Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May 2000, pages 86-90

Muslim-American Activism

Seventh Grader Spots Anti-Muslim Schoolbooks

Zeinab Alkebsi, a seventh grade student in the Earle B. Wood Middle School in Maryland’s Montgomery County, was shocked at the book she had selected from a list for optional reading for advanced-placement students. The Terrorist, by Caroline B. Cooney, one of America’s most prolific writers of fiction for children and young adults, and published by Scholastic Inc., provides an extremely misleading portrait of Islam, concluded Zeinab, reinforcing negative stereotyping.

In the book the 11-year-old younger brother of the heroine, an American girl living in England, is killed by a package bomb in the London subway. The “terrorist” turns out to be a Muslim girl seeking to avoid an arranged marriage to a man in his 50s who has two other wives.

Zeinab complained about the book to her father, Abdulwahab Alkebsi, international affairs director for the Islamic Institute, a Washington, DC political think tank. Mr. Alkebsi in turn complained to the principal of the school, in a national capital suburb, but was not satisfied with the response he received. He then enlisted the help of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which is urging the publisher to withdraw the book.

“It contained paragraph after paragraph that was just so offensive,” Alkebsi said. “Muslims are wife abusers. Muslims are polygamists. Just one stereotype after another throughout the book.

Commenting on the case, CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said, “The big problem here is that this book was assigned reading in a classroom. When you have a captive audience of impressionable young people, whose minds are like sponges at this age, it’s not really fair to present them with this kind of reading material and require them to read it.”

Ironically, Montgomery County has a sensitivity program for which a Muslim community activist has been given a part-time paid position to avoid such mishaps. The county has prom ised to review the book, as has Scholastic Inc.

Zeinab Alkebsi’s complaint was picked up by the Associated Press and reprinted in other parts of the country. A story on the incident in the Dallas Morning News prompted a review of schoolbooks in Arlington County, Texas, where the book was found in four school libraries.

“I’m afraid this kind of book only serves to promote hatred,” said Syed Ahsani, a former Pakistani ambassador who now is an instructor at the University of Texas at Arlington and president of the Texas chapter of the American Muslim Alliance. “This book is going to produce hatred of Muslims, and the title is very provocative and misleading and slanderous.”

As for Zeinab Alkebsi, she’s still a voracious reader, and proud of her first foray into political activism. It’s a tradition in her Yemeni-American family, which includes famous Yemeni officials and writers on the family tree. The tradition has continued with some family members equally active in Yemeni émigré affairs since their arrival in the United States as political exiles.

—Richard. H. Curtiss

Muslim Groups Monitor Trial of Imam Jamil Al-Amin

Leaders of national American Muslim organizations, along with representatives from the community of Imam Jamil Al-Amin, held a March 21 news conference at the Washington, DC office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in reaction to the March 20 arrest of Al-Amin, the former H. Rap Brown, in Alabama. The Muslim organizations announced plans to ensure that Imam Jamil has proper legal representation and a fair and impartial trial. Participants also outlined Al-Amin’s history of community service and detailed allegedly false charges that were brought against him in the recent past.

In 1999, the popular Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, the 1960s Black Panther activist convert to Islam, was stopped while driving in Alabama and accused of minor, nonviolent offenses. He missed his court appearance, and on March 19 two African-American deputies went to serve a bench warrant for his arrest. Both officers were shot, one fatally, as they looked for the imam, and the surviving deputy identified Imam Jamil as their assailant from a photograph he was shown in the hospital.

Imam Jamil adamantly denies committing this crime. There are many inconsistencies in statements concerning how the shooting occurred, including a trail of blood police followed as they searched for the shooter. Imam Jamil was not wounded. Muslim leaders charged the media and the police may have provided misleading information. American Muslim groups promised to assist Imam Al-Amin and his family in this ordeal.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Muslim Community Mourns Passing of Hesham Reda

Muslim American and Arab American activists were stunned to learn of the April 2 death of Hesham Reda, Washington representative of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) of Los Angeles and an elected member of the advisory board of the American Muslim Council of Washington, DC. Mr. Reda, who was 48 years old, died of lung cancer in Los Angeles, where his wife, Katam, and his son, Omar, and daughter, Reema, had remained while he opened the MPAC office in the national capital in 1999.

