Farah Akbar

2013-02-27T09:38:00.002-08:00

“The Holy (And Sinful) Careers of South Asian Americans” by Farah Akbar, Goatmilkblog.com

FARAH AKBAR

Amrik Singh, 60 could not bear the thought of his children turning into anything other than doctors. God forbid they turn into teachers or gasp, social workers – like him. Coming from a family of farmers, he immigrated to the United States from India almost 4 decades ago. Today he beams with pride when he says that all three of his children are now doctors.

“If you are a doctor, right away you become a great achievement in both American society and Indian society,” he says confidently. He does not pretend that it is all about social status either though. The money that doctors earn in the United States is just too darn good. “You don’t know. There is economics here,” he insists. Singh is firm in his belief that a relatively high income is necessary to have “made it” in the United States. “The idea for coming here was to be economically successful. There is no point in living hand to mouth,” he insists.

Numbering at about 2.7 million, South Asians living in the United States hail from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. South Asians, and Indian Americans in particular, continue to fill many important positions in science and technology. Indians, who make up less than two percent of the American population, today make up five percent of all doctors and account for ten percent of all medical school students. There are also thousands of Pakistani Americans practicing medicine. Indians are three percent of the nation’s engineers and seven percent of its IT workers.

Many children of South Asian parents deal with what the say is an unrelenting familial pressure to pursue only certain careers, like medicine and engineering. These days, law and finance seem to be making the cut as well. What results for some of these children in their adulthood is a lack of job satisfaction and a frustration of not having pursued their passions.

These days, more South-Asian Americans are defying tradition and are taking their chances in careers that would cause Amrik Singh and others of his generation nightmares. They are becoming writers, designers and activists to name a few. They do so despite the criticisms they face from their communities, the relative lack of job safety for some occupations and the cut in pay.

“There is a construction of a cliche of what success is,” says Dr. Vijay Prashad. Dr. Prashad, professor of international relations at Trinity College says that it is no accident that so many young South Asians find themselves working in math and science fields. According to his book, “The Karma of Brown Folk,” the governmental policies of India have much to do this phenomenon. In 1947, Jawarharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India said that the “new India” would be “closely linked to science” and made it a priority to create state-funded learning institutions devoted to science. The trend has not changed even today.

The institutions created a generation of skilled workers mostly from the middle class, many of whom would make their way into the United States via the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. Between 1966 and 1977, thousands of scientists with PhDs, engineers, and doctors came from India alone. The majority of Pakistani immigrants who arrived between 1965 and the early 1980s also came as skilled migrants.

Dr. Prashad argues that children tend to follow the career paths of their parents which he claims also contributes to the large numbers of young South doctors and engineers.

Despite these impressive accomplishments, are young South Asian doctors, engineers, pharmacists and the like happy in their careers? From a financial perspective, probably. Such careers continue to fetch more money than most other fields.

For some though, the money does not make up for everything. Always very close to her parents, Dr. Alka Chandna would have no contact with her’s for two months after she announced to them that she was leaving her job as a software developer to work with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) full time. Her voice still breaks as she recalls the day she told them about her decision. “They thought I was entering a black hole, a world they didn’t understand,” she says softly. “I’ve blocked the conversation from my mind,” says Chandna, who lives in Washington D.C.

Like many South Asians, Chandna was encouraged to pursue medicine but refused, believing that it was morally wrong to use animals for dissections in medical school. While her two sisters would go on to become physicians (and her brother an engineer) Chandna went on to get a PhD in mathematics, just like her father (her mother also has a PhD).

She understands why her parents wanted her to pursue a career in science. Chandna grew up in Canada experiencing racism; she remembers having her house spray painted and having eggs thrown at it. “Going the profession route was the path out of that life,” she says.

Today she is PETA’s Laboratory Oversight Specialist where she studies the regulations and guidelines that govern the use of animals in laboratory settings. Her relationship has improved with her parents since that fateful day ten years ago. “It wasn’t as horrible as they were worried it was,” she says. “They’ve come to a place where they are very pleased.”

Chandna enjoys working with PETA even though she is making about half of what she was making in Silicon Valley. “Working for PETA makes the world a kinder place,” she says.

Husna Butt, a 24 year old Pakistani-American from Chicago felt that she was “living a lie” while a student in medical school a few years ago. She decided to quit medical school about 20 minutes after taking a makeup exam for classes she failed in the previous semester. “I was not new to failure, that’s not what bothered me,” she says. “What bothered me was that I did not want to make the effort anymore.”

An artist at heart, she loved drawing portraits as a child. She remembers her father, an engineer, telling her and her two sisters that they should become doctors when they got older. Feeling “lost” as an undergrad and yearning for independence from her parents, she gave medical school a chance. “I enjoyed every second of it, especially in the beginning,” she says. “But I was not serious about any of it and I realize now that’s because I was not passionate about medicine itself.”

Today Butt is pursuing a career in graphic design and completed a certificate in fashion design. Her parents are supportive. “I think they worry about me though but I also think that’s normal,” she says. Her two sisters, meanwhile, are both physicians.

Farhana Huda Islam, 29, from Queens, New York was also a budding artist as a child. She started a magazine in college that continues to be published after her graduation. She expressed her desire to become an English teacher to her Bangladeshi parents but was met with swift disapproval. “They thought it was not prestigious,” she says. “That I would not make much money.” She was encouraged to pursue pharmacy, like her father.

At St. John’s University’s pharmacy program, she found many South Asian students, some of whom were just as upset about their predicament as she was. A whopping 62 percent of the students in Islam’s pharmacy program today are of Asian origin.

She felt frustrated with having to follow a curriculum that was, not surprisingly, largely science based and left little room for her to take liberal arts courses. At one point she created a Facebook page called “I Hate Pharmacy! My Dad Made Me Do It!” attracting others who could resonate with its message.

Islam eventually graduated from her pharmacy program and has been a pharmacist for the past five years. She says that her experience has not been all that bad. “I have a passion for people, making a difference in their lives.”

But the writing bug has not gone away, and the mother of two wants to go back to school to get a Masters in Fine Arts someday.

“I always wonder what would have happened to my potential if I were in classes that sparked my interest,” she says. “I still want to write.”

Wajahat Ali, 31 wants to see more South Asians take their chances in the liberal arts and he is quick to explain that he is not trying to bash doctors and engineers. “If that’s your passion, talent and choice, go for it,” he says. “But we kind of already have enough engineers and doctors.”

Born and raised in California, his family immigrated to the United States from Pakistan. He remembers when he wrote his first story at the age of ten. “I brought it home and my father said you should be a writer. My mother overheard it and she said ‘yea but first become a doctor.”

Ali went to law school (“I missed the doctor boat,” he says) though he admits that he did not have an extreme passion for the subject.

After being unemployed for months following his graduation, Ali embarked on his “unorthodox” career as a new media journalist. He developed a following with his blog, Goatmilk.com where he wrote essays about politics, Islam and contemporary affairs with a humorous spin. In the midst of his unorthodox career, he also briefly practiced law, work he found rewarding.

Today, he has nearly 7,000 followers on Twitter and his play, The Domestic Crusaders, has been published into a book. In addition, his essays frequently appear in the Guardian, The Washington Post and Salon.com amongst other leading publications. He recently edited a book about prominent Muslims in America and is currently writing a TV pilot with Dave Eggers for HBO about a Muslim American cop in the Bay Area. He is also a consultant on issues related to Muslims and civil rights.

But getting to this point was not easy. Members of the Pakistani community mocked his efforts while he built his career. Women initially ignored him too. (However, he is now happily married.)

Ali says that he could be making more money as an attorney but is sticking to his “unorthodox” career for the time. “You learn to live lean if you pursue this career,” he says. He worries about the future sometimes though and wonders about money and how he will take care of his parents when they get older.

Dr. Prashad encourages South Asians to become more adventurous in their career pursuits. “There is a need to venture out. We are human beings, with imaginations,” he says. “It is an incredibly healthy thing to promote a variety of occupations.” He discusses exciting prospects of careers that weave science and the arts, such as software design and computer animation.

“These days, South Asians are actually making waves in the world of arts and humanities,” says Prashad.

Ali says that the initial disdain he received from his community has been replaced by a realization that more people like him are needed. “Some old school uncles are now saying ‘No one is telling our stories, what you’re doing is valuable and important.”

And the compulsion to create remains strong for him, despite the challenges. “There’s a joy there. There is hard work. Yes it’s brutal. But it’s fulfilling.”

http://goatmilkblog.com/

Farah Akbar is a freelance writer from Queens, New York. She has written for Salon.com, The Gotham Gazette, City Limits and CNN.com. She graduated from Baruch College.

Muslims, Please Spare the Animals This Eid - full article

2011-08-26T12:18:00.001-07:00

By Farah Akbar and Bina Ahmad

The first encounter that many Muslims across the world have with animals often comes from the celebrations of a joyous religious holiday – Eid-ul-Azha. In many Muslim countries, families purchase a goat, cow or other domesticated animal from an animal market weeks before the holiday. In some cultures, family members affectionately decorate the animal with flower necklaces, paint and colorful beads. Children often become attached to the creature stemming from the natural affinity that kids have for animals. However, when the day of Eid-ul-Azha comes, it can be a traumatic and heartbreaking experience for a child – the pet that they had lovingly bonded with is slaughtered with a sharp knife while it is fully conscious and in many cases, the slaughtering takes place on the actual grounds of the family’s home. The meat of the animal is then typically distributed three ways: one-third for oneself, one-third for friends and family and one-third for the poor.

For three days, Muslims slaughter animals in commemoration of the prophet Abraham’s (peace be upon him) willingness to sacrifice his own son for the sake of God. As Abraham was about to slay his son Ishmael (peace be upon him) which he believed came as a direct order from God, a sheep appeared before him in place of his son.

Muslims have a duty both religiously and culturally to evolve with scientific and moral progress. The meaning behind Eid-ul-Azha will always stand, but in today’s world, we must look at things practically. We must take into consideration the undeniable cruelty involved in killing millions of God’s creations, how environmentally damaging it is to raise animals for food, how unhealthy meat is for human consumption, and the lack of an actual requirement in Islam to eat meat. Muslims, especially those of us that live in the Western world, have a duty to end the animal sacrifice of Eid-ul-Azha and replace our good intentions in other ways.

We hope it is no secret now that the majority of meat in this country is produced on factory farms. Unfortunately, much of the halal meat consumed in the country also has origins from factory farms as well.

Factory farming is the practice of maximizing profit for agribusiness by minimizing costs spent on space and the general quality of life for the animals, resulting in confining animals into incredibly crowded and cramped cages in filthy conditions. Cows are often burned with hot irons and have their horns cut off, without anesthesia. Veal calves, a natural by-product of the dairy industry whose mother’s milk is consumed by humans, are deliberately kept anemic to keep their flesh pale as this is considered a delicacy, and are confined to wooden boxes their entire lives without room to lay down or fully stretch their legs. Most of these animals never see the light of day, walk on grass, or do anything natural to them their entire lives. Undercover footage has also revealed that oftentimes these animals are beaten and abused by employees and suffer through long and stressful transports. All these practices are in violation of Islamic teachings as it is unlawful (haram) to consume the flesh of an animal that has been beaten, branded or mutilated.

Factory Farming takes the lead as the worst environmentally damaging and resource wasting industry. This practice of intensively confining animals onto as small a space of land as possible causes enormous detriment to the soil and local water sources. It further necessitates the use of antibiotics in the animal feed since the animals are kept in such horrid and cramped conditions that they would die of disease if they were not given such drugs. All of this stays in the animals post slaughter – in their flesh, in the local water and of course, winds up in human bodies. Factory farming has also been cited time and time again as the worst environmental polluter above all other industries, necessitating the United Nations to publish a recent report urging the move towards vegetarian and vegan diets based on factory farming’s devastating contribution to green house gas emissions, soil erosion and contamination with industrial pollutants, water contamination and incredible waste of water above all other industries. (www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/02/un-report-meat-free-diet)

In addition, U.S. law does not prohibit feeding farm animals the byproducts of the slaughterhouse industry. In 2003, 8 million metric tons of meat and bone meal, poultry byproduct meal, blood meal, and feather meal were mixed into animal feed and fed to farm animals (http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info:doi/10.1289/ehp.9760). Even worse, many animals are allowed to eat the meat of their own species. (http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/impacts_industrial_agriculture/they-eat-what-the-reality-of.html) These practices are in grave violation of Islamic teachings which forbid the consumption of carnivorous animals. While it is true that some halal slaughterhouses try their best to ensure that the animals they slaughter are raised according to Islamic teachings, many are unaware of the origins of the animals that they sell to consumers, focusing instead only on the manner in which the animal is killed. (http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&pagename=Zone-English-News/NWELayout&cid=1178724246679)

Eating too much eat is not good for your health either. Studies upon studies have revealed to us that eating red meat in excess increases our risks of developing cardiovascular diseases and developing cancer. We are only about five percent of the world’s population yet we grow and kill an astonishing 10 billion animals a year – more than 15 percent of the world’s total. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html)

While meat production and consumption is much less in Muslim countries compared to that of the United States, those in the Muslim world should also remain cautious: in many parts of the world, the festivities of Eid-ul-Azha bring along with it an increase in illness. For example, according to the Daily Star newspaper in Bangladesh, the number of individuals being admitted to hospitals increases by about 10 percent during this time of year brought on by a gluttonous consumption of meat. (http://newshopper.sulekha.com/meat-intake-during-eid-makes-dhaka-medicos-see-red_news_1127916.htm)

Meat-eating is not a requirement of Islam. In fact, according to Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, the prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) could have been categorized as a “semi-vegetarian.” He has said that traditionally, Muslims only ate meat once a week if they were wealthy or middle class. Regarding the Eid-ul-Azha sacrifice, Egyptian Islamic scholar Gamal Al Banna states: ”In today’s modern world, ideas and religion change and Islam is no different. We must not remain rigid in our understanding of faith to mean the blind acceptance of anything, killing living beings included. There is no obligation to kill.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/aug/26/meat-islam-vegetarianism-ramadan)

The holy Quran says of the sacrifice that, “It is neither their meat nor their blood that reaches Allah; it is your piety that reaches Him.” (S22:vs37) But showing piety and devotion to Allah can be expressed in many other forms. We can do so much more to help the needy by simply redirecting the money that would have gone towards the purchase of an animal for slaughter and using it for other longer lasting and more beneficial purposes. The money can go towards building schools in poor countries or even be used to build hospitals in places where access to medical care is difficult.

It is time for Muslims to think about whether this yearly mass-slaughter of animals is really keeping in the spirit of Islam – a religion that advocates kindness towards animals, instructs us to take care of the planet and teaches us to eat in moderation and take care of our health. This Eid, before you purchase an animal for sacrifice here or abroad, please consider celebrating the holiday without the needless slaughtering of Allah’s creatures.

Muslims, Please Spare the Animals This Eid

2010-11-15T18:07:00.000-08:00

By Bina Ahmad and Farah Akbar

http://goatmilkblog.com/

CNN

2010-11-15T18:03:00.000-08:00

Editor's Note: Farah Akbar is a New York-based writer who has contributed to Islamonline.net and Salon.com.

By Farah Akbar, Special to CNN

A wave of unexpected calm has blanketed India since the verdict on the disputed holy site known as Ayodhya was delivered on Thursday, with one-third of the land going to plaintiffs who represent the Hindu deity Ram, a third going to a separate Hindu group and a third to a Muslim group.

The land has been a catalyst for communal violence for years. Deploying 190,000 officers to keep the peace, India had braced itself for what it feared would be a replay of violence from decades past.

In 1992, Hindu extremists destroyed the centuries-old Babri mosque in Ayodhya on the belief that it had been built atop the birthplace of Ram and over an ancient Hindu temple. The resulting religious riots across India claimed more than 2,000 lives.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/03/my-take-muslims-hindus-should-accept-indias-holy-site-verdict/#comments

CNN

2010-09-15T16:08:00.000-07:00

Farah Akbar is a New York-based writer who has contributed to Gotham Gazette, Islamonline.net, Al-Ahram Weekly and Salon.com.

The world is full of attention-hungry individuals willing to do just about anything for fame. Terry Jones got it, and frankly, he did not even have to do much. A provocative threat from him wrapped the media around his finger for days.

His distasteful plan to burn Qurans on the ninth anniversary of September 11 at an obscure church had the media obsessed about him, as teenyboppers are about Justin Bieber.

