The 2 Worlds of Muslim-American Teenagers

hey are Americans who feel duty- bound by Islam to obey American laws. But some of them say that if their country called them to war against a Muslim army, they might refuse to fight. They cannot be shaken from the conviction that America is intrinsically anti-Muslim. Yet they see it as the one place where Muslims are free to be themselves.

To be young and Muslim in the United States today, to hear students at Al Noor School in Brooklyn tell it, is to be both outsider and insider, to revel in both roles but see neither as the ideal. It is to be consumed by causes abroad and removed from politics at home, to feel righteous and also confused, to alternate between gratitude and resentment toward the world outside their classrooms.

As any parent knows, this is the paradoxical planet inhabited by many teenagers, whether they are Muslim or not. But in a country wounded by terrorists and preparing for war, young Muslim Americans are finding that real life has raised especially acute questions for them about competing values of allegiance and faith.

"We have a burden on us," said Andira Abudayeh, who is 16 and attends Al Noor. "We're Muslims, and we feel like other Muslims around the world do. And we're Americans."

In extended conversations last week, high school students at Al Noor spoke of their empathy for the young Muslims around the world who profess hatred for America and Americans, saying the hostility is an outgrowth of American support for Israel.

They said they did not believe that the hatred extended to them. "Muslims are all one," said Fariah Amin, who is also 16. "They kind of think of us as just living in America."

The students complained that the United States threw its weight around too much in the world, but that it also was not active enough in support of what they called freedom-seeking Muslims in Chechnya and the "true" Muslims who oppose the rulers of Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

"Isn't it ironic that the interests of America are always against what Muslims want?" said Fami Fozi, a 17-year-old student who said he would rather go to jail than fight in the United States Army against Muslims.

The students also said the Koran, which Muslims consider the literal word of God, provides a perfect blueprint for their lives. Their ideal society would follow Islamic law and make no separation between religion and state.

In the meantime, they said, they want to become doctors and lawyers and teachers in the United States. Even though the American government uses taxes to finance things that are un-Islamic — licensing the sale of alcoholic beverages, for example — they said Muslims here should pay taxes and accept the judgments of secular American courts.

"If you want to survive in freedom, I guess you just have to pay taxes to get the benefits from America," said Ahmad Odetalla, 14. "You know you're not going to be the one who buys alcohol. So as long as you stay away from what is forbidden in religion, I guess we have to pay taxes."

The students at Al Noor may not be a scientific sampling of Muslim American youth. But their comments are similar to those posted by Muslim Americans on the numerous Internet chat rooms and message boards about Islam, and their outlook is similar in some ways to that of other newcomers.

Immigrants and their children often feel the strain between the adopted and the native culture. Their political interests may focus on the topics and debates in their homeland. In the case of these Al Noor students, they are children of immigrants from places like Pakistan, Egypt, the occupied Palestinian territories and Yemen, which have been preoccupied for years by the efforts of Islamic fundamentalist movements to gain power through violence or the ballot box.

Still, some of their comments reflect what they have been reading and exposed to in the United States, where some Muslim clerics say openly what is said underground in Muslim countries: that the United States is to blame for the ills of the Muslim world through its support of more secular Muslim rulers.

Some of the students, for example, said they would support any leader who they decided was fighting for Islam. Among those who do not fit that definition, they said, are the rulers of just about every Arab and Muslim country.

Mr. Fozi, for instance, said that he would support any leader he determined to be an observant Muslim who is fighting for an Islamic cause, and that he would do so even if it meant abandoning the United States. "I would support him with my life," he said. How would he know who is a true Muslim? "I use my understanding of Islam and see what the person is doing," Mr. Fozi said.

Several of the young men said they could fight against a Muslim if they were convinced that the Muslim had committed a crime. They all said they were not convinced that Osama bin Laden — or any Muslim, for that matter — was behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, attacks that they condemned as violating all precepts of Islam.

"It comes down to the proof," said Mazen Kased, 17. "If you prove a Muslim did it, that's a different story."

Another 17-year-old student, Ammar Arif, agreed. "If you prove it's Osama bin Laden and I was in the Army, I would go to fight," he said. "That's my duty to my country and my religion as well."

