Speech hits right note with Mass. Muslims
Though President Obama's address to the Muslim world took place thousands of miles away, his words resonated strongly with Muslims in Massachusetts, many of whom see the speech as a turning point in the way Muslims and Americans interact, both abroad and at home.
Abdullah Faaruuq, the imam at Mosque for the Praising of Allah in Roxbury, said Obama's call for balance over extremism echoes both in the Muslim and Western worlds. Faaruuq, who watched the address on YouTube yesterday, said members of the mosque called him throughout the day, enthusiastic to discuss Obama's words.
"There is work for us to do, because he can't solve it by talking," Faaruuq said. "I think if we can make some of his high-ended speech a reality, by working in the world, we can make things better."
Faaruuq said Americans and Muslims must take steps toward a more balanced and peaceful interaction, a theme Obama professed repeatedly during his 55-minute address from Cairo.
"If we don't get this thing here on even keel - as Malcolm [X] says, 'By whatever means necessary' - than we're going to find there's more problems," Faaruuq said.
Iman Abdul-Musawwir, a 20-year-old student at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and a fellow with the Washington, D.C.-based American Islamic Conference, said she felt Obama's speech marked a shift in how America interacts with the Muslim world. She said she hopes Obama's address starts an ongoing effort to engage Muslims in dialogue.
"I think he should keep to these promises, and not just make this a talk," she said. "I think this would show the Muslim community here in Boston that these are actions, and not just words."
Abdul-Musawwir, who is working this summer to build new chapters of the American Islamic Conference's student organization, Project Nur, said her colleagues shared her enthusiasm.
"It's been the talk of the [Boston] office," she said. "Everyone here has had positive feedback. Everyone here is pretty excited to see what happens next. This is something great; this is a total shift from what we've had in the last eight years."
Jocelyne Cesari, director of the Islam in the West program at Harvard University, said that by reaching out to Muslims abroad, Obama is building support for the minority Muslim population in the United States. The state's Muslim community, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, constitutes less than .5 percent of Massachusetts residents.
One of the important factors of Obama's address was to try to erase stereotypes of Muslims. "Of course they have been very keen on the noncriminalization of Islam," she said, referring to Obama's insistence that the West and Islam are not in a state of conflict. "But again, the way to increase legitimacy of Islam in America is to put it at the core of discussions here of the problems facing minorities."
Cesari said Muslim Americans are eager to see how Obama's speech will change how they are perceived in the community.
"If I could summarize this in two words, there is a lot of optimism and there is a lot of expectation," she said.
M. Bilal Kaleem, executive director of the Muslim American Society's Boston chapter, said Obama needs to involve American Muslims in any effort to bring forth a culture shift.
"I wouldn't call it a new beginning yet, I would call it a new tone," he said. "I think it takes a bit more time to judge whether this can really be a new beginning."
Matt Collette can be reached at mpcollette@globe.com. 
