WASHINGTON, Sept 1 (IslamOnline) - When the organizers of the Islamic Society of North America’s (ISNA) annual convention planned last year to hold the 2002 event in the nation’s capital, they had no idea of the significance of their decision.

One week after the 2001 convention over Labor Day Weekend in Chicago, the September 11 attacks altered forever the tone and circumstance of any gathering of Muslims in the United States; here in Washington, ISNA’s 39th annual convention opened with a solemn prayer for the victims of 9/11 and an appeal for peace and justice.

“We want to take this opportunity to pray for the victims of 9/11,” said Khadijah Abdullah, a young sister who read the prayer to the audience on Friday afternoon, when the convention opened after the Jumu’ah (congregational Friday) prayer. “Strengthen us, and make us better people who will choose your path,” she said.

Opening remarks were provided by Shaikh Muhammad Nur Abdullah, president of ISNA; Louay Safi, president of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists; Elsayed Orady, president of the Association of Muslim Scientists and Engineers; Altaf Husain, president of the national Muslim Students’ Association; Rabbi Robert Lennick, president and CEO of Religion in American Life and others.

Washington, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams also came to address the slowly growing audience, commending ISNA for its good works and expressed pride at the absence of hate crimes against Muslims in the nation’s capital after the attacks.

“I, for one, as mayor, appreciate the beauty, the breadth and depth of Islamic civilization,” he said, adding that he was declaring August 31, 2002 as “Islamic Society of North America Peace and Justice Day,” to rousing applause.

This theme of the conference - “Islam - A Call to Peace and Justice” carried the full weight of the impact of September 11; many, if not most, of the sessions reflected awareness roused by the attacks, their aftermath, and their meaning for the global Muslim community, or ummah.

On Friday evening, when the influx of attendees was just beginning to rise, ISNA held an “Alliance for Peace and Justice Banquet” to honor the individuals and organizations with which it has developed partnerships and coalitions since 9/11. Speakers included rabbis, pastors and imams, as well as activists, with ISNA vice president Dr. Ingrid Mattson giving the keynote speech.

Friday night’s main session looked at “Faith as Foundation for Peace and Justice,” with the eminent panelists, author Murad Hoffman and Munir Fareed, stressing the importance of developing iman (faith) in working towards these goals.

Fareed spoke about the individual’s “ability to make a significant contribution to the alleviation of injustice” and other social ills through faith, because “faith is able to do that by tapping into the conscience of the individual.”

Hoffman, meanwhile, encouraged Muslims to increase their knowledge of Islam and strengthen their faith so that they could understand and explain exactly why the September 11 attacks were against the teachings of Islam.

Muslims pray during the ISNA Convention

This sentiment was echoed on Saturday morning, when Howard University professor Sulayman Nyang commented on the responsibility of Muslims to check their own ranks and their own beliefs for tendencies towards extremism.

“I don’t care how pious you are, I don’t care how good you are as a Muslim,” he said. “You cannot play God” with the lives of innocent people.

Nyang was the first speaker in Saturday morning’s second main session, regarding extremism and moderation; Mattson, the panel’s second speaker, explained the danger of extremism resulting from following one path of thought in isolation from other perspectives.

“Moderation in Islam doesn’t always mean taking the middle way between two extremes,” she said.

Mattson said that one of the “beauties and wisdoms” of the Islamic method of shura, or consultation, is that it allows for differing perspectives to influence a final decision; without this, she said, something like the September 11 attacks in retaliation for U.S. support of Israel “is a very convincing argument in isolation but it is wrong, we reject it.”

The third panelist, Imam Siraj Wahhaj, stressed the importance of justice as a prerequisite for peace, saying that “peace is the byproduct of justice,” and that Muslims have to remember that they are the servants of Allah - a fact that transcends whatever suffering they may face.

Later in the afternoon, a forum on responses of American Muslims to September 11 and its aftermath looked at everything from civil rights to the problems created by what one speaker called “professional racists” who have made statements denouncing Islam.

Agha Saeed, president of the American Muslim Alliance, listed both positive and negative impacts of the attacks, saying that the sharp rise in popularity of Islamic readings shows that people “have not found what the professional racists told them they would find.”

Panelist Louay Safi urged Muslims to speak out by spreading the truth about Islam, by developing think tanks to provide policy recommendations, and by encouraging Muslim children to go into the fields of media and politics.

Saturday’s final main session, entitled simply “Impact of September 11th,” included some of the American Muslim community’s most well-known names -Mattson, Ali Mazrui, Abdalla Idris Ali and Hamza Yusuf.

Mazrui, the Albert Schweitzer scholar at Binghamton University in New York, urged the exploration of the causes of terrorism, rather than inflammatory punishment methods. In terms of the domestic war, he said, “All the nightmares we used to think of concerning George Orwell’s 1984 are unfolding, in a limited way.”

He urged Muslims to be more careful and savvy when making political decisions; Mattson’s speech, on the other hand, focused more on the spiritual impact in terms of suffering.

“Suffering should teach us something,” she said, namely, empathy with others who are suffering.

She referred to a hadith (teaching of the prophet Mohammed) that urges Muslims to help their brothers and sisters in faith whether they are right - by supporting them - or wrong - by guiding them correctly. She also noted the importance of reliance on Allah, which she said she was reminded of after the 9/11 attacks.

“The most important thing, no matter what happened, is my relationship with Allah,” she said, adding later that Allah protects His deen (religion), and that our defense of Islam is out of our own need rather than any need of Islam itself to be protected.

Hamza Yusuf, the panel’s final speaker, commended the American Muslim community on its “immense courage” over the past year, saying that ISNA’s convention being in Washington after 9/11 showed that “not only do we not have anything to be ashamed of, but we are also not a fifth column in this country.”

Yusuf, affirming the rightful place of Muslims in America as “a part of the tapestry of this country,” urged his listeners to expand their efforts towards sharing Islam rather than destroying its enemies.

He said they should “stop calling for the destruction of their enemy. I would suggest that we ask for the guidance of those who have shown animosity towards us,” he said. This statement arose from an explanation of how all of humanity requires Allah’s mercy - “We are in deep need of mercy as a species,” he said.

Yusuf spoke at a number of other sessions, including some during the MSA and Muslim Youth of North America (MYNA) sessions, which are running concurrently with the larger ISNA sessions.

ISNA’s annual conventions typically bring more than 25,000 Muslims and others from around the country; organizers predicted nearly 40,000 for this event, and as of Saturday evening, at least 32,000 filled the massive main room and hallways of the Washington Convention Center.