Two Honored by L.A. Muslims

The Muslim community came out to honor two of its members Saturday night at the Beverly Wilshire, and if ever there was a hotel banquet where it must be said, “they did it their way,” this was it.

Both recipients of the Islamic Center of Southern California’s first American Muslim Achievement Awards showed the guests, through prepared remarks and screen presentations, just what their work entailed.

Filmmaker and distributor Moustapha Akkad gave a behind-the-scenes look at the shooting of “The Message,” a film about the Prophet Muhammed; Ahmed Zewail, Linus Pauling professor of chemical physics at Caltech, gave a spirited description of “the invisible world I live in,” showing a film of the birth of a molecule.

Emceed by radio announcer and activist Casey Kasem, the $500-a-plate dinner (to raise funds for the center’s endowment campaign) drew about 200 people.

For all the seriousness of the content, the mood was jovial, the tone perhaps set by center chairman Dr. Maher Hathout, who told the guests: “We’re always calling on one another to protest a situation, deal with a problem. Now it’s time to call on one another to salute success.”

In saluting past chairmen of the center, Hathout inadvertently turned solemnity into hilarity with some moving remarks about one man who, he said, was “now with Allah.” As tittering gave way to laughter, Hathout seemed the last in the room to realize that, as he finally announced, “Mr. Mohammed Alsabery is still alive.”

The whole evening, planned by chairperson Aqueela Jaffer, was a blend of the unique and predictable: Instead of a cocktail hour, about half of the guests sipped fruit juices and mineral water from the bar and quietly mingled in the reception area outside Le Grand Trianon while others removed their shoes, stepped onto the white sheeting at one end of the room and recited the ritual sunset prayers from the Koran. The menu planners adhered to halal , Muslim dietary laws, without failing to provide such current high society staples as baby vegetables and a rich concoction of pastry, mousse, whipped cream, fruit and raspberry sauce.

Calling the evening “one of the more educational, if not the most educational dinner I’ve ever attended,” Supervisor Mike Antonovich presented a proclamation from Los Angeles County, and former Los Angeles City Councilman Robert Farrell, representing Mayor Tom Bradley, did the same for the city.