Muslims go all out to mix with others

From joining a residents' committee to learning qigong, Muslims spare no effort to show they can mix with other races

THREE months ago, housewife Dirah Didik turned up alone at Bishan Community Club to attend its qigong class.

Since then, she has persuaded her friends at her mosque to join her, and now 15 of them, all with headscarves on, can be seen every Saturday morning at the community centre's courtyard practising the Chinese martial art with 30 non-Muslims.

She had taken the course, said the 54-year-old, because the terrorism-related arrests had given Islam a bad name, and she wanted to show that Muslims can get along with other races.

'I chose a Chinese- dominated sport because this is where the non-Muslims are. Also we're interested to know the Chinese culture,' said the head of the women's committee of Muhajirin Mosque.

The mosque is one of 40 to sign the joint statement condemning terrorism. Another 82 Muslim groups have done so too. They have also pledged to become an integral part of the multi-racial Singapore society, a move that Muslims like Madam Dirah are consciously setting out to do.

Just two months ago, Madam Hasnah Masnud, 43, head of the Malay activity executive committee at Chua Chu Kang Community Club, decided to join her residents' committee at Teck Whye to be 'a spokesman for the Muslims'.

She will explain to the other members why many Muslims might not be able to take part in activities next month, which is Ramadan, the month Muslims fast.

'Often non-Muslims have no one to turn to if they have questions about Muslims. It's our duty to be out there to explain,' she said.

Sometimes, Madam Dirah said, it takes small steps on the part of Muslims, like accepting a handshake from someone of the opposite sex, even though they do not do so normally.

Citing a Malay idiom, she said: 'When you're with the cows, you moo, when you're with the donkeys, you bray. It's better to exercise flexibility and accept the handshake, so he won't feel uncomfortable.'

Mr Muhammad Haniff Hassan, manager of the Adult Islamic Religious Students' Association of Singapore (Perdaus) secretariat, said a Muslim woman who has started using a tudung should not cut down on time spent with her non-Muslim friends.

'Non-Muslims will then associate the tudung with something bad, that it makes Muslims exclusive.'

Mr Mohd Anis Tairan, chairman of Siglap Mosque, added that Muslims should not kick up a fuss about drinking Newater - endorsed by the Muis' fatwa committee to be clean and pure - as this will give the impression that they are being unreasonable.

To the Muslims interviewed, enlarging the common space of all Singaporeans means achieving a certain comfort level with each other.

Education about different religious practices is key, said Mr Syed Hassan Mohamed Alattas of Ba'alwi Mosque.

Mr Wan Hussin Zoohri, president of the Prophet Muhammad's Birthday Memorial Scholarship Board, described the common space as the area where races can interact 'without inhibition, restraint or suspicion'. Celebrating festive occasions together could be a start, he said, adding that this, however, should be two-way.

'Malays normally invite non-Malay friends to our house, but I've yet to see Chinese here do this commonly during Chinese New Year.'

>>>>>>Honorary Serb, contrary to what [you] might think, there isn't a wave of islam washing over U.S. Please take your paranoia and hatred back to Serbia where it has more fertile soil.>>>>>>>

Yeah, right! Read the article below and weep!

By the way, I'm American, born and bred! Telling me to "go back to Serbia" would be like me telling you to go back to Iran!!!! And it may be that a Christian is safer from islamic attack in Belgrade or Novi Sad (but not in Kosovska Mitrovica) than in New York, DC, Boston, LA, or San Francisco!!!!

WAKE UP, AMERICA!!!!

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>>>>>MEMRI: Muslim American Leaders: A Wave of Conversion to Islam in the U.S. Following September 11

Special Dispatch - Terror in America (26)

November 16, 2001

No. 301

Muslim American Leaders: A Wave of Conversion to Islam in the U.S. Following September 11

Since September 11, 2001, many articles and reports have appeared in the Arabic press claiming Muslim proselytizing ("Da'wa") in the U.S. has seen an upsurge in Americans' converting. These reports claim messages of tolerance promoted by the U.S. government and local authorities has induced many to convert to Islam.

