking bad.
That didn't stop Donald Trump from making a
very inelegant go of it.
By raising questions about why Ghazala Khan
was silent as her husband spoke at the
Democratic National Convention on Thursday,
he essentially dared her to step forward.
She did.
Mr Trump has survived - even thrived - after
controversial statements in the past and it's
become clear that the New Yorker has a core
of support that won't abandon him.
Now the nominees are entering the heat of
the general election and Mr Trump needs to
expand his base if he wants to win. Disputes
like this will make that an extremely difficult
task.
At the convention in Philadelphia, Pakistani-
born Khizr Khan said his son would not even
have been in America if it had been up to Mr
Trump, who has called for a ban on Muslims
entering the US.
Responding to the criticism, Mr Trump said in
an interview with ABC's This Week: "If you
look at his wife, she was standing there.
"She had nothing to say... Maybe she wasn't
allowed to have anything to say. You tell me."
His remarks brought criticism from both
Democrats and Republicans.
Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim
Kaine said it demonstrated Mr Trump's
"temperamental unfitness".
"If you don't have any more sense of empathy
than that, then I'm not sure you can learn it,"
he said.
Republican Ohio Governor John Kasich, a
former rival to Mr Trump for the nomination,
tweeted: "There's only one way to talk about
Gold Star parents [of fallen service personnel]:
with honour and respect."
Khizr Khan said Mr Trump was "devoid of
feeling the pain of a mother who has
sacrificed her son".
"Shame on him. He has no decency, he has a
dark heart," he said.
But Mr Trump rejected Mr Khan's criticism of
him at the convention.
"While I feel deeply for the loss of his son, Mr
Khan, who has never met me, has no right to
stand in front of millions of people and claim
I have never read the Constitution, (which is
false) and say many other inaccurate things,"
he said.