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U.S.
Imam Conference Ends, Calling Muslims To Be Politically Active
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Shaker
El Sayed of MAS speaks to
U.S.
imams on importance of becoming politically active.
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By
Jamshed Bokhari, IOL Washington correspondent
WASHINGTON,
May 1 (IslamOnline) - A conference gathering together imams from
across the U.S. ended Monday, April 29, as the religious leaders took
a tour of Capitol Hill where the U.S. legislature sits and held
informal talks with Muslim staffers there.
Sunday,
however, was the last full day of panels organized by the American
Muslim Council (AMC) for the imams and addressed issues of civil
rights, dealing with the media, the proper approach to Muslim
concerns, the political role of the mosque and Islamic centers and the
role of the imam in political activities.
Stressing
the importance of the imam’s role, Fawaz Damra, the imam of the
Islamic Center of Cleveland, Ohio, the site of a series of post
September 11 backlash attacks, said, “Being an imam means you have
to speak up for our community here in the U.S. and in Muslim
countries.”
Damra
says he is currently the focus of a smear campaign in Ohio designed to
discredit him with allegations he supports groups in the Middle East
the U.S. government and the media have labeled “terrorist.”
Pointing
out that a local television station invited him to speak on Muslim
community affairs in the wake of backlash incidents in the Cleveland
area, once he was on-air, the station confronted him with a
10-year-old video in which he made several emotional appeals for
Palestinians.
In
the video, Damra made statements concerning Hamas, which at the time
of the video was not on the U.S.’s list of terrorist organizations.
Commenting
on the release of the video and the ability of Muslim leaders and
imams in dealing with U.S. media, Damra commented, “We do not know
how to deal with the media,” especially in the light of September 11
in which “Our community was not ready for this shock.”
Damra,
providing advice through his experiences with the media, said,
“Never let the media define who you are or put you on the
defensive.”
The
importance of mosques and Islamic centers in local affairs was seen as
paramount speakers addressed the need for the mosque to be both a
place of worship and a center for Muslims to gather in order to
provide a space for Muslims to organize and inform the public of the
faith and its believers.
“The
mosque in the U.S. has to be both a mosque and an Islamic center,”
in which the “Islamic center must be the center, and our imams the
leaders,” commented the Secretary General of the Virginia-based
Muslim American Society (MAS), Shaker El Sayed.
Al-Hajj
Talb “Abdur-Rashid”, Vice Amir of the Muslim Alliance of North
America, supported the belief of an active role for imams, commenting,
“The imam is the key person for the jamaat [Muslim
congregation], who forms jamaat opinion,” stressing the
mosque, “is the center for mass mobilization.”
El
Sayed distinguished between politics and politicians, addressing a
widely held belief amongst new members within the U.S. Muslim
community that the U.S. political system was anti-Muslim.
“Politics,
in and of itself, is not evil. Politicians maybe,” he commented,
continuing, “Politics is an art of persuasion,” within which
Muslims must become involved.
Syed
Habeeb Ashruf, President of the Islamic Society of Baltimore,
Maryland, pointed out glaring reasons why Muslims should become more
actively involved in the U.S. political system.
Addressing
the current U.S. government raids on Muslim organizations after
September 11, Ashruf, commenting on his right to give donations to
Islamic charitable organizations for distribution to Muslims, stated,
“My third pillar Islamic duty is under attack.”
“I
will not have that taken away from me,” he said, and that “whether
in Xinjiang, China; Jenin; or Kashmir,” he would fight for his
Islamic duty to aid Muslims wherever they may reside.
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