Mr. Reda was born in 1952 in Cairo, where his grandfather, Shaikh Muhammad Rashid Reda, was a prominent Islamic scholar. Hesham Reda came to the U.S. in 1972 and earned a B.A. at the University of Minnesota. There he helped establish the first chapter of the American Muslim Council in the United States, and served as its president. He also was a leader in Arab-American organizations in Minnesota.

As an excellent speaker and dedicated activist, he was literally known from coast to coast. In addition to numerous speaking engagements around the nation, he participated in panel discussions of political activism at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) national convention in 1999, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) national convention in 1999, and in a year 2000 panel discussion on Muslims in America sponsored by the Middle East Policy Council on Capitol Hill only weeks before his death.

Upon learning of Mr. Reda’s death, MPAC executive director Salam Al-Mar ayati said of his colleague:

“Hesham worked tirelessly and selflessly for Islam and in the cause of justice, and did so with integrity, compassion and humility. His hallmark patience and limitless grace endeared him to all who knew him.”

Said AMC executive director Aly Abu zaakouk, “His was a moderate Muslim voice that was indispensable in times of need.”

Executive editor Richard Curtiss of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs said: “Initially as a frequent visitor and in recent months as a colleague in Washington, Hesham Reda became my trusted friend and a wise and informed counselor. He was an excellent speaker, much in demand, a fountain of common sense and, as a sincere and devoted Muslim, a role model for his community.”

—Abdullah Khayat

AMA Houston Launches Delegate Selection Campaign

More than 100 Muslims gathered Feb. 11 at a Grass Roots Muslim Activism meeting organized by the American Muslim Alliance Houston chapter. The meeting was held at the initiative of AMA activist Mustafa Iqbal Tameez, who discussed strategies to make the more than six million Muslims in the U.S. more politically effective.

He pointed out that these Muslims are a political “sleeping giant” because of their concentration in such key electoral states as California, New York, Texas, Illinois, Michigan, Florida, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Members of the group agreed to continue efforts to educate the Muslim community on the U.S. political process and register as many Muslims as possible to vote before the November 2000 elections. Twenty-seven of those attending the meeting also agreed to run as delegates at their local precincts in the March 14 primary elections in Texas.

—Richard H. Curtiss

AMC Elects New Chairman

Dr. Yahya Basha of Michigan, a long-standing member of the American Muslim Council who joined its board of directors in 1998, was elected president of the AMC board of directors on Feb. 28. Dr. Basha, a Syrian-born physician and member of the Dearborn, Michigan, Board of Mosques, was appointed to the Michigan Civil Rights Commission by Michigan Gov. John Engler in 1999. His election followed the resignation of Dr. Nazir Khaja as AMC president, and the withdrawal of Dr. Khaja, Dr. Maqbool Ahmad, and Dr. Ikram U. Khan from the AMC board.

—Richard Curtiss

AMC Leadership Summit in Washington, DC

AMA chairman Dr. Agha Saeed presided over a leadership summit meeting on March 4 at the Washington Hotel in the U.S. national capital, held in conjunction with an AMA National Board of Directors meeting. Invited to the summit were Muslim candidates running for office all over the United States, who exchanged advice and experiences in making their candidacies and viewpoints known in their constituencies.

Invited speakers at the leadership conference included former National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA) president Khalil Jahshan, who now is vice president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimianton Committee (ADC). He described the process and benefits of combining the two organizations last January. Other speakers included Aly Abouzaakouk, executive director of the American Muslim Council; founder Khalid Saffuri of the Islamic Institute, who described his group’s work with the presidential campaign of Texas Gov. George W. Bush; and Annisa Mehdi, journalist daughter of the late Dr. Mohammad Mehdi, founder of the New York-based National Council on Islamic Affairs, which merged with AMA last Feb. 18.

— Richard H. Curtiss

AMA Opens 87th Chapter

The American Muslim Alliance opened its 87th chapter March 25 in the Illinois Third Congressional District in the Chicago area. AMA’s ultimate goal is to have a chapter in every congressional district in the U.S. which has Muslim constituents. A group of active constituents within each of America’s 435 congressional districts has been the aim of various Middle East peace and justice organizations over the years, but AMA is the only national political organization which has gone so far toward turning this goal into reality.

The new chapter had its inaugural meeting at the Mosque Foundation Youth Center in Bridgeview, Illinois, at which time the 43 charter members elected chapter officials. AMA will only charter a new chapter when it has 30 paid-up members. At the meeting, the national headquarters of the American Muslim Alliance also announced its intention to open a regional office in Chicago by April 15.

