How American Muslims really responded to Sept. 11

AS OUR nation approaches the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, American Muslims around the country will join their fellow citizens in pausing and reflecting upon the horrors of that day and its aftermath. Some media pundits and other well-known figures — including notable evangelist Franklin Graham — have recently accused Muslims of remaining silent after the terrorist attacks. Such charges, which have been covered widely but superficially in the mainstream media, deserve serious analysis. In reality, even a cursory review of press releases, newspaper articles, opinion pieces, and Internet websites reveals that Muslims were uniformly shocked, saddened, and outraged at the vicious attack on our own soil — and they did not hesitate to voice their unequivocal condemnation. In fact, American Muslim and Arab-American organisations and leaders were among the first to react in an organised fashion to condemn the terrorist attacks on that very same day, long before it became clear that individuals calling themselves Muslims were involved in the attacks.

On Sept. 11, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest grassroots American Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, distributed a statement which read: “We condemn in the strongest terms possible what are apparently vicious and cowardly acts of terrorism against innocent civilians. We join with all Americans in calling for the swift apprehension and punishment of the perpetrators. No cause could ever be assisted by such immoral acts. All members of the Muslim community are asked to offer whatever help they can to the victims and their families. Muslim medical professionals should go to the scenes of the attacks to offer aid and comfort to the victims.”

CAIR also issued an alert to the Muslim community on Sept. 11, urging that the following additional actions be taken: “Muslim relief agencies should contact their counterparts to offer support in the recovery efforts. Individual Muslims should donate blood by contacting the local office of the Red Cross... They should also send donations to those relief agencies that are on the scene of the attacks.”

Similarly, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) issued the following unequivocal statement: “We feel that our country, the United States, is under attack. All Americans should stand together to bring the perpetrators to justice. We warn against any generalisations that will only serve to help the criminals and incriminate the innocent. We offer our resources and resolve to help the victims of these intolerable acts, and we pray to God to protect and bless America.”

And in a Sept. 11 letter to President Bush, community leaders stated: “American Muslims, who unequivocally condemned today's terrorist attacks on our nation, call on you to alert fellow citizens to the fact that now is a time for all of us to stand together in the face of this heinous crime.” This letter was signed by the leaders of CAIR, MPAC, the American Muslim Alliance, the American Muslim Council, the Muslim American Society, the Islamic Society of North America, the Islamic Circle of North America, the Muslim Alliance in North America, and American Muslims for Jerusalem. These groups represent most of the seven million Muslims in the United States.

Muslims abroad were also unequivocal in their condemnation of the attacks. The 57 member Organisation of Islamic Conference issued a communiquÈ stating: “The conference strongly condemned the brutal terror acts that befell the United States.... It further reaffirmed that these terror acts ran counter to the teachings of the divine religions as well as ethical and human values....”

In the West Bank thousands of Palestinians attended candlelight vigils to express their grief and solidarity with the victims of the attacks, and Palestinian schoolchildren observed five minutes of silence. In Tehran, Iran, (one third of the president's proclaimed “axis of evil”) the main soccer stadium observed one minute of silence in sympathy with the victims of the attacks.

Despite the unanimous and vocal condemnations by American Muslim and Arab-American group and leaders nationwide, some in our country were not satisfied. In subsequent weeks and months, numerous unsubstantiated references appeared in newspaper opinion columns and on television talk shows about American Muslims' alleged “silence” after the terrorist attacks. Such claims were clearly not based on facts, rather they were the products of either outright ignorance — which is inexcusable — or deliberate defamation by some with thinly-veiled Islamophobic agendas-which is utterly deplorable.

This accusation of silence in the face of the Sept. 11 attacks is now coupled with increasingly aggressive rhetoric about Islam being an “evil” religion and Muslims a “fifth column.” Efforts to even teach about Islam in public schools and universities are now routinely attacked if they do not focus on the most extreme interpretations. When Muslims try to correct uninformed statements about Islam, we are labelled apologists. Open and honest discussion about Islam in the public is increasingly silenced by the bigoted attacks of individuals like Franklin Graham, who recently called for Muslims to apologise for the Sept. 11 attacks.

While Muslims join most Americans in seeking unity and solace with their fellow citizens, some Americans are sowing seeds of hatred and ignorance. As Americans, we are all confronted by a number of daunting challenges that we must face together, including concentrated efforts to tear us apart from within. Bigots seem to be the biggest winners in the post-Sept. 11 environment. If they win, then we all lose.

Riad Z. Abdelkarim, MD, is Western Region Communications Director and Jason Erb is governmental relations director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. They contributed this article to The Jordan Times.

The following letter was published in the Gazette Hyattsville, MD, October 11, 2001, on the Community Forum page.

You worry me. I wish you didn't. I wish when I walked down the streets of this country that I love, that your color and culture still blended with the beautiful human landscape we enjoy in this country. But you don't blend anymore. I notice you, and it worries me.

I notice you because I can't help it anymore. People from your homelands, and professing to be Muslims, have been attacking and killing my fellow citizens and our friends for more than 20 years now. I don't fully understand their grievances and hate but I know nothing can justify the inhumanity of their attacks.

On Sept. 11, nineteen Arab-Muslims hijacked four jetliners in my country. They cut the throats of women in front of children and brutally stabbed to death others. They took control of those planes and crashed them into buildings killing thousands of proud fathers, loving sons, wise grandparents, elegant daughters, best friends, favorite coaches, fearless public servants, and children's mothers.

