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Muslims Around Nation's Capital Suffer Backlash Violence
by Ayesha Ahmad
WASHINGTON, Sept 14 (IslamOnline) - The large and diverse Muslim community in and around the nation's capital has had their share of both America's tragedy and America's misdirected rage in the days following Tuesday's devastating attacks on Washington and New York.
A media release from the Washington-based American Muslim Council (AMC) reported that a cab driver in Manassas, VA, "was chased and assaulted with a bottle as he tried to pick up his daughter from school."
The AMC report also told of an Islamic bookstore in Olde Town Alexandria, VA, whose owner came in Wednesday morning to find the windows shattered by several stones which had been wrapped in threatening notes and tied with rubber bands.
Very few Islamic centers have not been the target of threatening, furious phone calls and messages, but worshippers entering the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) center in Sterling, VA, early Wednesday morning for the pre-dawn Fajr prayer found messages of hatred and violence left all over their mosque.
"Some people came in for Fajr prayer and saw graffiti on the walls and on the floor, and slash marks in the dry wall," said Brendan Swartz, administrative and facility manager for ADAMS.
"They used a can of black of black spray paint [on] the shoe racks, different signs, the walls, the rugs."
Swartz said that the vandals had used profuse profanity in conjunction with the name of Allah and the city of Mecca, "a lot of anti-Islam comments, [and some] linked bin Laden to Muslims."
In one spot, they had drawn a picture of a crescent and star, with a circle around it and an "X" through it. "They were expressing their anger," he said.
Swartz said that their Center did not receive any threatening phone calls yet, but other mosques and Islamic centers did. The Muslim American Society (MAS), in Alexandria, VA, received three threatening phone calls Tuesday and Wednesday, one of them a direct threat against the Society.
Tuesday's caller told MAS, "I got your phone [number], I know where you are, and I'm gonna blow you up," said office director Azzam Huwil, who said the other two calls were just a lot of anti-Muslim profanity.
"We called the police," Huwil said. "They sent three officers here, and they advised us to close for the day." MAS remained closed Wednesday and reopened Thursday.
Many Islamic centers have closed certain services as a precaution; Dar al-Hijrah in Falls Church, VA, closed Tuesday and maintained a police presence, while the full-time Al-Huda School in College Park, MD, closed to students for the day Friday.
Almost all mosques and prayer areas are requesting extra security for Friday prayers; even Muslim students at the University of Maryland will have campus security on alert during
Jumu'ah (Friday prayer) services.
Swartz said that police had been very helpful in responding to the incident at the ADAMS center. "The police are taking it very seriously… [and are] vigorously looking into it," he said, adding that during Friday prayer services, "they will have at least one squad car here, if not more."
And Huwil commented that aside from the three threatening phone calls that MAS received, they also heard from several non-Muslim Americans who called to offer their help and support.
"We got about 10 support calls from [non-Muslim] Americans," Huwil said. "People are very good."
He said that some members from Great Falls Citizen Association, offered escorts for Muslim women who needed to go to the store, but were afraid to go alone.
Many Muslims are hesitant to offer any predictions about when the backlash will die down, despite messages of support from people who understand that there is no link between the faith of Islam and the attacks Tuesday morning.
"There will always be hurt in people's hearts," Swartz said, "and that'll stay with them for an untold amount of time, and if an opportunity arises for them to express that hurt in any way to someone of a certain culture or religion, they might take it."
In response to news of continuing attacks against Muslims and others, Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA) issued a statement Thursday calling on Americans to avoid directing hatred at fellow citizens of a certain ethnic or religious background, as they did in the aftermath of World War II.
"Tuesday's events have been compared to the Japanese attack on Pear Harbor, and so they are," Moran said. "But just as the response to Pearl Harbor summoned forth all that is good about our country, it also had a darker side. Many Asian Americans were badly mistreated by our government and our countrymen.
"We must not repeat that sad chapter in our history," he stated.
"I don't know where the current investigation will lead, but I do know this: No religious or ethnic group in our diverse society, including Arab Americans, should be made to suffer because of fanatics half a world away. Americans should channel their anger into good works for others, not to acts of prejudice and hatred directed at other Americans."
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