Jones, a radical, fringe Christian with less than 50 followers, wound up having a change of heart. His only claim to fame before this was a hateful book he wrote that has only six reviews on Amazon.com, most of which are negative. And besides his title of pastor, what authority or influence does he have when it comes to matters of religion?

But if Jones had followed through on his pledge to burn Islam's holy book, the results could have been disastrous. Many Muslims perceive any insult toward their revered book as an attack on their faith. The Daily Star, an English-language paper in Lebanon, said that if the event were to have taken place, it was "likely to ignite a fire of rage that could consume swaths of the globe." Demonstrations against the burning took place in Pakistan, Gaza, Indonesia and Afghanistan.

His cheap attempt at getting attention trumped important news, such as the devastating floods that have ravaged much of Pakistan. Aren't there individuals on the planet who are actually making a positive difference in the lives of others who would have been more worthy of that attention?

How could this situation, with the potential to have had very damaging effects here and elsewhere been avoided? Simple -- don't let obscure people, whose actions have the potential to incite violence, dominate the news cycle.

Gotham Gazette

2010-09-15T16:06:00.000-07:00

Controversy Over Islam and Mosques Spreads Beyond Park 51

by Farah Akbar
Sep 2010

Photo by David Shankbone

The area near ground zero has been the scene of several protests for and against an Islamic center proosed for lower Manhattan.

Nine years after the Sept, 11, 2001 attacks, a heated debate over a proposed Islamic community center two blocks from Ground Zero has helped spark a wave of distrust and anger toward Muslim Americans and Islam in New York City and beyond.

Polls show opposition to the construction of the center, known as Park51. People have rallied against it, and while Mayor Michael Bloomberg and President Barack Obama have supported the developers' right to build the center, many other politicians have stridently opposed the project. Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio, for one, has referred to the project's leader, Imam Faisal Rauf, as a "terrorist-sympathizing imam," even though the State Department sponsored Rauf's recent trip to the Middle East to discuss Muslim life in America and religious tolerance.

"Opponents to Park51 continue to smear all things Muslim and justify their calls to move the project away from the 9/11 site by erroneously linking the criminals responsible for the attacks to the organizers and its supporters," said Faiza Ali, community affairs director for the Council on American Islamic Relations NY chapter.

While Muslims were victims of bias attacks in the days and weeks immediately after 9/11, then President George W. Bush made efforts to defuse the rage against Muslims and Islam. He visited the Islamic Center of Washington D.C. six days after the attacks, condemned any type of biased attacks against Muslims, and said that Muslims needed to be treated "with respect."

Now, though, following a period of calm, some Muslims in New York and beyond feel a return of the fears some experienced after 9/11. The apparent change in the country's attitude toward Muslims, Islam and their houses of worship has alarmed American Muslims and others in the country and left experts and common citizens struggling to shed light on why the apparent shift has occurred.

Two Blocks from Ground Zero

Two thirds of New York City residents want the lower Manhattan Islamic center to be moved to a location farther from the World Trade Center site, according to a recent New York Times poll. One fifth of those surveyed admitted to harboring animosity toward Muslims, and 33 percent said that they believed that Muslims were more sympathetic to terrorists than other American citizens. Another poll -- this one by the Daily News - found that half of those opposed to the center near ground zero do not want it to be built anywhere in Lower Manhattan.

This year marked the first time since 9/11 that the anniversary of the attacksfeatured protests near the trade center site, clearly a result of the mosque furor. Supporters held a demonstration at City Hall, while one anti-community center rally featured Geert Wilders, the controversial anti-Islamic Dutch parliament member who has called for taxing Muslim women for wearing headscarves and opposed the building of new mosques in the Netherlands. Police estimate that thousands attended the rally.

Politicians have weighed in. Gov. David Paterson suggested that the developers find another place to build "that would not be so close to Ground Zero." Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has said that the project would "horribly offend" the families of those killed on Sept. 11.

To the concern of many, such rhetoric seeks to make all Muslims responsible for the attacks on the trade center and Pentagon. "This insinuation of collective guilt, the notion that American Muslims should be treated as second class citizens in our home is false, un-American, and should be rejected," Ali said.

As the debate has raged, some have tried to find a way out.

Yesterday, Rauf himself pledged to find a way out of the dispute. "Everything is on the table," he said in a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations. "We really are focused on solving it." One idea reportedly under consideration would involve expanding the interfaith programs at the center and allowing worship space for people of other religions.

Previously, Donald Trump offered to buy the site now slated for the proposed Islamic center -- if the mosque were to be built at least five blocks from ground zero. He maintains the proposal arose from his desire to "end a very serious, inflammatory and highly divisive situation that is destined, in my opinion, to only get worse."

Beyond Park51

However the issue is ultimately settled, the anger toward Muslims and mosques has spread to many parts of the city. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has said that bias attacks against Muslims have increased in New York. Since 2001, the city has dealt with about 10 crimes or allegations of hate crimes against Muslims every year. This year, there already have been 10 cases, and Ali thinks some bias attacks may go unreported.

Last month, a Muslim cab driver in New York City was slashed in the mouth, throat and arm by a passenger this summer who asked him if he was Muslim prior to attacking him. In Astoria, Queens, an inebriated man walked into the Al-Iman mosque and then urinated on the rugs used by congregants for prayer and hurled anti-Muslim comments at the mosque-goers.

A 37-year-old Queens resident, who does not want his name used, thinks that he may have been the victim of a hate crime. On a warm August evening, he was taking the routine four-block walk home from the Jamaica Muslim Centerafter completing his prayers. He was wearing a traditional outfit from his native Bangladesh, which consists of a long overflowing shirt that reaches the knees and baggy pants. Two blocks shy of his home, five men surrounded him began punching him.

"I kept saying, 'Don't hit me. Take what you want, but don't hit me,'" he said. The men did not ask for money or for his watch. In fact, they did not say a word to him throughout the entire ordeal. The victim, an information technology professional, had to take two days off from work to recover from his injuries.

Officials from the Jamaica Muslim Center believe that this was a hate crime. "He was wearing Muslim garb, he was not robbed and he was only two blocks away from the mosque," said Junnun Choudhury, general secretary of the center.

In Westbury, young people recently threw stones, shattering the windows of cars parked in front of the Islamic Center of Long Island. "I don’t know what their (the youths') true intentions were," said Habeeb Ahmed, the chairman of the board of trustees for the center. "But one could classify this as a hate crime."

Ahmed said that incidents such as these last occurred shortly after Sep. 11, 2001, when the mosque's sign was egged numerous times. He says that he and the congregants are not fearful these days, but that they are being extra careful. "I am concerned," he said. "Things can get out of control and somebody may get hurt one day. We are thankful for the presence of the police officers."

And in upstate Carlton, NY, police arrested five teens for disrupting religious services at a mosque. One teen fired a shotgun into the ground outside the mosque's building.

Construction Conflicts

Meanwhile, it has become increasingly difficult to build a mosque in New York City. The city already has about 140 mosques in all shapes and sizes. They range from simple basement apartments to large, multipurpose community centers that can include Islamic schools and auditoriums. One , the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, also known as the 96th Street Mosque, fills an entire block on the Upper East Side.

Louis Abdellatif Cristillo, the project director for Columbia University'sMuslims in New York City project, said that historically opposition to mosque-building was motivated in part by fear of the Muslim "other," but that it was dressed up under other pretexts, such as concern about zoning or complaints about noise and traffic. Most of those conflicts, he said in an email, were resolved without much difficulty -- "nothing like we are seeing with the Park51 community center."

Opponents of mosques throughout the New York City area have become much bolder in expressing why they do not want a mosque near them. In Staten Island, the board of trustees of a Roman Catholic Church recentlyrejected a proposal to sell a vacant convent to the Muslim American Society, which in turn, planned to convert it into a mosque. Neighbors who were opposed to the mosque labeled the Muslim American Society terrorist sympathizers and rallies against the mosque featured protesters carrying hateful signs against Muslims.

In Bethpage, Long Island, the town shut down the area’s only mosque, Masjid Al-Baqi, on the eve of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, citing electrical and plumbing issues. The town supervisor acknowledged that the inspector who found the problems was sent after over 100 community residents called to complain about a proposal for a second mosque in the area.

Mosque officials claim they corrected all the maintenance problems but that the mosque was ordered to close anyway. According to the suit filed by mosque leaders with the State Supreme Court, an anonymous email chain letter had circulated among residents reading in part, "This is not a Muslim neighborhood; we have no Muslim congregation in Bethpage. … Many of these organizations are on the FBI's watch lists. I do not want this in my neighborhood. They need to go elsewhere."

In Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, some residents have formed a group calledBay People to block the construction of a mosque in a residential area. According to its website, the group cites the typical complaints: noise, traffic and parking problems. Additionally, they openly allege that the builder of the mosque, the Muslim American Society, has a history of associations with radical organizations that promote terrorism. Leaders of the Muslim American Society reject such allegations. The group claims that it has raised $30,000 to fund a legal battle to block the mosque by arguing that it violates zoning laws.

Earlier this month, opponents of the mosque protested when member of the society handed out free backpacks and other school supplies at the site of the proposed mosque.

Politics and Religion

Many of those watching the increase in opposition to the construction of mosques blame politics and politicians. A New York Times front page story on the lower Manhattan Islamic center last December did not mention any opposition. In fact, it said, the project "has drawn early encouragement from city officials and the surrounding neighborhood."

"This controversy only began in May," Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf said in a recent interview on Larry King Live. "And it began as a result of some politicians, who decided to use this for certain political purposes. And this is when it began to snowball."

Bloomberg sees political motives as well. "This whole issue, I think, will go away right after the next election," he said during an appearance on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. “This is plain and simple people trying to stir up things to get publicity and trying to polarize people so that they can get some votes."

While some Republicans support the center and some Democrats do not, many Republicans see opposition to the project as a good issue for them this fall. Republicans who oppose the mosque sometimes have challenged their Democratic opponents to take a stand on the issue, the Times reported last month.

Cristillo agrees that politics is a factor but sees social and economic factors at work as well.

"I think the far right is conflating anti-immigrant legislation with Islamophobia in a climate of anger over the inability of government to resolve the economic crisis to rally its base for the upcoming November elections and the presidential election in 2012. We see this in the ludicrous rhetoric coming out of talk radio, cable news and the blogosphere casting doubt on Obama's birthplace and religion," he wrote. In addition, he said, social conservatives view mosques as examples of spaces that reject assimilation to American values and culture.

All of this has no doubt helped push Park51, which is, in essence, a local issue, into the national arena. Politicians, largely Republicans but Democrats such as Sen. Harry Reid and the former head of the Democratic National Committee and onetime Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, have chimed in too. They have both said that the center should be built elsewhere.

Other politicians have expressed their support for the center. Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a Republican, has defended the rights of the organizers to build the community center. "There's a huge, I think, lack of support throughout the country for Islam to build that mosque there, but that should not make a difference if they decide to do it. I’d be the first to stand up for their rights," he has said.

Park51's most vocal supporter has been Bloomberg. In an emotional speech, the mayor reminded everyone of New York City's dark history of religious intolerance. Indeed, Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch governor of what was then called New Amsterdam, wanted to bar Jews from arriving in the city and effectively prohibited them from practicing their faith in public. At one time, Catholics were prohibited from practicing their religion and priests could even be arrested. Today though, most Catholics and Jewish New Yorkers oppose the center, according to the Times poll.

"Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens of the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion?" he asked. "That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here. ... Muslims are as much a part of our city and our country as the people of any faith."

After appearing to vacillate on the issue, Obama, whose own religion has been called into question lately, reiterated his support on the eve of 9/11. "This country stands on the proposition that all men and women are created equal; that they have certain inalienable rights. One of those inalienable rights is to practice their religion freely," he said, adding "if you could build a Hindu temple on a site, then you should be able to build a mosque on the site."

Ali thinks such statements can play an important role "Americans have the right to freely practice their faith without intimidation and discrimination including the constitutional right to build houses of worship anywhere in the country," she said. Noting "the hate rhetoric against Muslims," she said, "Without strong repudiation from our elected officials, our fear is that this unsettling trend will only continue to grow."

Salon.com

2010-05-17T19:33:00.000-07:00

TOPIC:

Religion

SUNDAY, MAY 16, 2010 14:01 ET

A troubling cultural gap

If today's young American Muslims can't relate to their imams, where will they turn?

Reuters

Imam Husham Al-Husainy talks to Muslim youth at the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center in Dearborn, Mich., in March.

BY FARAH AKBAR

Ishak Khan, 17, wants to know if it's OK to get a tattoo in his religion. He also wants to know if it's OK to write rap songs and if it's OK to have a Muslim girlfriend.

Like many of his Muslim American contemporaries, Ishak isn't quite sure how to balance his religion with American culture. He does talk to friends about these issues, but he'd really like to speak with an adult who understands both American culture and Islam. But he can't really talk to his parents because they're very traditional, and he's definitely not going to that imam "straight out of Bangladesh" who gives the boring sermons at the Queens, N.Y., mosque he attends once a month.

"I don't think I can connect or talk to him, because he's not from here," says Ishak, who was born here to Bangladeshi parents. "I can't even tell him that I write music, 'cause he's just gonna tell me that it's bad. And if I tell him about getting a tattoo, he's gonna tell me that it will look dirty." And about the girlfriend? "He's gonna say it's haram [forbidden]."

Says the aspiring rapper: "I just want a cool person who I can ask questions to and who can give me a reasonable response."

Ishak's dilemma is one familiar to many Muslim Americans of his generation. Going to a mosque to pray or to receive Islamic education is an integral part of their lives. Though not all young Muslims are mosque-goers, those who do go often look to their local imams for guidance, only to be turned off by the cultural gap that exists between them. This has caught the attention of some Muslim community members, who fear that too many young American Muslims are left feeling alienated and frustrated.

Some Muslims are voicing their opinions and calling for change. They would like imams, who tend to be older, male and "imported," to be able to connect with a generation of Muslims raised in America. They also want mosques, which have the potential to develop leadership and community-building skills among young Muslims, to make youth outreach a priority. Failing to address these issues, they fear, could sever the connection between a generation of American Muslims and their religion.

There may be another fear, too. Abdul Malik Mujahid, an imam and author, has written that young people who feel marginalized or alienated can constitute "a breeding ground for extremism."

A common frustration among young Muslim Americans is that many imams speak to their congregations in languages other than English, often to accommodate immigrants who are more comfortable with their native tongue. (Some imams themselves may be more comfortable speaking in their native tongues as well.) This can leave the younger generation, which often has limited or no knowledge of its parents' mother tongues, uninterested.

Muntasir Sattar, 30, who works with many Muslim youths as a program coordinator at the South Asian Youth Action organization in New York, has seen how this causes the imam's message to go right over the heads of younger congregants -- even when it's aimed straight at them.

"A lot of Khutbahs [sermons] on Fridays are about youth, about vices and virtues and the importance of staying on the right path," he says, "but from a youth's perspective, they're like, 'OK, that's great, but you're talking in Arabic, or Urdu or Bengali, and I don't speak that language!" he says.

Ishak admits that he's dozed off more than once during sermons, usually when they've been delivered in Bengali. "I speak Bengali, but it would be better if it was in English. I'd understand it better," he says. He does remember one time hearing a great sermon in English about how praying to Allah can make life less stressful during trying times. "I had exams and I was so worried. I prayed to Allah that I would pass them and I did," Ishak recalls. He would like sermons to be about issues closer to his life.

Tania Ahmed, a 17-year-old high school senior, agrees that language is an issue. (Tania is not her actual name, which she asked be withheld.) "I don't care where [the imam] comes from, as long as he can communicate," she says. If the imam cannot speak in English, it hurts the youth who are seeking answers about their faith, Tania says. And she feels that some imams are too judgmental. "I know that some of them would react in a certain preachy way if I were to ask them about personal issues," she says. "They might even just shun you," she says. "I wouldn't really go to anyone outside my circle of friends."

But many imams believe it's their job to provide a rigidly Islamic viewpoint on issues and that even stylistic concessions to American culture are out of the question. Ben Yahya Abdel-Ghani, the director of the Flushing Muslim Center in Queens, says that when young people ask him for his advice, he has to answer according to the rules of Islam. Abdel-Ghani, 45, is from Morocco and has been living in the United States since 1997. Should a young person ask about whether it was OK to drink alcohol, his answer would be swift. "All kids know that alcohol is wrong," he says in slightly accented English. "Alcohol is prohibited -- so the discussion is almost closed."

Abdel-Ghani admits that youth don't often go to him for advice about personal matters, but, for example, if a young person were to confide to him that he or she might be gay (a situation he says he's never encountered), he would reply that being gay in Islam is not accepted. "Youngsters know that the answer will be that it is wrong," he insists. "They have to find a way to solve the problem. I don't think they will have the urge to say it to someone who is older."

