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The True
Soldiers of Allah
Muslim Americans at the
Crossroads: Reflections on September 11, 2001
Saraji Umm Zaid, Muslim convert, American, New Yorker shares her experiences of the past
days and vents her rage at those Muslims who espouse the ideological
agenda of the terrorists who visited such carnage upon her city.
IslamForToday.com, September 16, 2001
To be honest with you, when I
initially sat down to write something for "Islam For Today," I
couldn't think of anything to say. Until today, I have been in a state of shock.
I live right outside of New York City. For three days, all I heard outside were
the sounds of Apache helicopters, F-16 fighter jets, and the sirens of police,
fire, and emergency vehicles speeding in and out of the city. We do not have
cable, and all of the New York City stations had their broadcast towers knocked
out when Tower 1 was hit. We are only able to get one television station, from
outside of the city. Until today, Jumu'ah, I have been inside of my home, afraid
to go outside (I wear hijab), isolated from the rest of my community. Confirmed
reports and unconfirmed rumors of hate crimes against Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus
across the country poured into my e-mail box.
When I went outside this morning,
I was in shock to see the mall open. People are out shopping? The library
called; a book I reserved had come in. I had forgotten that the library would be
open. I saw people at the Blockbuster video store, renting movies on a Friday
night. Others were going into the movie theater nearby. Until today, I thought
the whole world had stopped. The world has gone on.
And that's the point. We, as
Americans, as Muslims, we have to move forward now. Our society, and our Muslim
community here, is at a cross roads. Do we descend into hatred, fear,
isolationism, and chaos? Or do we band together, to fight the madness that took
more than 4,000 lives on Tuesday? How long can Muslim women stay indoors, in
purdah effectively? When will our lives return to normal? It's hard to say. Many
children have been orphaned, women and men widowed, parents without children,
friends lost. As more and more information about the perpetrators becomes
available, it seems more and more likely that hard feelings towards Muslims will
prevail for much longer than they did after the first World Trade attack in
1993. It will be a long and hard road for us to fight the hate and fear, and to
rebuild the semi-normal conditions that prevailed here until Tuesday.
A journalist asked me today, what
did I think of the reactions of non Muslim Americans? Rather than focus on the
negative, which is reported, which is known, I told him about something ...
astonishing that happened to me this week. I received more than 200 e-mails, in
one day alone, from Americans all over the US -- Christian, Jewish, Atheist, and
Pagan -- offering support for Muslim Americans, and pledging to stop hate in
their own neighborhoods. More than one non Muslim woman of my acquaintance has
been inspired to offer her services for shopping and escorts for Muslim women
who need to go out and are afraid. A rescue worker and his colleague were on
their way home for some rest after hard work at the WTC site called the Sean
Hannity radio show to talk about something that happened on the subway today.
Five Arab teenage boys got on the train, and the whole car went silent. The boys
were looking down at the floor, their heads hanging in shame and fear. Finally,
the caller's colleague spoke up,"Hold your heads up! You're
Americans!" The other travelers in the car burst into applause, and hugs
were exchanged between the teens and their fellow Americans.
It is this spirit of generosity
and kindness in the American people that makes what happened, and how we react
to it all the more important. In the past few days, there have been a very small
minority of Muslims in the West (two, by my count, but I'm sure more of them are
out there), the kind I think of as the 'Taliban, Taliban, Uber Alles' types, who
have claimed to be overjoyed by the attacks, and castigating and "takfeering"
any Muslim who dares disagree with their sick and warped sense of joy. The fact
that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Muslims work and travel through the World
Trade Center everyday is lost on them. The fact that hundreds of them are
missing is lost on them. There are no tears for these New York Muslims on their
part. Even the Taliban have expressed shock and sadness to reporters. Not so our
brothers and sisters in the Religion of Mercy. What Kitab and Sunnah are these
people following?
I sit here and look at photographs
of the missing. Mother of three, please help us find her. Father of six month
old twins, please call. Graduation photos, wedding photos, anniversary photos.
Photos from happier times, fishing trips, barbecues, birthdays. All smiles, no
sinister sneers in any of these photos of women and men, Black, White, Puerto
Rican, Dominican, Indian, Pakistani, Arab, Chinese, Korean. I look at these
photos, at the images on TV of relatives and friends wandering through the city,
from hospital to hospital, in search of their loved one, and I get angrier and
angrier. Not just at the scumbags who hijacked the planes, and the scumbags who
helped them, but at these brothers and sisters who are cheering over these
deaths.
