USA: American Muslims become more religious as tensions and alienation grow since the September 11, 2001 attacks

Being Muslim in America these days is not easy. Five years since the tragic attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City, and the American Muslim community in the United States, Muslims say they still gets uneasy glances or strange looks from many people on the street. There are an estimated 6 to 10 million American Muslims in the country. And many say that misunderstanding about their peaceful religion seems to be the norm, not the exception. Hadia Mubarak says she is very frustrated with the situation. She is the president of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) of North America and Canada. She is the first female to serve in that post. Born in New Jersey, Mubarak grew up in Florida, and has recently finished her Master's degree in Contemporary Arab studies at Georgetown University. She is currently a research assistant at the American University in Washington D.C. and a board member at CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations. Mubarak says that five years after the horrific 9/11 attacks the situation is worse-- not better-- for American Muslims. "I do feel like the tensions have risen since 9/11," she said. "I think definitely there's a difference today in that there's more fear and more misunderstanding and more of a divide between the Muslim world and the U.S. and I think it affects the way Muslims are treated at home in America and the way they are perceived," she added. Mubarak, 23, says that she and her Muslim friends grew up hearing slurs and receiving hate mail from people who targeted them because of their religion. She says that many of her girlfriends were forced to remove their head scarfs because their parents did not want them to become victims of hate crime. While many of her male friends, she says, tried to blend in more by changing their names from Arabic or Muslim names like Mohamad to Mo or Mike. Mubarak said that almost every time she goes to the gas station or out shopping, people either stare or approach her and ask her why she is dressed the way she is. They ask why she covers her head. Many, Mubarak says, don't realize that she's American and that it's her choice to wear a head scarf or "hijab." Mubarak says she's used to it by now and does not mind being somewhat of an ambassador of her faith. But she says the hardest part is when people yell at her to " go back home" or treat her like a foreigner. "A lot of people don't regard me as American or as one of them," she says. "I mean I am looked at as a foreigner and that is really the most painful aspect of it that you know, you live life, continuously being perceived as someone who doesn't fully belong only because of your decision to you know adhere to your faith, to Islam, and it's something I believe in," she added. Geneive Abdo says that experiences like that of Mubarak are very common. Abdo is the author of Mecca And Main Street. She spent the past two years traveling the country, visiting mosques, interviewing Muslim leaders and speaking to Muslim youths in universities and Islamic centers from New York to Michigan to California. Abdo says that what she found is that American Muslims are increasingly alienated from the American mainstream life. And this alienation has led them, unlike their parents or grandparents, to choose their Islamic identity over their American one. "The story lies in those Muslims who are departing from history in this country and becoming more attached to their identity even than their parents were," Abdo said. She says this new generation of American Muslims who are living in the shadow of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks is becoming more religious. Many who are eyed suspiciously or who watch the television programs portraying Muslims as the new enemies of the West are so frustrated that they are turning more and more to their Islamic identity. But that, according to Abdo does not mean they are becoming more "radical". It only means American Muslims are becoming more religious. "In fact there are far more mosques being built now post-9/11, mosques are expanding, all the evidence on the ground is that whatever small percentage of Muslims were going to mosque before more are going now so given that anecdotal information which everyone agrees upon it's still, this is an interesting development given what's happening in the world and given what's happening in this country," she said. Abdo adds that being an "ambassador of Islam", like Mubarak, is daring behavior when according to statistics most Americans are ignorant of -- if not hostile to -- their faith, Abdo wrote in a recent Washington Post article. In a Gallup poll this year, when U.S. respondents were asked what they admire about the Muslim world, the most common response was "nothing" (33 percent); the second most common was "I don't know" (22 percent). Abdo also claims that American Muslims households in the United State have a higher income than regular Americans, and American Muslim women are more educated than any other immigrant group in the U.S. But despite their success and because of increased alienation since 9/11 more and more of them are embracing their Muslim identity.

ITN Source | September 9, 2006

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