Frustrated U.S. Muslims Feel Marginalized Again

A year after the Sept. 11 attacks, American Muslim leaders increasingly fear their community is being pushed to the margins of the American political system.

“On the political scene, we are back to square one,” said Hussam Ayloush of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “In general, there is a fear that associating too closely with Muslims could be a liability.”

Until the attacks, Muslims had been making steady gains in moving into the American mainstream. Muslims were just beginning to win appointments to government commissions. Politicians were knocking on the doors of their mosques, asking for support. Muslims were becoming politically emboldened to run for office themselves--producing 700 candidates for local, state and federal offices in 2000, according to Agha Saeed of the American Muslim Alliance.

In the weeks directly following the attacks, it seemed possible that trend would continue. National leaders, following the lead of President Bush, insisted that the U.S. war on terror should not become an occasion for turning against the nation’s Muslims. And many Muslims say that ordinary Americans have reached out to them since the attacks--church members who offered to guard an Islamic school, women who donned head scarves to escort Muslim women on errands, casual acquaintances who have become friends.

Since January, however, the landscape has shifted.

Evidence of a hardening of attitudes against Muslims--at least on the part of some Americans--comes in several forms. So far this year, more than 20 books on the “Islamic menace” have been published. Two of those books are the best-selling titles among 7,219 books on Islam at Amazon.com: “American Jihad: The Terrorists Among Us,” by Steven Emerson, and “Militant Islam Reaches America,” by Daniel Pipes.

Leading figures among evangelical Christian denominations have made a series of public statements denouncing Islam as an evil.

And polls show that although Americans have gained familiarity with Islam, their increased knowledge has not led to greater approval. In a recent Los Angeles Times poll, 37% of those surveyed said they had a negative impression of Islam, compared with 28% whose impression was favorable.

While those surveyed had a more positive impression of American Muslims than of their faith, roughly a quarter said they had a negative impression of American Muslims.

Politicians appear to be responding to those developments and are shying away from Islamic conferences, Muslim activists say. Not a single national politician appeared at a recent convention of 30,000 Muslims in Washington, D.C., for example. Najee Ali, an activist with Project Islamic Hope, said one member of Congress even told him she would be in a photo with him only on the condition that it did not appear in any Muslim newspaper.

Muslim activists say the ostracism extends to the White House, where Bush met with a group of leaders shortly after the attacks, then went nearly a year before seeing any of them again.

Although Salam Al-Marayati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council called the recent meeting a useful “steppingstone” to reopen dialogue, the perceived snub came as a disappointment to activists in major Muslim organizations who had high hopes for political inclusion and impact when they gave Bush their first-ever coordinated presidential endorsement in 2000.

The dicey political environment has drastically reduced the number of Muslims running for political office this year--only about 100, one-seventh of the number two years ago, Saeed said.

The recent arrests of six Muslims in New York on charges of supporting terrorism and the 17-hour detention of three Muslim medical students in Florida on suspicion of terrorism have only added to the American Islamic community’s worries.

To critics, the New York arrests amplified fears of an Islamic “fifth column” in America, while many Muslims see the Florida men, who were later released, as evidence of injustices caused by paranoia.

“The tragedy,” said Aslam Abdullah of the Los Angeles-based Minaret magazine, “is that American Muslims were working so hard to be accepted as equal citizens, and now all of a sudden they find they have to prove their loyalty all over again.”

American Muslims remain a small minority group; estimates have ranged from about 2 million to 7 million. Educating Americans about their faith has been a priority for Muslim activists.

The attacks clearly have increased the amount of information Americans have about Islam and its American followers. Books about the religion have become bestsellers; college courses have sprung up nationwide.

At the Islamic Society’s national headquarters in Plainville, Ind., Sayyid Syeed said his speaking engagements last September topped 100, compared to 15 or so in a normal month, and hits on his organization’s Web site have tripled to 3 million a month. In Southern California, Ayloush said the normally insular Muslim community has staged more than 70 open houses, interfaith events and other activities.

And Americans clearly feel they know more about Islam now than in the past. In 1993, when the Los Angeles Times poll asked Americans their impression of Islam, fully 64% said they did not know enough to have an opinion. Asked again last month, only 34% said they knew too little.

That greater knowledge, however, has not improved the overall view that Americans hold of Islam. In the poll a decade ago, 22% had an unfavorable impression of Islam, compared to 14% with a favorable view--a margin virtually identical to the one in the recent poll.

Many Muslim activists blame what one called “a troika of evangelical Christians, right-wing conservatives and the pro-Israel lobby” for their plight.

Indeed, the Times poll showed that unfavorable impressions of Muslims are stronger among Republicans than among either Democrats or political independents.

