IN THIS ISSUE
Senator Vi Simpson hosted the first ever Democratic Women's Day at the Statehouse on March 29, 2007. The Muslim community was represented by Rafia Zakaria and Alia Shah of Muslim Alliance of Indiana. The day long session afforded participants the unique opportunity to meet with legislators from across Indiana. Among the legislators attending were Peggy Welch, Earline Rogers, Terri Austin, Carolene Mays, Sue Errington, Karen Tallian and Mara Candelaria Reardon. Senator Simpson emphasized the need for more women to enter Hoosier politics and run for the legislative assembly. Other female legislators presented their experiences in running for office and provided constructive advice of how to raise money for a campaign and organize strategies for outreach. The session also included a panel by State House women lobbyists who also emphasized the need for more women in the Indiana Senate and Legislature. Participants were also taken for a tour of the State House and Senate. The Day provided an excellent opportunity for women to get an inside look at the workings of the Indiana Senate and Legislature and consider running for office in their communities.
"It is important that Muslim Hoosiers become more active in politics and events like this," states Shariq Siddiqui, Executive Director of MAI. "MAI is nonpartisan and would like to see Muslim Hoosiers active in the political party of their choice."
The Senator Simpson had contacted MAI Executive Director Shariq Siddiqui for introduction to Muslim Hoosier women leaders. These introductions led to Rafia Zakaria and Alia Shah attending this important event.
A developer planning to build a Convention Center hotel in Downtown Indianapolis has come under fire from local Islamic advocates concerned that the company will discriminate against Muslim women here.
White Lodging Services Corp., one of the two developers of the proposed 1,000-room hotel, was recently sued in Kentucky for refusing to hire four Muslim women unless they worked without wearing a hijab, the traditional head covering for women mandated by Islamic religious teachings.
The Muslim Alliance of Indiana, the Islamic Society of North America and a union group called Unite Here have asked Mayor Bart Peterson to make several demands before the city gives White Lodging and its partner, REI Real Estate Services of Carmel, more than $48.5 million in public subsidies.
The advocates want White Lodging to meet with them, conduct diversity training for its employees, create protocols that prevent discrimination and allow its hotel employees to organize in unions.
Peterson's administration last year chose the White Lodging-led partnership for the hotel that is part of the city's bid to host the 2011 Super Bowl, which requires a large number of nearby hotel rooms.
The Merrillville-based company operates nearly a dozen hotels and restaurants in Indianapolis, including the Marriott Hotel Downtown and several Residence Inns.
White Lodging declined to comment.
Shariq Siddiqui, executive director of the Muslim alliance, wrote a letter to the mayor in January and is spearheading the effort. He said Peterson should use the subsidies as leverage.
"We're not against this deal or a subsidy," Siddiqui said. "But taxpayers have a say about how the city spends our money. We're saying if you want to get this incentive, you have to play by the rules of this country."
The city agreed to kick in about 20 percent of the $250 million construction costs in tax breaks and bonds financed with revenue from a new tax-increment financing district around the hotel. The final deal is in negotiations.
Peterson said he was interested in sitting down with both sides to find a solution for a complicated issue. He said he has been concerned about a backlash against Muslims in the city since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
"I want to hear both sides," Peterson said. "A private business has a right within the law to do business as it sees fit. On the flip side, when you're doing business with a public entity, the public has the right to ask questions about who we're partnering with."
The City-County Council must approve any financial incentives from the city. Patrice Abduallah, a City-County Council member, a Muslim and an advocate of Muslim rights, has worked to pressure White Lodging into changing its policy.
Abduallah thinks he has support from a bipartisan majority of the council to oppose granting a subsidy if the developer condones discrimination. He said he hopes talks between the company and the Muslim groups can reach a settlement.
"If Muslims want to wear our attire and women want to be modest and cover themselves in the workplace, then I'm shocked that a company would take a position against that," Abduallah said.
Lonnell Conley, the council's Democratic majority leader, and Scott Keller, a Republican who spearheaded earlier anti-discrimination efforts, said they have not heard about the case in Kentucky or Abduallah's concern about White Lodging's policy. Jackie Nytes, a Democratic council member, said Democrats have talked to union leaders about pushing White Lodging to allow union organization.
In the Louisville case, four Muslim women claimed they were denied jobs as housekeepers at a Marriott hotel because they wore a hijab.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit last summer after it found no evidence that wearing the hijab would affect the women's work performance.
The lawsuit accuses the company of illegal discrimination for refusing to accommodate the women's religious practices. The women, who were sent by an employment agency, claim they were told they couldn't work after they refused to remove their hijabs. The case is pending.
An attorney for the EEOC told the Louisville Courier-Journal that the case was the first of its kind in Kentucky but that cases of religious discrimination are common around the country. It was unclear late Thursday whether similar cases have been filed in Indiana because complaints are not made public unless the EEOC takes action.
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations said it receives complaints at least once a week from women who have been told they could not wear the hijab.
Siddiqui said the Islamic Society, a national organization, holds national conventions and would not hold one here if the Indiana Convention Center hotel allows discrimination. The society's convention could book up to 3,000 hotel rooms and bring $15 million in economic impact, Siddiqui said.
Abduallah said Muslims across the world dress in a recognizable way as an expression of their faith. He often wears a fez, a rounded, flat hat that covers the hair, which he called a part of his personal style and community identity. It doesn't affect his work any more than his wife's hijab, he said.
His wife, Helen Abduallah, said she couldn't imagine an employer not allowing her to wear the hijab. She and Patrice co-own a Near-Westside restaurant.
Muslim Alliance of Indiana (MAI) appointed Rafia Zakaria as its new Assistant Executive Director. She will be working with the Executive Director, Shariq Siddiqui, to further the mission of the organization. Both Siddiqui and Zakaria are licensed Indiana attorneys. "Having two licensed attorneys on your team makes a major difference in the kind of services and advocacy you can perform for the Muslim community of Indiana," states Dr Ibad Ansari, President of MAI.
Rafia Zakaria is an attorney currently completing her doctorate in Political Science at Indiana University. Her research focuses on Gender, Multiculturalism and Islam. She teaches courses on Political Philosophy, Constitutional Law and the Politics of Islam. Rafia is also part of Amnesty International USA's Middle East Country Group where she works on human rights issues focusing on women's rights and migration. Rafia serves on the Board of Ibtida, an NGO dedicated to establishing primary schools in rural Pakistan. She writes for alt.muslim, Daily Times (Pakistan) and Frontline (India) Her writing focuses on the need for increased engagement between the Western Left and Muslim thinkers as well as issues surrounding Muslim minorities in the West.