Another issue complicating youth outreach is financial, with many mosques struggling just to pay their rent. Immigrant mosques in New York, for instance, are often run by working-class individuals and limited funds tend to be an issue. Sattar, the SAYA program coordinator, understands this and empathizes with these mosque officials, but he stresses that mosques should try to find room for youth programs even in their tight budgets. "Youth need opportunities to be active in their religious institutions," he says. "They need those roles, those opportunities, to shape the world."

Dr. Mahbubur Rahman, a professor of political science at the City University of New York who teaches a course called Islam and Democracy, agrees. He thinks that this is a way young Muslims can steer clear of fringe Muslim groups that may have extremist agendas or whose teachings are not in line with mainstream Islam. For example, the "Lackawana Six," a group of young Muslim American men from Buffalo, ended up in a militant training camp in Afghanistan. They were apparently recruited by a man named Kamal Derwish, who preached a radical brand of Islam and who won them over through meetings in his apartment. (Derwish was ultimately killed in a CIA mission in Yemen.)

A symbol of hope for Muslim American reformers can be found in the heart of Manhattan's West Village, the home base of a man who epitomizes the kind of spiritual leadership that so many young American Muslims yearn for.

Khalid Latif, 27, serves as the first-ever Muslim chaplain at the school's Islamic Center, a place that he boasts of running on progressive values rooted in authentic Islamic sources. Latif graduated from New York University with degrees in political science and Middle Eastern studies and attended the Hartford Theological Seminary briefly, then became the executive director of the Islamic Center at 24. He is also the youngest chaplain ever hired by the New York Police Department, brought in to cater to the spiritual needs of Muslim officers and civilian employees.

Latif says he understands why some young people don't feel comfortable going to religious places. Born and raised in New Jersey, he doesn't have fond memories of the local mosque he attended as a teenager. Back then, he had long hair and no beard, a violation of Muslim tradition, and congregants would accuse him of attending services just to mingle with the girls. "People weren't very nice to me," he recalls.

Membership at NYU's Islamic Center has increased significantly since he took over. He is well-liked and popular among students. One Pakistani-American student named Raza, after finishing his afternoon prayers, wrote "I love the I.C." on a whiteboard near the center's entrance. Raza credits Latif for uniting Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims in prayer, something the student, who is of the Shia sect, had never experienced before. "It was really special," he says. "It was an incredible feeling."

Students come to Latif to seek his advice about any and all issues, including some that are traditionally deemed "haram," or forbidden, in Islam. They appreciate his easygoing attitude and feel comfortable enough to talk to him about sexuality, depression, mental-health issues, domestic violence, relationships and even experiences of rape.

So is Latif a rare breed of imam? "I'm not like Nemo, alone in this ocean of loneliness," he says. As the Muslim community begins to respond to the needs of its diverse members, he believes, more imams who espouse progressive values that are in line with Islamic teachings will emerge. "As needs have changed, as dynamics have changed, I think it's just a logical trend to a people who are well versed in how this society functions that they are going to be stepping into roles as community activists and leaders and specifically, at times, even imams," Latif says.

Sitting on the floor of the large prayer room located in the basement of a white church that serves as the Islamic Center, he says: "What it means to be an imam is contingent upon a community's needs at the time." He is wearing blue jeans, a blue button-down shirt, has a trimmed beard and is wearing a black skullcap called a "kufi." "In some Muslim countries and in immigrant mosques, the idea isn't that the imam will be a community leader," he adds. "He's expected to just lead the prayers."

Latif isn't sure if it matters whether an imam was raised in the U.S., or if he's young or old. "It's hard to create an archetype on what an individual needs to be like that can deal with the diversity of some 8 million Muslims [in the U.S.]," he says. "Different people have their own preferences."

If a student confides to Latif that he or she might be gay, he won't claim that homosexuality is permissible in Islam. "But, like, it doesn't change the fact that we have kids or adults who are homosexuals," he says. "An outright denial of its existence causes us to have more issues than solutions."

After listening to a student talk about his or her background, he encourages the student to understand what his or her "life choice" means. "Some people will be nice to you, some people will treat you like garbage," Latif might say.

"With any issue, it's about, 'Where do we go from here?'" he says. "In Islamic tradition, you see numerous instances with men and women going to the prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, about their sins. The relationship with the Prophet was such that you could speak with him and he wouldn't be judgmental. He would respond in a way that made the most sense for the person coming to him with the issue."

Being a young and progressive imam has its challenges, too. "Especially in religious communities, when somebody comes in and does it differently, you kind of have to legitimize yourself," says Latif. "You have to prove to people that they can take you seriously. Because you're dealing with religion. And if you're wrong, Muslims perceive that wrong means hell."

At first, he says, people thought that NYU's Islamic center was too liberal. But now he claims that those same people simply see the center as "accepting."

Young Muslims in America are clearly hungry for some spiritual guidance from the right people, and they're asking for some specific things. For one, they say, imams should be raised or should at least understand what it's like growing up in America. They also shouldn't be quite so judgmental. And being on the younger end, though not required, is desirable. They should also be able to speak English and be reasonably current with American culture and technology. Ishak, the 17-year-old aspiring rapper, says he's met another imam, a young, American man, who showed him some Islamic prayers on YouTube that he liked a lot. "I don't think my imam [from the Queens mosque] even knows what YouTube is," he notes.

Tania once heard Latif speak at a conference and she absolutely loved what he had to say. Latif spoke about peer pressure and about the challenges of being a Muslim teenager in America. Still, she doubts that she'd ever confide in any imam about her personal life. "Except," she says shyly, "maybe for Khalid Latif."

City Limits

2010-05-10T10:29:00.000-07:00

Published in City Limits in April 2010

TEST FUELS ANXIETY—AND AN INDUSTRY

In Jackson Heights, the city's high school entrance exam

means high pressure for immigrant students, and business for

private test-prep centers.

Farah Akbar

Jackson Heights - > In six months Moontasin Rahman, a seventh-grader at I.S. 230, will take a test required for admission to one of New York City's elite public high schools. It's offered to the city's eighth- and ninth-graders once a year in October. In addition to studying seven hours a week on her own for the test, she also attends a four-hour class once a week at a test-prep school in Jackson Heights, her Queens neighborhood.
Moontasin's parents have taught her to believe that graduating from one of the city's elite high schools will determine her fate as an adult. “If you get into one of these schools, you’re set for college, you’re set for life,” Moontasin says. She's used to declining friends' invitations to hang out, preferring instead her books and practice exams. “Forget your social life and just study for the test!” Moontasin’s parents say to her.
The Specialized High School Admissions Test, given free of charge by the New York City Department of Education, is the key to getting into the city's top three public high schools—Stuyvesant High School, Bronx High School of Science, Brooklyn Technical High School—and five other selective high schools.
So common is the exam for Bangladeshi adolescents that it's become a rite of passage. And parents' desire to see their children score well on the exam has helped an industry to sprout in the city's Bangladeshi enclaves. Moontasin is among the many Bangladeshi children who are present or former students enrolled in test prep classes run by fellow Bangladeshis.
The challenging test, known as the “Sci-Hi” exam for short, consists of a math and verbal sections. More than 27,000 kids took the test last fall. Only about one in five students wins admission to the specialized high schools. Asians and South Asians were 57 percent of the students who learned in February that they've been admitted to one of the eight competitive specialized high schools.
New York City Bangladeshis, numbering over 28,000, were the fastest growing Asian-American subgroup in the United States during the 1990s—the population grew 471 percent over those years, and New York City is home to the largest group of Bangladeshis in the United States. Ninety-four percent of Bangladeshi school-age kids attend public schools versus 79 percent of all city children.
The city's Department of Education offers free prep classes for economically disadvantaged students. But many immigrant families pay for private test prep classes despite having incomes that in many cases are low: In the case of Bangladeshis, their per capita income in New York City was reported in the last census as $10,479—less than half of the citywide figure of $22,402. Mostly by word of mouth over the years, the Bangladeshi community of New York City picked up on the importance of these schools, valued by previous generations of working class immigrants as a stepping stone to American mainstream.
Moontasin's parents pay $75 for each weekend session to help her prepare for the rigorous exam.

Nahian Jahangir went through the arduous process of preparing for the test three years ago, and says it was all worth it. He was accepted at Bronx Science after studying at tutoring centers to prepare. "I had to get in no matter what," says Nahian. "It would be like an escalator to get into a good college," he says. Nahian would like to attend NYU so he can stay close to home after graduating and is thinking about becoming a doctor.
According to Community Board 3, which covers Jackson Heights, Bangladeshis are about one quarter of the neighborhood’s population. Stepping into the bustling enclave of 73rd and 74th Streets between 35th and 37th Avenues in Jackson Heights, one enters a universe of South Asian culture: exotic spicy foods, intricate gold jewelry and Bollywood music. Something else of note is the slew of test-prep businesses that have sprouted. There are at least six such businesses on one block of 73rd Street.
“Bangladeshis like the prestige of these schools,” says Santanu Barua. He is the owner of a school nestled in the basement of a shopping complex called “Bangladesh Plaza.” Barua, 36, established Core Tutoring Center in 2004. He employs college students to tutor youngsters in all grades, and he teaches Sci-Hi classes. Barua immigrated to the United States in 1994 from Bangladesh and finished his degree in computer science and accounting. He has no background as an educator—he works in a bank in the day—but considers himself qualified enough to teach some classes.
His students are mostly Bangladeshis but he has a few Pakistani, Indian, Filipino and Latino students. On one weekday, seven youngsters fill a tiny classroom and dutifully listen to their instructor, a young woman who will soon take her MCAT exam for medical school.

Iqbal Zaman says that test prep centers are part of Bangladeshi culture. A math lecturer at LaGuardia Community College, Zaman started his tutoring business, Tutorial One, in 2005. The sole instructor at his school, Zaman started the center to help his community but also acknowledges that he intends to benefit financially as business increases. “It’s good enough, it could be better,” he says of his profits. He has about 10 students in his Sci-Hi prep classes, and charges less than large commercial franchises—$35 for a 2.5 hour group session with him.

The most well known test-prep business in the area is Khan’s Tutorial. It was started in 1997 by Mansurul Khan, a former New York City public school teacher and assistant principal who immigrated with his family to the United States in 1985. According to Khan’s son, Ivan Khan, himself a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science who also takes part in running Khan’s Tutorial, the business has helped over 800 students gain admission into the elite high schools over the years. Khan’s Tutorial is more expensive than the competition.

Zulkarium Rahman, 15, Moontasin's brother, is a student at Stuyvesant High School. He remembers giving up video games and having two "boring summers" between 6th and 8th grade because he was studying so much for the exam. "I felt bad, but I knew the end result would be better for me," he says.

In addition to the three top tier schools, the test is crucial to admission at other specialized high schools: Brooklyn Latin School; High School for Mathematics, Science and Engineering at City College; High School of American Studies at Lehman College; Queens High School for the Sciences at York College; and Staten Island Technical High School. One specialized high school not subject to the Sci-Hi exam is Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, where getting in is based auditions and the student's academic record.
Stuyvesant has the highest cut off score of the eight schools. For the Fall 2007 exam, students scoring at 561 out of a score that ranged from 200 to 800 made it into the school.
Zaman argues that there is too much emphasis on the top three specialized high schools. He wants Bangladeshi parents not to panic if their children do not get into one these schools. “Is their life spoiled because they did not get in?” he asks.
Barua agrees that it's not the end of the world if an industrious student fails to gain admission. One of his former students didn’t leave her house for days because of bad Sci-Hi test results. He says that the failure “destroyed her self-esteem.” Though he concedes that he benefits from the Sci-Hi test prep craze financially, he does not support the excessive pressure put upon these kids to pass the test.

Moontasin remembers kids at her school receiving envelopes with Sci-Hi test results. “They were crying. I couldn’t tell if they were happy or sad,” she says. What would happen if her own Stuyvesant dreams were dashed? “It would be so horrible,” she says.

Gotham Gazette

2010-05-10T10:27:00.000-07:00

School Holiday Issue Sends Muslims to City Hall

by Farah Akbar
Nov 2009

Isabel Bucaram of Astoria, Queens, didn’t want her 6-year-old daughter, Huyam, to miss her class trip to the Nutcracker ballet, but she could find no other alternative. The trip coincided with the Muslim holiday of Eid-ul-Fitr, one of the holiest days in Islam, and Bucaram wanted her daughter to participate in the day's religious festivities. "It was upsetting for her not to share in that field trip with her teachers and friends," Bucaram recalled.

Not wanting her daughter or any other Muslim child to miss out on a day of school because of a religious holiday ever again, Bucaram last winter become involved in the movement to have Muslim holidays recognized by the New York City Department of Education. Until then, Bucaram’s political knowledge had revolved mostly around national politics. But once she started working with the Coalition for Muslim School Holidays, a group of over 80 labor, community, faith, and civil rights organizations, she was meeting with City Council members James Gennaro and Peter Vallone Jr., and learning about what it takes to change policy.

Bucaram is not alone. More Muslims are getting involved in the political process than ever before, many spurred by the Muslim school holiday issue, according to Faiza Ali, community director for the Council on American Islamic Relations and a member of the coalition’s steering committee. "The issue of Muslim school holidays has mobilized the community in a great way," she said. "Across the five boroughs, community members have participated in the civic process testifying at hearings in City Hall and lobbying their elected officials, some for the first time, to support this cause."

Muslims in the Schools

The Muslim population in New York City numbers around 600,000 according to a study by Columbia University. Peter Awn, the dean of Columbia’s School of General Studies, characterizes Muslims as one of the fastest growing religious communities in New York City. Muslim New Yorkers hail from all parts of the globe, and an estimated 10 percent of the city's 1.1 million public school students are of the Muslim faith. Approximately 90 percent of Muslim children in the city attend public schools.

The movement to make the New York City Department of Education recognize the holidays of Eid-ul-Fitr, which marks the end of the month of Ramadan, and Eid-ul-Azha, which is the culmination of the yearly hajj to Mecca, began a few years ago when concerned parents like Bucaram decided that they should not have to choose between their children’s education or their religion.

This summer, the City Council's education committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of a non-binding resolution to close all public schools on Eid-ul-Azha and Eid-ul-Fitr. The full council approved the resolution in a voice vote.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, though, indicated his opposition to the proposal. "One of the problems you have with a diverse city is that if you close the schools for every single holiday, there won’t be any school," he said last summer.

The coalition’s Faiza Ali disagreed. "Giving days off for the Eids does not mean fewer days in school," she said. She maintains that recognition of the holidays would alter the school calendar only slightly since Muslims follow a lunar calendar. Thus, the holidays may fall on a weekend, on a school holiday or during a recess in any given year, as was the case this year when Eid-ul-Fitr fell on a Sunday.

Ali acknowledged that there will be instances when the Eids will fall on what would normally be school, but said the Department of Education has various methods to close for the two holidays and not decrease the overall amount of time in school.

In Ali's view, the benefits of observing the holidays outweigh any inconvenience to the school system. "Although incorporating the two Muslim holidays would have a minimal impact on the calendar, recognizing them would help foster a better understanding of Islam and reaffirm that Muslims are an integral part of this city," she said.

Fatima Shama, the city's commissioner of immigrant affairs, who is herself a Muslim, insists the administration is still considering the matter. "This is a complex issue, and we are not taking it lightly," she said. "We have sat with the Coalition of Muslim School holidays at least three times with Deputy Mayor [Dennis] Walcott, and we have never said no. It is an ongoing evolutionary process."

Shama said that the Bloomberg administration wants to review every aspect of how incorporating the two Muslim holidays into the school calendar would affect the school system and its 1.1 million students before making a decision. "We are not doing policy on the fly," she said. Shama says she "couldn't say" when a decision about this issue would be made.

Political Muscle

Muslims must be resolute in order to achieve victory on the holidays, according to Amy Sugimori of La Fuente, an organization that advocates for workers’ and immigrants’ rights. "They must demand an answer from Mayor Bloomberg," she said.

The New York Civic Participation Project, which works with La Fuente and other groups, played a major role in educating Muslims about voting and the political process. The project has organized voter registration drives in collaboration with neighborhood mosques in Queens and Brooklyn. Sugimori, who oversaw the voter registration drives, said Muslims "were really into the idea that they needed to be full participants in civic participation."

