"I love it, actually, when people ask me questions," said the pink-scarved Ali, who came to the United States with her Jordanian father and Palestinian mother when she was five.
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__,_._,___ Muslims face hatred, curiosity in U.S. heartland
By Andrea Hopkins - Mon Feb 12, 10:46 AM ET
CINCINNATI (Reuters) - Tala Ali, 25, has seen the good and the bad of
being a Muslim in heartland America. People have leaned out car windows
to scream at her: "Terrorist go home." But strangers curious about her
headscarf have also approached her apologetically to ask about Islam.
"I love it, actually, when people ask me questions," said the pink-scarved
Ali, who came to the United States with her Jordanian father and
Palestinian mother when she was five.
"Out here, I'm the only Muslim some people may meet," said Ali, waiting
for friends after Friday prayers at a Cincinnati mosque. "I always keep
in mind that I'm an ambassador of Islam."
For Ali and other Muslims who live far from America's immigrant-rich big
cities, everyday life is a test of tolerance and outreach to fellow
Americans who view Islam with suspicion five years after the September 11
attacks and amid bleak and bloody wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The negative perception gets bigger by the day, despite all we do,"
said Inayat Malik, a doctor and board member of the Islamic Center of
Greater Cincinnati.
The center hosts 5,000 visitors a year -- from churches, schools and the
simply curious. Tour coordinator Shakila Ahmad is too embarrassed to share
the worst things said to her as a tour guide, but insists there are no
"bad" questions.
"It's important for people to be able to ask," she said, sitting quietly
in the center's empty gymnasium after a tour. Flags of dozens of nations
decorate the walls. "We'd rather you ask than have a misconception."
Ahmad, Malik and others sit on inter-faith councils and speak at
community forums and strive, year after year, to build bridges within
predominately white Christian middle America.
But while they are dedicated to outreach, the uphill battle of educating
Americans takes its toll on optimism.
"The deluge of the media coverage with its negative portrayal is
overwhelming," said Malik. "I see very little light at the end of the
tunnel."
BOMB THREATS AND HATE MAIL
Karen Dabdoub fights constant brushfires in her work for the Council on
American-Islamic Relations in Ohio.
In 2005, a Cincinnati mosque was bombed. Fasting Muslim students were
criticized in 2006 when they were allowed to avoid the cafeteria during
Ramadan. Bomb threats and hate mail trickle in.
"We'll get there. It's not an easy road, but we'll get there," said
Dabdoub, a native Cincinnatian who converted to Islam 16 years ago. But
she admits things have gotten worse instead of better in recent years.
A 2006 Gallup poll of more than 1,000 Americans showed that 39 percent
were in favor of requiring Muslims in the United States, including
American citizens, to carry special identification. Roughly a quarter
said they would not want Muslims as neighbors.
Dabdoub said her blue eyes and white skin have not spared her the
unfriendly stares often aimed at headscarved women in America.
"Once in a while somebody will smile at me, but not as much as they used
to," she said.
Cincinnati's 25,000-strong Muslim community is a microcosm of American
Islam. According to CAIR, about a third of America's six to seven million
Muslims are South Asian, a third African American and a quarter Arab.
Still others are European immigrants or Caucasian converts.
Almost everywhere, the community is dedicated to outreach.
In Missouri, Muslim children at the Islamic School of Greater Kansas
City are sent out to do community service.
Principal Saba Hamouda said the school's mosque was once vandalized and
a Koran smeared with feces, but she believes the more Americans
understand Islam, the more they will accept their Muslim neighbors.
Still, students sometimes feel stereotyped and misunderstood outside the
comfort of their small school.
"Just because of 9/11 people think we are terrorists," said 15-year-old
Sabrim Qadi, taking a break from a morning Islamic studies class.
In the U.S. Southwest, known more for its influx of Hispanic immigrants
than its Islamic community, Muslims repeat the outreach approach despite
sectarian slights.
Jordanian born Ahmad Al-Shqeirat, imam of the Islamic Community Center
of Tempe, a city in the sprawling Phoenix valley where there are some
40,000 to 50,000 Muslims, has felt both welcome and intolerance.
The Islamic Center, with its minaret, sits alongside the First
Congregational Church on a quiet Tempe backstreet. Five years ago the two
were jointly awarded the Tempe city diversity award for their good
neighborliness.
"We exchange visits and talk all the time," Al-Shqeirat said of his
neighbors.
But despite his proudly ecumenical outlook, Al-Shqeirat hit the
headlines late last year as one of the so-called "Flying Imams," a group
of six Muslim clerics who were turfed off a U.S. Airways flight after
some passengers and crew became alarmed at their prayers.
Looking back on the incident, Al-Shqeirat says it showed "overreaction
and discrimination" by the airline. But he says it has only redoubled his
commitment to outreach.
"If those people had ever been in a mosque and seen Muslims praying,
they would have understood," he told Reuters, sitting in the office at
his street corner mosque after evening prayers. "Anger will not take us
anywhere, what we need is more education."
(additional reporting by Carey Gillam in Kansas City and Tim Gaynor in
Tempe)
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