"Rafia is an example of a dynamic Muslim Hoosier who will serve the Muslim community with distinction," states Shariq Siddiqui, Executive Director of MAI. "Muslim Hoosiers need more dynamic leaders like Rafia to effectively further the cause of Muslims in Indiana."
The Indiana Muslim Political Action Committee Taskforce (IMPACT) hosted a luncheon for Congressman Baron Hill in Bloomington on Saturday, April 7th. This very successful event provided an opportunity for the American Muslim community to talk directly with their congressman and hear his views on issues that are of concern to the Muslim community.
Congressman Hill shared with the diverse audience his commitment to defend civil rights and liberties for all and to reverse infringements on it by the Bush Administration. He advocated wisdom and engagement instead of preemptive attacks in dealing with Iran. He confirmed his position to have US forces out of Iraq.
IMPACT supports candidates and elected officials who work to defend the civil liberties and civil rights of all Americans; actively fight prejudice, hatred and bigotry; and work toward a just and balanced American foreign policy. The mission of IMPACT is to organize and empower American Muslims to play an effective role in the American political process. IMPACT will continue to listen to the concerns of Muslim Americans throughout Congressman Hill's term in office and communicate these concerns to the congressman. Together we can make a difference.
American Muslims are uniquely positioned to contribute to America's understanding and to America's response to the challenges facing our country today especially in the area of foreign policy.
At the Hill luncheon, IMPACT was proud to award "The 2007 Muslim American Civic Leadership Award" to two outstanding graduate Indiana University seniors, Khalil AbuGharbieh and Ozair Shariff.
To support, join or learn more about IMPACT, contact Nancy Anderson at Anderson@impact-in.org
Under the glistening dome of a mosque on Long Island, hundreds of men sat cross-legged on the floor. Many were doctors and engineers born in
Pakistan and India. Dressed in khakis, polo shirts and the odd silk tunic, they fidgeted and whispered. One thing stood between them and dinner: A visitor from Harlem was coming to ask for money. A towering black man with a gray-flecked beard finally swept into the room, his bodyguard trailing him. Wearing a long, embroidered robe and matching hat, he took the microphone and began talking about a different group of Muslims, the thousands of African-Americans who have found Islam in prison. "We are all brothers and sisters," said the visitor, known as Imam Talib. The men stared. To some of them, it seemed, he was from another planet. As the imam returned their gaze, he had a similar sensation. "They live in another world," he later said.
Only 28 miles separate Imam Talib's mosque in Harlem from the Islamic Center of Long Island. The congregations they each serve - African-Americans at the city mosque and immigrants of South Asian and Arab descent in the suburbs - represent the largest Muslim populations in the United States. Yet a vast gulf divides them, one marked by race and class, culture and history.
For many African-American converts, Islam is an experience both spiritual and political, an expression of empowerment in a country they feel is dominated by a white elite. For many immigrant Muslims, Islam is an inherited identity, and America a place of assimilation and prosperity.
For decades, these two Muslim worlds remained largely separate. But last fall, Imam Talib hoped to cross that distance in a venture that has become increasingly common since Sept. 11. Black Muslims have begun advising immigrants on how to mount a civil rights campaign. Foreign-born Muslims are giving African-Americans roles of leadership in some of their largest organizations. The two groups have joined forces politically, forming coalitions and backing the same candidates. It is a tentative and uneasy union, seen more typically among leaders at the pulpit than along the prayer line. But it is critical, a growing number of Muslims believe, to surviving a hostile new era. "Muslims will not be successful in America until there is a marriage between the indigenous and immigrant communities," said Siraj Wahhaj, an African-American imam in New York with a rare national following among immigrant Muslims. "There has to be a marriage."
The divide between black and immigrant Muslims reflects a unique struggle facing Islam in America. Perhaps nowhere else in the world are Muslims from so many racial, cultural and theological backgrounds trying their hands at coexistence. Only in Mecca, during the obligatory hajj, or pilgrimage, does such diversity in the faith come to life, between black and white, rich and poor, Sunni and Shiite. "This is a new experiment in the history of Islam," said Ali S. Asani, a professor of Islamic studies at Harvard University
That evening in October, Imam Al-Hajj Talib 'Abdur-Rashid drove to Westbury, on Long Island, with a task he would have found unthinkable years ago.
He would ask for donations from the immigrant community he refers to, somewhat bitterly, as the "Muslim elite." But he needed funds, and the doors of immigrant mosques seemed to be opening. Imam Talib and other African-American leaders had formed a national "indigenous Muslim" organization, and he knew that during the holy month of Ramadan, the Islamic Center of Long Island could raise thousands of dollars in an evening. It is a place where BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes fill the parking lot, and Coach purses are perched along prayer lines. In Harlem, many of Imam Talib's congregants get to the mosque by bus or subway, and warm themselves with space heaters in a drafty, brick building. Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Imam Talib had only a distant connection to the Islamic Center of Long Island. In passing, he had met Faroque Khan, an Indian-born doctor who helped found the mosque, but the two had little in common.
Imam Talib, 56, is a thundering prison chaplain whose mosque traces its roots to Malcolm X. He is a first-generation Muslim.
Dr. Khan, 64, is a mild-mannered pulmonologist who collects Chinese antiques and learned to ski on the slopes of Vermont. He is a first-generation American.
But in the turmoil that followed Sept. 11, the imam and the doctor found themselves unexpectedly allied. "The more separate we stay, the more targeted we become," Dr. Khan said. Each man recognizes what the other has to offer. African-Americans possess a cultural and historical fluency that immigrants lack, said Dr. Khan; they hold an unassailable place in America from which to defend their faith.
For Imam Talib, immigrants provide a crucial link to the Muslim world and its tradition of scholarship, as well as the wisdom that comes with an "unshattered Islamic heritage." Both groups have their practical virtues, too. African-Americans know better how to mobilize in America, both men say, and immigrants tend to
have deeper pockets. Still, it is one thing to talk about unity, Imam Talib said, and another to give it life. Before his visit to Long Island last fall, he had never
asked Dr. Khan and his mosque to match their rhetoric with money. "You have to have a litmus test," he said. One Faith, Many Histories
Imam Talib and Dr. Khan did not warm to each other when they met in May 2000, at a gathering in Chicago of Muslim leaders.