La Fuente's members, most of whom are of Latino descent, have shared their experiences with Muslims members. Sugimori believes that hearing the stories of how other communities overcame injustice "resonated with the Muslim community." "We have all fought to be able to vote," she said. "We all should exercise this right."

Prior to November's municipal election, the New York chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations held 10 voter registration drives to encourage Muslims to vote and fielded calls from community members asking for information on how to register to vote, the primaries, the candidates and elections.

Shamsi Ali, the director of the Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens, spiritual leader of the Islamic Cultural Center in Manhattan and a strong supporter of closing schools for Muslim holidays is optimistic that Bloomberg will eventually come around on this issue. If Muslims register and vote, then they will be valued by politicians even more," Ali said.

"This is what I tell my kids to do. If you see something that either needs to be changed or can be improved, work to make that change -- vote, write letters, speak with those elected," said Bucaram.

Second-grader Huyam sent Bloomberg an Eid card decorated with Hello Kitty stickers and on it excitedly told the mayor how glad she was that last Eid landed on a Sunday. "If that could happen more often, that would be great!" she wrote. Huyam, along with other members of New York's Muslim community eagerly await his response.

Gotham Gazette

2010-05-10T10:22:00.000-07:00

Gotham Gazette - http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/housing/20100316/10/3214

Lawmakers Seek to Crack Down on Illegal Hotels
by Farah Akbar
16 Mar 2010

The "Candy Hostel" on Manhattan's Upper West boasts of being New York City's "newest, sexiest, hippest and hottest boutique hostel." It offers amazingly cheap rates -- as low as $17 a night in a city where the average hotel charges $312 -- and only accepts payment in cash.
As alluring as that may be to tourists on a budget, the building, formally known as the Mount Royal, along with the nearby The Continental and Pennington are not as hospitable for long-time residents who call the single room occupancy buildings home.
"The city doesn’t protect us. What’s happening here is illegal," one man said. When asked to elaborate, he took a puff of his cigarette, then shook his head, and said that he could not comment any further because he was afraid of retaliation from his landlord.
For years, the owners of the three buildings -- ownership information remains murky as to who exactly they are -- have been renting out apartments to tourists, to make a greater profit than they can from the low-income tenants. The three, on 94th and 95th Streets, contain rent-stabilized apartments and are Single Room Occupancy buildings, or SROs where tenants typically share bathrooms and kitchens. The certificates of occupation for each building says that they are all Class A multiple dwellings, which means that they are classified as buildings for permanent residents.
Critics say that renting rooms out to tourists siphons away affordable housing for low-income New Yorkers. and the city regards such rentals as illegal. A recent statement by Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that such hotels "all too often create fire safety and security hazards and create quality of life concerns in residential neighborhood." This is because these residential buildings do not necessarily follow fire safety regulations that a legitimate hotel would have to follow.
The press release hailed bills in the state legislature that would help sharpen the definitions of transient and permanent occupancies, ambiguities that the building owners have taken advantage of to skirt the law. A bill also has been introduced in City Council.

Legal Standing

As of 2009, the number of such hotels in the city has 280 buildings, according to a report by the Illegal Hotels Working Group.
The law is sketchy regarding the definitions of transient and permanent occupancies. In 2007, the city obtained a preliminary injunction prohibiting the use of these three buildings as hotels. The city contended that short-term stays were illegal for buildings with Class A status and that stays of less than 30 days violated a zoning resolution that forbid "transient hotels" that were used "primarily for transient occupancy" from being located in a residential district.
But in 2009, a state appeals court decided that the building owners could continue renting units for short stays. Justice David Friedman ruled, "While the city's evidence demonstrates -- indeed defendants readily admit -- that a significant number of units in each building are (and have been for many decades) rented to tourists for periods of less than 30 days, the city made no showing that most of the units in any of the buildings are rented for such short-term occupancy."

An Economic Engine?

David Satnick of Loeb and Loeb LLP, who represented the Continental and the Pennington in the case said at the time that in light of the "current economic turmoil," owners of SRO hotels should be permitted to rent units to tourists because it , "generates tremendous income for the city by way of taxes." Scott E. Mullen, an attorney who represented The Mount Royal said the ruling was extremely important for the city's tourist industry.
Assemblymember Micah Kellner, who has supported legislation against such hotels does not agree. He has said, "Illegal hotels are terrible for New York City's reputation as a quality tourist destination."
Certainly, though, the hotels attract visitors. On a recent day a young Asian couple walked through the doorway of the Continental building toting a large purple suitcase. Brochures about visiting New York City tourist sites such as the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and the Bodies Exhibition were displayed right upon entry. Inside the lobby, people surf the Internet on their laptops. Three tourists from Europe, two from England and one from Ireland said they decided to stay at the Continental because the rates were so low: $120 for seven nights.
"If there wasn't a place as cheap as this, we may not have come to New York City," said a British tourist staying at the Continental, who said that the accommodations were fine. Or, she added, "we would have had to save more money and come at a later time."
The tourists did not realize the building was primarily residential. The Irish visitor said that he noticed approximately 30 tourists checking in at the lobby the night before. "I can see how that must be so annoying for the residents," he said.
By most accounts, the accommodations are modest at best. In reviews of the Candy Hostel on tripadvisor.com, many tourists complained of unclean shared bathrooms, rooms with rat traps, doors with broken locks, infestation of bed bugs and issues with payments. The Continental, called The Fresh Hostel had similar negative reviews.

Insecurity at Home

The long-term tenants have different concerns. According to the Cooper Square Committee, tenants living in these buildings feel less safe as strangers o in and out of their buildings. Housing Conservation Coordinators charges that landlords who operate these hotels often harass legitimate tenants to force them to make more rooms available for tourists.
"All they have to do is force out permanent, rent-stabilized residents. They do this by making tenants' life miserable through systematic harassment -- lockouts, threats, frivolous lawsuits -- they're very effective. Ultimately, for every building where landlords can operate an illegal hotel with impunity, we can count on those affordable units disappearing," Matt Wade, a tenant organizer at Goddard-Riverside Community Center's West Side SRO Law Project has said.
"Illegal hotels are kicking out tenants and taking much-needed apartments off the housing market," John Raskin, the director of organizing at Housing Conservation Coordinators has said.
On a recent drizzly March day, several tenants seemed fearful, declining to give their names to a reporter. When security guards noticed that I was speaking to residents, they asked me to leave the premises for "soliciting," and ultimately called the police on the grounds I was "harassing residents." One security guard followed me for two blocks until I was met by police officers who questioned me briefly.
If the tenants do move from these buildings, many will find it difficult to get another place to live. Marti Weithman, project director for Goddard Riverside SRO Law Project has said that tenants forced out of SRO units are low-income New Yorkers who may turn up in the homeless system.

Looking to Legislation

In light of such concerns, AssemblymemberRichard Gottfried has introduced a bill that would clarify provisions relating to occupancy of such buildings. It calls for defining the term "permanent residence purposes" as occupancy by a "natural person" or family for 30 consecutive days or longer. This clarification is intended to clear up the ambiguities in the law . Currently, building owners say that the permanent or long-term residence requirement is met when the unit is leased by a corporate entity for more than 30 days, though it may occupied by actual persons for less than 30 days.State Sen. Liz Krueger has proposed similar legislation in the State Senate."
Current penalties for the operators of such hotels are $800, regardless of the number of units being converted, the length of time the unit was used as a hotel room, or whether it was a repeat offense. Intro 534, introduced by Councilmember Gale Brewer, would increase the penalties for such violations from $1,000 to $,5000 for a first offense, and introduce a per-unit, per-day fine structure.
"Permanent residents who have to get up in the morning for work, and tourists who are on a tight budget and partying while on vacation, are not compatible 'living' next door to each other, sharing the bathroom, or meeting in the hallways," Brewer has said.

Gotham Gazette

2010-05-10T10:19:00.000-07:00

Gotham Gazette - http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/civilrights/20100416/3/3242

New Yorker Accused of Helping al-Qaida About to Go on Trial
by Farah Akbar
16 Apr 2010

Photo (cc) 2010

New Yorker Syed "Fahad" Hashmi, an American citizen who has been held in solitary confinement for nearly two and half years at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, is finally set to go on trial April 28 in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska. The 30-year-old New Yorker -- the first terrorism suspect ever to be extradited from the United Kingdom to the U.S. -- stands accused by the federal government on four counts of providing material support to al-Qaida.
Hashmi's incarceration also has focused attention on the conditions under which some people suspected of terrorism are held in the United States. This extreme and extended form of solitary confinement, known as Special Administrative Measures, or SAMs, could come into wider use in New York if more people suspected of similar crimes are incarcerated in this area. In the meantime, Hashmi's supports and other human rights advocates see the conditions of his confinement as violating his rights and jeopardizing his ability to defend his case in court.
To law enforcement, notably the New York City Police Department and the FBI, Hashmi, as described in the controversial 2007 New York Police Department report Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat, epitomizes a seemingly ordinary young Muslim man turned extremist who allegedly went on to participate in terrorist activities. On the other hand, his former professors and other supporters who have rallied behind Hashmi view him as a peaceful, devout Muslim being punished for his political and religious beliefs.

The Case

The government alleges that around February 2004, while Hashmi was living in London, he allowed an acquaintance, Junaid Babar, another New Yorker featured in the New York police report, to stay at his London apartment for two weeks. Babar allegedly stored raincoats, ponchos and waterproof socks there and then delivered them to the number three al-Qaida leader in Pakistan, Abdul Hadi Al-Iraqi, to be used against American, international and Northern Alliance forces. Hashmi also allegedly allowed Babar the use of his cell phone to make calls to other conspirators in terrorist plots.
On June 6, 2006, British police arrested Hashmi at Heathrow airport as he prepared to leave for Pakistan, reportedly with a substantial amount of cash. The police had a warrant issued by the U.S. government.
After his arrest, Hashmi spent one year in Britain's Belmarsh prison, labeled "Britain's Guantanamo Bay" by human rights activists, fighting extradition to the United States. Under the terms of a treaty enacted between the U.S. and Britain after Sept. 11, 2001, the British courts extradited Hashmi to the United States on May 25, 2007. If convicted, Hashmi faces up to 70 years in prison.
The FBI and the New York Police Department collaborated on the Hashmi case. In a press release issued the day after Hashmi arrived in New York, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said, "This arrest reinforces the fact that a terrorist may have roots in Queens and still betray us. Congratulations to the New York City detectives and FBI agents who understood this and kept Hashmi on our radar."
"If we are engaged in a war against terror -- and we most certainly are -- then Syed Hashmi aided the enemy by supplying military gear to al Qaeda," FBI Assistant Director Mark J. Mershon said in the release.
Hashmi denies that he was part of any plot to help al-Qaida. In a motion to dismiss the indictment, Hashmi's lawyer wrote, "Permitting a short-time visitor to keep possession of their own suitcase containing ordinary clothing items would not place a person of ordinary intelligence on notice that he or she could be 'providing' 'material' support or resources to a terrorist organization."

The Babar Connection

Babar forms the "centerpiece" of the case against Hashmi. He is expected to testify against Hashmi and under a plea deal, to receive a reduced sentence in return for his cooperation.
Babar went to Pakistan shortly following the U.S. led invasion of Afghanistan. The Joint Terrorism Task Force began investigating Babar after a filmed interview in which he told a Canadian reporter, in November 2001: "Yes, I'm willing to kill the American soldiers if they enter into Afghanistan with their ground troops."
In 2004, soon after he returned from Pakistan, Babar was arrested in Queens by a police sergeant, a detective and two agents, from the FBI-NYPD Joint Terrorist Task Force on his way to a taxi-driving school. He pleaded guilty to five counts of providing, and conspiring to provide, money and supplies to al-Qaida.
Babar has testified for the government in numerous other terrorism-related cases. In various news accounts, Babar is reported to have conspired in attempts to kill then Pakistani President Pervez Musharaff and said that he would have faced the death penalty in Pakistan if he had not agreed to collaborate with the FBI. According to news reports, Babar's family has entered into the witness protection program.
Hashmi and Babar were both featured in the New York police report, which was released after their arrests. Kelly wrote that the report, aimed at helping policymakers and law enforcement officials counter terrorism, describes how seemingly "unremarkable" individuals, such as Hashmi and Babar, apparently fell victim to radicalization. Muslim American groups criticized the report for casting too wide a net and viewing all Muslims as potential terrorists.
The police departments quietly added a statement of clarification in 2009, which said that the report "should not be read to characterize Muslims as intrinsically dangerous or intrinsically linked to terrorism" and "was not policy prescriptive." The portions on Hashmi and Babar, however, remained unchanged.

Out of Flushing

Hashmi's family emigrated from Pakistan and settled in Flushing, Queens when he was three. His father worked for the city as an accountant, and his mother was a housewife. Hashmi graduated from Brooklyn College in 2003 with a degree in political science. He wrote his senior seminar paper on the treatment of Muslim groups in the United States, highlighting what he saw as violations of many groups' civil rights and liberties.
Faisal Hashmi, his older brother, says that Fahad believed that many Muslims around the world were being oppressed and used to organize rallies around Muslim issues.
"What I always saw Fahad doing was reaching out to students of other ethnic backgrounds, and certainly other political beliefs. One of the sad things about this is that it's precisely those qualities that are now bringing Fahad under suspicion," Corey Robin, a former professor of Hashmi’s said in a short documentary film about Hashmi that can be seen on the Free Fahad website.
Hashmi then went to England and received a master's degree in international relations from London Metropolitan University in 2006.
At some point, Hashmi became affiliated with a group called Al-Muhajiroun (The Emigrants). The group, which has reportedly disbanded, was banned by the British government in January 2010. Al-Muhajiroun, which was never outlawed here reportedly held meetings and study sessions in a mosque in Jackson Heights, Queens.
The group aimed to spread Islam and establish an Islamic Caliphate. Some of its leaders in Britain are infamously remembered for a conference at which the Sept. 11 hijackers were hailed as the "Magnificent 19." While at an Al-Muhajiroun meeting at Brooklyn College in 2002, Hashmi said, according to CNN, "America is directly involved in exterminating Muslims. America is the biggest terrorist in the world."
Babar also was a member of the group.
Supporters of Hashmi say that affiliations, words and beliefs are constitutionally protected. In a court hearing, Hashmi's lawyer, Sean Maher, said Al-Muhajiroun did not engage in any criminal military behavior but gave out flyers, attended demonstrations and engaged people in debate about Islam.
"Are we a society that allows political discourse, or are we a society that is going to say if you say something outside of the spectrum of accepted speech, that you therefore have criminal intent," Maher told the court.

Locked Away

In explaining their decision to keep Hashmi in solitary confinement, even though he has not been convicted of any crime, law enforcement officials cite his involvement with Al-Muhajiroun, as well as the charges linking him to al-Qaida. The government also says that the Special Administrative Measures are necessary due to Hashmi’s "proclivity to violence." According to court documents, upon his arrest in London, Hashmi allegedly said that U.S. and British soldiers were going to be killed and that the arresting officers would "pay" for what they were doing to him. Hashmi has denied making these comments.
As of February 2009, according to an article in the New York Times, 46 federal inmates were being held under Special Administrative Measures and of those, 30 faced terrorism related charges. The Times article quoted a Justice Department spokesperson who said that six of the 46 were being held prior to trial, four of them on terrorism charges.
Although originally created in 1996, Special Administrative Measures were strengthened after the 2001 attacks. If the U.S. prison in Guantanamo is closed, experts have anticipated more terrorism suspects will be subjected to these procedures.
Oussama Kassir was kept under pre-trial SAMs before his trial in New York City in May 2009, where he was convicted of trying to help al-Qaida recruit members. The measures also have also been ordered on mobsters like Frank Calabrese, who was convicted of taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that included the murders of 18 people.
Hashmi has been under Special Administration Measures since Oct. 29, 2007 when they were put into effect by then Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Since then, they have been renewed by current Attorney General Eric Holder.