Immediately after the September 11 attacks, Sheikh Raid Sallah, the head of the Islamic movement in Israel, called on U.S. President George Bush to convert to Islam and thus solve all problems. Recently, Sheikh Sallah reiterated his call at a rally in the Arab town of Tamra (the Galilee): "Oh, peoples of the West... We say to you: We are the masters of the world and we are the repository of all good [in the world], because we are the 'the best people, delivered for mankind' [Koran, 3:111]. We do not hesitate, Oh Bush and Blair; we invite you to Islam, enter Islam, you and your peoples."(1)

Muslim American reports in the Arab press indicate that Muslim proselytizing efforts have been unusually successful since the September 11 attacks. 'Alaa Bayumi, Director of Arab Affairs at the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), wrote in the London daily Al-Hayat that "non-Muslim Americans are now interested in getting to know Islam. There are a number of signs...: Libraries have run out of books on Islam and the Middle East... English translations of the Koran head the American best-seller list... The Americans are showing increasing willingness to convert to Islam since September 11...Thousands of non-Muslim Americans have responded to invitations to visit mosques, resembling the waves of the sea [crashing on the shore] one after another... All this is happening in a political atmosphere that, at least verbally, encourages non-Muslim Americans' openness towards Muslims in America and in the Islamic world, as the American president has said many times in his speeches..."(2)

CAIR chairman Nihad Awad told the Saudi paper 'Ukaz that "34,000 Americans have converted to Islam following the events of September 11, and this is the highest rate reached in the U.S. since Islam arrived there."(3)

According to Dr. Walid A. Fatihi, instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston has recently become a center of Islamic proselytizing aimed at Christians. On September 22, 2001, Al-Fatihi sent a letter to the Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram Al-Arabi, in which he described the unfolding of events since September 11: "...From the first day, the media began to insinuate that Muslim Arab hands were behind this incident. At noon, the directors and administration of the Islamic Center of Boston held an emergency meeting, and I stayed on the line with them from my clinic. We decided to hold a blood drive, and we set up a committee to contact the Red Cross and organize it for us. We invited the media to cover the event..."

"All of us tried to grab onto every scrap of information that would indicate that Muslim Arab hands were not involved in the loathsome crime. Yes, my brothers and sisters, we tried to prove our humanity on the day we found ourselves attacked from all sides. Our hearts bled and our spokesman said that proselytizing in the name of Allah had been set back 50 years in the U.S. and in the entire world..."

"On Saturday, September 15, I went with my wife and children to the biggest church in Boston, [Trinity Church in] Copley Square, by official invitation of the Islamic Society of Boston, to represent Islam by special invitation of the senators of Boston. Present were the mayor of Boston, his wife, and the heads of the universities. There were more than 1,000 people there, with media coverage by one of Boston's main television stations. We were received like ambassadors. I sat with my wife and children in the front row, next to the mayor's wife. In his sermon, the priest defended Islam as a monotheistic religion, telling the audience that I represented the Islamic Society of Boston."

"After the sermon was over, he stood at my side as I read an official statement issued by the leading Muslim clerics condemning the incident [i.e. the attacks]. The statement explained Islam's stance and principles, and its sublime precepts. Afterwards, I read Koran verses translated into English... These were moments that I will never forget, because the entire church burst into tears upon hearing the passages of the words of Allah!!"

"Emotion swept over us. One said to me: 'I do not understand the Arabic language, but there is no doubt that the things you said are the words of Allah.' As she left the church weeping, a woman put a piece of paper in my hand; on the paper was written: 'Forgive us for our past and for our present. Keep proselytizing to us.' Another man stood at the entrance of the church, his eyes teary, and said, 'You are just like us; no, you are better than us.'"

"On Sunday, September 16, the Islamic Society of Boston issued an open invitation to the Islamic Center in Cambridge, located between Harvard and MIT. We did not expect more than 100 people, but to our surprise more than 1,000 people came, among them the neighbors, the university lecturers, members of the clergy, and even the leaders of the priests from the nearby churches, who invited us to speak on Islam. All expressed solidarity with Muslims. Many questions flowed to us. Everyone wanted to know about Islam and to understand its precepts."

"Of all the questions, not a single one attacked me; on the contrary, we saw [the people's] eyes filling with tears when they heard about Islam and its sublime principles. Many of them had never heard about Islam before. Well, they had heard about Islam only through the biased media. That same day, I was invited again to participate in a meeting in the church, and again I saw the same things. On Thursday, a delegation of 300 students and lecturers from Harvard visited the center of the Islamic Society of Boston, accompanied by the American Ambassador to Vienna. They sat on the floor of the mosque, which was filled to capacity. We explained to them the precepts of Islam, and defended it from any suspicions [promulgated in the media]. I again read to them from the verses of Allah, and [their] eyes filled with tears. The audience was moved, and many asked to participate in the weekly lessons for non-Muslims held by the Islamic Center..."

