I did not realize that New Jersey was becoming another Dearborn. Paterson, in particular seems to be attracting scores of Muslims and there has already been friction over the building of a mosque. Are Muslims taking the steps needed to change the perception non-Muslims have of the "religion of peace" such as monitoring their mosques for signs of jihadist activity, supporting security measures by working closely with law enforcement to root out jihadists and opening up their mosques and Islamic schools to critical scrutiny and probing questions?
It appears not, from this article. The victimization is in full play here, with local Muslims bemoaning their fate at the hands of Islamophobes. This would be funny if it were not so dangerous.
From NJ.com May 5
"‘Tell your boss that we got his friend and we’re going to get him,’" the man said, according to Assaf, who dismissed the threat as kids pulling a prank.
While the call represented a kind of hostility Assaf said many Arabs commonly endure in the United States, he believed bin Laden’s death might create an opportunity "to open a new chapter."
"We have been paying the price for bin Laden for the last 10 years," Assaf said. "Enough castigating our community. We hope this will serve as a reminder to America that the real source of terror was not in Paterson or Dearborn, Michigan (two cities with significant Arab and Muslim populations) but in Afghanistan and Pakistan."
Uh, no. The real source of terror is the texts and tenets of Islam as laid down by the Qur'an, hadiths and sunna, and the requirement that Muslims follow Muhammad's behavior exactly as written. The location is meaningless, as Islam spreads far and wide and is prevalent in Pakistan, Afghanistan AND Dearborn.
In the mosques of Jersey City and outside Arab-owned shops along Main Street in Paterson, opinions differed about whether the death of the world’s most notorious terrorist would alter perceptions that have persisted for nearly a decade.
But across the country, there are already signs that anti-Islamic sentiment has not yet ebbed. In addition to crank phone calls, several other personal attacks were reported after President Obama announced late Sunday night that the al Qaeda leader had been killed.
In Portland, Maine, the message: "Osama Today, Islam Tomorrow" was spray-painted on a mosque. A Texas teacher was suspended after allegedly telling a 9-year-old Muslim girl in his algebra class, "I bet that you’re grieving." And in Anaheim, Calif., eggs were thrown at a nightclub, hitting its owner, Mohammed El Khatib.
These alleged crimes are to be condemned in no uncertain terms, but they do nothing to victimize, they only highlight the stupidity of some people.
It was the kind of reaction Hesham Mahmoud, who was born in Egypt and now lives in Rutherford, said he expected. "If anything, I think his death will have a negative effect, because of all the people out there spreading nonsense about Muslims," said Mahmoud, 42.
Care to give specific examples of the nonsense being spread, Mahmoud?
It will take more than bin Laden’s death to dispel ignorance, said James Yee, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization. "It is disheartening, and tells me our work is not going to stop," he said. Bin Laden’s death "is not going to change much regarding Muslims being accepted."
You are right, Mr. Yee that bin-Ladens death will not change the view non-Muslims have of Islam. That change comes when Muslims bring real reform to Islam and with the finality of ijtihad, re-interpret Islam to be the religion of peace that it is claimed to be.
But it may end an era, one in which bin Laden stood as a convenient excuse for bias, said Salaheddin Mustafa, who heads the state chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. He compared "the picture of evil that was bin Laden" with the recent pro-democracy movements in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain and Libya. "There is the sea change that people will recognize," he said.
Unlike the days after the terror attacks and despite reports from other parts of the country, Mustafa said, there have been relatively few reports of discrimination in New Jersey. "After Sept. 11, there were so many incidents," he said. "I haven’t heard any backlash so far."
Watch for CAIR to make a mountain out of any molehill, to keep the victim fires burning.
Mustafa, a Palestinian born in Jersey City, said more Americans will separate bin Laden "and his cronies" from "people like me and the vast majority, who had nothing to do with" the terror attacks.
OK, fine. Where do you stand on sharia, the undeniable truth of the Qur'an and the necessity to convert, subjugate or kill unbelievers?