'Shoe of the Shoe'

In a court hearing, Hashmi's lawyer said that a lieutenant from Metropolitan Correctional Center referred to the unit where Hashmi is held as "the shoe of the shoe," the place where inmates who get into trouble while staying with the general prison population are sent. As part of the restrictive measures, he is under 24-hour surveillance -- even when on the toilet or while he showers. He can exercise for only one hour a day in what his lawyer describes as a cage. He may not speak out loud and is not allowed to talk to other prisoners at any time. He may write one letter a week of no more than three pages to a family member and can read selected newspaper articles that are at least 30 days old.
Hashmi can meet only one immediate family member every two weeks and a glass wall divides them, but even this is subject to revocation based on his behavior, or, as Faisal Hashmi, his older brother, says, "bureaucratic hang ups." Faisal says that his parents have been denied opportunities to visit their son for about a third of all of their allowed visits, one reason being that the government did not schedule interpreters for all the visits properly. In 2008, all of Hashmi's visits were suspended for three months when prison officials accused him of practicing martial arts. The "Slave of Allah," as Hashmi referred to himself in the incident report, said that he was merely exercising.
Over 500 academics including Henry Louis Gates and Noam Chomsky have signed a petition in Hashmi's support, urging the government to lift SAMS, which they deem are "draconian." In an affidavit regarding the likely effects of prolonged isolated confinement for Hashmi, Terry Kuper, a professor in the Graduate School of Psychology of the Wright Institute in Berkeley stated that prisoners isolated in this way tend to exhibit symptoms of "cognitive impairment, memory problems, an inability to concentrate, mounting rage, increasing paranoia and massive free floating anxiety. … Prolonged isolated confinement quite often and predictably results in a significant degree of incompetence to stand trial, whether or not the prisoner's mental state deteriorates to the point where he or she exhibits chronic serious mental illness."
In a posting on Truthdig, former New York Times reporter Chris Hedges wrote, "The extreme sensory deprivation used on Hashmi is a form of psychological torture, far more effective in breaking and disorienting detainees. It is torture as science."
Hashmi's lawyers have made 30 appeals related to his treatment under the Special Administrative Measures, with each one being rejected. Joshua Dratel, who has represented three defendants held under the measures, told the New York Times last year that the Southern District of New York applies the measures "reflexively" and judges seem reluctant to challenge them.
The Southern District Court has ruled that the restrictions do not infringe upon Hashmi's constitutional rights.
As the trial date approaches, the Muslim Justice Initiative hopes to get 500 Hashmi supporters to show up at the federal courthouse on Pearl Street. "The level playing field was lost a long time ago due to the actions of the government. We are trying to salvage justice," said Faisal Hashmi

Gotham Gazette

2010-05-10T10:16:00.000-07:00

Gotham Gazette - http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/immigrants/20100129/11/3168

Haitian's Case Focuses Attention on Deportations
by Farah Akbar
29 Jan 2010

Photo (cc) CC BY-NC 2.0

Protestors rally in support of Jean Montrevil and against deportations.

The campaign to free community activist Jean Montrevil, a native of Haiti, began on Dec. 30, 2009, the day he was taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody during a routine check in and placed in the York County Prison in Pennsylvania. His detention sparked outrage among his supporters, resulting in the arrest of 19 people at a rally held to show solidarity with Montrevil and to protest what they deem are unfair immigration practices.
"These immigration laws destroy families and contradict the values we should uphold as a society," said Reverend Donna Schaper of Judson Memorial Church where Montrevil’s family worships. Schaper was among the 19 arrested. Montrevil's plight also caught the attention of several local politicians including U.S. Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Nydia Velasquez.
For now, though, Montrevil is free. On Jan. 23, after the government decided to halt all deportations to Haiti because of the earthquake there, he was released from the detention center.
His reprieve may be only temporary. And meanwhile, thousands of other immigrants still face deportation. As a result of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act signed in 1996 by President Bill Clinton, many immigrants have either been deported or face the threat of deportation. The act, which was retroactive, added a number of new crimes to the list of deportable offenses, which originally included only serious crimes such as murder and drug trafficking.

A Rise in Deportations

From Oct. 1, 2008 through June 30, 2009, ICE deported or returned more than 271,200 aliens, a more than 18 percent increase than that of the same time period in the previous year. In 2008, ICE issued 168,800 charging documents to formally begin proceedings to remove criminal aliens from the United States.
Immigration advocates have protested these actions, arguing that deporting someone who has already been punished with imprisonment is unfair, particularly when the person has turned his or her life around. Angad Bhalla, an organizer with the New Sanctuary Coalition, which opposes deportations, echoed the sentiments expressed by many supporting Montrevil and others facing deportation: "He served his time. He has reformed himself. Our priorities are out of whack if we feel that those are the people to deport."
"Jean put a face on this issue," said Bhalla, who has known Montrevil for three years. He praised Montrevil for sharing his story with the public. "For some, the only chance for people to stay with their families is to hide," he said. "It’s rare that people will talk about what they’re going through."
Bhalla is particularly critical of the effect immigration laws have on children. "What gain is there in making orphans out of children and breaking up families?" he asked.
In a letter written before his release, Montrevil said that he saw his children's future as "bleak and very fragile." "We make promises to be there for them, to protect them and cherish them, I may not be able to do that for my babies," he said.
Supporters of the laws, though, say the country needs to control who can stay here. " There are more people that want to come here than there are openings," said Bob Dane of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. "You got to keep your nose clean if you want to stay here."
As for Montrevil, Dane said, "He tossed his chance away. … He used a slot that someone else could have used and what did he do? He spent his time in jail."
John Vinson of the American Immigration Control Foundation said that, while Montrevil might have deserved his reprieve, the deportation procedures are necessary. "We can show compassion in some cases, but if we don't enforce the law for the most part, we're courting chaos," Vinson said.

A Costly Mistake

Montrevil's problems date back to a fateful decision made over 20 years ago. Montrevil, who legally arrived in Brooklyn as a teenager in 1986, was arrested for selling cocaine, an aggravated felony, in Virginia in 1989 and served 11 years in. While Montrevil was incarcerated, the Immigration and Naturalization Service initiated deportation proceedings against him, and in 1994, he was ordered deported.
They never followed up on that though, and in 2000, Montrevil left prison under supervised parole. Five years later, though, during a routine check-in at his parole office in Brooklyn, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, officials took Montrevil into custody and he spent over six months in detention facilities.
At the time, Haiti was deemed politically unstable and as a result, Montrevil was not repatriated. Instead, he was released and ordered to appear at ICE headquarters once per month. Montrevil started his family, marrying a teacher. He also established a van service, became active in his church and co-founded the New Sanctuary Coalition. All that, though, seemed to be in jeopardy when he was detained last month.
Trinidadian immigrant Ravi Ragbir also is fighting deportation. He said he believes the current immigration laws reflect a "just get rid of them attitude."
"They are inhumane. They are oppressive. I hate them," he said.
Ragbir, who arrived in the United States 20 years ago was charged and convicted of fraud and served two and a half years at a federal prison -- charges Ragbir denies. He also served two years at various detention centers within regular penitentiaries. Though detained for immigration matters, Ragbir says that he had to follow the same rules other prisoners, including violent offenders, followed.
Ragbir, who now lives with his daughter and his former wife, said his experience "emotionally traumatized" his daughter who saw him in shackles during a court proceeding. "She didn’t want to touch me. It was traumatic for her and myself," he said. "I told her mom not to come back and see me. 'Don't bring her. It's better that she doesn't see me through this process.'"
Ragbir is "certain" that he suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and attributes this to his time spent in detention centers as well as to the unsettling feeling of not knowing what his fate is. "How can I build there, when there is nothing there?" he says about the possibility of having to resettle in Trinidad. He says that moving to Trinidad would be particularly hard on his daughter, whom he describes as an American.

Twist of Fate

For his part, Montrevil reflects on the strange turn his case has taken. At the celebration service at the Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square, Montrevil said he was scheduled to depart for Haiti on Jan. 6. However, the flight was canceled when another Haitian scheduled to be on the plane came down with the swine flu and dozens, including Montrevil, were quarantined for seven days.
Then the earthquake hit. "I couldn't believe it. I was thinking how I could have been down there, I could have passed away. There are 111,000 people dead, 2 million people homeless, and they say there are still many people trapped under building debris. I kept thinking, I was supposed to be there on Jan. 6," he said.
Montrevil still is not sure he will be allowed to remain in the United States. Even though Janet Napolitano, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, granted Temporary Protected Status to eligible Haitian nationals, giving them an 18-month time period to live and work in the United States, Montrevil will not qualify because of his felony conviction. He has instead applied for "deferred action" with ICE for the past three years, which would, in effect, have his case put in the bottom of the stack, so his pending deportation orders would not be immediately enforced. ICE has not agreed to his request.

Gotham Gazette - http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/immigrants/20100129/11/3168

Gotham Gazette

2010-05-10T10:14:00.000-07:00

Gotham Gazette - http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/civilrights/20100104/3/3139

City's Muslims Report Harassment by Police
by Farah Akbar
04 Jan 2010

Photo (cc) threecee

Coming from a family with members who work in law enforcement, Yasmin Nasser used to look at police officers as honest, upstanding and there to protect all members of society. Today, though, Nasser said, she feels uneasy when she walks by cops and, for a brief period, tried staying away from them altogether.
The 20-year-old American citizen who resides in Saudi Arabia had come to New York City to visit family. Her trust in New York City's finest eroded the day she claims a police officer pulled her by the arm, told her to leave Rockefeller Center, where she had gone to see the Christmas tree, and called her a "terrorist." She was asked to provide identification to the officer, was subsequently accused of having phony identification and allegedly told, "Leave you terrorist, you shouldn't be here."
"It's so hard for me to believe that a cop could do this," said the Muslim woman who covers her head with the traditional headscarf (hijab) worn by some women who follow the Islamic faith. "I couldn’t get over it. I was in shock," she said.
Nasser has reported the matter to the Council of American Islamic Relations and plans on filing a report with the city Civilian Complaint Review Boardonce she returns to Saudi Arabia. She fears that making a complaint prior to her departure could disrupt her travel plans.
Advocates say that Nasser's story is not an isolated incident. Monami Maulik, executive director of Desis Rising Up And Moving (DRUM), an immigrants' rights organization in Jackson Heights, said that she has heard many similar stories. Several other organizations say police harassment of Muslims is a genuine problem.

Encounters with Police

The Council of American Islamic Relations analyzed civil rights cases in 2008 by circumstances of occurrence. The group found encounters with police ranked sixth, following schools and prison. "Underreporting of hate crimes and police misconduct cases remains a real issue with American Muslims," said the council's New York civil rights director Aliya Latif.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, law enforcement officials have worked on building a cooperative relationship with the American Muslim community in an effort to obtain valuable information related to terrorism and safety issues. Muslim groups worry that allegations of misconduct by law enforcement damage the fragile ties between the two groups. "We are concerned that incidents like these further alienate community members and contribute to an atmosphere of mistrust with law enforcement authorities," Latif said.
Edina Lekovic, communications director for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, agrees. "The evidence of any problem with law enforcement undermines any cooperation they may seek from Muslims," she said. "Even if there is a perception of harassment, it very naturally leads individuals to be cautious and reluctant to seek help from law enforcement, let alone report any suspicious activity."
A police officer, though, may see the situation differently. "Police officers may not always realize how they have come across to a civilian," said Graham Daw, a spokesperson for the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the all-civilian board that investigates civil complaints about alleged misconduct on the part of the New York City Police Department. "Civilians are not always aware of the pressures under which police officers work or the powers with which they are vested in order to do their job."
The New York City Police Department was contacted numerous times to comment on this issue but did not respond.
According to DRUM, many Muslims have complained about being randomly approached by members of law enforcement in their own neighborhoods and apartment buildings and being asked about their whereabouts and about what they did for a living.
Maulik said that her organization has received hundreds of accounts of cases regarding police misconduct since Sept. 11, many from blue-collar workers such as street vendors and taxi drivers. She also hears stories from youth.

Slurs and Questions

In 2006, DRUM and the Urban Justice Center Community Development Project surveyed 662 South Asian youths living in Queens, most of them Bangladeshi and Pakistani Muslims, about the impact of school safety policies on them. The report revealed that nearly a third of the youths reported having seen harassment by police officers or experienced harassment. The study defined harassment to include "verbal abuse or harassment such as racial slurs and names, yelling and cursing; physical abuse or harassment, including physical harm, grabbing, pushing, forcing to do something the person does not want to do; and intimidation, including asking for identification or calling over for no reason, threatening to report person or their family to immigration and bullying."
"Since 9/11, there are a lot more security agents and police," said one young person. "They treat us differently."
"There is more hatred against South Asians [post 9/11]. The police pay more attention to you; they think you are suspicious. They wait for you to screw up," said another.
DRUM received a report on one incident in which a teenage girl who wore a hijab on the streets of Times Square was allegedly asked by a police officer if she was a terrorist.
Ayesha Mahmooda, who works with DRUM, spoke to at least 100 South Asian families in Flushing during an outreach effort and found many reported experiencing harassment by law enforcement. She said that many South Asians described feeling scared while being questioned by officers. She mentioned the case of a Muslim man who was questioned by law enforcement officials inside his own apartment. They asked him numerous personal questions, such as where he was born, what his immigration status was and if he smelled anything funny in his building, an apparent reference to possible bomb-making activities.
An alarmed South Asian woman asking Mahmooda why her husband was stopped and questioned by law enforcement on his way home from working the late shift. "I told her that it was because of the color of his skin, he is not white. He is a person of color," Mahmooda said.

A Reluctance to Protest

Those questioned are often afraid to protest, according to DRUM. Latif of CAIR, though, urges Muslims to exercise their right to have a lawyer present if questioned by the FBI or police. "Refusing to answer questions without an attorney present cannot be held against you and does not imply that you have something to hide," she said.
Few Muslims take their cases to the Civilian Complaint Review Board. Of the 14 allegations of offensive language based on religion reported to the board in 2008, only two involved Muslims or Islam, and the board was unable to conduct a full investigation in either case. One complaint was withdrawn by the complainant, and the complainant in the other case did not respond to requests to be interviewed by board.
"100 percent of the cases that we've ever gotten, no one has ever called the CCRB," says Maulik. "We really don't have faith in the CCRB. It is not a mechanism that has worked for many years in New York, so for the most part, Muslim immigrants don't call the CCRB and file complaints.
People do not think the board will hold police accountable for harassment or profiling, she said adding that Muslims who are undocumented immigrants are particularly hesitant to report any instances of misconduct to the complaint board. Instead, she said, they live their lives in fear.
Daw said the board would be glad to make a presentation to the Muslim community to educate them about its work, but Monami has no plans of reaching out to them. She has been working on a project to create a formal complaint process with CUNY School of Law.
Lekovic of the Muslim Public Affairs Council encourages Muslims to report all instances of misconduct to whomever they feel comfortable with, whether it be to Muslim organizations or city agencies . "Without individuals sharing their experiences, we do not have leverage to make change," she said.
Meanwhile, Yasmin Nasser thinks about what happened to her on her most recent visit to New York. "People in Saudi Arabia ask if people discriminate in New York City, and I always say 'people are nice,'" said Yasmin Nasser. When she lands in Saudi Arabia this time, though, she may offer a different answer.

Gotham Gazette - http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/civilrights/20100104/3/3139

Gotham Gazette

2010-05-09T21:16:00.000-07:00

Gotham Gazette - http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/civilrights/20100301/3/3197

Brooklyn Community Splits Sharply Over Proposed Mosque
by Farah Akbar
01 Mar 2010

Jim Henderson

Mosque in Flushing

"Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar," yelled Mayor Ed Koch in Arabic on an exciting day for New York’s Muslim community in 1987. With his shout (which means "God is great") Koch was present to celebrate the construction of the first mosque in New York City built from the ground up -- theIslamic Cultural Center of New York on Riverside Drive.
Back then, the only significant obstacle to the mosque's creation were funding problems, changing plans and internal feuding, all of which were eventually resolved.
Much, though, has changed in the past two decades. Now challenges to new mosques in New York City have grown to include some fresh problems, as the proponents of a new mosque in Sheepshead Bay have learned.
The proposed mosque, which does not yet have a name, has received the criticism that faces any establishment that tries to plant itself in a residential neighborhood: worries about parking problems, noise and the effect on property values. In the diverse waterfront Brooklyn community, the proposal to build a mosque also has become ensnared in allegations of bigotry on both sides, concerns about terrorism and debates about the Middle East. While the dispute there is the most heated in the city so far, it comes at a time when some other mosques in the metropolitan area have received increased scrutiny.