The imam found the silver-haired doctor faintly smug and paternalistic. It was an attitude he had often whiffed from well-to-do immigrant Muslims. Dr. Khan found Imam Talib straightforward to the point of bluntness.
The uneasy introduction was, for both men, emblematic of the strained relationship between their communities.
Imam Talib and other black Muslims trace their American roots to the arrival of Muslims from West Africa as slaves in the South. That historical link gave rise to Islam-inspired movements in the 20th century, the most significant of which was the Nation of Islam.
The man who founded the Nation in 1930, W. D. Fard, spread the message that American blacks belonged to a lost Muslim tribe and were superior
to the "white, blue-eyed devils" in their midst. Under Mr. Fard's successor, Elijah Muhammad, the Nation flourished in the 1960s amid the civil rights struggle and the emergence of a black-separatist movement. Overseas, Islamic scholars found the group's teachings on race antithetical to the faith. The schism narrowed after 1975, when Mr. Muhammad's son Warith Deen Mohammed took over the Nation, bringing it in line with orthodox Sunni Islam. Louis Farrakhan parted ways with Mr. Mohammed - taking the Nation's name and traditional teachings with him - but the majority of African-American adherents came to embrace the same Sunni practice that dominates the Muslim world. Still, divisions between African-American and immigrant Muslims remained pronounced long after the first large waves of South Asians and Arabs arrived in the United States in the 1960s.
Today, of the estimated six million Muslims who live in the United States, about 25 percent are African-American, 34 percent are South Asian and 26 percent are Arab, said John Zogby, a pollster who has studied the American Muslim population. "Given the extreme from which we came, I would say that the immigrant
Muslims have been brotherly toward us," Warith Deen Mohammed, who has the largest following of African-American Muslims, said in an interview.
"But I think they're more skeptical than they admit they are. I think they feel more comfortable with their own than they feel with us."
For many African-Americans, conversion to Islam has meant parting with mainstream culture, while Muslim immigrants have tended toward assimilation. Black converts often take Arabic names, only to find foreign-born Muslims introducing themselves as "Moe" instead of "Mohammed."
The tensions are also economic. Like Dr. Khan, many Muslim immigrants came to the United States with advanced degrees and quickly prospered, settling in the suburbs. For decades, African-Americans watched with frustration as immigrants sent donations to causes overseas, largely ignoring the problems of poor Muslims in the United States. Imam Talib found it impossible to generate interest at immigrant mosques in the 1999 police shooting of Amadou Diallo, who was Muslim. "What we've found is when domestic issues jump up, like police brutality, all the sudden we're by ourselves," he said.
Some foreign-born Muslims say they are put off by the racial politics of many black converts. They struggle to understand why African-American
Muslims have been reluctant to meet with law enforcement officials in the wake of Sept. 11. For their part, black Muslim leaders complain that immigrants have failed to learn their history, which includes a pattern of F.B.I. surveillance dating back to the roots of the Nation of Islam. The ironies are, at times, stinging.
"From the immigrant community, I hear that African-Americans have to learn how to work in the system," said Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, adding that this was not his personal opinion. At the heart of the conflict is a question of leadership. Much to the ire of African-Americans, many immigrants see themselves as the rightful leaders of the faith in America by virtue of their Islamic schooling and fluency in Arabic, the original language of the Koran.
"What does knowing Arabic have to do with the quality of your prayer, your fast, your relationship with God?" asked Ihsan Bagby, an associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. "But African-Americans have to ask themselves why have they not learned more in these years."
Every year in Chicago, the two largest Muslim conventions in the country - one sponsored by an immigrant organization and the other by Mr. Mohammed's - take place on the same weekend, in separate parts of the city. The long-simmering tension boiled over into a public rift with the 2000 presidential elections. That year, a powerful coalition of immigrant Muslims endorsed George W. Bush (because of a promise to stop the profiling of Arabs).
The nation's most prominent African-American Muslims complained that they were never consulted. The following summer, when Imam Talib vented
his frustration at a meeting with immigrant leaders in Washington, a South Asian man turned to him, he recalled, and said, "I don't understand why all of you African-American Muslims are always so angry about everything." Imam Talib searched for an answer he thought the man could understand.
"African-Americans are like the Palestinians of this land," he finally said. "We're not just some angry black people. We're legitimately outraged and angry."
The room fell silent. Soon after, black leaders announced the creation of the Muslim Alliance in North America, their first national "indigenous" organization.
But the fallout over the elections was soon eclipsed by Sept. 11, when Muslim immigrants found themselves under intense public scrutiny. They began complaining about "profiling" and "flying while brown," appropriating language that had been largely the domain of African-Americans.
It was around this time that Dr. Khan became, as he put it, enlightened. A few weeks before the terrorist attacks, he read the book "Black Rage," by William H. Grier and Price M. Cobbs. The book, published in 1968, explores the psychological woes of African-Americans, and how the impact of racism is carried through generations. "It helped me understand that even before you're born, things that happened a hundred years ago can affect you," Dr. Khan said. "That was a
big change in my thinking." He sent an e-mail message to fellow Muslims, including Imam Talib, sharing what he had learned.
The Harlem imam was pleased, if not yet convinced. "I just encouraged the brother to keep going," Imam Talib said. An Oasis in Harlem
One windswept night in Harlem, cars rolled past the corner of West 113th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. A police siren blared as men huddled by
a neon-lit Laundromat. Across the street stood a brown brick building, lifeless from the outside. But upstairs, in a cozy carpeted room, rows of men and women
chanted. "Ya Hakim. Ya Allah." O wise one. O God.
Imam Talib led the chant, swathed in a black satin robe. It was Ramadan's holiest evening, the Night of Power. As the voices died down, he spotted his bodyguard swaying. "Take it easy there, Captain," Imam Talib said. "As long as you don't jump and shout it's all right." Laughter trickled through the mosque, where a translucent curtain separated men in skullcaps from women in African-print gowns. "We're just trying to be ourselves, you know?" Imam Talib said. "Within
the tradition." "That's right," said one woman. The imam continued: "And we can't let other people, from other cultures, come and try to make us clones of them. We came here as Muslims." He was feeling drained. He had just returned from the Manhattan Detention Complex, where he works as a chaplain. Some of the mosque's men were back in jail. "We need power," he said quietly. "Without that, we'll destroy ourselves."