—Richard H. Curtiss

AMA Hosts Hospitality Suites for California State Democratic, Republican Conventions

California chapters of the American Muslim Alliance hosted hospitality suites this spring to acquaint delegates to the California state Democratic and Republican conventions with Islamic issues. The suite at the Democratic convention was opened in San Jose, California, the heart of Silicon Valley and home to more than 70,000 Muslims. Of 3,000 Democratic activists attending the convention to listen to presidential candidates Al Gore and Bill Bradley and California senators and representatives, several hundred visited the suite.

It was sponsored by the AMA Bay Area, San Francisco and San Ramon chapters and focused its political education efforts on the repeal of secret evidence act, Kashmir, and the hardships caused by economic sanctions against Iraq. Among AMA members staffing the suite were Musa Ibrahim, San Francisco chapter; Raffat Rashid and Maria Rashid, San Ramon chapter; Imran Ali of the Bay Area chapter; and Anmar Al-Nagem of the AMA head office.

The AMA hospitality suite at the Republican Party Conference in Bur lingame attracted a number of candidates, including Sen. Orrin Hatch, and California Republican Party Chairman John McGraw. Also present at the suite were Mus lim-American candidates for office in California.

The suite was staffed by Muhammad Ashran from the AMA Riverside chapter; Mrs. Barra and Mrs. Nuzhat Alvi from the Morgan Hill chapter; Abdul Sattar Rydhan, Imran Ali and Emam Sabir from the Bay Area chapter; and Muhammad Hijaz and Emam Sabir from the San Francisco chapter. Young Muslim activist volunteers including Anmar Al-Nagem and Mariam Saeed also provided assistance.

Among other hosts were Dr. Talat Khan, Dr. Ayesha Karim, Muhammad Yunus, Riffat Rashid and Moosa Ibrahim, all of whom have applied to be Bush delegates from California at the Republican National Convention.

The hospitality suites were co-sponsored by the American Muslim Political Coordinating Council, an umbrella organization representing AMA, the American Muslim Council (AMC), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).

—Richard H. Curtiss

Women and Islam

The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) organized a panel discussion on the subject of “Women and Islam: Differing Cultures, Differing Images” on March 14 at its Washington, DC campus. Three women speakers, Dr. Azar Nafisi from the Foreign Policy Institute, who hails from Iran; Fatima Gailani, an Afghan national and a spokesperson for the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan; and Shirin Taher-Kheli from Pakistan and now a professor at John Hopkins University addressed an audience of SAIS faculty and students and men and women from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Expressing generally similar views, the three speakers blamed the men at the helm of affairs in many Muslim countries for obstructing the progress of women. In her forceful speech, Azar Nafisi called upon human rights organizations and international bodies to “rescue women from the unending siege” in many parts of the world, and especially in countries like Iran. She did, however, see a degree of progress being made in this regard in more recent years in Iran, particularly since the election of President Mohammad Khatami.

Noting that “the chador [body wrap] and the hijab [headscarf] do not seem to leave us and become the point of focal attack for men,” Nafisi said, “the same remains the main issue in Algeria and Turkey.” She expressed regret that without reference to the text of Islamic law ( shariah), its male interpreters thrust their own mindset on one-half of the population and keep it away from public life and opportunity. “Even where some doors have opened, that was largely through male connections, as in the case of the daughter of Hashim Rafsanjani,” she observed. Giving a sample of thinking in post-revolutionary Iran, Nafisi disclosed even the Shakespearean play Othello was enacted without the main female character, Desdemona.

Fatima Gailani, the only woman wearing a headscarf on the dais, argued that “Islam has not mandated wearing of hijab for women. It requires women to dress modestly and cover the bosoms. However, the tradition of hijab came from the Jews and Christians during the time of the holy Prophet…It is a sad commentary on Muslims that a matter of culture and tradition has quite often become a religious bone of contention.”

The “fault,” she asserted, lies not in the religion but in ourselves. Detailing the hardships faced by women in Afghanistan today, Gailani emphasized strongly that “the answer lies in Islam alone.”

Profiling the Taliban, the current ruling group in Kabul, she reasoned that these are the young men who have grown up in refugee camps in exile. They were tutored about religion by mullahs with questionable qualifications in theology, and trained and equipped with firearms by foreign aid to carry out jihad against an occupying force, the U.S.S.R.

“The fall of the Soviet Union and withdrawal of U.S. assistance left behind an anarchic situation in Afghanistan,” she said. “The country was torn by unending war.”

