Muslim Group Seeking New Image

Fahhim Abdulhadi spent a troubled, violent youth involved in crime and saddled with a drug habit that culminated with two months in rehab. He says he has left that life behind, but what changed him was not some federal grant or tough-love program--it was his conversion to Islam.

“I saw a lot of social justice,” Abdulhadi said.

That sense of justice is missing from most popular portrayals of Muslims, said Abdulhadi, who is media coordinator of the American Muslim Council, a Washington-based lobbying organization for Muslim issues.

Changing that image is part of the point of the council’s annual convention, being held here this weekend.

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The meeting is geared toward giving the Muslim community a greater public voice, and eradicating the stereotypes that Muslim leaders believe are prevalent--that followers of Islam are wild-eyed bombers who oppress women.

“Our community is the subject of a stereotype, and we know it to be untrue, and we want everybody else to know it to be untrue,” Abdulhadi said.

Although the vast majority of American Muslims have no sympathy with bomb-throwing fanatics, the community has been slow to defend itself publicly against stereotypes, said Abdurahman Alamoudi, the convention’s chairman. “Despite the best of intentions, we are creating our own demise,” he said.

“We are a model community in this country,” Abdulhadi said, but added that about half of the residents in the community are immigrants, often from nations where freedom of speech and political activism are impossibilities. The American Muslim community also encompasses a large number of converts, people “trying to pull away from American society,” Abdulhadi said.

“We really haven’t gotten involved to the level that we could,” Abdulhadi added.

If Muslims organize themselves, though, “in the end we will be able to truly affect the issues that disturb us each night as we watch the news,” Alamoudi said.

Part of that effort at greater organization is to boost the Muslim community’s political involvement. “The political system in this country is such that politicians reward, and justifiably so, those who use votes, money, volunteer time, and or telephone calls to make their voices heard,” said Atif Harden, executive coordinator for the council.

Following that rationale, American Muslim Council members lobbied their representatives in support of the Religious Liberty Protection Act, legislation that would bar laws from impinging on religious practices, Abdulhadi said.

The convention is seeking to thaw the often frosty relations between Muslims and American law enforcement, an effort highlighted by a scheduled meeting with FBI Director Louis Freeh that council leaders hope will ameliorate the “very troubled relationship” between the Muslim community and the FBI, Abdulhadi said.

Freeh’s appearance represents an “opening door” in the relationship and demonstrates that the FBI “sees the problem too,” Abdulhadi said.

Abdulhadi cited the Oklahoma City bombings as an early turning point in the relationship between the Muslim community and law enforcement. Immediately after the bombings, Muslim extremists were widely cited as possible suspects, but the violence turned out to be home-grown.

This weekend marks the seventh convention for the American Muslim Council, which was founded in 1990, and although progress has been slow, the Muslim community is learning that it can be involved in the American political system and can have an effect, Abdulhadi said.

Although the council seeks to correct the mistaken stereotypes of Muslims, it is far more interested in raising political awareness within the community, Abdulhadi said. “If I can send people home so that they feel more confident to interact with their elected representatives and appointed officials, then I’ve succeeded,” he said.

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Denominational Rolls

More than 4 million Los Angeles County residents belong to religious denominations, with Roman Catholics by far the largest group. These are the latest estimates reported by major religious groups for the county. In some cases, the latest figure was for 1996; others reported 1997 numbers.

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DENOMINATION MEMBERS Roman Catholics 3,000,000 *Jews (synagogue members) 184,800 *Jews (unaffiliated with a synagogue) 334,200 Muslims (affiliated and unaffiliated) 225,000 Southern Baptists 100,007 Mormons 96,300 Independent large churches 66,000 Episcopalians 55,878 United Methodists 40,226 International Foursquare Gospel 35,816 Lutherans (ELCA) 35,027 Lutherans (Missouri Synod) 28,141 American Baptists 27,000 Presbyterian Church, USA 15,735 United Church of Christ 9,140 Salvation Army 3,595 Unitarian Universalist 2,313 Worldwide Church of God 2,025 Bahai 1,750 Metropolitan Community Churches 440

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* Figures do not include Long Beach and San Gabriel Valley.