The students at Al Noor are reluctant to accept that the terror attacks were carried out by anyone of their religion. They draw on their deeply felt belief that Americans are biased against Islam and Muslims and that Muslims are victims of a prejudiced news media. Like many Muslim Americans, they said they believed that non-Muslims did not understand them and their choices.

These are also children whose parents made a conscious decision by sending them to a private Islamic school to shield them, at least during the school day, from the secularism of their adopted American culture. Girls at Al Noor must wear a loose- fitting robe and a tight-fitting scarf to cover their hair and necks. Except for the youngest children, boys and girls are separated during the school day.

They feel their separateness keenly. Since Sept. 11, rumors have raced through the school that Muslims have been shot and beaten in Brooklyn, and that it is not safe to walk the streets because of revenge attacks by Americans against Muslims.

They believe the rumors — which have not proven true — because they said it fits with their experience of seeing negative images of Islam in films and articles that they find disrespectful of Islam.

"A lot of newspapers write negative things, and we get so upset," said Mona Widdi, 16.

But few students said they thought that newspapers should be forbidden to write things about Islam, the prophet Muhammad or the Koran, topics that writers in most of the Muslim world stay away from out of fear of offending Muslim clerics.

"America does have freedom of speech, and it's one of the basic things," Miss Amin said. "I was taught about it since kindergarten. You can't tell someone that they can't write that. But if they can't prove it, they shouldn't put it in the paper as some kind of hatred against us."

None of the students said they had experienced any harassment since Sept. 11. Their school has received offers of guidance counselors from local hospitals, visits of support from state education officials, offers of interfaith exchanges from nearby Catholic schools and a constant stream of calls offering assistance from political figures in Brooklyn.

The principal, Nidal Abuasi, acknowledged that the students' assumption of a backlash might be misplaced.

"Maybe," he said, after recounting the number of calls from the neighborhood expressing good will, "we are too paranoid."

An Uneasy Tolerance

One American Muslim's view of how forces of hatred find a home in otherwise beneficent mosques and Islamic centers

by Mustafa Saied
special to MSNBC.com

Oct. 3 — Ever since America was attacked Sept. 11 by suspected Muslim extremists, there has been a remarkable emphasis on displaying tolerance and understanding towards Muslims living and practicing their faith in the United States. As Americans are called to show respect towards Arabs and Muslims in their midst, it is only fair that the American Muslim community take an introspective look at their own action.

THOUGH THERE ARE many sincere and observant Muslims in America, it is also a fact that in mosques, Islamic centers and Muslim student associations in this country that are funded by extremist factions in Saudi Arabia, anti-American sentiments are commonly intertwined with religious teaching.

As a longtime member of the American Muslim community, I have a unique perspective on this. Born in India, I came to the United States on a student visa. Though the adjustment was easy because it had always been my dream to live here, during my college years I became involved with some extremist Muslim groups. I must admit that some of my conversations on campus were quite insensitive and hateful towards the United States and western civilization as a whole.

I left those ideas behind years ago, when I was fortunately convinced by some friends that these extremist teachings are alien to Islam. Now, as an American resident, I feel it is time to call attention to what goes on inside some Islamic organizations in the United States that function as enclaves of extremism.

RIDICULE AND SUSPICION
Anti-Americanism takes many forms, from a general suspicion of all things non-Muslim to the ridicule of American values and culture, to, in the most extreme cases, outright statements of hatred couched in the language of religion.

In some Muslim communities, it is not unusual for non-Islamic religious or cultural observances to be ridiculed. I have attended Friday congregational prayers in the week before Christmas, Halloween or Thanksgiving in which the sermons are marked with sarcastic references to American religious and cultural practices. This strikes me as hypocritical, especially considering that greetings on the Muslim Eid holidays from non-Muslims are received with pride, but members of most mosques are forbidden to acknowledge their neighbors’ celebration of Christmas or return a holiday greeting.

Parents are increasingly encouraged to send their children to Islamic schools because of a rising sentiment in the American Muslim community that the nation’s public schools are not safe, that they teach anti-Islamic subject matter and that their children are better off surrounded by Muslims rather than non-Muslims. I have not known any of these Islamic schools to encourage or practice the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance, so I still fail to see how patriotism is in any way condoned, inculcated or preserved in the minds of our children.

