Five years on, the evolution of the New American Muslim

Sachin Kalbag

Sunday, September 10, 2006 22:18 IST

As the world observes the fifth anniversary of 9/11, the average Muslim in the US has a new face – one that could be an important ally in the country’s war on terror

Washington, DC: It could have been a gathering like any other – thousands of participants and volunteers, lots of speeches lost in the chaos and just another platform for networking and other sundry events made possible by the donations made by the members of the organizing association. It could have indeed been just that, except, the Islamic Society of North America had other ideas.

The 41st annual convention of the influential Islamic Society of North America at Rosemont, Illinois, which ended last week, was attended by more than 36,000 people; its keynote speaker was Mohammad Khatami, a man often called the architect of reforms in Iran, its new president was a woman (Dr Ingrid Mattson, an Islamic scholar who converted from Christianity), and the sessions saw, among other things, questions on dating among Muslims and panelists equally eager to answer them.

Say hello to the New American Muslim.

“The New American Muslim is a natural progression,” says Omer bin Abdullah, editor of the Virginia-based Islamic Horizons, a bi-monthly magazine that deals with Islam and Islamic issues in America. “The election of Dr Mattson is also a positive step forward, but the role of a typical American Muslim woman has changed dramatically over the years; so within the community, a woman president not looked upon as a ploy to present a liberal face – it is just a reflection of the times.”

Imam Yahya Hendi, Muslim chaplain at the prestigious Georgetown University in Washington, DC, feels that the New American Muslim can be defined in two ways – one who has reacted negatively after 9/11 and has therefore remained secluded out of choice, but the far more important one, and perhaps in a majority by a fair margin, is the one who is vocal and is more involved in the community – politically, socially and economically.

“There has been intense soul-searching after 9/11,” he says. “The natural response to the attack on Muslims after 9/11 has been to defend the faith and clarify our positions constantly. Without doubt, many Muslims reacted negatively to these new realities. This created negative stereotypes, and this could easily confuse you and alienate you. The answer to these negative stereotypes is not more violence or seclusion, but greater involvement. Today’s generation of Muslim youths in the US are realizing that.”

The negative stereotypes that Imam Hendi is speaking about include two major issues confronting the community – the association with terrorism and the image of an ultra-conservative community that has scant regard for women’s rights.

Mattson believes that the time to debunk these stereotypes is ripe. In her very first speech as president of the ISNA, she said in a reference to President George W Bush’s recent speech which spoke about Islamic fascism: “This term has a bad resonance in the Muslim majority world and makes us feel uncomfortable. We are hoping there can be some adjustment to this language.”

She also addressed the gender issue: “Gender is not a barrier to our membership,” the scholar from Hartford Seminary in Connecticut said. “This is a position we take as an organization; Muslim women should be in public leadership roles, with an equal voice on the table.”

“We have still a long way to go,” says Abdullah, about ending the stereotype. “In America, the worst enemy of the Muslim community is the Christian right wing, while the general public has no such mindset.” He talks of the numerous emails he gets each day that talk about, among other things, the annihilation of the Muslim faith around the world. “To these, I have only one question, ‘Would Jesus Christ have appreciated your views?’ Fortunately, the New American Muslim is countering these with reason and rationale, not with violence and venom.”

Hendi feels these attacks are “born out of ignorance about the Muslim religion.” The media, he feels, media plays an important role in creating the negative mindset. “The right wing media in America has its own agenda, and their reportage has added to the stereotype. Yet, the solution lies within us.”

In his weekly Friday sermon on September 8, on how the New American Muslim should look at world events, Hendi told the story a young girl who asked her father a lot of questions about life and how the world views Muslims and how she should react to it. “The girl’s father,” Hendi told the congregation, “asked her to boil three things – carrots, eggs and coffee beans. When it was done, the girl asked her father what he meant by that. The father said that the soggy, disintegrated carrots meant that they just wilted under the boiling water, the eggs became even harder, while the coffee beans just blended into the boiling water, creating a new substance with aroma and great taste.”

The Imam ended his sermon thus: “September 11,” he said, “is like the boiling water. Troubled times surround us all the time. It is up to us to wilt under pressure, or become stubborn and negative, or just create a new world altogether.”

He told DNA later, “My hope is that New American Muslim would be like the coffee. And that the world would accept him or her for that.”

URL: http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1052278