Since its birth in 1964, the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood has been a fortress of stubborn faith, persevering through the crack wars, welfare, AIDS, gangs, unemployment, diabetes, broken families and gentrification. The mosque was founded in a Brooklyn apartment by Shaykh-'Allama Al-Hajj K. Ahmad Tawfiq, a follower of Malcolm X. The Sunni congregation boomed in the 1970s, starting a newspaper and opening a school and a health food store.
With city loans, it bought its current building. Fourteen families moved in, creating a bold Muslim oasis in a landscape of storefront churches and liquor stores. The mosque claimed its corner by drenching the sidewalk in dark green paint, the color associated with Islam. The collard greens, grilled fish and candied yams.
Just before the afternoon prayer, a lean man in a black turtleneck rose to give the call. He was Yusef Salaam, whose conviction in the Central Park jogger case was later overturned. Many of the mosque's member paint has since faded. The school is closed. Many of the mosque's members can no longer afford to live in a neighborhood where brownstones sell for millions of dollars. But an aura of dignity prevails. The women normally pray one floor below the men, in a scrubbed, tidy room scented with incense. Their bathroom is a shrine of gold curtains and lavender soaps. A basket of nylon roses hides a hole in the wall.
Most of the mosque's 160 members belong to the working class, and up to a third of the men are former convicts. Some congregants are entrepreneurs, professors, writers and musicians.
Mos Def and Q-Tip have visited with Imam Talib, who carries the nickname "hip-hop imam."
Mosque celebrations are a blend of Islam and Harlem. In October, at the end of Ramadan, families feasted on curried chicken and embraced Islam in search of black empowerment, not black separatism. They describe racial equality as a central tenet of their faith. Yet for some, the promise of Islam has been at odds with the reality of Muslims. One member, Aqilah Mu'Min, lives in the Parkchester section of the Bronx, a heavily Bangladeshi neighborhood. Whenever she passes women in head scarves, she offers the requisite Muslim greeting. Rarely is it returned. "We have a theory that says Islam is perfect, human beings are not," said Ms. Mu'Min, a city fraud investigator.
It was the simplicity of Islam that drew Imam Talib. Raised a Christian, he spent the first part of his youth in segregated North Carolina. As a teenager, he read "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" twice. He began educating himself about the faith at age 19, when as an aspiring actor he was cast in a play about a man who had left the Nation of Islam. But his conversion was more spiritual than political, he said. "I'd like to think that even if I was a white man, I'd still be a Muslim because that's the orientation of my soul," the imam said. He has learned some Arabic, and traveled once to the Middle East, for hajj. Yet he feels more comfortable with the Senegalese and Guinean Muslims who have settled in Harlem than with many Arabs and South Asians.
He is trying to reach out, but is often disappointed. In November, he accepted a last-minute invitation to meet with hundreds of immigrants at the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, an opulent mosque on East 96th Street. The group, the Coalition for Muslim School Holidays, was trying to persuade the city to recognize two Muslim holidays on the school calendar. The effort, Imam Talib learned, had been nearly a year in the making, and no African-American leaders had been consulted. He was stunned. After all, he had led a similar campaign in the 1980s, resulting in the suspension of alternate-side parking for the same holidays.
"They are unaware of the foundations upon which they are standing," he said.
Backlash in the Suburbs Brush Hollow Road winds through a quiet stretch of Long Island, past churches and diners and leafy cul-de-sacs. In this tranquil tableau, the Islamic Center of Long Island announces itself proudly, a Moorish structure of white concrete topped by a graceful dome. Sleek sedans and S.U.V.'s circle the property as girls with Barbie backpacks hop out and scurry to the Islamic classes they call "Sunday school."
It is a testament to America's influence on the mosque that its liveliest time of the week is not Friday, Islam's holy day, but Sunday. Boys in hooded sweatshirts smack basketballs along the pavement by a sign that reads "No pray, no play." Young mothers in Burberry coats exchange kisses and chatter.
For members of the mosque - many of whom work in Manhattan and cannot make the Friday prayer - Sunday is the day to reflect and connect.
The treasurer, Rizwan Qureshi, frantically greeted drivers one Sunday morning with a flier advertising a fund-raiser. "We're trying to get Barack Obama," Mr. Qureshi, a banker born in Karachi, told a woman in a gold-hued BMW. "We need some real money," he called out to another driver.
The mosque began with a group of doctors, engineers and other professionals from Pakistan and India who settled in Nassau County in the early 1970s.
"Our kids would come home from school and say, 'Where is my Christmas tree, my Hanukkah lights?' " recalled Dr. Khan, who lives in nearby Jericho. "We didn't want them to grow up unsure of who they are." Since opening in 1993, the mosque has thrived, with assets now valued at more than $3 million. Hundreds of people pray there weekly, and thousands come on Muslim holidays. The mosque has an unusually modern, democratic air. Men and women worship with no partition between them. A different scholar delivers the Friday sermon every week, in English. Perhaps most striking, a majority of female worshipers do not cover
their heads outside the mosque. "I think it's important to find the fine line between the religion and the age in which we live," said Nasreen Wasti, 43, a contract analyst for Lufthansa. "I'm sure I will have to answer to God for not covering myself. But I'm also satisfied by many of the good deeds I am doing."
She and other members use words like "progressive" to describe their congregation.
But after Sept. 11, a different image took hold. In October 2001, a Newsday article quoted a member of the mosque as asking "who really benefits from such a horrible tragedy that is blamed on Muslims and Arabs?" A co-president of the mosque was also quoted saying that Israel "would benefit from this tragedy."
Conspiracy theories about Sept. 11 have long circulated among Muslims, and Dr. Khan had heard discussion among congregants. Such talk, he said, was the product of two forces: a deep mistrust of America's motives in the Middle East and a refusal, among many Muslims, to engage in self-criticism.
"You blame the other guy for your own shortcomings," said Dr. Khan. He visited synagogues and churches after the article ran, reassuring audiences that the comments did not reflect the official position of the mosque, which condemned the attacks. But to Congressman Peter T. King, whose district is near the mosque,
that condemnation fell short. He began publicly criticizing Dr. Khan, asserting that he had failed to fully denounce the statements made by the men.
