Muslims Launch Voter Campaign to Manifest Their Role in U.S. Life

Immediately following 7 a.m. prayers by about 5,000 Muslims in its parking lot, the Islamic Center of Southern California launched a voter registration drive Friday.

Registration tables were set up at the Los Angeles center as part of what Dr. Maher Hathout , a physician and Islamic center leader, said was part of efforts by American Muslims to demonstrate their participation in U.S. life and their support for democratic values.

“It’s about time to play our full role in society,” Hathout said in an interview. He said that many Muslims, of various ethnic backgrounds, have not registered to vote because in the two, five or 10 years they have lived in this country they were primarily concerned with family, jobs and other personal matters.

Feast of Sacrifice

The registration campaign was begun on a day observed by Muslims as Eid-ul-Adha , the feast of sacrifice commemorating God’s testing of the Patriarch Abraham’s faith by asking him to sacrifice his son. The Islamic story is basically the same as the biblical account except that Muslims believe the endangered son was Ishmael rather than Isaac.

About 2,000 persons attended a second prayer service Friday morning, Hathout said.

Hathout said the voter registration drive and a conference on South African apartheid at the center next Saturday were planned to act as tangible signs that American Muslims are trying to enter into a third stage of relationships with the rest of U.S. society.

Most Americans were simply unaware of Muslim neighbors and the tenets of Islam in what Hathout called the first stage.

“The second stage--of fear and suspicion--is one we are still passing through,” he said, referring to generalizations and confusion resulting from news of Middle East conflicts and terrorist acts associated with Muslim elements.

“I hope we are passing now into a third stage of recognition by non-Muslims and their knowing what we stand for,” Hathout said.

“We stand for justice and universal peace for people of every race and creed,” he said. The center’s upcoming one-day conference, “Apartheid: Anti-God, Anti-Human,” will feature an anti-apartheid speaker from South Africa and Fathi Osman, editor-in-chief of the London-based journal Arabia: The Islamic World Review.