Mohamad Hamamou, an Egyptian native who lives in Secaucus, remembers feeling doubly wounded on Sept. 11. He grieved for the thousands killed — which included scores of Muslims — and despaired at what the attacks meant for his community.
"Uneducated people just look at it from a perspective of, ‘What a Muslim person does is to try and hurt people," Hamamou said.
His concerns were realized. He has been cursed at on the road, threatened by strangers, and glanced at suspiciously in malls.
Bin Laden’s death, while welcomed, will do little to sway those who already have negative perceptions of Muslims, he said. Those views, he added, "have been in their brains for a long time."
What would cause this long-term perception swirling around in their brains that is negative about Islam? Let's start with the call of "Allahu Akbar" right before the bomb goes off.
When his wife was worried about raising children in an environment that was at times hostile to their religion, he reminded her it would be their children who would lead by example.
Al Ghazaly, the Jersey City elementary school where he sends his children, has a sign greeting visitors written in Arabic calligraphy: "Everyone smiles in the same language."
Not when one follows the Qur'an. Muslims are not supposed to take disbelievers as friends, and they are to smile at them on the outside but curse them on the inside.
"If we teach our kids love and respect, we know this is going to fade away," he said later that night.
Yursil Kidwai, a 33-year-old American-born Muslim who lives in Basking Ridge, isn’t so sure. Pointing to anti-Islamic rhetoric prevalent in portions of American discourse, Kidwai said bin Laden and the mistrust he engendered remain an albatross around the neck of American Muslims.
"I can’t imagine his death would change anything," he said. Kidwai has dealt with the common stereotypes for years. His mother still asks him to shave his beard, fearing it is too conspicuous and will draw needless attention to his religious beliefs. He was friends with Amir Celoski, the Haledon native, whose burial in an Islamic cemetery in upstate New York received national attention when the town administrator wanted the body disinterred.
"The whole thing was just about bias and hatred," Kidwai said.
Once again it is always about hatred and bias from non-Muslims toward Muslims, never the other way around.
Read it all
It appears not, from this article. The victimization is in full play here, with local Muslims bemoaning their fate at the hands of Islamophobes. This would be funny if it were not so dangerous.
From NJ.com May 5
N.J. Muslims debate whether Osama bin Laden's death will dispel anti-Islamic sentiment
Hours after Osama bin Laden’s death was announced, the office of the Paterson-based American Arab Forum received a phone call. The person on the line was looking for Aref Assaf, the organization’s Columbia University-educated president."‘Tell your boss that we got his friend and we’re going to get him,’" the man said, according to Assaf, who dismissed the threat as kids pulling a prank.
While the call represented a kind of hostility Assaf said many Arabs commonly endure in the United States, he believed bin Laden’s death might create an opportunity "to open a new chapter."
"We have been paying the price for bin Laden for the last 10 years," Assaf said. "Enough castigating our community. We hope this will serve as a reminder to America that the real source of terror was not in Paterson or Dearborn, Michigan (two cities with significant Arab and Muslim populations) but in Afghanistan and Pakistan."
Uh, no. The real source of terror is the texts and tenets of Islam as laid down by the Qur'an, hadiths and sunna, and the requirement that Muslims follow Muhammad's behavior exactly as written. The location is meaningless, as Islam spreads far and wide and is prevalent in Pakistan, Afghanistan AND Dearborn.
In the mosques of Jersey City and outside Arab-owned shops along Main Street in Paterson, opinions differed about whether the death of the world’s most notorious terrorist would alter perceptions that have persisted for nearly a decade.
But across the country, there are already signs that anti-Islamic sentiment has not yet ebbed. In addition to crank phone calls, several other personal attacks were reported after President Obama announced late Sunday night that the al Qaeda leader had been killed.
In Portland, Maine, the message: "Osama Today, Islam Tomorrow" was spray-painted on a mosque. A Texas teacher was suspended after allegedly telling a 9-year-old Muslim girl in his algebra class, "I bet that you’re grieving." And in Anaheim, Calif., eggs were thrown at a nightclub, hitting its owner, Mohammed El Khatib.