"He's definitely a radical," Mr. King said of Dr. Khan in an interview. "You cannot, in the context of Sept. 11, allow those statements to be made and not be a radical." When asked about Mr. King's comments, Dr. Khan replied proudly, "I thought we had freedom of speech."
It hardly seems possible that Mr. King and Dr. Khan were once friends. Mr. King used to dine at Dr. Khan's home. He attended the wedding of Dr. Khan's son, Arif, in 1995. At the mosque's opening, it was Mr. King who cut the ribbon. After Sept. 11, the mosque experienced the sort of social backlash felt by Muslims around the country. Anonymous callers left threatening messages, and rocks were hurled at children from passing cars. The attention waned over time. But Mr. King cast a new light on the mosque in 2004 with the release of his novel "Vale of Tears." In the novel, terrorists affiliated with a Long Island mosque demolish
several buildings, killing hundreds of people. One of the central characters is a Pakistani heart surgeon whose friendship with a congressman has grown tense.
"By inference, it's me," Dr. Khan said of the Pakistani character. (Mr. King said it was a "composite character" based on several Muslims he knows.)
For Dr. Khan, his difficulties after Sept. 11 come as proof that Muslims cannot stay fragmented. "It's a challenge for the whole Muslim community - not just for me," he said. "United we stand, divided we fall." The Litmus Test Imam Talib and his bodyguard set off to Westbury before dusk on Oct. 14. They passed a fork on the Long Island Expressway, and the imam peered out the window. None of the signs were familiar. He checked his watch and saw that he was late, adding to his unease. He had visited the mosque a few times before, but never felt entirely at home.
"I'm conscious of being a guest," he said. "They treat me kindly and nicely. But I know where I am." At the Islamic Center of Long Island, Dr. Khan was also getting nervous. Hundreds of congregants had gathered after fasting all day for Ramadan. The scent of curry drifted mercilessly through the mosque.
Dr. Khan sprang to his feet and took the microphone. He improvised. "All of us need to learn from and understand the contributions of the Muslim indigenous community," he said. "Starting with Malcolm X." It had been six years since Imam Talib and Dr. Khan first encountered each other in Chicago. Back then, Imam Talib rarely visited immigrant mosques, and Dr. Khan had only a peripheral connection to African-American Muslims.
In the 1980s, the doctor had become aware of the high number of Muslim inmates while working as the chief of medicine for a hospital in Nassau County that oversaw health care at the county prison. His mosque began donating prayer rugs, Korans and skullcaps to prisoners around the country. But his interaction with black Muslim leaders was limited until Sept. 11. After Dr. Khan read the book "Black Rage," he and Imam Talib began serving together on the board of a new political task force. Finally, in 2005, Dr. Khan invited the imam to his mosque to give the Friday sermon. That February, Imam Talib rose before the Long Island congregation. Blending verses in the Koran with passages from recent American history, he urged the audience to learn from the civil rights movement.
Dr. Khan listened raptly. Afterward, over sandwiches, he asked Imam Talib for advice. He wanted to thaw the relationship between his mosque and African-American mosques on Long Island. The conversation continued for hours. "The real searching for an answer, searching for a solution, was coming from Dr. Khan," said Imam Talib. "I could just feel it." Dr. Khan began inviting more African-American leaders to speak at his mosque, and welcomed Imam Talib there last October to give a fund-raising pitch for his organization, the Muslim Alliance in North America. The group had recently announced a "domestic agenda," with
programs to help ex-convicts find housing and jobs and to standardize premarital counseling for Muslims in America. After the imam arrived that evening and spoke, he sat on the floor next to a blazer-clad Dr. Khan. As they feasted on kebabs, the doctor made a pitch of his own: The teenagers of his mosque could spend a day at Imam Talib's mosque, as the start of a youth exchange program. The imam nodded slowly. Minutes later, the mosque's president, Habeeb Ahmed, hurried over. The congregants had so far pledged $10,000.
"Alhamdulillah," the imam said. Praise be to God. It was the most Imam Talib had raised for his group in one evening. As the dinner drew to a close, the imam looked for his bodyguard. They had a long drive home and he did not want to lose his way again. Dr. Khan asked Imam Talib how he had gotten lost.
"Inner city versus the suburbs," the imam replied a bit testily. Then he smiled. "The only thing it proves," he said, "is that I need to come by here more often."
Khedeja Al-Iman, a family advocate and outreach worker in the Muslim community, spent the day cooking and baking Friday.
It was her day off, but she volunteered to cook and bake for some of the clients she served as a caseworker for the Lutheran Community Services of Southern New England.
The food was prepared in her home on Douglas Street, where we met. When she arrived home the night before, she noticed that someone had dismantled a portion of her fence and strewn the parts in the street.
She talked briefly about vandalism and then wearily dismissed the topic, saying, "I know who it is."
When she was young, she wanted to be a nun. She ran away from home, in fact, to be a nun, and when that didn't work out, she came across a Muslim woman in a book she was reading, saw the way the woman was dressed and decided that she would convert to Islam.
But if it began as a romantic quest, she has subsequently worked hard and diligently to live the life of a true Muslim.
It hasn't been easy.
It was a battle getting her Mormon parents to accept her conversion to Islam. She continues to fight suspicions that she is an FBI agent from some in the Muslim community and that she is an abettor of terrorism from some in the general community.
Members of her family suffered because of her conversion. The youngest of her three brothers, a Marine who fought in the Gulf war, took some heat from his colleagues because he had a "sister who was Muslim."
She keeps in touch with her other two brothers - one a Navy veteran and the other an Air Force veteran- and her father, who now accepts her conversion. It is the picture of the youngest brother, however, which hangs on her "board of prayers" at her office in the Lutheran building on Harvard Street.
"All the sorrows, all the disturbances that come to us are caused by ourselves, and so we must correct our own faults," one of the prayers says.
Lately, however, she has been thinking about the faults of others.
She has been seeing some disturbing indications that many Muslim women, particularly those who converted to the religion or who were born in America, were being used by Muslim men she described as "visa, green card and citizenship hunters."
Ms. Al-Iman said she is also concerned about the abuse of certain Islamic practices such as polygamy and temporary marriages. She spoke of a recent case in which a Jordanian, who has a wife in that country, married a converted woman in Maine as a means to get a green card.