Creating Mosques

There are over 140 mosques in New York City alone, and since Sept. 2001, attitudes toward mosque building in New York City and Long Island have been mixed. In 2008, Temple Israel of Jamaica, then located in Holliswood, Queens, peacefully became the Bait-Uz-Zafar mosque. Due to a decrease in the number of conservative and reform Jewish congregations, the synagogue shifted hands with local Muslims of the Ahmadiyya sect to accommodate their growing numbers. Clergy members from several religious groups along with local politicians held a ceremony to mark the transformation from Jewish temple to Muslim mosque.
The Long Island Muslim Society, located in the quiet, suburban town of East Meadow, was at the center of attention in 2002 when it wanted to convert two homes that it used as its headquarters into a traditional mosque and school. The construction plans drew protests from some residents who complained about increased traffic and parking problems. The mosque received a permit to build the structure in 2007 after a long struggle.
The Parkchester Jame Masjid in 2009 became the first mosque in the Bronx to ask permission to use electronic amplification to perform the Muslim call to prayer, the "adhan." The adhan, which lasts for less than two minutes, is supposed to sound five times a day to call worshippers to pray, but mosque officials agreed to request permission to air the adhan only four times a day, skipping the early morning call. The mosque rescinded its request for the permit back in November when mosque leaders flew to Mecca to make the hajj pilgrimage but are once again seeking permission for its use.
The Cordoba Institute has purchased an abandoned building two blocks away from Ground Zero and plans to turn it into an Islamic center. Formerly leased to the Burlington Coat Factory, the building now used to accommodate the overflow of worshippers from Al-Farah mosque in Tribeca,. According to an article in the New York Times, Mayor Bloomberg’s spokesperson Andrew Brent has said, "If it's legal, the building owners have a right to do what they want."
Not everyone agrees. Some opponents of the mosque have started a website called No Mosques at Ground Zero. It demands that Bloomberg "honor those murdered on Sept. 11, 2001 by not permitting a mosque to be built on Ground Zero." The creators of the website did not answer requests to be interviewed for this story.
Some elected officials are not shy about expressing their own negative views of Muslims and mosques. In 2007, Republican Rep. Peter King of Long Island said in an interview with Politico.com, "We have, unfortunately, too many mosques in this country. I'm aware of ones in New York. To me, they certainly raise suspicion, they should be looked at carefully." On another occasion, he referred to Muslims as "an enemy living amongst us."
And Koch, who appeared to have given his blessings for the construction of the Islamic Cultural Center 23 years ago, recently said on Neil Cavuto's show on Fox News that "hundreds of millions of Muslims are terrorists."

A Divided Community

New York City is home to over 600,000 Muslims, according to a study by Columbia University. The Association of Religion Data Archives found, that, as of the year 2000, there were nearly 58,000 Muslims living in Brooklyn, many of whom live in Bay Ridge, Coney Island and near the western part of Atlantic Avenue. There are over 28 mosques in Brooklyn alone.
The vacant lot on 2812 Voorhies Ave, has been purchased by Allowey Ahmed, a Yemeni-American who has lived in Brooklyn for over 40 years, in partnership, with the Muslim American Society. The new mosque will be four stories high and will house a community center as well as classrooms.
When Ahmed submitted plans for the mosque’s construction to the Department of Buildings in July 2009, it called for a minaret. His proposal was rejected but he submitted a second plan, and is now proceeding with construction of the mosque without the minaret. In an article on Sheepsheadbites.com, Ken Lazar, the Department of Building's community affairs liaison, said that religious institutions may build "as of right" so long as they fit in with zoning regulations.
The Muslim American Society has accused some residents of bigotry against Muslims.
A group called The Bay People has distributed leaflets urging people to "Say NO to mosque at 2812 Voorhies Avenue." A petition against the mosque's construction has made its way onto the Internet. The petition charges that the Muslim American Society has associations with organizations and individuals that espouse anti-Semitic views, and that it supports terrorist groups, encourages suicide bombings and rejects Israel’s right to exist. So far, 293 people have signed the petition.
In particular, critics have targeted Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation and an outspoken critic of Israeli policies.
The Muslim American Society denies it has ties to terrorists or anti-Semites. Theresa Scavo, chair of Community Board 15, has called the creators of the flier ignorant people who understand neither the spirit nor the letter of American law guaranteeing freedom of religion.
At a January civic association meeting, Scavo reportedly said that those opposed to the mosque might have a better chance if they stuck to issues such as parking and traffic. "If you want to succeed, do not use the word mosque. Do not use the word Muslim. Request the traffic reports. Go take photos of the double parking at the other mosques during calls to prayer. Have [the opponent] done that? No. Because they’re lazy. You can’t just go with your mouth. You need paper,” she said.
The City Councilmember from the area , Lewis Fidler, has defended the mosque, saying "To make a decision that because this is a mosque and for no other reason that this will be a haven for hate or terror is over the top."

Neighbor vs. Neighbor

At a recent Community Board meeting, Sheepshead Bay residents -- including some who support the mosque and others who oppose it -- packed a large room at Kingsborough Community College. Though discussion of the mosque was not on the meeting’s agenda, the board allowed concerned residents to speak.
One Muslim man said at the community board meeting that the Muslims of Sheepshead Bay do not have a place of worship within walking distance and thus have to travel to worship. "I am sorry to hear what our neighbors are saying, it really hurt. We would like to worship God the same way like everyone else does, according to their own concept of God. This should not be too much to ask in these United States of America."
A resident named Stephanie who called herself a “Sweda-Rican” spoke against the mosque, eliciting several rounds of applause from the audience. "What troubled me most about this was portraying people who don’t think this mosque is a good idea as racist. I am not a racist."
"We have a good reason for our concern. It is simply rational fear. We must be honest," the woman said.
Mohammed Razvi, a Pakistani who founded of the Council of Peoples Organization and is co-founder of the We Are All Brooklyn coalition, urged all residents of the neighborhood to unite. "We should all come together to address those concerns. It's everyone's community," he said to the crowd calmly. "Brooklyn is an example of how peace can be achieved throughout the state, throughout the world. Please uphold that"

Fear Factor?

"My neighborhood will die," complains Greg Kalman in a thick Russian accent.
Kalman represents The Bay People. He said he is concerned about a decrease in parking in the area and thinks that property values will drop because if the mosque opens and result in an exodus of homeowners out of Sheepshead Bay.
In a telephone interview, Kalman said that he was frightened that tenets of radical Islam will be taught in the mosque. Kalman, who is Jewish, immigrated to the United States from Azerbaijan, a Muslim country in Central Asia carved out of the Soviet Union. Though he says he never had any problems with his Muslim neighbors in his home country or in Sheepshead Bay, he is still wary. "I put a menorah on my window during Hanukkah," he said. "I don't know if someone will come in and break my window."
"I am not a racist," he insisted. "I don’t think that the majority of Muslims are radicalized, but there is the possibility that a small percentage can become radicalized. People are afraid."
He also accused the Muslim community of Sheepshead Bay of being too insular. "I talk to the Italians, the Russians, but the Muslims don’t talk to anybody," he said.
To bolster his charge that the mosque backs the Palestinian group Hamas, Kalman cites a 2000 video of Mahdi Bray attending a demonstration in Lafayette Park in Washington D.C. In the clip, Bray nods and raises his hand as the speaker asks the audience whether anyone is a supporter of Hamas, which governs Gaza. The U.S. government classifies Hamas as a terrorist organization, but some nations, including the United Kingdom and Australia, only consider Hamas' military wing as a terrorist organization.
An outspoken critic of American foreign policy in the Middle East, Bray denies that he harbors any prejudice against Jews and said his work with interfaith organizations is testament to this, "I reject the idea that criticism of Israel makes you an anti-Semite," he said.
Bray also disputes a statement on the online petition saying that the Muslim American Society "has a troubling history of associations with radical organizations and individuals that promote terrorism." He said that the society has developed youth programs to steer youngsters away from the path of religious radicalism.
While Bray urged mosque officials to try to address all the concerns of the community and accommodate their needs, he thinks that complaints about parking, noise and property values are "pretexts" for simply not wanting a mosque. "Those are not the major issues," he said.
An online petition in favor of the proposed mosque has made its appearance on the Internet as well. That petition has so far gathered 583 signatures of support.
"We are the new kids on the block," Bray said of Muslim Americans. "We are going to build this mosque and we don't have to apologize for anything. Let the bigots scream."

Gotham Gazette - http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/civilrights/20100301/3/3197

Al-Ahram Weekly

2010-05-09T21:05:00.000-07:00

Learning to burn

2003

Farah Akbar attends the Oscars of belly-dance

Old dance traditions: Laila Haddad dancing in Cairo

Down the road from the Pyramids and inside a large ballroom, about 70 women from around the world including the US, Sweden and Japan -- most of them wearing hip scarves with dangling coins, midriff baring tops and baggy Aladdin type pants -- dutifully mimic the dance moves of their instructors, who are known to be Egypt's best Oriental dance teachers. Some students take time to bend over and busily take notes on the dance steps. "This is everything I thought it would be," says Dondi Dahlin blissfully. "Belly-dance is my heart, my soul, my whole life."

Dazzled by Oriental dance, 250 women, professional belly-dancers and amateurs alike, gathered at the elegant Mena House Oberoi to attend the Ahlan wa Sahlan Oriental dance festival held last month. The festival consisted of a series of workshops taught by some of Egypt's most well known Oriental dancers including belly-dance stars Dina and Nagwa Fouad. Disappointed that belly-dance festivals were held regularly in many parts of the world but not in Egypt, the birthplace of the dance, festival organiser and former member of Egypt's Reda Folkloric Dance Troupe Raqia Hassan created the event four years ago.

A participant from the United States who goes by the stage name Princess Turrini, 27, and sports flowing blond hair and a red bindi on her forehead, said, "This is like the Oscars for films, only this is for belly-dance."

This year's festival came shortly after the bombings in Morocco and Saudi Arabia and Hassan suggests that attendance would have been much higher had it not been for those events. "This was a real problem," she says, "but I'm still happy with the turnout."

Turrini, who is a professional belly- dancer and teaches the art to children in Miami, Florida, remembers how she first became acquainted with the dance. Her father had worked for the Egyptian government as an engineer and would often tell her stories about Arab culture when he came back to the United States. "My dad gave me a copy of the 1001 Nights when I was seven, and since then I had wanted to be a dancer," she says.

After studying the dance for several years, Turrini went professional, and has performed in numerous venues around the United States and in Morocco. Her participation in the festival marked the first time she performed in Egypt. "This is the place to be to learn," she says, having spent about $2,000 for the trip. "In America it's all about technique, but over here, you learn to dance from the inside," she says.

Jackie Lalita, 25, from the United States agrees. "Egyptians have this fire. We get the true Egyptian feeling of the dance, it's amazing," she says, while watching the dancer Dandash perform during the opening gala. Lalita thinks that the West focusses more on the sexual dimension of the dance when the art form is actually one that emphasises expressing emotions.

"When I start to shimmy, after three minutes, I let go from the inside," says Maki Watanabe, 29, pointing to her chest for emphasis, "and I forget about everything, good and bad." From Japan, Watanabe was attending the festival for the third time. "When I first saw belly-dancing, I was shocked," says Watanabe. "How do they isolate their belly and hips?" she says looking back. After years of modern dance classes and figure-skating classes, Watanabe decided to learn belly-dancing.

Searching for an Oriental dance instructor to teach her the secrets of the dance, she travelled to Germany and the United States. A professional belly- dancer now, Watanabe says that she "cannot live without belly-dancing".

But it is a different dance that these young women are coming to learn from that performed by the great stars such as Tahiya Karyoka which came to define belly-dancing in Egypt. "Before dancers could perform for an hour to Um Kalthoum, today they only perform for five minutes," says festival organiser Hassan, pointing out that today the music is much faster, a change that was accompanied by faster steps. When asked if belly-dancing was losing it's original charm, Hassan said, "We have to keep up with the times. The steps, the costumes, everything. I don't like it when teachers stay in the past."

Edwina Nearing, a researcher of Middle Eastern dance and a folkloric dancer licensed by the Egyptian government who has taught in Cairo and in the US since 1977, says that belly-dancing has had to change in accordance with the demands of the audience. "I don't mind the changes, as long as the old things are not lost," she says. She points out that traditional belly-dancing such as done by the ghawazi, the gypsy type dancers of Upper Egypt, contain unique and dramatic dance elements not found in modern belly-dancing. She mentions a dance piece called asharat al-tabl which is rarely seen today. In it, a man has a drum hung over his shoulder and the belly-dancer leans back over it and while doing so, shimmies her hips and twirls a cane. Nearing claims that only one person, Khairiyya Mazin, who lives in Luxor knows how to perform the ghawazi style of dance and fears that when Mazin retires, the art ghawazi dance will be lost.

But for all its interest in the Egyptian tradition of belly-dance the conference was conspicuous in its lack of Egyptian participants. Only four of the participants were Egyptian. Hassan says that Egyptians think they know all there is to know about belly-dance simply because they are Arabs. "Even when they become famous, they do not train enough," she argued. And while Hassan acknowledges that some foreigners are very good, she added that "a foreigner can never be as good as an Egyptian. It's in our blood. Learning the dance is not enough."

But more than anything, Hassan wants belly-dance to be viewed as a respectable and legitimate art. She claims that some foreigners and even some Egyptians have made belly-dance too sexy, thus making its acceptance even more difficult in its home country. "I want Egyptians to respect this dance form. They love this dance, but today they give it no respect," she says. Nearing, however, still hopes that belly- dance will become a respectable art form along the banks of the Nile. "In the United States, for example, belly- dance is emerging as a new fitness trend with gyms offering classes in the dance form while belly-dance workout videos now sit alongside traditional aerobics videos at stores," says Nearing who added that abroad people study belly-dance as an art form and some go as far as attending lectures about the dance. "I think that foreign opinion is an important element in keeping Egyptian dance alive," she added.

"Besides," as Lalita put it, "how can you watch belly-dancing and not love it?"

Al-Ahram Weekly

2010-05-09T21:02:00.000-07:00

Printed in 2003

Humanity, through animal care

In a city where life as an animal can be rough, organisations and individuals take on the burden of caring for beasts

Click to view caption

Cairo is now home to a growing number of independently-run animal shelters

In Midan Ataba a shorthaired, homeless white dog had been laying motionless underneath a car for about 24 hours. She lingered in the pain of broken forelegs and an injured spine. The dog had been hit by a microbus and one witness said that someone dragged her by the tail away from the thoroughfare so the pathetic sight of her body would not disrupt the flow of traffic, Farah Akbar investigates.

Amidst the commotion of city life in Cairo, people often forget about the stray animals that wander the streets, some of which are thrown out of their homes by owners who decide that they no longer want to keep a pet. Some of us also fail to reprimand the owners of working animals who overwork and beat their beasts. Hectic lives, which often include unrelenting and unrewarding work, are reason enough for most of us not to bother caring for animals. Thus the helpless creatures continue to suffer despite the Qur'an and the Hadith (the sayings of the Prophet) which mention the necessity of respecting animals. Egyptian law also stipulates fines and punishments for hurting animals; for example, the law requires that anyone who purposely kills or harshly beats any domesticated animal may be jailed or fined. Such religious and legal obligations are rarely observed or enforced and so it falls upon private organisations and individuals to provide for the care of wayward or abused animals.

The Egyptian branch of the international Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is the oldest animal protection group in Egypt. It was established here over a century ago by British expatriates, though it is currently completely administered by Egyptians. In 1997, the Society successfully contributed to a ban on bullfighting, on the grounds that the sport is brutal and barbarous to animals, as well as in response to a fatwa given by Dr Nasr Farid Wassel, the former mufti of the republic, which declared that the game was un-Islamic. Promoting legal protection is not the only part of the Society's mandate, which includes sheltering animals.

According to Dr Ahmed Samir Salem, the head of the Egyptian branch of the Society, the Society's shelter in Sharabiya currently protects 32 animals, mostly donkeys, out of a total capacity of 150 animals. Salem says that many of the animals are picked up and brought in by government authorities on charges of cruelty before being returned to their owners, who are fined. Selem mentioned that the yearly budget of the shelter, quoted as 17,000 Egyptian pounds, is insufficient. With the Society's sheltering resources thus strained, three compassionate individuals have organised animal care programmes.

In Giza on Sakkara Road stands the only dog shelter in Cairo. Amina Abaza and her husband Raouf Miskriki founded this dog haven three years ago. Known as SPARE, The Society for the Protection of Animal Rights in Egypt, the shelter currently holds 32 dogs and is soon to open a cattery. It is run by a mixed paid and volunteer staff; financing comes through a boarding programme that cares for animals while their owners are away, as well as through the personal incomes of Abaza and her partners.

Abaza often distributes Hadith booklets that contain animal-friendly sayings to strangers. Her employment of these religious traditions in promoting care for dogs is evident in the story of Zuzu, a dog under Abaza's care.

