By Jehangir Khattak
Linda "iLham" Barto was working on a project in her art studio on the fateful morning of September 11, 2001, when her home schooled 16 years old daughter came running downstairs informing her about a bombing footage on TV. Linda rushed upstairs to see what had her daughter so upset.
“I watched for a few seconds and said, Tana, it's just a movie. Why did you bother me just for a movie?"
“She said, ‘No, Mama, it's real.’”
“It took me a few minutes to realize that what I was seeing was news, not a movie. It seemed too horrific to be real,” recalls Linda, who had converted to Islam just two years back in 1999. Nineteen terrorists, 634 miles away from her Maiden, NC, home, had slaughtered 2,976 innocent people from 90 nations in just 102 minutes in the worst atrocity America had ever known on its soil.
“The pictures I've seen of the jumpers (from the two WTC towers) stick in my mind as symbols of the horror of that day," she recalls. One such picture is of a man falling like a bullet upside down from one of the towers with his arms to his side. “I wonder what was going through his mind. He knew death was inescapable for him. Was he overwhelmingly afraid, or did he calmly submit to his fate and accept it as his reality? ,” recalls the decorated hillbilly US Air Force veteran, who fought two wars and also served in North Carolina Air National Guard. “All the 9/11 images are burned into the minds of all those alive on that day. They shout of violence and cruelty and represent the worst of humanity.”
Linda, a celebrated author of four books on Islam and interfaith understanding and an accomplished illustrator and calligrapher, is part of America’s Muslim population that will observe the 10th anniversary of 9/11 with mixed feelings of anguish, anxiety and hope. Like their compatriots, the pain of the atrocity will be felt in Muslim communities across the nation. At least, 31 Muslims, including at least six women, also died in the attacks.
Muslim community has remained a subject of public debate since the terrorist attacks. It has endured public backlash, at times violent, discrimination, eves dropping and targeted surveillance by the government. Questions have been raised about prospects of Muslims’ alienation with America, home grown terrorism and Muslims ability to fully integrate into mainstream America.
Answers to such questions have often been searched through numerous surveys. Several such recent surveys have reported almost identical emerging mixed trends surrounding Muslim community – an increase in Islamophobia with growing opposition to construction of new mosques across the country, more government surveillance of Muslim Americans, no signs of rising alienation or anger among Muslim-Americans and a marked increase in community’s confidence about its future in America.
Pew Research Center in its latest survey, says Muslims despite facing challenges have grown more satisfied with their lives in the US. The survey, one of most exhaustive ever of the country’s Muslim population and released on August 30, is based on interviews with more than a thousand Americans of Islamic faith, conducted during the spring and summer of 2011. Earlier, a Gallup poll released in July this year also found identical Muslims optimism about their future.
Pew survey says huge majorities of Muslim Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in their personal lives (82 percent) and their communities (79 percent). Also, two-thirds of Muslims say they have a better quality of life in the U.S. than they would in Muslim-majority countries.
Dr. Zahid Bukahri, president of one of the largest American Muslim community organizations, agrees with the survey findings. “Muslims not only have a future in America but also Muslims have a lot to contribute to America,” he says.
Bukhari heads the New York-based Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), which has over 388 chapters all over the country. He also wears the caps of Executive Director of the Center for Islam and Public Policy (CIPP) and Director of the American Muslim Studies Program (AMSP) at the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU) at Georgetown University, Washington, DC.
Abu Taher, Executive Editor of Bangla Patrika, one of largest weekly publications of Bangladeshi community in New York, is also upbeat about Muslims future. He calls 9/11 the sad story of American history and says: “This year and every year, we should always contemplate the impact of 9/11 and draw lessons.” He says every community of America must contemplate on how such kind of terrorism be prevented in the future.
Islamophobia
Muslim community’s growing optimism about its future is accompanied by an increasing wave of Islampohobia that has reached even state legislators. At least 13 states have either passed “anti-Shariah” legislations or considering such acts. The Council on American-Islamic Relations and the University of California, Berkley, found in June that Islamophobia was on the rise in the US, with higher reports of incidents and anti-Muslim rhetoric. A survey by Ohio State University in July also showed perceptions of Muslims worsened following Osama bin Laden’s death.
Abu Taher blames some legislators, sections of mainstream media and certain conservative groups for stoking anti-Muslim sentiment. Like Abu, Bukhari also believes Islamophobia has “definitely increased” over the past decade. He, however, says it’s expected to slide down this year after peaking in 2010. Many in the Muslim community believe the controversy surrounding the Ground Zero mosque last year contributed to heightening anti-Muslim sentiment in the US.