When the wife in Maine filed for divorce, the man married a Worcester woman without disclosing that he had a wife in Jordan. Then as soon as he received a 10-year green card, the man left his Worcester wife, according to Ms. Al-Iman.
While acknowledging that the Quran allows a man to marry "two or three or four" wives, Ms. Al-Iman said "a prospective bride is entitled to know about any other wife, including any spouses back home," she said.
In the interest of openness and fairness, both "partners should decide on whether they want to marry according to civil and religious law, and to discuss all arrangements openly and truthfully," she said.
"Whatever is then agreed upon, as long as it is within the limits of Islam, it is their business.
"I would like Muslim women to know their rights," she said.
"I want them to know that the woman is entitled to food, shelter and clothing. What the husband provides his wife must be equal to what he provides himself. He cannot dress in designer clothes and expect his wife to wear rags."
Ms. Al-Iman said her concerns are shared by many "brothers" in the community.
But she also knows that her outspokenness will earn her further scorn from those who now think of her as the "American disobedient wife."
"I know some will think of me that way, but I am standing for the right jihad," she said.
In the 1950s, ultra-conservatives torpedoed their critics by calling them Communist. Today the same tactic is used against Muslim organizations by calling them apologists for terrorism. And like the 1950s, the intent of the ultra-conservatives today is to distract the public from their own undemocratic maledictions. As the French say, "The more things change, the more they stay the same."
It was a déjà vu all over again, too, when Republicans in the House of Representatives asked Nancy Pelosi to deny the Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR) a capital conference room for a seminar. If religious McCarthyism is the intent of House Republicans, so is their ultimate political intent. They want to peel off Jewish voters from the Democratic base, moving them to the right by an appeal to Islamophobia. That was precisely the strategy behind Karl Rove's gambit of putting Daniel Pipes on the Board of Directors at the Institute of Peace. This latest move also aims to expose the Democratic leadership as unprincipled flip-floppers by hassling Nancy Pelosi until she caves in to their demands. The Republicans want more votes and money from the pro-Israel lobby, while driving the Dems crazy by threatening their base.
So how does one react to terror-baiting? Go on the offensive. The more you try to explain that you're not a terrorist, the more the Islamophobes will control the discussion. Single out your most vulnerable attackers by name and sue them for defamation. Then show how they and their friends are undermining religious liberty in America, and how their political posturing is based on religious bigotry. Show how they support authoritarian government, torture and the Iraq war. Root your arguments in religious and political pluralism, the American constitution, and the American way of life. Show how religious McCarthyism helps the terrorists and besmirches America's good name in the Muslim and Arabic-speaking worlds. Insist that it endangers the lives of our young people in uniform. Fight back with everything in your legal and rhetorical arsenal.
Secondly, we need to find better ways of confronting the underlying problem that drives Islamophobia in America. It's all about Israel, folks, and the way Jews and Muslims get defined by various contending parties to that issue. More than anything we need a frank and open national debate about Israel/Palestine and the future of American foreign policy, but we'll never get there until we confront the pro-Israel lobby head-on.
What we need more than anything is at least one quality website and publication dedicated solely to monitoring the activities of "the lobby." Such a website/publication would recruit the best writers-Jewish, Christian and Muslim-as well as established experts on the Middle East. It would research and report on the activities of the pro-Israel lobby, with profiles of its major actors and public criticism of their position papers. This news outlet would recruit sources within "the lobby" to keep activists informed of internals power struggles. Above all it would track how money is distributed from the pro-Israel lobby and who receives it.
The problem, of course, is funding for such a watchdog group. Regular funding sources wouldn't be caught dead helping such a project. Funding has to come from within the community most affected, which will be American Muslims. But many well-to-do Muslims haven't yet figured out the importance of interest organizations in American politics. They're good at making brick-and-mortar donations for houses of worship and community centers, and also fund quality educational programs about Islam, but may not yet see how important it is to carry on an aggressive daily struggle for Muslim civil rights. That struggle will be increasingly defined by how well we can open up the discussion about Israel/Palestine. Without that discussion, the Islamophobes will use money, influence and gutter politics to impose uncritical support of Israel. The first target in their sights is the organized Muslim community.
Lawrence Swaim is the Executive Director of the Interfaith Freedom Foundation. He taught for eight years at Pacific Union College, and his academic specialties are American Studies and American literature. His column addresses current affairs from an American Christian and Interfaith perspective.
Washington - In the coming year, a bank subsidiary in Michigan will expand its reach by offering products targeted to Muslims in three metropolitan areas outside of that state.
The University Islamic Financial Corporation, a subsidiary of University Bank, a community bank in Ann Arbor, Michigan, will reach Muslims in the Washington metropolitan area via a suburban office in Herndon, Virginia. It plans to open in two more locations, as yet undisclosed, shortly thereafter.
The bank subsidiary's president, Stephen Lange Ranzini, estimates that Michigan is home to approximately 400,000 Muslims, "the largest community of Arab Muslims outside of the Middle East."
Locations of these new branches have been chosen for their proximity to large Muslim populations. The bank subsidiary seeks to serve a customer niche that does not want to buy a home using traditional home loans, which involve paying interest, popular in the United States. Such customers interpret Islamic law, or Shariah, as forbidding the paying or charging of interest.
Since the end of 2005, the Michigan bank subsidiary has offered its alternative home-financing products only to Michigan residents. But Ranzini said it has built products that will be compliant with the laws of other states.
The first of two home-finance products the Ranzini's institution offers in Michigan is called ijara - in which the bank holds ownership of a property and leases it back to a customer, who pays property taxes, insurance and maintenance, and who eventually buys the home back through the lease payments. The second is called murabaha - in which the bank buys the property and sells it to the customer at a profit, the total of which is divided into monthly payments.
Devon Bank, in Chicago, also offers housing finance using the murabaha model and has begun selling its contracts to Freddie Mac, a stockholder-owned corporation established by Congress in 1970 to support homeownership. Brad German, a spokesman for Freddie Mac, said the corporation is buying a fair number of contracts - business that has gone from nothing in March 2001, when it was the first major U.S. mortgage investor to contract to purchase Islamic homeownership products, to roughly $200 million a year.