So I notice you now. I don't want to be worried. I don't want to be consumed by the same rage and hate and prejudice that has destroyed the soul of these terrorists. But I need your help. As a rational American, trying to protect my country and family in an irrational and unsafe world, I must know how to differentiate between you.

How do I differentiate between the true Arab-Muslim-Americans and the Arab-Muslims in our communities who are attending our schools, enjoying our parks, etc., while they plot the next attack that will slaughter those very same good neighbors and children? The answer to my own questions that it is past the time for me to try to determine this. The events of Sept. 11th changed the answer. It is time for every Arab-Muslim in this country to determine it for me.

I want to know, I demand to know, if you love America. Do you pledge allegiance to its flag? Do you pray in your many daily prayers that Allah will bless this nation, that He will protect and prosper it? Are you thankful for the freedom that only this nation affords? A freedom that was paid for by the blood of hundreds of thousands of patriots? Are you willing to preserve this freedom with the spilling of your own blood? Do you love America? And if this is your commitment, then I need you to start letting me know about it.

Your Muslim leaders in this nation should be flooding the media at this time with hard facts on your faith, and what hard actions you are taking as a community and religion to protect the United States of America. Please, no more benign overtures of regret for the death of the innocent (I worry who you regard as innocent) and condemnation of unprovoked attacks (I worry what is unprovoked to you.) I am not interested in any more sympathy; I am interested only in action. What will you do for America - the country -- at this time of crisis, at this time of war?

I want to see Arab-Muslims waving the flag in the streets. I want to hear you chanting Allah Bless America. I want to see Arab-Muslim young men enlisting in the military. I want to see a commitment of money and time and emotion to the victims of this butchering and to this nation as a whole. The FBI has a list of over 400 people they want to talk to regarding the WTC attack. Many of these people live and socialize in Muslim communities. You know them. You know where they are. Deliver them up, now.

But I have seen little even approaching this sort of action. Instead I have seen an already closed and secretive community close even tighter. You have disappeared from the streets. You have posted armed security guards at your facilities. You have threatened lawsuits. You have screamed for protection from reprisal. The few Arab-Muslim representatives that have appeared on the media are defensive and equivocating. They seem more concerned with making sure the U. S. prove who is responsible before they act, and protecting their own people from any violence directed toward them, here in the U.S. and abroad. If the true teachings of Islam proclaim tolerance and peace and love for all people then I want chapter and verse from the Koran and statements from popular Muslim leaders to back it up. Because even if the teachings in the Koran are good and pure and true, it matters little if large numbers of current Islamic practitioners interpret the teachings of Mohammed incorrectly and adhere to a degenerative form of the religion.

I want to know where every Arab-Muslim in this country stands and I think it is within my right and the right of every true citizen of this country to demand it. A right paid for by the blood of thousands of my brothers and sisters. I am pleading with you to let me know. I want you here as my brother, my neighbor, my friend, as a fellow American. But there can be no gray areas or ambivalence regarding your allegiance and it is up to you to show me where you stand.

Until then ... you worry me.

Thank you for posting this link.

"Al-Taqiya is still in use today but not necessarily state-organized. One can easily detect Taqiya in the two discourses used by Islamist strategists. On the one hand, one comprehensive Islamist theory is attempting to mobilize Middle East, and sometimes Western Christia leaders and intellectuals, against "evil Jews." We see considerable success on that level. And on the other hand, another Islamist comprehensive theory is attemting -with success also- to mobilize the Jews against "evil and pagan Christians." One can easily detect the sophisticated work of Taqiya, for the strategic objective of Islamists is to destroy the foundations of the Judeo-Christian civilization, as a prelude to the defeat of an isolated Israel.

Taqiya is not a unique phenomenon in History, many strategists from all backgrounds implemented subversion. But the uniqueness of today's Taqiya is its success within advanced and sophisticated societies. Taqiya is winning massively because of the immense lack of knowledge among Western elites, both Jewish and Christian.

For interesting examples of Taqiya methods, visit Christian discussion groups and forums and note the discourse of Islamist visitors, aimed at undermining the Christian perception of Jews, and visit Jewish discussion groups and forums and note the subtle anti-Christian discourse of Islamists visitors. It is really informative and fascinating."

About a year ago I read a letter on a muslim site to the brothers. It was essentially like this, "Brothers, we do not have to fly planes into buildings. We must be patient. We must work, instead, to infiltrate the local governments, encourage conversions, and build schools and mosques everywhere."

I felt like being sick.

Not all religions wear sheets and burn crosses on the lawns of black homes. In fact none does. Individuals commit such acts, even if they claim they're doing it in the name of a religion.

I know something about this because I grew up in the midst of cross-burners. You are wrong about it being individuals. I my home town and state, it was backed up by Jim Crow laws and by an all-white police force that looked the other way. In one famous instance, the governor of Arkansas personally stood in the way of school integration.

I don't know what individual FReepers think about this, but it was ended by force. and by changes in laws.

Whatever the supposed beauty of the Islamic religion may be, some of the practices of Islamic countries are barbaric and evil. Laws against blasphemy. Laws making it illegal or dangerous to practice or advocate other religions. Forced conversions. Arbitrary abridgment of the rights of women. Slavery (which was nominally made illegal only in 1953 -- 5 years after the founding of Israel, and only under duress).

In my opinion, nations and cultures and religions are judged not by their past, but by their future. Sins are forgivable, but people are defined by the deepest desires of their hearts.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.