These alleged crimes are to be condemned in no uncertain terms, but they do nothing to victimize, they only highlight the stupidity of some people.
It was the kind of reaction Hesham Mahmoud, who was born in Egypt and now lives in Rutherford, said he expected. "If anything, I think his death will have a negative effect, because of all the people out there spreading nonsense about Muslims," said Mahmoud, 42.
Care to give specific examples of the nonsense being spread, Mahmoud?
It will take more than bin Laden’s death to dispel ignorance, said James Yee, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization. "It is disheartening, and tells me our work is not going to stop," he said. Bin Laden’s death "is not going to change much regarding Muslims being accepted."
You are right, Mr. Yee that bin-Ladens death will not change the view non-Muslims have of Islam. That change comes when Muslims bring real reform to Islam and with the finality of ijtihad, re-interpret Islam to be the religion of peace that it is claimed to be.
But it may end an era, one in which bin Laden stood as a convenient excuse for bias, said Salaheddin Mustafa, who heads the state chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. He compared "the picture of evil that was bin Laden" with the recent pro-democracy movements in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain and Libya. "There is the sea change that people will recognize," he said.
Unlike the days after the terror attacks and despite reports from other parts of the country, Mustafa said, there have been relatively few reports of discrimination in New Jersey. "After Sept. 11, there were so many incidents," he said. "I haven’t heard any backlash so far."
Watch for CAIR to make a mountain out of any molehill, to keep the victim fires burning.
Mustafa, a Palestinian born in Jersey City, said more Americans will separate bin Laden "and his cronies" from "people like me and the vast majority, who had nothing to do with" the terror attacks.
OK, fine. Where do you stand on sharia, the undeniable truth of the Qur'an and the necessity to convert, subjugate or kill unbelievers?
Mohamad Hamamou, an Egyptian native who lives in Secaucus, remembers feeling doubly wounded on Sept. 11. He grieved for the thousands killed — which included scores of Muslims — and despaired at what the attacks meant for his community.
"Uneducated people just look at it from a perspective of, ‘What a Muslim person does is to try and hurt people," Hamamou said.
His concerns were realized. He has been cursed at on the road, threatened by strangers, and glanced at suspiciously in malls.
Bin Laden’s death, while welcomed, will do little to sway those who already have negative perceptions of Muslims, he said. Those views, he added, "have been in their brains for a long time."
What would cause this long-term perception swirling around in their brains that is negative about Islam? Let's start with the call of "Allahu Akbar" right before the bomb goes off.
When his wife was worried about raising children in an environment that was at times hostile to their religion, he reminded her it would be their children who would lead by example.
Al Ghazaly, the Jersey City elementary school where he sends his children, has a sign greeting visitors written in Arabic calligraphy: "Everyone smiles in the same language."
Not when one follows the Qur'an. Muslims are not supposed to take disbelievers as friends, and they are to smile at them on the outside but curse them on the inside.
"If we teach our kids love and respect, we know this is going to fade away," he said later that night.
Yursil Kidwai, a 33-year-old American-born Muslim who lives in Basking Ridge, isn’t so sure. Pointing to anti-Islamic rhetoric prevalent in portions of American discourse, Kidwai said bin Laden and the mistrust he engendered remain an albatross around the neck of American Muslims.
"I can’t imagine his death would change anything," he said. Kidwai has dealt with the common stereotypes for years. His mother still asks him to shave his beard, fearing it is too conspicuous and will draw needless attention to his religious beliefs. He was friends with Amir Celoski, the Haledon native, whose burial in an Islamic cemetery in upstate New York received national attention when the town administrator wanted the body disinterred.
"The whole thing was just about bias and hatred," Kidwai said.
Once again it is always about hatred and bias from non-Muslims toward Muslims, never the other way around.
Read it all
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