You would be hard-pressed to find a better example than Imam Omar Suleiman of what this country needs in a faith leader right now.

The 29-year-old resident scholar at the Valley Ranch Islamic Center is among those rare faith leaders who remain steadfast to the tenets of their religions while extending their hands in friendship to leaders of other faiths.

And he's the founder of the Yaqeen Institute, whose mission is to combat extremists and deepen understanding of the Islamic religion. Peace and unity are his calling cards.

Yet the Irving imam has become the target of fundamentalist terrorists who seek to rip our community apart. He has received at least two credible death threats from ISIS.

Deplorable. We can't let his good work, nor the grace he brings to those touched by his work, be affected by them.

The nation got to know Imam Suleiman when he delivered the invocation at the July memorial service for the police officers killed in a deadly ambush. He called for peace and understanding.

He was front and center again in January, helping lead the protests at DFW International Airport over President Donald Trump's ill-advised Muslim travel ban that detained and stranded hundreds of travelers in airports across the country.

Muslim men set down their protest signs to pray at DFW International Airport where they gathered in opposition to President Donald Trump's executive order barring certain travelers on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2017. (Smiley N. Pool / The Dallas Morning News)

The death threats against Suleiman have come in two lengthy videos.

One featured him walking last December with the Reverend Andy Stoker, senior minister of First United Methodist Church of Dallas, to promote interfaith understanding.

The other showed him saying "Muslims are obliged to be upright American citizens and follow the laws of the land. That is what sharia, Islam's legal code, requires of us."

Suleiman sees irony in so many U.S. Muslims fighting to prove to skeptical Americans that they are truly American while trying to prove to fanatic Muslims that they're loyal Muslims.

Imagine the pressure these neighbors of ours and their children must endure every day.

Suleiman has done important work in explaining Islam to the uninitiated in our community, showing us that Islam is not a foreign religion to be feared but a faith that is common among our neighbors.

His work with the interfaith coalition, Faith Forward Dallas at Thanks-Giving Square, has shown that it's possible for a diverse group of religious leaders to work collaboratively toward solutions to the social issues that continue to haunt and divide us.

He's fought bigotry at every turn and spoke in defense of humane treatment of refugees and immigrants.

Suleiman's voice is one that should reverberate across North Texas and the nation. He's stood strong for doing what's right by Muslim-Americans and citizens of other religions.

Now's the time for the FBI and his security team - and all of North Texas- to stand strong for him.

What he said

He prayed that "the children of our fallen officers, and all of those who have lost their lives to senseless violence, are molded in the love that we express today, not the hatred that claimed the lives of their fathers."- Imam Omar Suleiman, at the July memorial service for police officers killed in an ambush.

"This is an incredible show of solidarity of people of all faiths. This is who we are as Dallas. This is who we are as a country." - Imam Omar Suleiman, at the January protest of Trump's Muslim travel ban at DFW International Airport.