The Michigan bank subsidiary also offers deposit accounts in which it invests depositors' money into Islamic assets. The accounts are called mudaraba (or profit-sharing) contracts. After taking an administrative fee, the bank gives profit from the investment to account holders.
Finally, the bank offers mutual funds - investment in groups of stocks that are screened to eliminate companies involved in alcohol, tobacco, gambling or other products or activities that would not comply with Islamic law. The companies' whose stocks are included in the funds are screened for the amount of interest they earn (eliminating banks, insurance companies, and financial service companies). The definitions of what amount of interest a company might earn often becomes controversial, Ranzini said. UIFC offers its customers the Amana funds, managed by Saturna Capital in Bellingham Washington.
Other funds are put together by the Dow Jones Islamic Market Index Group, which also uses interest and debt screens on companies to put together some 60 different equity indexes of companies that are Shariah compliant. The indexes can be used as benchmarks or licensed as financial products, according to a spokeswoman at Dow Jones. She said they appeal to conventional investors, as well as Muslims, because they "outperform the traditional indexes they are derived from," she said.
Other financial institutions are serving the Muslim market, including Guidance Financial Group, in Reston, Virginia, and Lariba American Finance, in Pasadena, California. These organizations normally consult with Islamic scholars in designing services and ironing out any problems with particular contracts.
Economist Mahmoud El-Gamel of Rice University in Houston said he worries that religious scholars might push people to invest in these financing products even if they are more costly than mortgages that are more traditional in the United States. He said that some sectors of the Muslim American population might be willing to pay $500 more to "buy peace of mind. Bankers call it 'the cost of being Muslim,'" he said.
The African Development Center of Minnesota, a nonprofit microfinance organization, helps Muslim business owners to finance the purchase of assets that they might not be able to afford, without taking out interest-charging loans. The nonprofit typically helps Muslim businesses that are considered to be in their "second stage" because they have been around for a few years but need help to grow.
According to Hussein Samatar, executive director of the center, "We want them to succeed. There is not one bottom-line profit motive. We offer technical assistance to help them make a sustainable business, make a living and send their children to school." The week of April 9, the center will announce a program with the city of Minneapolis to help Muslim business owners. In that city, the Muslim population consists of people from Pakistan, Indonesia and the Middle East who came to study at the University of Minnesota and of refugees from Africa, many who left Somalia during the 1990s due to civil war there.
Samatar said that many of them are comfortable in dealing with interest, but about 40 percent do not want to finance businesses or homes with interest. "We don't want to leave them behind in creating wealth in this community."
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
Job Location: Washington, DC
Job Status: Full-Time
Job Description:
The Muslim-Christian Initiative on the Nuclear Weapons Danger (MCI) is a project of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and the Churches' Center for Theology and Public Policy. It enables the Muslim and Christian communities in the U.S. to work vigorously to end the nuclear weapons danger. The Coordinator, with the assistance and advice of the lead staff person from ISNA and the lead staff person from CCTPP, will provide leadership to both the Christian and Muslim communities on this issue. The Coordinator will be an employee of ISNA. His/her immediate supervisor will be the lead staff person for ISNA. The lead MCI staff person of CCTPP will be a close advisor.
Ideally, the person we're looking for will have a degree in journalism with experience, or alternatively, an advanced degree in a related area, with publications in reputable newspapers, popular journals or magazines. This person should also have experience doing the following:
Responsibilities:
- Represent ISNA in interfaith efforts to end the nuclear weapons danger.
- Arrange for visits to Muslim and Christian organizations, congregations and centers.
- Make presentations at such organizations, congregations and centers promoting the Muslim-Christian Statement on the Nuclear Weapons Danger and the Study and Action guide on the Nuclear Weapons Danger;
- Arrange for panels, speakers and workshops at important Muslim conferences, including the regional ISNA conferences, the national ISNA convention, and other important Christian conferences.
- Encourage Muslim and Christian bodies to become endorsers of the Muslim-Christian Statement on the Nuclear Weapons Danger.
- Organize, at least one event for Muslims and Christians in Washington, DC to visit their congressmen and congresswomen.
- Prepare four issues of a newsletter on this project for 2007.
- Develop and implement a press strategy for both the religious and as well as the secular press.
Deliverables completed by December 2007:
- At least 5000 Muslims and Christians will endorse the Statement.
- At least 4 issues of the newsletter will be distributed to all who endorse the statement.
- At least 150 congregations will make use of the resource materials.
- Muslim and Christians from at least 12 states will attend the event in Washington, DC to visit with their representatives and U.S. senators.
- At least 50 national denominational bodies, national Christian and Muslim organizations, and state ecumenical and interfaith agencies will be endorsers of the Statement.
Requirements:
The Coordinator will possess these characteristics:
- Be a Muslim in good standing with significant experience working with the Muslim community of the US.
- Be comfortable with the Muslim-Christian Statement on the Nuclear Weapons Danger. Experience in working on the dangers of nuclear weapons will be an asset.
- Be an effective speaker, educator and organizer.
- Be experienced in interfaith work, especially with the Christian community.
- Be experienced in undertaking tasks similar to those included in the responsibilities section below.
Qualifications:
- College degree required; Masters degree preferred.
- Willingness to travel.
- Communication skills essential, especially in writing and public speaking.
- Reasonable knowledge of the dynamics of the Muslim community in North America essential.
- At least three years experience in non-profit management essential.
- Experience in working with boards, including the cultivation of financial leadership.
- Knowledge of religious communities and relevant social issues.
- High degree of comfort interacting with individuals of diverse cultures and orientation.
- High level of competence in computer skills and other administrative skills
Salary: Consistent with ISNA salary practices; and it includes full benefits.
Please send a resume along with a cover letter, and two letters of recommendation to Habibe Ali at habibe@isna.net
Applicants:
Contact: Sr. Habibe Ali
Email: habibe@isna.net
Phone: (317) 839-8157 ext. 824
Fax: (317) 839-1805
Assalaamu'alaykum wa rahmatullaahi wa barakatuhu.
The Muslim Community of West Lafayette Indiana is pleased to announce that Shaykh Khalid Yasin will be visiting our community on Friday, April 13th.
The Shaykh will deliver the jumuah khutbah at the Islamic Center of Greater Lafayette (1022 First Street) beginning at 1:50 PM EST.
The Shaykh will deliver two hour lecture (Islamic Consciousness and Discipline) on campus from 6:00 - 8:00pm EST.