The most extreme manifestation of anti-American sentiment is in the handful of mosques, Islamic centers and student groups that are controlled by forces that display a particularly venomous hatred towards the Western society. The teachings of religious experts — ancient ones, like Ibn Taymiyyah, a Saudi scholar of the 13th and 14th centuries — or recent leaders like Saudi Sheikh Albany or Abdul Wahhab are notable for their harsh rulings and strong words against non-Muslims.

SPORTS IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Much of this anti-American sentiment takes place out of sight, cloaked in language most Americans cannot understand and in communal religious activities that take place outside the mainstream. But sometimes it comes to the surface. A few years ago, for instance, when the media focused on basketball star Mahmoud Abdul Rauf’s refusal to stand during the singing of the national anthem, Rauf, then a player on the Denver Nuggets, received a great deal of public support from the American Muslim community.

It’s hard to say exactly why Rauf’s co-religionists rallied to his cause: was it because a Muslim sports hero caught in a controversy deserved unconditional Muslim support? Or was it that these Muslims — many of whom carry American passports — felt the American national anthem did not deserve respect? In the end, Rauf came to terms with the issue by agreeing to stand, but silently pray, during the playing of the national anthem. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, I wonder how many American Muslims now regret their involvement in this cause.

FLAGS AND PASSPORTS
A prevailing argument among some Muslim critics is that the American flag stands for the various oppressions and injustices of American foreign policy. But if the American flag is problematic for some American Muslims, what does holding an American passport represent? If they feel so strongly about it, shouldn’t these critics be turning in their passports?

Muslims living in this country and enjoying its freedoms should stop tolerating hate-filled speeches against the West in its centers and houses of worship. Now is the time to discourage anti-social elements within the Islamic centers and mosques. It is not enough for people to simply say that they do not agree with extremist rhetoric. Individuals have a responsibility to voice their concerns and put the pressure on the community to stop tolerating it.

And, if it comes to this, Muslims of good will should be ready to report extremists in their midst to the proper authorities, if they do not tone down their rhetoric — no matter how pious these extremists may claim to be. We cannot let the brotherhood of religion outweigh the security of our country and the responsibilities we have as American citizens.

Introspection is never really painless. The time has come to step up.

Mustafa Saied wrote this commentary for MSNBC.com

This is their perfect blueprint:

Medina Suras
The Chapter of Women
[Chapters from the Koran]
The Harvard Classics 1909–14
But if there befalls you grace from God, he would say—as though there were no friendship between you and him—‘O would that I had been with thee to attain this mighty happiness!’ Let those then fight in God’s way who sell this life of the world for the next; and whoso fights in God’s way, then, be he killed or be he victorious, we will give him a mighty hire.
What ails you that ye do not fight in God’s way, and for the weak men and women and children, who say, ‘Lord, bring us out of this town 19 of oppressive folk, and make for us from Thee a patron, and make for us from Thee a help?’
Those who believe fight in the way of God; and those who disbelieve fight in the way of Tâghût; fight ye then against the friends of Satan, verily, Satan’s tricks are weak.
Do ye not see those to whom it is said, ‘Restrain your hands, and be steadfast in prayer and give alms;’ and when it is prescribed for them to fight then a band of them fear men, as though it were the fear of God or a still stronger fear, and they say, ‘O our Lord! why hast thou prescribed for us to fight, couldst thou not let us abide till our near appointed time?’ Say, ‘The enjoyment of this world is but slight, and the next is better for him who fears;’—but they shall not be wronged a straw.

...
Why are ye two parties about the hypocrites, when God hath overturned them for what they earned? Do ye wish to guide those whom God hath led astray? Whoso God hath led astray ye shall not surely find for him a path. They would fain that ye misbelieve as they misbelieve, that ye might be alike; take ye not patrons from among them until they too flee in God’s way; but if they turn their backs, then seize them and kill them wheresoever ye find them, and take from them neither patron nor help,—save those who reach a people betwixt whom and you is an alliance—or who come to you while their bosoms prevent them from fighting you or fighting their own people. But had God pleased He would have given you dominion over them, and they would surely have fought you. But if they retire from you and do not fight you, and offer you peace,—then God hath given you no way against them.
Ye will find others who seek for quarter from you, and quarter from their own people; whenever they return to sedition they shall be overturned therein: but if they retire not from you, nor offer you peace, nor restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wheresoever ye find them;—over these we have made for you manifest power.

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