Muslim Boy's Message for Ben Carson: 'I Will Become the 1st Muslim President'
— -- Yusuf Dayur, a 12-year-old boy from Eden Prairie, Minnesota, has a message he wants presidential candidate Ben Carson to hear.
"I will become the first Muslim president!" Dayur declares in a video that his mother, Shukri Abukar, uploaded to Facebook and YouTube. "And you will see that when I become president, I will respect people of all faiths, all colors and all religions."
The middle-schooler's father, Hassan Mohammed, told ABC News that Dayur felt compelled to make the video after he heard Carson would not support a Muslim as president of the U.S.
"I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation," Carson told NBC's "Meet the Press." "I absolutely would not agree with that."
Mohammed said his son "absolutely does not agree" with Carson and that he was "blown away" when he watched his son in the video that was recorded this past Monday.
"He represented himself in such a professional way," Mohammed said. "I wasn't expecting a 12-year-old to be able to respond to a presidential candidate this way. He's brilliant."
In the video, Dayur starts by asking Carson a series of questions.
"Mr. Carson, what if someone told you that you couldn’t become president because of your color?" he asks. "What if someone told you that you couldn’t become president because of your race? What if someone told you that you couldn’t become president because of your faith? That’s what you did to me."
He adds that Carson "shattered" his dreams when he said he didn't believe a Muslim should be president.
"People would say that black people couldn’t become president," Dayur says. "Guess what? I’m black and I’m Muslim ... I will break that Muslim boundary. I will become the first Muslim president."
Mohammed says his son is serious and plans to begin his political career as president of his high school.
ABC News has reached out to Ben Carson's campaign for comment.