The Taliban moved in to restore order without a plan or defined policy. Since then religious zealots have run amok. The axe, she said, has fallen on defenseless women. “Little do these leaders realize that, according to the shariah, it is incumbent on the state to provide education and opportunity to all without consideration of age or sex.”

Shirin Taher-Kheli drew a comparatively milder picture of the status of women in Pakistan and South Asia. However, she said, “we still live in a male-dominated society where prescriptions of ‘stone unto death’ for adultery continue to be made, if not actually carried out.” Drawing on her United Nations experience, she urged that the threats and challenges faced by women in various parts of the world continue to be universal human rights. “It is important to monitor and report any violations that occur anywhere in this regard,” she said.

—M.M. Ali

Muslim Women Meet the Challenge in U.S. Government Positions

The American Muslim Council invited two dynamic Muslim women who work in the U.S. government to speak on March 14 about the challenges they face in Washington, DC. Now working as the deputy director of the American Cultural Center in Damascus, Syria, Angela D. Williams was born and raised in Chicago. Her father and seven brothers are church pastors and she was always encouraged to visit other churches since, her father said, “church is church but God is everywhere.” She converted to Islam while working for the World Council of Churches in Niger and later Senegal, and later became a Peace Corps desk officer. Subsequently, she worked on projects for USAID, Africare, and the World Bank before joining the U.S. foreign service in 1990.

Williams said the presence of Muslim women in the foreign service is very important. As a Muslim woman, she thinks she has freer access into Syrian homes than many of her embassy colleagues because she blends in more with the local culture and is frequently treated as a “local.” Her presence also shows Muslims overseas that the United States is not just a Judeo-Christian state, and that Muslims have a valued place in American society as well. When she hears someone say America is a hotbed of racist or anti-Islamic feelings she answers, “Well, I’m here.”

Rashidah A. Hasan was a police officer in Philadelphia, PA until she decided to switch careers. In 1990 she was awarded a master’s degree in journalism and now she is the chief of the Hausa Service in Voice of America’s Africa Division. VOA’s African service is extremely popular, with its huge listenership generating more mail than any other division. One of its most successful weekly programs is “Islam in America.” Ms. Hasan is the only African-American Muslim woman in VOA and the only Muslim in a managerial position who wears hijab. She often makes decisions about what goes on the air and makes sure there are no inaccuracies, like saying something is according to sharia law when it isn’t.

Both women said that Muslims should encourage their children to work for the government so Muslims become a more integral part of the process. Muslims are not a small minority anymore and their numbers should also grow inside the U.S. government, they agreed.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Eid Al-Adha Brings Washington-area Muslims Together

More than 20,000 Muslims gathered at the Capital Expo Center in Chantilly, a Virginia suburb of Washington, DC, to celebrate the close of the hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, on March 16. The daylong multicultural festival featured games and rides for children, a talent show, as well as the opportunity to purchase Islamic books, clothing, and food from around the Muslim world.

The festivities marked the beginning of the Eid al-Adha (feast of the sacrifice), a three-day celebration that commemorates the willingness of the prophet Ibrahim (biblical Abraham) to sacrifice his son at the command of God (who directed him to substitute a sheep and spare his son). Muslims around the world attend prayers, exchange gifts, donate to the needy and visit with their families. In the United States the holiday brings together Muslim Americans from many ethnic backgrounds and homelands to celebrate their faith together. People relished the opportunity for so many Muslims to meet, buy Islamic videos, books, games, toys, music tapes, clothes and foods. Though no elected officials attended the Expo, there were booths to satisfy participants’ political interests and desires for information about voting in elections, war-torn Kashmir or the effects of U.N. sanctions on Iraq.

The national capital area’s 300,000 Muslims have an active political, social and spiritual life. Sara Ahmad, one of the organizers of what turned out to be the Washington, DC area’s largest gathering of Muslims to date, was pleased by the turnout, an increase of 5,000 over last year. “Every year the population just grows,” Ahmad said. There are an estimated six to eight million Muslims in the United States and 1.2 billion worldwide. At the current rate, she mused, “Where are we going to find a place big enough to hold us next year?”

—Delinda C. Hanley

Political Islam: The Case of Iran

Eric Rouleau, former French ambassador to Turkey and Tunisia who was also Le Monde’s Middle East correspondent for six years, spoke March 1 on “Political Islam” at the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine (CPAP) in Washington, DC. He described the latest landslide victory of the reformers in the Iranian elections as “a watershed in the country and a turning point.” Having traveled and studied extensively in Iran, Ambassador Rouleau said it is creating a “new kind of Islam” in response to popular demand for reform of the government and society, and the establishment of democratic rule.