Among evangelical Christians, such influential leaders as evangelist Franklin Graham and the Rev. Jerry Vines, former president of the 16-million-member Southern Baptist Convention, have sharply criticized Islam in recent months. In remarks that made national headlines, Vines called Muhammad a “demon-possessed pedophile,” and Graham has repeatedly portrayed Islam as an evil and violent religion.

Islam, a monotheistic faith established by the Prophet Muhammad in Arabia in the 7th century, shares common roots with Judaism and Christianity. But negative perceptions of Islam have long been a current in some Christian churches and appear to be shared by many born-again Christians.

“Until a year ago, most evangelical Christians saw Islam as a problem because we believe it to be a false religion,” said Richard Land of the Southern Baptists’ ethics and religious liberty commission. “What’s happened since 9/11 is that evangelical Christians as a community have become far more aware of the radicalization of significant elements of the Islamic population and the direct threat that represents to Western civilization and freedom of conscience.”

Like a host of faith and political leaders, Land called on moderate Muslims to more aggressively denounce their extremist elements. Such calls, however, frustrate Muslim activists, who produce long lists of statements of condemnation they’ve made and wearily ask what more is demanded.

Many Muslims say they have found greater acceptance among ordinary Americans than among political or religious leaders.

That dichotomy is evident even in the Bible Belt, in places like Greenville, Texas, where Southern Baptist congregations thickly dot the landscape. Here, the Rev. Sam Douglass recently invited a Muslim convert to Christianity to give testimony to several hundred members of his Ridgecrest Baptist Church on how he had been saved by Jesus. Afterward, Douglass expounded on his own view of Islam, a faith he said he studied during years as a campus minister.

“The faith of Islam does not respect the value of human life as Christians do,” declared Douglass. Stressing that he loves Muslim people, Douglass said the faith itself “is a threat to anyone they can label an infidel, and that means that anyone not part of the Muslim world is in danger.”

But sitting in his congregation, Gene and Karen Rhodes, both born-again Christians, were skeptical of the peril Douglass perceived. The couple said they had known nothing about Islam until meeting a visiting Muslim student four months ago. They quickly agreed to disagree about faith and put the matter aside, Karen Rhodes said; since then, what began as a shared professional interest in special education and children blossomed into a deep personal friendship that the couple says now feels like family.

The Rhodes say they have frequently invited their Muslim friend to their home for dinner, even throwing a birthday party for him--despite efforts by some of their Christian friends to dissuade them from the relationship.

“I have trouble believing Islam is violent,” said Gene Rhodes, a specialist in special education. “Our friend is gentle, and doesn’t promote violence. If he is representative of Muslims, they are quality people.”

Muslims like Gail Kennard, manager of a Los Angeles architectural firm, say they are reaching out to their neighbors. The terrorist attacks prompted her non-Muslim colleagues to begin asking about her faith for the first time, Kennard said. The questions were surprisingly basic, with inquiries such as “Do Muslims believe in God?” and “Do Muslims believe in heaven?” (Yes and yes). Prompted by the experiences, she invited non-Muslim friends to a Ramadan fast-breaking meal for the first time last year.

“I realized how misunderstood we have been and that we have a responsibility to educate our fellow citizens about our values and heritage,” Kennard said.

Among the Muslim community’s new friends is Japanese American activist Kathy Masaoka of Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress. Listening to the radio after the terrorist attacks, Masaoka said fears expressed by Muslims struck an instant emotional chord, reminding her of her own family’s ordeals after Pearl Harbor. Two weeks after Sept. 11, she helped organize a candlelight vigil for the victims of terror and to express support for innocent Muslims, Arabs and South Asians. Since then, she has helped form a committee to forge friendships with her community through picnics, dinners, cultural exchanges and Buddhist-Muslim dialogues.

“I don’t think they should have to feel responsible for all of the actions done by others from other countries who don’t represent them,” Masaoka said, adding that her Muslim friends have shown her a faith of compassion and good deeds. “We weren’t responsible for Pearl Harbor, and we don’t have to prove our loyalty any more than anyone else. They shouldn’t have to, either.”

The contrast between the ostracism on the political level and the often-positive encounters among individuals has led many Muslim activists to argue for a shift in where their organizations put their political energy.

Abdullah, for instance, envisions a new phase of American Muslim activism focused on showcasing Islam’s best ideals of justice and compassion through involvement in broader community issues of crime, homelessness and poverty.

Activists like Ayloush say they already have made the switch, spending far more time on community events than traditional political ones. “Gaining acceptance in America won’t come through ad campaigns or meetings with elected officials,” Ayloush said. “It’s by winning the minds, hearts and trust of our neighbors.”