Allah tells us that if someone
innocent is killed, it is as if all of mankind is killed. But He also tell us
that if just one is saved, then it is as if all of humanity is saved. (Sura al
Ma'ida). Tell me what these stock brokers, teachers, secretaries, newspaper
vendors, janitors, waiters, pilots, stewards, and retail clerks had to do with
the situation in Kashmir or Palestine or Afghanistan or anywhere else in the
world? There are children counted among the dead and missing. How were they part
of the "Zionist plot" against Muslims? Can we just drop the paranoia
and reclaim our humanity here? Would it be too much to ask for these people to
shed a tear for the innocent? If the death of one is as if the death of all
mankind, then what is the death of thousands of innocents?
It is the generous spirit of the
American people that makes us so open to Islam. Even at the height of this
crisis, I personally know of one American man that has embraced Islam. Though
thousands may turn away from us now, particularly the children and spouses of
those killed, how many others will discover something wonderful in their
curiosity and their search to understand? If these people can't cry over the
terror that was unleashed here on Tuesday, then as "Super Muslims,"
they should be crying because they did not reach out to those thousands of
people with the message of Islam. Instead, they are hiding behind e-mail
aliases, and spreading the sort of hate and sickness that propelled 19 men to
slam 4 planes into buildings all over the country.
I will be the first to donate to
the "Send Me to a Muslim Country" fund, if any of these people start
one. Although I think there is something wonderful in making hijra for the sake
of Allah subhannahu wa ta'ala, and although there is much good to be found in
these countries, it is also often a rude awakening for "Super Muslims"
who go overseas expecting to find Jennah on Earth. They will find that where
they are free to practice Islam here, to dress as Muslims here, to say whatever
they want to say here, over there, Islam is suppressed by these supposedly
"Muslim" kings and presidents. Men with beards arrested, women in
hijab jailed or denied education. Less radical rhetoric than what I've read
today lands you in jail in countries like Egypt and Syria. Praying in Jama'at
outside of a state approved masjid lands you in jail in Turkey.
There is more than a hint of
hypocrisy in a diatribe that labels American born and residing Muslims as
"hypocrites" and "helpmates of the Dajjal," particularly
when that diatribe comes spewing out of someone living in the United States or
the United Kingdom. It's rather sanctimonious to label American Muslims who pay
their taxes (as we are required to do) as being on the verge of kufr because a
portion of that tax money goes to support the war machine in another country
when you are not only paying those taxes yourself but benefiting from them as
well, in the form of highways, trains, parks, sanitation services, and so on.
Not only is it make or break time
for Americans, but it is make or break time for Muslim Americans as well. Do we
reject this type of dialogue and radicalism in our communities once and for all,
or do we continue to stay silent in the interest of not exposing the skeletons
in our closets and presenting a unified front? Can we ask non Muslim Americans
to repudiate anti Muslim and anti Arab bias while staying silent about those in
our own masajid who preach hatred of non Muslims?
Muslim Americans must stand with
non Muslim Americans now, not just as citizens and residents of this country,
but as human beings. We must reject hatred in all of its forms, whether it is
anti Muslim hatred or a hatred for non Muslims that is so deep and twisted that
you hijack a plane and slam it into a building.
Allah subhannahu wa ta'ala tells
us in Sura al Rum that we will be tested upon saying we believe. What happened
on Tuesday has presented Muslim Americans with a clear test. No one is saying
that the coming weeks, months, or even years will be easy. Yes, people will say
mean and rude things to us. Yes, some of our masajid will be defaced, and some
of us will be physically attacked. I guarantee you that nothing we are going
through right now even compares to the trials of our beloved Nabi (sallalahu
aleyhi wa salaam) and the early Muslims. Keep their struggles in your mind as
you venture out to the grocery store. Remember Sumayah, the first martyr of
Islam, when someone tells you to "Go back where you came from!" You
have been called up, you have been drafted into what may be the biggest jihad of
your life. Remember the promise of Allah and His Messenger (sallalahu aleyhi wa
salaam) and keep on keeping on.
I am Muslim, I am American, I am a
New Yorker, and I am not a terrorist.
The above article is © 2001 Saraji
Umm Zaid. Reprint permission should be sought from the author at
websister @ modernmuslima.com
[The email address has been broken
up to prevent automatic harvesting for spam purposes.]
Read other articles by Saraji Umm Zaid at here.
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