Bukhari believes that a quiet decade-long outreach by Muslim organizations, Islamic centers and a new generation of US-born Muslims has contributed to this change. But image remains a huge challenge for Muslims and many community leaders believe it will not change overnight.
Linda, who also has no doubt about increase in Islamophobia, blames the terrorists who commit senseless crimes in the name of Islam for the negative perception about Muslims. “They (the terrorists) are promoting a lie about Islam, about God, and about the Prophet (of Islam).” Linda also blames the media and sections of church for promoting Islamophobia.
“People ask, ‘If Islam is so good, why are the Muslims so bad?’ Of course, the majority of Muslims are good, but the only ‘Muslims’ about which most people hear are the alleged Muslims that make the news because of their violent and hateful acts,” says Linda.
Dr. Nurah-Rosalie Amat'ullah, Executive Director of Muslim Women’s Institute for Research and Development, does not agree with Linda, Bukhari and Abu Taher. “The level of ignorance among the general population about Islam has become public. That does not make it Islamophobia,” she says.
Nuruh’s Bronx and faith-based community service organization has been working in the areas of hunger relief, public health education, inter-faith initiatives, and transitional needs of new immigrants since 1997.
Nuruh says there are few people in the US who have taken upon slandering and fear-mongering about Islam and the Muslims. She is not sure if their number has actually increased over the past few years or they have received more media attention or greater public audience. “If we really look at them strictly in the context of United States, we realize that these are the same people who are racists, homophobic and bigoted. They have no care for people of color.” She says Muslims fall in the same sub-group of people that the racists would like to remove from the American landscape.
Nuruh believes Muslims should not focus on Islamophobia. “Because the real work ahead of us is civic participation and be good citizens in the United States.” She says Muslims as a community have failed to civically engage in the society and need to do a better job.
“If the Muslim population acted in Islamic way by caring for the humanity, we would be much more civically engaged in the United States.” She says civic engagement is the best and greatest counterweight for any bigotry or bias that is directed at the Muslim community.
Dr Nuruh organization started New York’s first Halal food pantry. Currently, it feeds 10,000 people every month from its two locations in the Bronx, serving both Muslims and non-Muslims.
Dr Bukhari says the best way of remembering 9/11 is to work for the betterment of communities across the nation. ICNA increased its community support programs through its charity arm, ICNA Relief, after 9/11. Ten years down the road, ICNA Relief, with the help of its 14 offices in 12 states, has emerged as the only Muslims-run American charity exclusively focused on the community and relief work in the US. It has partnered with FEMA, American Red Cross and several other relief agencies over the past few years. ICNA Relief is currently running a national drive to distribute school supplies (school bags, note books, pens, pencils etc) among needy children irrespective of their community, color or belief. So far it has distributed about 15,000 sets of school supplies in over 40 communities across the nation.
Muslims integration
Despite stereotyping, the community seems determined to integrate itself into the society. Pew survey says 56 percent of Muslims are eager to assimilate and integrate in to the mainstream. Zahid Bukhari says the community has achieved as much as three decades of learning curve during the last decade in terms of its integration. According to him, a new generation of Muslim professionals is coming up on the national scene and presenting the Muslim story in a different narrative. He says this generation of Muslims has started asserting itself both socially and politically.
Nuruh believes civic participation and good citizenry are the best counter to ignorance and will ultimately lead to political engagement of Muslims. “We have gone about it reversely. We have pushed for political engagement and we don’t want to do the messy hard work of civic participation.”
Linda says Muslims are already a part of the US society, and an “us-and-them” approach is not helpful when thinking of Americans as a nation. “I live in a rural area, and I consider myself integrated into my society. I share my Islam openly, and most people are interested in learning about a religion that seems foreign to them,” Linda says.
Linda faces less social pressures and opposition as a Muslim because of her roots. “Having been born in the USA and having served in the US military, I suppose I have less opposition than immigrant Muslims, but we all must focus on the things that make us truly American and appreciate the diversity within the USA,” she says.
Intra-Muslim dialogue
Dr Nuruh, a Hijab-wearing African Muslim, is also an ardent champion of an intra-Muslim dialogue over race and ethnicity issues. “There needs to be within the Muslim community some difficult conversation around our own diversity.” She says African American, continental African and Latino Muslims have largely been left out of the community’s socio-political face in America. “When you talk about Muslims in America, those sub-groups are usually not in the picture. There needs to be an internal conversation within the Muslim community about our all racism and ethnic biases.” She says this racism is very much present. “I say this from personal experience as a woman of African descent. This is the reality that I live in.”