Zuzu was found by a woman who saw a man beating the then pup with an iron rod in the Cairo district of Boulak. "A vicious man!" claimed Abaza, sweat trickling down from her face as she told the story and cared for her animals in the intense heat. The man was the owner of a textile shop and apparently did not appreciate the pup standing on the road in front of his store. After caring for the battered pup she returned to that same textile shop to confront the man. "Why did you hit this dog?" she remembered saying to him. "You are such a big man, this is haram!" she told him, suggesting that his behaviour was un-Islamic. She recalled the shocked expression on the man's face at her outburst and handed him a book of Hadith exhorting Muslims to be kind to animals.

She believes that religion is a powerful way of convincing the public about her cause. She refutes the often-voiced notions that dogs are unclean animals in Islam through citation of sayings in herHadith booklets in which the Prophet Mohamed stressed kind treatment of all animals.

All her animals are 'fixed' and she is in disagreement with the idea that spaying and neutering animals is against Islam, claiming that this act is merciful and prevents suffering.

Barbara Daber opened up her own cat shelter named Animal Friends in Maadi in 2001. The shelter currently holds 57 cats and she is proud to say that last year she had 300 animals adopted into good homes.

Daber says that she has had requests from people to have their cats "married", the owners believing that this will make their cats happier. When she asks them what they will do with the offspring of these feline matrimonies they often have no answer. She thus lamented that people often let their cats go when they become pregnant.

Daber says that she frequently hears comments about why she bothers helping animals instead of using that time and energy on human causes. "When they ask me this I ask them what is it that you have done to help people or animals? They are often silent," she said. She believes that if we treat small creatures with respect, then human beings will respect each other more.

Another animal rescuer, Suzy Tawfik, of Greek and Egyptian descent, used to rescue stray dogs and cats from the street and board them in her parent's home until she found suitable residences for them. When the situation became more than she and her family could cope with, Tawfik and her friend Sandra Gizis decided to open up an animal shelter. The Cairo Animal Inn in Old Maadi is the result of their endeavours. Inside the Inn, Liz, a crippled dog, greets each of us affectionately. Tawfik knows that the probability of Liz ever finding a home is slim, but she is willing to care for Liz even if no one ever adopts her. Not all recipients of Tawfik's aid are as amicable as Liz, however. She has been bitten about 20 times while trying to save dogs yet her resolve to help has not been weakened.

Tawfik has spoken at children's schools about the humane treatment of animals and says that her talks have left a positive impact on the children. She thinks that among the many lessons that a family pet can teach children are responsibility, mercy and compassion.

Dr Osama Safer Sayed, a veterinarian with the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals says that education starting from childhood is the key to changing the attitudes of people towards animals. Sayed also advocates a large spay and neutering programme which would help curb the rising population of Cairo's strays, which he estimates to be in the millions.

Abaza and volunteer members of her staff have also visited schools to discuss with children how treating animals with respect and caring for the environment work hand in hand.

Islamonline.net

2010-05-09T20:54:00.000-07:00

Little Mosque Honored for Humanizing Muslims

By Farah Akbar, Islamonline.net Correspondent

Thu. Jun. 21, 2007

Nawaz, a broadcaster, freelance writer, filmmaker and mother of four, fights stereotypes using humor.

NEW YORK — In recognition of her efforts to help paint a down-to-earth and more accurate portrayal of Islam and Muslims, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) will honor Zarqa Nawaz at their annual Media Award gala On Friday, June 29, in Los Angeles.
"Little Mosque on the Prairie is the first of its kind," Edina Likovic, MPAC's Communications Director and a member of the nomination committee, told IslamOnline.net.
"Whenever Muslims exist in media, they are seen as one-dimensional, and 9 out of 10 times they’re the bad guy," she said.
In a post 9/11 world, linking Muslims with terrorism and fundamentalism seems to be the norm rather than the exception in Western media.
Nawaz, the creator of the hit Canadian sitcom, has an unorthodox way of fighting these stereotypes: using humor.
Nawaz, a hijab-clad broadcaster, freelance writer, filmmaker and mother of four, was inspired to create the show by her own experience, having visited mosques often while growing up and getting married in one.
After moving to a small town in Canada, the 39-year-ol practicing Muslim witnessed the close ties that congregants had with one another in the local mosque.
She decided to highlight these relationships with a comedic touch.
The scene is set in the fictional prairie town of Mercy, Saskatchewan, where a small community of Muslims set up a mosque and experience life’s pleasures and tribulations.
The show, which aired in January, was one of the most talked about sitcoms drawing an audience of about 2 million views during its pilot episode.
MPAC, a public service organization, works to protect civil liberties, counter Islamophobia and build bridges between Muslims and non-Muslims.
Since 1991, it has honored artists, producers, writers and actors for their contributions to helping promote these ideals, including tolerance and diversity.
Humanizing Muslims
Many believe the hit Canadian sitcom has helped "normalize" Muslims in the eyes of the other.
"I think the show has caused people to question their assumptions about Islam," said Likovic.
"It is an opportunity to see Muslims as having the same concerns as other people, like school, relationships and family life. I think it is surprising to people because it is so normalizing."
The show portrays the interactions between conservative Muslims and those on the more liberal end.
The character Baber, a conservative Pakistani-Canadian in his fifties, is an economics professor and father of a teenage daughter.
The relationship between him and his daughter depict the struggle that many first generation children have with their parents: balancing Islamic traditions with Western culture.
On one episode, an embarrassed Baber explains to a recent convert of Islam why his daughter does not wear the hijab, saying that the wind blew it off her head.
The scene continues as the daughter exclaims "Dad, for the nine zillionth time, I’m not wearing it!"
Baber then blames teenage hormones for his daughter’s apparent lack of faith.
Then there is the young and liberal Amaar Rashid.
After having a religious epiphany, he abandons his law practice and moves to Mercy to serve as the mosque’s imam.
In one episode, Amaar is arrested at the airport under suspicion of terrorist activities, prompting him to ask officials: "What’s the charge? Flying while Muslim?"
Another episode shows the congregants arguing about the sighting of the moon to determine the start of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
Baber insists that the moon be seen with the naked eye while others suggest using more advanced methods, such as a telescope or simply checking moon sighting times on the Internet.
Likovic, the MPAC official, believes that "Little Mosque" will have the same impact on Muslims just as the long-running comedy "The Cosby Show" did with humanizing the African-American experience with the rest of America.
"The Cosby Show," which ran in the 1980’s, was one of the most successful sitcoms on television.
It depicted a stable, upper-middle class African American family, unseen on TV before.
Just as "The Cosby Show" shattered many racial stereotypes about African Americans, Likovic hopes the same will happen with stereotypes about Muslims.
"It is a groundbreaking show," says Likovic. "I hope it continues to expand."

Islamonline.net

2010-05-09T20:51:00.000-07:00

US `Eid Defies Recession

By Farah Akbar and Tanvir Raquib, IOL Correspondents

Despite the financial chill, American Muslims jam-packed the stores to shop for `eid.

NEW YORK — Abdul Khalique somehow managed to keep the tradition of hosting festive luncheons and dinners for his family and friends during this year’s `Eid Al—Fitr.
The Muslim New Yorker admits, however, it was no easy thing to do amid a severe financial chill gripping many households, including his own.
"Before we used to go to people’s homes and always give them `Eid gifts, especially the young," he told IslamOnline.net.
Abdul Khalique asserts that many Muslim Americans have felt the pain of the global recession that seems to sting a little more on the three-day `eid, which marks the end of the holy fasting month.
"For the unemployed and retired, it’s very hard for them."
But Abdul Khalique managed to throw the `Eid party which his children eagerly await every year to mingle with their many cousins and friends to celebrate Ramadan’s end.
Many Muslim families also defied the financial meltdown to bring the spirit of `Eid to their homes.
In Jackson Heights, Queens, Muslim shoppers jam-packed the shops of many supermarkets and clothing stores.
They loaded their shopping carts with an array of vegetables, exotic spices and delicious lentils in preparation for the mouth-watering meals to be served the next day for friends and family.
Though business owners could not deny that sales had dropped this year due to the recession, they did not appear shaken.
"It’s not what it was last year," said one shopkeeper busily while she attended to customers.

"But we were not expecting last year’s sales. Things are still pretty good."
The US fell into the grip of the worst economic crisis since 1930s in September after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the fourth-largest investment bank, and the financial woes of a number of Wall Street giants.
The fallout has developed into a full-fledged recession, threatening personal finances as home prices fall, retirement funds shrink and access to credit and jobs evaporate.
Charity
Despite the economic hard times, American Muslims were also keen not to let the recession woes derail their charitable giving.
During Ramadan and `Eid Al-Fitr, many are determined to donate or volunteer to help the less-fortunate, and one example to that is Kity Khundkar and Mian Akbar’s charity project for which they held a fundraiser and an iftar party in their New York home.
“We know that people are more giving during Ramadan,” says Khundkar, who sponsors along with her husband a non-profit hospital in Bangladesh that offers eye-sight restoration surgery to impoverished individuals.
"That is why we chose to hold the fundraiser during this time.”
Remarkably, the couple surpassed their fundraising goal for the hospital by over fifty percent.
And though mosques too felt the pinch of the recession, the bleak financial outlook could not stop charity works.
In Al-Amin Jame Masjid & Islamic Center in Long Island City, Queens, the collection of donations was only slightly lower compared to previous `eids.
As nearly 2,000 people attended `eid prayers in the mosque, many worshippers were determined to contribute for charity as in previous years.
One mosque official affirmed that imams have received significant financial aid from mosque-goers.
“The community is strong,” the mosque official said.
New York City is home to a fast-growing Muslim community of nearly 800,000.
There are between six to seven million Muslims living in the entire United States.

Islamonline.net

2010-05-09T20:48:00.000-07:00

“Islam Changed My Game Plan”

By Farah Akbar, IOL Correspondent

"He never allows anything to stand in his way to help a client. He goes the extra mile," says Garment's boss.

NEW YORK — The book on Mustafa Garment’s office desk has the title "Changin’ your Game Plan."
For the African American, who broke his criminal life cycle through embracing Islam, the book relates like no other.
"I can identify with changing the game plan, changing the way you think, because that’s pretty much my story," Garment, now a forensic coordinator at the Brooklyn Mental Health Court, told IslamOnline.net.
Soft-spoken, bushy bearded Garment, 64, is nothing of the man he used to be some 20 years ago.
Working at the Mental Health Court, an affiliate of the New York State Supreme Court, he helps jail inmates get treatment for mental illnesses and drug addiction.
No one can help better than Garment, who spent his early life struggling with homelessness and drug and alcohol addiction.
Growing up in poverty-stricken Harlem, he had a childhood full of sufferings.
"I remember being so hungry. I remember feeling weak from hunger."
His first experience with drugs and alcohol, which became part of his "lifestyle" for 30 years, was at the age of 13.
Garment says that part of being accepted among his peers involved a routine of smoking marijuana and drinking wine.
"I would meet my mother in the bar," he says of his former self.
He dropped out of the High School in the beginning of the tenth grade.
But it was when introduced to crack, a smokeable form of cocaine that Garment’s addiction-based lifestyle came to a climax.
He began to resort to stealing and even selling drugs at one point to feed his addiction.
"When you’re addicted to crack, the first thought that comes to mind is how to get more."
He grew up into a bitter and angry man jailed for more than 30 times for crimes ranging from drug dealing to robbery.
Turning Point
Amid his drug problems and incarceration, Garment, raised a Baptist, had his first contact with Islam in 1972.
Then 27-year-old, he converted and married a Muslim woman.
But Garment admits that his conversion was only nominal, and it did not keep him off his criminal lifestyle.
"I wasn’t thinking about changing my game plan," he says.
"I had the same mindset. So I pretty much got the same thing I always got. I didn’t change."
As his life continued to be identified by addiction and incarceration, his Muslim wife eventually asked for divorce.
It was finally in 1998, after nearly 40 years of living on the streets, surviving on soup kitchens and stealing and using drugs that Garment decided to open a new chapter with himself.
He started attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings and sought assistance through The Bridge, an organization that helps the homeless and those with substance abuse problems.
It was there that Garment met Amin, his Muslim mentor who guided him into becoming a real Muslim while on the path to recovery.
Amin, a former heroin addict and AIDS patient, introduced Garment to Millati Islami – a drug recovery program based on Islamic principles.
"We would talk about getting close to Allah, talk about praying," Garment remembers.
Lucille Jackson, who used to run The Bridge, describes Garment’s re-discovery of Islam as a turning point for him.
"He took advantage in a positive way of what was around him. He made use of knowledge very well."
Helping Others
Jackson was so impressed that she decided to give Garment a job in her organization while he was still in treatment.
When she became Project Director of the Brooklyn Mental Health Court, she wanted to hire him as a forensic coordinator.
But because of Garment’s criminal record, she needed to obtain a special permission from the state’s Supreme Court to hire him, which she received.
Garment work involves linking inmates with services they need to find treatment for mental illnesses and substance abuse problems or to help them with unemployment and homelessness.
Though he is not required to share his own experiences with clients, he does speak about it if he believes it will help someone, especially young people who live his own tragedy as a youth.
"I see that their lives are being interrupted. I take them on as my own children. I tell them ‘Get an education. Don’t do this to yourself.’"
Jackson describes Garment’s work as "fabulous."
"He is an incredible human being," she told IOL.
"He never allows anything to stand in his way to help a client. He goes the extra mile."
Today a happily married father and grandfather, Garment thanks God every day for discovering Islam during the hardest days of his life.
Besides his job, he has finished his General Educational Development (GED). He is also excelling in Arabic classes he recently undertook to fully understand the Noble Qur’an.
Garment plans to get a degree in Islamic Studies some day.
"When we were young, we used to blame everything on the white man," he recalls.
"But I’m a Muslim today. My condition is by my own hands [and] by the will of Allah."

Read more:http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&pagename=Zone-English-News/NWELayout&cid=1239888470806#ixzz0qCAFksKS

Islamonline.net

2010-05-09T20:47:00.001-07:00

Many American Muslims try to only eat food that is allowable in their religion. Many Muslims eat halal meat, which is the flesh of an animal that was slaughtered according to Shari`ah law (Islamic law).
Discovering more about what animals are being fed before being shipped to slaughterhouses, whether Islamic or not, many Muslims are wondering what the term halal meat really implicates.
"I don’t think artificial means should be used to fatten up animals," Amina Khan, an alarmed 30-year-old housewife, told IslamOnline.net.
"It is unnatural."
In the United States, it is common to feed chickens, turkeys, pigs and cows the blood, bone and unwanted flesh of farm animals mixed into their regular animal feed.
Most animals today are injected with hormones for them to grow large in short periods of time and are being intensively raised in small pens, cages and feedlots.
"It was terrible and filthy," said Zeenat Sultana, a 40 year-old school teacher, after watching a news segment showing chickens living in cramped conditions in dirty cages on an American factory farm.
Baby chicks routinely have their beak tips cut off without anesthesia and beef cattle are castrated and dehorned.
This system, developed to produce meat and dairy products in the most efficient manner and at a price affordable to consumers, has been termed "factory farming."
No Guarantees
Imran Uddin, the son of a Bangladeshi immigrant who owns a Queens slaughterhouse, believes strongly in how animals should be raised and treated.
"Halal means more than just the slaughtering of an animal," he told IOL.
Upon entering the market, one is surrounded by several breeds of birds and ducks awaiting their deaths in cramped cages.
To the right is a room with goats and sheep munching on hay and drinking water from a large bucket.
"We can’t compromise Sunnah for time and convenience," says Uddin, who only slaughters animals raised on Amish farms in Pennsylvania.
He attests that the animals were fed on only vegetarian diets and were never injected with hormones.
None of his animals are branded and none of the birds are debeaked, a standard industry practice in American factory farming.
Several other halal live markets that were contacted for this story were unaware of the origin of the animals that they are selling to the public.
In addition to the growing popularity of Muslim-owned halal live markets in New York, many animal markets owned by non-Muslims also cater to the Muslim community.
IOL contacted two of these live animal markets in Queens that have a large Muslim clientele.
Both markets, which slaughter animals raised on farms in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, could not confirm what food the animals had been raised on and could neither confirm if the animals had been injected with hormones.
Two live animal markets located in Brooklyn, including one that slaughters animals raised in Texas, were unable to testify that their animals were fed a vegetarian diet or that they were not injected with hormones.
Overlooked

Dr. Chaudry, IFANCA Director, does not believe animals being raised on strictly vegetarian feed is a requirement in Islam.

