The burglar or burglars had spotted the illustrations of Koranic verses on the Ahmads’ walls and had broken the frames, the couple said. Someone had taken their Koran from the shelf and torn out its pages. On the wall, they had written in tall, wobbly black letters: “F— Muslims.”

“It was a complete mess. It was like a tornado came into our apartment. Basically everything that was over $100, it was gone,” Mahrukh said. The valuable jewelry she received for her wedding was gone, she said, as was the jewelry given as gifts to her daughter when she was born. But what hurt the most was looking at the pages of her holy book, lying on the floor, Mahrukh said.

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“We couldn’t believe our eyes, that this could actually happen and it happened to us,” she said. “It felt like they were rubbing it in our faces, just because we’re Muslims. Especially about the Koran, it was very, very hurtful. It truly brought tears to our eyes.”

Fairfax County police, who are investigating the case, have not identified a suspect. They said they are investigating it as a bias-related incident.

Privately, after the police finished fingerprinting and a relative took their 1- and 4-year-old children so they wouldn’t have to see the hateful words on the wall, Mahrukh and Shoaib said they asked each other: Should they leave the country?

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Shoaib grew up in Dubai and Mahrukh in Pakistan. The couple said that Shoaib obtained a green card years ago because his work brought him frequently to the United States, and after Mahrukh obtained her green card too, they decided to move to the U.S. last year. They had relatives here, and from watching their experiences, they decided that it would be a better place to raise their young children.

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Before the burglary and vandalism this Monday, Mahrukh said she hadn’t reconsidered moving to the United States, even as she heard about one anti-Muslim bias incident after another during the 2016 election campaign and since President Trump’s inauguration.

Reported hate crimes against Muslims surged in 2015 by nearly 67 percent at 257 incidents, according to FBI statistics released in November.

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“We’ve never had any bad experiences here,” the Ahmads told each other when they heard about those other incidents. “We’ve never felt like we’re outsiders or we shouldn’t be here. There are good people and bad people everywhere. We cannot hide from them.”

The hateful words inked on the wall in their own house changed that.

“Initially we felt very lonely — this is not the right place for us. We should just move back to Dubai,” Mahrukh said.

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But since Monday, her feelings have changed entirely, thanks to the response of her neighbors to the burglary. After she posted about it in a Facebook group for mothers, neighbors offered to help the Ahmads clean up their house, to babysit their children and to bring them food.

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Rebecca Link, another Fairfax County mom in the group, has never met the Ahmads. But she felt compelled to help out.

“I’m a native to Fairfax, born and raised. So I was like, oh my gosh. You hear about all the hate and everything that’s going on in the country,” Link said. “In the area, I was like, I can help. I can try to find some way to help.”

Link created a GoFundMe page with the stated goal of collecting $1,000 to help the Ahmads recoup their losses. As of Thursday, 265 people had contributed a total of more than $10,000.

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“We were shocked,” Mahrukh said. “Complete strangers, they’re doing that for us. We don’t feel alone anymore.”

Link said she has been moved by the messages of solidarity with the Ahmads that have been pouring in along with the donations.

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“I just feel like we’re kind of in a state of social turmoil right now, and that people are feeling more divided than unified … It wouldn’t have mattered what was written on that wall, whether it was Mexicans or Koreans or anybody. The hate is horrible,” Link said. The messages of support, instead of hate, gave her hope. “It’s nice to see good outweigh evil sometimes.”

The Ahmads still have a lot of cleaning up and reorganizing to do. They estimate the cost of what was stolen at well over $25,000. They’ll be nervous until they can replace their identification documents — their passports and green cards were stolen.

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But they are comforted. “It’s been amazing. So many strangers — people from every single religion — they’re coming forward and donating and offering to help,” Mahrukh said. “We feel so loved.”

This post has been updated.