In his mother’s homeland, Trump is becoming persona non grata

In Scotland, Donald Trump has made multimillion-dollar investments in golf courses and luxury hotels along the North Sea dunes outside Aberdeen. His mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, was from the Scottish island of Lewis before emigrating to the United States.

But the GOP presidential candidate is not welcome anymore.

Trump was ditched as a business ambassador by Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen took back its honorary degree. The fact is, Trump’s anti-Muslim stance has rubbed many Scots the wrong way.

Trump has not taken this lightly.

"The UK politicians should be thanking me," he tweeted.

He also tweeted: "The United Kingdom is trying hard to disguise their massive Muslim problem. Everybody is wise to what is happening. Very sad. Be honest."

Now there's a petition calling for Trump to be banned from entering the UK for hate speech. It has more than 400,000 signatures, including Nabeel Shaikh’s.

“After listening to Donald Trump’s comments, the fact that he singled out a third of the world’s population and he’s basically making statements which are ludicrous with respect to Muslims, it was the right thing to do.”

Shaikh, who’s general secretary of the Glasgow Central Mosque, says he hopes the petition sends the message that “no matter who you are, if you’re Donald Trump, or if you’re a member of an extremist group, you’re not welcome in Scotland if you’re going to express hate.”

But some Scots take issue with that strong adverse reaction to Trump’s anti-Muslim comments. To suggest that Trump's comments are "just as extreme" as the Islamic State terror group is a bit of a stretch, given that ISIS commits acts of terror and that Donald Trump appears at least to just be expressing his views.

But viewpoints start off with words, says Shaikh.

“So ISIS is grooming people over the Internet, they use the same extreme words over the web to lure people in, and to change their mindset onto an extremist, radicalized viewpoint, and that’s exactly what Donald Trump is doing … he’s pretty much labeling the Muslims for people to blame for all these extremist activities that are going on.”

Muslims, he counters, “are at every point condemning ISIS and saying stop hijacking our religion for your personal gain.”

As for the 10,000 or so Scots who’ve apparently signed a rival petition supporting Donald Trump, Shaikh says, “certainly 10,000 people, versus 400,000 who don’t want to see him in the UK, gives you a kind of idea of the ratios we’re talking about, I don't think we have anything to worry about.”

Donald Trump’s views toward Muslims may be reprehensible to Shaikh, but he says that if he had Donald Trump’s ear, his words would be kind and civil.

“I would say to him, ‘Donald Trump, come and spend a weekend as a Scottish Muslim and let’s sit down and talk about you think what you do. I’d love to have the opportunity with him.”