A Muslim film
festival will feature titles like "Little Mosque on the
Prairie."
Muslim comics will
seek laughs with jokes about being confronted by bigots
and airport security
checks.
And a local band,
Sonz of the Crescent, will bring a little Muslim hip-hop
to the house.
But beyond its
lively entertainment, the first statewide convention of
Indiana Muslims taking place this weekend is seen by
some as a milestone. For a diverse community under great
scrutiny since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks,
they say it represents a sign of staying power and their
desire to become fuller participants in their state's
future.
"I would say this is a coming of
age," said Louay Safi, a Plainfield resident and staffer
with the Plainfield-based Islamic Society of North
America. "This is a very significant
threshold."
The weekend's agenda includes
serious discussions about the need for greater Muslim
political activism, epitomized by a scheduled speech
from Democratic presidential candidate and former U.S.
Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska, who wants to end the Iraq
war immediately.
There will be sessions
for Muslim youths, including one on how to balance the
faith's strict rules on gender relations in a modern
society.
The three-day event,
which began Friday, is the product of a relatively new
organization called the Muslim Alliance of Indiana. The
group's greatest previous efforts were landing an
invitation for Muslims to stage Ramadan suppers in the
governor's residence and "Muslim Days" with legislators
in the Statehouse.
It also comes on the heels of the
debut of a quarterly magazine, The Muslim Hoosier, and
the establishment of a Muslim chamber of commerce. "It
is the idea that Muslims are realizing themselves as
being Hoosiers just like any other individual or group,"
said Shehzad Qazi, a 19-year-old student at Indiana
University-Purdue University Indianapolis who manages
the magazine.
In some ways, these are
the next steps for a Muslim community that has
established 50 religious institutions around the state,
including Islamic centers, mosques and student
associations -- most of them within the past 30
years.
The convention at the
Adam's Mark near the airport is expected to draw about
300 people, which is modest compared with the 30,000 who
attend the Islamic Society of North America's gathering
in Chicago. The Indianapolis event opened with an
interfaith luncheon that drew participants from the
Christian and Jewish communities -- symbolic, organizers
said, of the need for Muslims to be fully engaged with
the broader society.
Also in attendance were a lawyer
from the U.S. attorney's office and two agents from the
FBI, which has tried to build allies in the Muslim
community and occasionally recruits Arabic speakers to
its ranks.
A vendor selling head scarves
made in Kuwait and Dubai set up shop in the bazaar. And
more than 70 early arrivals held Friday prayers in a
conference room emptied of chairs and tables but covered
with white floor sheets. In one corner of the windowless
room, a paper sign read "Qibla," denoting the direction
toward Mecca, where Muslim prayers must be
directed.
Some say the conference
may also unite Muslim Hoosiers in the issues they
commonly face.
Both immigrant Muslims
from countries around the world and American-born
believers, particularly black Muslims, could stand to
learn more about their brothers and sisters in the
faith, said Michael Saahir, an imam with the Nur-Allah
Islamic Center in Indianapolis.
"Though we are all Muslims
following the Quran and the traditions of Muhammad, the
cultural diversities have to be worked through," Saahir
said. The convention, he said, "is a
good demonstration of what could be or what should
be." 