Halal meat stores and live markets are considered places where animals are shielded from such practices.
However, consumers of halal meat may now want to think twice before buying that ground beef or chicken from the local halal meat store.
The food that the animal was raised on is often overlooked by many players in the halal meat business.
According to the "Halal/Zabiha" standards of the Islamic Society of North America’s Canadian Halal Certification Agency, which provides halal certification in both Canada and the United States, the manner in which animals are raised before they are slaughtered is not a component of their certification process at all.
"There is a difference of opinion on this issue, but how far can you go?" Dr. Mohammed Ashraf, Secretary General of ISNA’s Halal Certification Agency, told IOL.
"I believe that if what is fed to animals becomes harmful to humans then it should be avoided."
Dr. Ashraf believes, however, that the products that are being fed to farm animals are not causing any harm to human beings.
Thus, he does not think that this is a topic to really be concerned about because there haven't been any major recent health-related outbreaks.
"I don’t think that we should drag our feet into this," Ashraf said regarding the examination of what exactly is put into animal feed.
ISNA’s halal certification agency is in charge of Maplelodge Farm, one of the largest chicken processing plants in Canada.
Similarly, Dr. Muhammad Chaudry, Director of the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America (IFANCA), does not believe animals being raised on strictly vegetarian feed is a requirement in Islam.
He does not guarantee that every animal that is slaughtered under their seal has been raised on vegetarian feed.
IFANCA makes sure that chickens that are slaughtered on the three poultry slaughterhouses that they supervise are kept on a vegetarian diet for 15 days before slaughter.
In addition, they also ensure that the cattle slaughtered in the two cattle slaughterhouses they supervise are given vegetarian feed for 40 days prior to slaughter.
Dr. Chaudry, however, could not guarantee that many of the approximately 100 meat products companies certified by IFANCA follow the same protocol.

Needed

"The concept of halal meat in Islam must go beyond the rituals of slaughtering to include the way the animals are raised," Sheikh Kutty told IOL.

Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and a scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Canada, disagrees.
"The concept of halal meat in Islam must go beyond the rituals of slaughtering to include the way the animals are raised," he told IOL.
"For, according to the Qur'anic notion of fitrah, and nature of things, the cattle aren't meant to feed on animal bits; rather they are by nature created to be nourished by plants and grains.
"We don't have to be scientists to know that when we interfere with such basic laws of nature we don't really know the consequences. And the questions are indeed grave as we can tell from the causes of mad cow disease!"
The outbreak of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) — better known as Mad Cow disease — in the UK was a result of cattle eating brain and spinal cord remnants of other cattle.
"It is therefore imperative for Muslims to look into the ways the animals are nurtured and raised in determining the criteria of halal slaughter," insisted the scholar.
"This is a greater priority for us Muslims than simple rituals of Zabiha we are obsessed with."
Irfan Ali, who runs a website entitledwww.islamicconcern.com shares the same opinion.
"It is not enough to do zabiha slaughter in the end. It has to be a consistent compassion as much as possible that is practiced throughout the animal’s life," he said in a recent interview with a Toronto radio show.
As more and more Muslim-owned live markets are popping up, Muslims are encouraged to cut the middle man and consider running their own farms.
"Ninety-nine percent of all the food industries in the United States are owned by non-Muslims," said Chaudry.
"If we had our own farms and slaughterhouses, things would be different."

Islamonline.net

2010-05-09T20:43:00.000-07:00

US Muslims Battle Domestic Violence

By Farah Akbar, Islamonline.net Correspondent

Sakhi provides legal information, mental health referrals and shelter resources to women who seek help.

NEW YORK — Shazia (not her real name) may be struggling financially to support herself and her two young children, but she is hopeful about the future and feels better after having left her abusive husband.
“I didn’t want my children to suffer and watch me get abused,” the American Muslim woman told IslamOnline.net.
After getting the emotional support she desperately needed, she got the courage to stand up for herself and turn a new leaf in life.
“I am free now.”
A recent survey by the North American Council for Muslim Women found that domestic violence occurred in about 10 percent of Muslim homes.
“These women fear the stigma of divorce,” notes Mohammed Alam of Sakhi, an organization that helps Muslim women of South Asian origin in New York City who suffer from domestic violence.
“They are concerned about what the community will think of them."
Sakhi provides legal information, mental health referrals and shelter resources to women who seek help.
Immigrant women who cannot speak English can comfortably explain their situation to Sakhi as they are staffed with individuals fluent in several South Asian languages.
Alia (not her real name) has also left her abusive husband and found happiness again.
“There is life beyond the abuse,” she advises women currently in abusive relationships.
“Don’t worry about anything. Just get your life back! Get your personality back. If you take the first step, everything will fall into place.”
According to studies, Americans Muslims, estimated at some seven millions, have nearly the same rate of domestic violence as the general population.
Approximately 1.3 million women are physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States.
Momentum

“You would have to conclude that many mosques underestimate the frequency of domestic violence,” says Bashir (C).

Muslim groups believe the fight against domestic violence has seen a momentum lately.
“More Muslim women are speaking out," Robina Niaz, founder of the Turning Point organization, told IOL.
"Community outreach and education are also contributing to breaking the silence around this issue,” added Niaz, a Pakistani Muslim.
Turning Point received 600 calls for assistance and information in 2007, more than double the number received the year before.
The organization is designed to specifically help Muslim women and their families.
It provides crisis intervention, individual counseling and numerous other services to benefit women and families.
Alam, of Sakhi, also believes that efforts to address domestic violence are making impressive strides.
He said the number of callers to his organization has tripled over the years, with a record number of 731 calls and emails in 2008.
“More women feel comfortable talking about domestic abuse.”
Many argue that the case of Aasiya Hassan, a mother of four killed by her husband last February, was a wake-up call to the Muslim community.
Many Muslim organizations and mosques immediately condemned her tragic death and pledged to step up efforts to combat domestic violence.
The Islamic Center of North America (ICNA) promised a campaign to raise awareness about domestic violence.
Mosques Role
But some women rights advocates say mosques are not doing enough to help battle domestic violence.
“Many mosques are often in denial about domestic violence,” charges Niaz.
“Often when women find the courage to seek help they are told to be patient and encouraged to keep families together."
She says only few imams in New York City have been referring women to her Turning Point organization.
Shaykh Bashir, founder of the House of Peace (HOP), another social service organization that provides services to Muslims about domestic violence, is equally critical of mosques’ role.
“You would have to conclude that many mosques underestimate the frequency of domestic violence,” he says.
But Imam Abu Zafar Beg, of the Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens, disagrees with both activists.
Beg insists that in his mosque, for example, women receive help when they approach him about domestic violence.
“When couples come, we do try to help them reconcile. We tell the husbands that they must be kind to their wives."
Other mosque imams address the issue of domestic violence in their weekly Friday prayer sermons.
"But it is not in our power to give men punishment," says Beg.
Bashir, the HOP founder, believes that couples should undergo a course on peaceful conflict resolution before tying the knot.
But most importantly, he maintains, is that “more men must step-up and be accountable for the violence they perpetrate against women and children.” what is this?

Islamonline.net

2010-05-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

US Muslims Fear Arrest Backlash

By Farah Akbar, IOL Correspondent

The arrests sent shockwaves through the local Muslim community. (Reuters)

NEW YORK — Plotting to kill fellow Americans, civilians or servicemen, is unjustifiable even by the Iraq war and would only increase the already immense pressures on our local community, several American Muslims have told IslamOnline.net.
"Oh God, this is going to affect all Muslims now again," Sarah Khan, a 23-year-old medical student, said on hearing reports that a terror plan had been thwarted and that fingers were being pointed at six Muslim men.
"These men thought that they were trying to help Muslims," she said.
"But they don’t understand that they are actually causing more problems for us in America," added the medical student.
"They don’t think of the consequences here."
As the details still unfold, it is known that six men of Albanian, Jordanian and Turkish origin, all in their 20’s, had planned to attack the Fort Dix army base in New Jersey.
According to the complaint launched by the US District Court of New Jersey they conspired to "kill officers and employees of agencies in the Executive branch of the United States government, namely, members of the uniformed services."
The arrests have already started aggravating anti-Muslim sentiments, on the rise since the 9/11 attacks.
One message board on America Online that was created to capture the responses of readers has several hate-filled posts, one reading "Immigrant Ancestors Made This Nation, Not Illegal Immigrants or Muslims."
Another one was titled, "Send all Muslims to Gitmo," in reference to the notorious detention center where the US has been holding hundreds of terror suspects for years without charges.
In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Muslims in the US were subjected to verbal and physical abuse.
Six years later, many continue to be discriminated against on the basis of their religious background.
Not the Type

"I don’t know what triggered this action. They were not the radical type at all," Badat told IOL.

Those who knew some of the suspects, particularly the three Albanian brothers, were filled with surprise.
"There was nothing unusual about them, they were a good family," Dr. Tahir Kukigi, an imam of the Albanian Islamic Cultural Center in Staten Island, said of Eljvir, Shain and Dritan Duka.
The three occasionally visited the mosque when they lived in New York City.
"The last time I saw them was during Ramadan, three brothers and their father," he recalled.
Dr. Kukigi remembers that the family seemed very polite and quiet, with no unusual behaviors.
"To tell you the truth, they had smiling faces," said Ferid Bedrolli, another imam at the same center.
He added that many of the brothers' family members were regulars at the mosque.
He speculates that the men had an acute fixation with Islam that needed attention from the right people.
"Every single believer has to go to the right people, the right source, to get information on Islam, not get it from the streets," stressed imam Bedrolli.
"If I have a headache, I’ll take a Tylenol," he says. "But if I am sicker, I will go to a specialist, someone who can help me. You cannot go to people who are not experts, they can make you sicker or destroy you more."
The Dukas, ages 23, 26 and 28, were all born in Debar, Macedonia, and came to the US illegally more than a decade ago.
They have worked in roofing, like many of their relatives and fellow Albanian immigrants, coming to own two companies in addition to a pizzeria.
When Naseen Badat, Interfaith Dialogue coordinator of the Islamic Center of South Jersey, heard the news she was shocked.
The Duka brothers lived in South Jersey for some years, attending high school in the town.
"I said to my husband, ‘Are they the people really?'"
Badat remembers the brothers accompanying their mother to the mosque and always being very low-key.
She recalls that they were of a mild nature and always looked to the floor when there were women around.
"I don’t know what triggered this action. They were not the radical type at all."
Unjustified

A file photo of Eljvir, one of the three Duka brothers suspected in the case.

The entrance of the Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens, New York, was abuzz over the breaking news.
Most of the worshippers interviewed, largely from Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin, believed that American actions in the Middle East motivated the six men to think of such a heinous plan.
"They probably did this in reaction to what’s going on in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan," said Abdullah Mohammed, a 28-year-old African-American convert.
"Maybe it had something to do with unfinished business in Iraq," Sarah agreed.
But no matter what the source of their anger was, all Muslims interviewed were in agreement that what these suspects had planned was against the peaceful teachings of Islam.
"If these allegations are true, their actions are incorrect according to Islam," insisted Abdullah. "We are not allowed to be the aggressors."
Beg, the Imam of the Jamaica Muslim Center, emphasized the same message.
"Those soldiers that are in Fort Dix, what did they do?" he asked a few minutes before the asur prayer began.
"Even if they were in Iraq, we should not kill them. Our government may make wrong decisions, but we should not harm soldiers."
Ali Hassan, a 25-year-old health care professional of Egyptian origin, believes in changing policies the peaceful way.
"If these men were angry about something the government did, there are other ways of making change. Non-violence is the most effective way of making change," he insisted.
"One of the benefits of living in this country is that you can affect policy by non-violent means."
Dr. Kukigi, the imam of the Albanian Islamic Cultural Center in Staten Island, is extremely disheartened by the actions of these men, especially the Dukas brothers.
"We are Albanians and we never betray anyone, but they have betrayed us and this country," he said angrily.
"This country has done so much for Kosovo. It feels like we are under a shockwave."
Imam Bedrolli had much stronger words.
"If all the facts prove these men to be guilty, they do not deserve to live in this life."
Individual
According to the Muslim Communities in New York City Project done by Columbia University, there are 27 mosques in Queens alone and approximately 600,000 Muslims living across the five boroughs of New York.
"The Muslims here are firmly entrenched," says Hassan, the 25-year-old health care professional who was born and raised in New York.
"We need to be better Muslims. We need to become more involved in our community to prevent people from reaching this point," he maintained.
"We came to this country to live here and prosper," agreed Imam Beg.
"We are good people. We should tell people to do things to develop this county. Tell them to help the people, not to harm them. It is their foolishness."
Muslims are wary of again being targeted as a violent religious group due to the actions of a few individuals.
Some news outlets alleged that Serdar Tatar, 23, another suspect of Turkish origin, was recruited by the Dukas brothers at the mosque.
"They are making it sound like this Center is a recruitment hub," Badat said.
She maintains that the Islamic Center is extremely low profile and that only non-political sermons are given.
"When someone commits a crime, we should not blame his son or his father who did not do anything," concurs imam Beg.
"There are bad and good people everywhere. If someone harms or kills someone in the name of Islam, this is not Islam. We should blame the person only who is guilty."

Islamonline.net

2010-05-09T20:36:00.000-07:00

Bloomberg Blocks `Eid in NY Public Schools

By Farah Akbar, IOL Correspondent

"I would sort of be willing to take a day off from school but it's better if school is closed so no one misses out," says Sumaita.

NEW YORK -- When fifth-grader Sumaita Hasan heard that New York City public schools might close on `Eid al-Fitr and `Eid Al-Adha, the two main religious festivals on the Islamic calendar, she could not contain her happiness.
"Cool!" she said excitedly.
Sumaita has good reason to be enthusiastic.
Most Christian and Jewish children can recall with glee how they celebrated Christmas and Hanukkah last year: bonding with family, exchanging gifts, eating delicious meals and attending religious services.
But for Sumaita, she had to spend her `Eid al-Fitr in her 4th grade classroom because the event, which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, fell on a weekday.
She did not even attend religious services that day because they were over by the time the school day had ended.
"We learn new things every day at school and I don’t want to miss out on anything," she told IslamOnline.net.
According to the Coalition for Muslim School Holidays, Muslim students make up approximately 12 percent of the students in New York City’s public schools.
Muslim students and their families across the New York City have for years prayed that their holy days would fall on weekends so that their children would not have to miss a school day.
After much lobbying, NYC City Council recently passed a resolution allowing all public schools to close on `Eid al-Fitr and `Eid Al-Adha.
Just as it looked like their prayers were about to be answered, Mayor Michael Bloomberg rejected the proposal, claiming it was a slippery slope for other religious groups to ask for days off from school as well.
"One of the problems you have with a diverse city is that if you close the schools for every single holiday, there won’t be any school," he recently said.
But New York City public schools, the country’s largest school system, already close for Christmas and the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
A one week spring break is also scheduled every year to coincide with Easter and Passover.
Equal Treatment

"If they want to close the schools for other groups, then the Muslims should have the same right as well. I don’t agree with Mayor Bloomberg."

Councilman Robert Jackson, a Muslim and a strong proponent of the issue, has said that if Bloomberg was not receptive about closing the schools, then "discrimination may be an issue."
Imam Shamsi Ali of the Islamic Cultural Center in Manhattan disagrees.
"I don’t see this as discrimination. I see it as unfair at most. I don’t think he will intentionally do anything discriminatory," he told IOL.
Ali praised Mayor Bloomberg for historically being embracive towards minorities citing his appointment of Omar Mohammedi as the City’s first Arab and Muslim Commissioner of Human Rights.
He says he is working together with his interfaith colleagues to try to influence the Mayor to change his mind.
The proposal to close public schools for the Muslim holidays has received, by and large, approval from other religious communities.
"It’s a matter of equity," Reverend Allen Pinckney of the United Methodist Church in Harlem told IOL.
"If they want to close the schools for other groups, then the Muslims should have the same right as well. I don’t agree with Mayor Bloomberg."
Although he understands Bloomberg’s perspective, Rabbi Mordechai Hecht of the Kew Gardens Jewish Center in Queens still believes that NYC should adapt the same criterion used to grant time off for Christian and Jewish holidays.
"If someone believes in something, you have to fight for it. I am sure there was a fight from the Jews to get their days off."
Rabbi Moshe Edelman, Director of Congregational Standards for the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, says the conservative Jewish community would be supportive "of our brothers and sisters" in the Muslim community.
"With the growing number of Muslims, the mayor should have said yes, out of respect to the Islamic community," he told IOL.
He believes the move would have been appropriate and non-controversial.
Sumaita, the Muslim fifth-grader, hopes the debate ends to her satisfaction.
"It’s important to celebrate a holiday because of your religion," she said.
"I would sort of be willing to take a day off from school but it's better if school is closed so no one misses out."

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