Local Muslims Focus of Wrath After Bombing : Terrorism: Anger and racism surfaced against religious group immediately after the attack in Oklahoma City.

You wouldn’t think that signing up to attend the Secretary’s Day luncheon in your office would cause a stir.

But when Saad Isah did that, just after the April 19 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the Arcadia resident was reminded anew that if you’re an American Muslim, even an innocuous act of kindness can invite pain.

No sooner had Isah lent his name to the sheet when someone scrawled near it “John Doe No. 2,” referring to the suspect in the deadly blast who, as of Friday, remained at large.

Though the arrest of Timothy J. McVeigh in connection with the bombing lifted suspicion from Muslim extremists, Isah and others say the burst of spite that initially followed the blast highlighted the blunt racism faced regularly by Muslims.

“I thank God it wasn’t a Muslim because we would have had a lot more tragedies on our hands,” said his wife, Semeen.

Once again, area Muslims say, a turn of world events has left them wary of a largely Christian society in which terrorist is attached to those with Middle Eastern appearances. Since the Oklahoma bombing, several Muslim organizations and mosques throughout the Southland have received threatening phone calls, said Salam Al-Marayati of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council.

An Islamic children’s school at the Mosque of Riverside was evacuated April 20 when a caller twice threatened to “kill all the children” there, said Hassan Abukar, director of the facility. Regular prayer services on a recent Friday, the Muslim holy day, were held at the mosque under police guard, Abukar said.

Despite the threats, no area Muslims were injured during the tense time, Al-Marayati said. But the angry calls bode ill, he added.

“This was predictable,” Al-Marayati said. “It’s also going to repeat itself unless we change the political and social climate of our society.”

“As hard as we’re trying to work to alleviate . . . misconceptions, somebody is working against us, turning the wheel as fast as we are,” said Semeen Isah. “So much for the melting pot.”