American Muslims
Are Now Awake
By Kaleem Kawaja
Washington, DC
It was in the mid-1960s that
Muslim immigrants started arriving in US in significant
numbers. Most of them were well educated, enlightened
and balanced folks. After a few years they started
excelling in their respective careers and began
building supporting facilities for their community.
Thus in the early 1970s quite a few Islamic centers,
mosques, and Muslim organizations emerged all
over the US.
For the Muslim community this was no easy task,
since the same people who were busy building their
professional careers, raising their young families
were also spending their time and money to build
the Muslim-American infrastructure. By the year
2000 the American-Muslim community had built an
impressive array of Islamic centers, mosques,
organizations, institutions to serve their community.
They had also begun building political organizations
to integrate the Muslim community in the mainstream
American polity. American Muslims were very confident
that with their zest and enterprise they would
soon create for themselves a niche in mainstream
America.
The horrendous events of 9/11/01 shattered the
bright vision of the American Muslim community.
In the face of the awful terrorist act committed
by fellow Muslims and the outrage of mainstream
Americans they could not rebut their critics by
citing examples of their contribution to the American
society at the grassroots level. At that time
their services to the overwhelming majority of
Americans who were non-Muslims, was hardly worth
mentioning. Also their record of participation
in interfaith activities with non-Muslim Americans
was very small. For sure it was a wake-up call
for the community to reflect seriously on the
new reality that was America.
This month marks the fifth anniversary of 9/11
and a time to look back at how the American Muslim
community and its institutions have improved their
public service performance in the last five years.
Since September 2001 the overwhelming majority
of Islamic centers/mosques in US have developed
robust interfaith programs whereby they invite
non-Muslims (Christians, Jews, others) to fraternize
with them in an interfaith dialogue. Also Muslims
visit churches and synagogues to participate in
similar interfaith events. This rapidly growing
program has helped in removing misunderstandings
between Muslims and non-Muslims in America. Also
in these five years a large number of Islamic
centers and Muslim groups have developed quite
a few "feed-the-hungry, help-the-needy"
charitable programs that routinely help needy
non-Muslims. During the holiday season of November-December
every year, Muslim groups become active in helping
needy non-Muslim Americans.
In these five years a significant number of Muslim
physicians have asked the Islamic centers that
they are affiliated with to start free clinics
or other health-care services for the needy. The
result is that today several Muslim free health
services are coming up in a number of major cities
coast-to-coast. Muslim doctors are volunteering
their time and the Islamic centers are providing
the infrastructure for this expanding community
service activity that serves needy non-Muslims
as much as needy Muslims. Not only uninsured patients
are attended to free of charge by Muslim doctors,
Islamic centers pay for the required medical tests
and medicine for the needy patients.
In the ISNA convention this year in Chicago, "Community
Builders", a group of Muslim doctors, are
organizing a workshop session on how to build
free medical clinics to serve the needy of all
religious backgrounds. In most cities where such
free clinics have opened up the local county governments
have started lending a helping hand with facilities
and financial grants.
One such shining example is the free medical clinic
of the Muslim Community Center (Silver Spring,
MD) in metropolitan Washington DC. In the last
four years this clinic has grown rapidly. Today
the MCC Clinic has a computerized system and an
office manager to schedule patients for doctors.
About seven doctors (male and female) attend to
the patients who are both male and female. About
five students of medicine and pharmacy volunteer
as interns. Other young people volunteer in other
capacities for the operation of the clinic. Several
mainstream American newspapers and TV channels
have given positive coverage to the MCC clinic.
The Montgomery County Executive and the governor
of the State of Maryland have visited the MCC
clinic and MCC and have promised to help. The
clinic operates on Friday afternoon and all day
Sunday.
The American Muslims are now awake and seized
of the fact that service to the mainstream American
community is a key strategy to offset the negative
propaganda and stereotyping with which their powerful
adversaries target them, and to earn goodwill
for their community. (The writer is a community
activist in Washington DC)
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