"On Friday, September 21, the Muslims participated in a closed meeting with the governor of Massachusetts. In the meeting, a discussion was held on introducing Islam into the school curriculum, to inform the [American] people and to fight racism against Muslims arising from the American people's ignorance regarding the religion. With the governor's support, measures to examine implementation of this goal were agreed upon..."

"These are only some of the examples of what happened and is happening in the city of Boston, and in many other American cities, during these days. Proselytizing in the name of Allah has not been undermined, and has not been set back 50 years, as we thought in the first days after September 11. On the contrary, the 11 days that have passed are like 11 years in the history of proselytizing in the name of Allah. I write to you today with the absolute confidence that over the next few years, Islam will spread in America and in the entire world, Allah willing, much more quickly than it has spread in the past, because the entire world is asking, 'What is Islam!'(4)

Fatihi's reports of American Christians' crying upon hearing Koranic verses have an historical context. This type of narrative is about part of the ethos of Islamic proselytizing. It comes from the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad's invitation to the Christian community of Najran, located in what is today North Yemen, to visit the mosque. When the Christians of Najran were exposed to the verses of the Koran, the tradition says they burst into tears and converted to Islam."(5)

Fatihi also published an article in the London daily Al-Hayat in which he boasted of another success of the Islamic movement, namely, damage to Christian-Jewish relations in the U.S.:

"...Despite the attacks of distortion coordinated by the Zionist lobby, to which it has recruited many of the influential media, there are initial signs that the intensive campaign of education about Islam has begun to bear fruit. For example, the rate of converts to Islam since September 11 has doubled... There is solidarity with the Muslims on the part of many non-Muslims in American universities. For example, dozens of non-Muslim American women students at Wayne [State] University... have put on veils as a symbol of identification with the Muslim women students at the university and at the other universities of America. For this reason, the Jewish institutions have begun to contact Muslim institutions and have called on us to hold dialogues with them and cooperate [with them]. They are afraid of the outcome of the Islamic-Christian dialogue through the churches, the mosques, and the universities..."

"There are many examples of the signs of change [for the worse] in Christian-Jewish relations, as a result of the openness towards Islam and the beginning of an Islamic-Christian dialogue. NPR, for example, broadcasted an evenhanded program on Palestine and the suffering of the Palestinian people; as a result, Jewish (Zionist) donors in the U.S. called for their donations to be withdrawn from the station. This annoyed the station; in response, it intensified its coverage of Muslim American affairs and the Palestine problem..."

"One of the most important topics was an interview with several young women at American universities who recently converted to Islam through the Islamic Society of Boston. They hold advanced degrees from universities in Boston, such as Harvard, and they spoke of the power and the greatness of Islam, of the elevated status of women in Islam, and of why they converted to Islam. The program was broadcast several times across the entire U.S..."

"Thus, the Muslim community in the U.S. in general, and in Boston in particular, has begun to trouble the Zionist lobby. The words of the Koran [3:113] on this matter are true: 'They will be humiliated wherever they are found, unless they are protected under a covenant with Allah, or a covenant with another people. They have incurred Allah's wrath and they have been afflicted with misery. That is because they continuously rejected the Signs of Allah and were after slaying the Prophets without just cause, and this resulted from their disobedience and their habit of transgression.'"

"The great Allah spoke words of truth. Their covenant with America is the strongest possible in the U.S., but it is weaker than they think, and one day their covenant with the [American] people will be cut off."(6)

Endnotes:

(1) Saut Al-Haqq wa Al-Huriyya (Israel), October 26, 2001.

(2) Al-Hayat (London), November 11, 2001.

(3) Al-Ayyam (London), November 12, 2001.

(4) Al-Ahram Al-Arabi (Egypt), October 20, 2001.

(5) For more on this subject, see MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 41, "Muslim-Christian Tensions in the Israeli Arab Community," August 2, 1999.

(6) Al-Hayat (London), November 11, 2001.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an independent, non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle East. Copies of articles and documents cited, as well as background information, are available on request.<<<<<<

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