Among remarkable aspects of the elections were the impressive turnout of over 80 percent of eligible voters and the fact that 60 percent of the seats were won by reformers in the first round of voting, even before the second round of run-off elections. This continues the trend of the three major elections in the past three years, in all of which reformers received solid backing.

Ambassador Rouleau also pointed out that voters shunned the middle ground, casting most of their votes either for clear-cut reformers or conservatives. He said he believes that in Iran a trend is developing in which “Islam should adapt to the people, not the people adapt to Islam.” Adhering to this principle was the very essence of the reformers’ campaign.

“In their own indirect way the reformers were challenging the [existing] theocratic regimes,” Rouleau said. Although everything that the reformers stood for was “secular,” it was not expressed in secular terms. And unlike the general theme of most political campaigns in Iran, the reformers steadily avoided using the word Islam, as demonstrated by the campaign for a seat in the Majlis by Mohammad-Reza Khatami, the president’s brother, who called for “freedom, equality and spirituality,” with no direct mention of “Islam.”

Rouleau said four key factors have given rise to this grassroots reform movement. First, a new generation in Iran, which grew up influenced more by the Internet and satellite television than by the revolution, now accounts for more than 70 percent of the voting public.

Second, the establishment of free schooling by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini raised the literacy rate to 85 percent, as compared to 40 percent under the shah. And this tremendous rise in literacy, along with access to information from the outside world, has allowed for a wider use of information sources.

The third factor is the role of women. They comprise over 50 percent of all university students and assert a strong voice and presence in Iranian society. At present “there are powerful Islamic women’s associations” that are demanding women’s rights, Rouleau said. He added that he “could not find any difference between the Islamic women’s movements [in Iran] and the secular women’s movements in France or elsewhere.”

With an estimated unemployment rate of up to one in four, the fourth key factor in the elections was the economy, Rouleau said. Many Iranians are seeking new economic alternatives and economic transformation in the society.

Nevertheless, Ambassador Rouleau main tained, the “constituency of reformers is not monolithic,” as it represents a heterogeneous mix of the society including young people, women, the underprivileged, frustrated entrepreneurs and a “vast majority of the clergy.” The latter group has lent its support to the reform movement because it believes that “the whole clergy is harmed by the ill-doings of a small minority of religious people,” he said.

Rouleau predicted that the reformers will continue to be very cautious and will introduce reforms “very gradually…because they know there are dangers ahead.” President Khatami and his supporters want compromise, feeling that “if [we] can’t have all of it, then we’ll take half of it,” Rouleau said.

As for the conservatives, they are in favor of a “semi-theocratic authoritarian regime.” They believe, he said, that the “ultimate source of power is of a divine nature and [is] not popular-based.”

The reformers, on the other hand, believe that “centuries-old Islamic rules should adapt” to the contemporary era, Rouleau continued. They argue that Islam “is there to serve the interests of the people and should respond to people’s needs.” In fact, he concluded, this new “political Islam” of the reformers claims that such basic terms as “human rights,” “democracy,” and “pluralism” are, indeed, modern Islamic concepts.

—Adila Masood

UDC Muslim Student Association Examines “Muslims in America”

The Muslim Student Association of the University of the District of Columbia sponsored a day-long program on “Muslims in America and Blacks in Islamic History” on Feb. 26. Speakers included Amir Muhammad discussing “Highlights of Muslims in America in the 20th Century,” Imam Heshaam Jaaber discussing “Africans in Islamic History,” Ahmed S. Usman discussing “The Sudanese Muslims in America,” Benjamin Karim and Heshaam Jaaber discussing “the Future of Muslims in America,” and Benjamin Karim, Ahmed S. Usman and Heshaam Jaaber (pictured) providing “A Look at Malcolm X, His Life/Legacy.” The seminar concluded with a presentation of “Muslim Americans’ Growing Cultural Expressions,” with music by Wali Ali of Baltimore, MD and Shadee of Richmond, VA. The program, at the UDC Van Ness campus, was built around an exhibit of “Early Muslims in America” provided by Collections and Stories of American Muslims. For more information on this organization contact Habeebah Muhammad at (202) 678-6906 or e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

—R. H. Curtiss

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