While joining in mourning terrorism's latest victims, Muslim-Americans voice concern about a racist reaction

By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff, 9/13/2001

alika Bey is a blond-haired, blue-eyed Irish-American, but when she pulled her minivan in to her neighborhood gas station yesterday, all the man in the car in front of her saw was the scarf wrapped around her head.

''Are you happy with what happened yesterday?'' he yelled as he jumped out of his station wagon. ''You should all be killed.''

Bey, a 36-year-old Revere mother of four, stepped out of her car, gave the man a lecture about Islam's commitment to peace, asked him if he supported the violence in Northern Ireland, and reminded him that the Allah worshiped by Muslims is the God worshiped by Christians. The two shook hands, but Bey, who changed her name when she converted to Islam, was shaken.

She has company in her fear. Asma Lazzouni, a 13-year-old freshman at Algonquin Regional High School in Northborough, said she was walking through the hall at her school Tuesday, when another girl shouted an ethnic slur at her, and said, ''I bet your relatives in the Middle East are laughing like witches at us.''

Lazzouni was stunned. She is not Middle Eastern; her family is from Algeria, in North Africa. But she is obviously Muslim. Lazzouni is the only girl who wears a head scarf at her school. But she also voiced delight that once her father talked with school officials, they have been very supportive.

''I was very hurt that someone could say that, and I was afraid that if I went to school today I would get harassed,'' Lazzouni said. ''But today, although some people have given me dirty looks, no one has said anything to me.''

For all of America, the last two days have been hell. But for Muslim-Americans, their hyphenated status has brought special complications.

When commentators compare the attack to the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor, Muslims in this country tend to think of the subsequent detention of Japanese-Americans.

When pundits recall Oklahoma City, Muslims remember how they were falsely suspected of blowing up the federal building.

And, even as Muslim organizations throughout the country drafted statements denouncing the attacks on New York and Washington, the image of their co-religionists was tainted by footage of Palestinians dancing in the streets and of federal agents leading away Arab suspects in handcuffs.

''My initial reaction was the same as everyone else's: I was devastated,'' Bey said. ''But my next thought was, `They're going to blame Muslims. Please, God, don't let it be Muslims.'''

Several Muslims said they think investigators have been too quick to suspect people with Arabic names. But regardless of whether the perpetrators were Muslims, Muslim-Americans are feeling stigmatized.

Numerous Muslim women said they are afraid to go outside - many stayed home yesterday - because they are so easily identifiable by their head scarves.

Sitting in the packed living room of their Cambridge apartment, Seif Fateen, 29, and his wife, Nermine Ahmed, 26, said the events of the past two days have completely changed their world. The couple pulled their daughter out of first grade on Tuesday, fearful for her safety.

Ahmed, after consulting with a number of other Muslim women, is refusing to go outside, fearful that her head scarf, called a hijab, makes her an easy target.

And Fateen, who is a chemical engineering graduate student at MIT, said the attack is certain to undoubtedly figure in their decision about whether to return home to Egypt or stay here and become Americans.

''We don't know what's going to happen, but this was a major event,'' Fateen said. ''Will we now have trouble finding a job, or traveling? We just don't know.''

Some Muslim schools let out early Tuesday, and one, the Al-Hamra Academy Elementary School in Northborough, closed yesterday because parents were scared to send their kids.

Numerous Muslims said they had been hassled on the street or had received threatening e-mails.

The Islamic Center of New England reported what Imam Talal Eid described as ''minor'' harassment. The center's Quincy mosque received a profanity-laced phone call, and a passenger in a car made an obscene gesture to a group of children playing outside the mosque, Eid said.

But Muslim parents and organizations also said they have received numerous offers of help and solidarity from other religious groups and community leaders. Police are now protecting Muslim worshipers at MIT, principals are attempting to reassure parents that they will protect their children, and religious leaders are warning against stereotyping an entire religious group.

''A rabbi called me yesterday. Three ministers called me today,'' said Eid, who added that police are patrolling his center's mosques in Quincy and Sharon. ''We've received many supportive calls.''

Muslims are also not the only religious group affected by Tuesday's events.

Members of the Sikh community, whose men wear turbans, are concerned about being victimized by people who might confuse them with Muslims. Police detained a Sikh wearing a turban and carrying a ceremonial sword on an Amtrak train in Providence yesterday, and onlookers shouted threats. The authorities later said the man had nothing to do with Tuesday's attacks.

Sporadic vandalism and assaults against Muslim, Arab, and Sikh organizations was reported across the country yesterday, according to the Associated Press.

Islam is thought to be the fastest-growing major religion in the United States. There are about 1.2 billion Muslims in the world and 6 million in the United States.

In Massachusetts, the Muslim population is between 25,000 and 50,000, with South Asians making up the largest group.

In Boston and around the country, the first thing many Muslim organizations did Tuesday was to issue statements denouncing the attacks and calling for those responsible to be punished. Scholars issued statements saying that terrorism is un-Islamic, leaders lined up to donate blood, and imams flocked to interfaith vigils.

But Muslims are particularly fearful, and many are distraught that their years of fighting for a better image are now lost.

''For years, everyone has looked at us as terrorists, and we've been fighting so long to get a better reputation here,'' said Omar Kazimi, a 21-year-old Palestinian-American Muslim from Newton who is a senior at Boston College. ''This act completely destroys everything everyone has worked so hard to do, and now I feel like I have to defend my religion and all the Arabs across the world because of what a small group of people who are fanatics have done. They have completely shattered everything. It's atrocious.''

Khaled Nasser, 25, and Yasmine Dabbous, 24, of Boston, have been through wars in their native Lebanon, but this is different.

''I've been through the war, so I guess I'm a little bit used to tension, but this time it's a little bit different,'' Dabbous said. ''When there is bombing, you just hide in the basement and wait for a cease-fire. But here, you don't know when someone that is really ignorant of what's happening would come and harass you, so you don't know when it's safe to walk on the street alone like you used to.''

Dabbous is declining to walk through the streets without her husband. But Nasser, who came to the mosque in Cambridge yesterday, said he believes life is permanently changed in the United States.

''We can finish our studies and go back, but for people who want the US to be their home, this is very tough,'' he said.

Others were more sanguine.

''America is our home, our country, we have chosen this country to be our home, and we are actively contributing, whether as a taxi driver or as a CEO of a company,'' said Hossam al Gabri, who also came to pray yesterday at the Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Cambridge.

To a person, Muslims interviewed yesterday condemned the bombings, and many used the same arguments: Islam is a religion of peace. No religion should be judged by the actions of a handful of fanatics. Christianity isn't judged by Timothy McVeigh, or by Adolf Hitler.

''When an Irish bomb goes off in London, we don't treat all Irish harshly,'' said Dr. Walid A. Fitaihi, an instructor at Harvard Medical School. ''These terrorists are mad people who are in no way related to the teachings of Islam. No political cause could justify this criminal act.''

Anand Vaishnav of the Globe Staff contributed to this report. Michael Paulson can be reached by e-mail at mpaulson@globe.com

This story ran on page 1 of the Boston Globe on 9/13/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.