He will attend a private youth session from 9:00 - 9:30 PM EST.
Khalid Yasin is well known internationally through his dawah (to Muslims and non-Muslims) DVDs. We hope and pray that the Muslims in Indiana and the surrounding areas can support this event by showing-up and filling the seats. Insha'Allah, by supporting this event, we hope to bring him back for one of his powerful dawah to non-Muslim lectures that have changed the hearts and minds of thousands and guided them to the deen of Islam.
For location of the 6 - 8 PM talk, please visit http://www.purdue.edu/campus_map/ for a campus map to locate the building.
Campus garage parking is free after 5 PM and 2hr limit street parking will not affect anyone who parks after 5 PM.
Contact me with any questions.
JazakAllahu khair.
Shakoor Ahmed Ward
765-409-4978
Indiana University
Department of Near Eastern
Languages and Cultures (NELC)
&
Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Program
are pleased to present the
Fifth Annual Victor Danner Memorial Lecture in Islamic Studies
7:30 p.m., April 13th, 2007
President's Room, University Club
Indiana Memorial Union
"Uncovering the Secrets of Consciousness: The Sufi Approach"
Presented by
Professor William Chittick
Stony Brook University
Generously funded by the
College of Arts and Sciences
Born and raised in Milford, Connecticut, William C. Chittick completed his B.A. in history at the College of Wooster (Ohio) and then went to Iran, where he completed a Ph.D. in Persian literature at Tehran University in 1974. He taught comparative religion in the humanities department at Aryamehr Technical University in Tehran and returned to the United States in January 1979. For three years he was assistant editor at the Encyclopaedia Iranica (Columbia University), and since 1983 he has taught religious studies at Stony Brook.
Chittick is author and translator of twenty-five books and one hundred articles on Islamic thought, Sufism, Shi'ism, and Persian literature. His more recent books include The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn al-`Arabi's Cosmology (State University of New York Press, 1998), Sufism: A Short Introduction (One World, 2000), The Heart of Islamic Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2001), The Elixir of the Gnostics (Brigham Young University Press, 2003), and Me & Rumi: The Autobiography of Shams-i Tabrizi (FonsVitae, 2004). He is currently working on several research projects in Sufism and Islamic philosophy.
Over the past few years, the discoveries and theories of neuroscience have occupied a prominent place in the popular media, and we frequently hear that mankind is finally coming to understand the nature of human consciousness. Various religious traditions, for their part, have always had a great deal to say about human subjectivity and its significance in the cosmic scheme of things. Within Islam, two broad fields of learning-Sufism and philosophy-have always placed consciousness near the center of their concerns. In both of these fields, however, consciousness is less a given than something to be achieved. A review of the basic Sufi understanding may throw some light on the strengths and weaknesses of contemporary approaches.
Professor Victor Danner was born on October 22, 1926, in Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico to Arthur James and Maria Lopez Danner. As a young man, he served his country during WWII. After the war he attended Georgetown University where he received his B.A. magna cum laude in 1957. Later that year he traveled to Morocco to become an instructor and eventually Director of the American Language Center, sponsored by the US Information Service. While there he took advantage of the opportunity not only to get acquainted with the country but also to perfect his knowledge of classical Arabic texts.
In 1964, Professor Danner returned to the US for his doctoral studies and graduated from Harvard in 1970. He came to IU in 1967 and was a professor of Arabic and Religious Studies at Indiana University until his death in 1990. He served as Chairman of the Near Eastern Languages and Cultures Department for five years, and was an enthusiastic supporter of the Middle Eastern Studies Program.
He was an internationally renowned scholar in the fields of Islamic mysticism, comparative religion, and classical Arabic literature. In 1976, he was invited to speak at the international World Festival of Islam in London. Professor Danner was also active in a number of professional organizations, including the Washington D.C.-based Foundation for Traditional Studies, for which he served as Secretary-Treasurer. He wrote Ibn 'Ata 'Allah's Sufi Aphorisms (1973); Ibn 'Ata 'Allah: The Book of Wisdom, (1978); and The Islamic Tradition: An Introduction (1988), in addition to over twenty-five articles and reviews.
One of his students, Lauri King Irani, captured his essence: "As a teacher, Victor Danner had few equals. He taught Arabic, classical Arabic literature, Islam, Sufism, the Qur'an, comparative religion, comparative mysticism, and Eastern religions. His dignified bearing, elegant gestures, and verbal eloquence transformed his lectures into performances which had the power to captivate and inspire his students, whether he was discussing Arabic grammar or Islamic theology. His concern for and encouragement of his students, coupled with his understated sense of humor, earned him a well-deserved reputation as a caring and committed educator who taught not only when behind the classroom lectern, but also by example."
Dear friends,
You and your faith community are invited to a unique inter-religious event on Sunday, April 29: "Building Bridges: A Celebration of Divine Messages." It will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. in Ivy Tech, Bloomington 's Commons and will include a meal and keynote address by Rev. Philip Gulley, author of the Harmony fiction series, as well as non-fiction works If Grace Is True and If God Is Love. A freewill offering will be received at the event to help defray the cost. Participants are also welcome to bring a dessert or side dish to share.
This event is being organized by an ad hoc interfaith group that includes members of the Muslim, Jewish, Christian and other religious communities. Our current financial sponsors include the City of Bloomington's Community and Family Resources Department, the Bloomington Muslim Dialog Group, the Baha'is of Bloomington, Unity Center for Spiritual Growth, the Bloomington Islamic Center , First United Methodist Church and Ivy Tech Community College - Bloomington.
To make reservations or for more information, call 812.327.3804. Reservations are not necessary, but space is limited to the first 350 people.
In unity and love,
Lynn Carlson
MUSLIM ALLIANCE OF INDIANA is dedicated to empower Muslims through social engagement and developing awareness of public issues among Muslims and connecting 280,000 Muslim Hoosiers with the leadership.
To learn more about past activities and accomplishments, please visit at www.muslimalliancein.com
To be involved with MAI mission, please contact muslimalliancein@yahoo.com
To strengthen and disseminate the vision, please forward this message to others in Indiana or send email list to muslimalliancein@yahoo.com
This is intended for Muslim Hoosiers and friends promoting peace and harmony, mutual respect and making Indiana strong. If you want to be off this list, please advise.
Thank you.
