Loading ...Muslim Community in Virginia Pays the Price for the Actions of Extremists
In a small Muslim Community in Virginia, members of a beloved community Mosque discuss their trepidation for the future as Donald Trump’s call to ban Muslims from entering the country and increasing surveillance on American Mosques may lead to a renewed prejudice for the Muslims in the area. While leaders of the Mosque are taking efforts to open up the Mosque to non-Muslim neighbors in the community to convey a sense of unity and trust, leaders also called on their Muslim members to act as true agents of Islam by remaining peaceful, understanding, and patient while waiting for America to grow more accepting of their Muslim communities.
By Katie Shepherd
The New York Times
FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — Women in head scarves slid off their shoes, stacked them in neat rows next to the mosque’s entrance and squeezed together shoulder to shoulder in the small prayer space to listen to the imam’s sermon.
It was a Friday Prayer like any other at the Islamic Center of Fredericksburg until the warning came from the imam. Less than a week after the Orlando, Fla., nightclub massacre by an American-born Muslim, and after Donald J. Trump’s renewed call to bar Muslims from entering the United States, Imam Hilal Shah told his congregation to stay vigilant for violence against their families and community.
“We’re fearful of a backlash,” Imam Shah called out through the speakers as he mentioned other attacks by Muslim extremists in Paris and in San Bernardino, Calif. “Anytime an event takes place such as what happened in France, such as what happened in San Bernardino, such as in Orlando, we as a Muslim community feel scared.”
The Islamic Center is no stranger to backlash. Home to one of the many growing American Muslim communities in Northern Virginia, the center has expanded beyond the capacity of its small building on Harrison Road. The center decided last year to move to a larger mosque, but three days after the Paris attacks in November, a group of Fredericksburg residentsprotested the construction plans at a public hearing.
The center has plenty of company. In nearby Culpeper County, the board of supervisors voted against a sewage permit application from a Muslim congregation to build a mosque on land that cannot support a traditional drain field, saying the application violated the county’s regulations. The rejection was only the second of its kind in 20 years; the construction of a new mosque is stalled until the permit issue has been resolved.
For the Fredericksburg Islamic Center, the opposition is particularly painful because the mosque has been holding prayers and community events in the city for three decades. Many of the mosque’s members are American citizens who own local businesses. They say that until now, they have worked and lived side by side with their neighbors without problems.
“That was the shocking thing,” said Samer Shalaby, the chairman of the mosque’s board of directors. “People don’t realize that they have a mosque right next door.” He said the group gathered for prayer once a week and hosts community events inside the prayer center occasionally, but otherwise, the mosque sits empty most of the time. “We go to pray and go home,” he said.
When Mr. Shalaby presented the center’s plans to build a larger center at a public hearing three days after the Paris attacks, the protests surprised him. One man at the hearing, who can be seen in a video of the meeting, interrupted his presentation, saying “Nobody wants your evil cult here.” Although some residents in the crowd shook their heads and told the man to leave, others clapped and cheered.
The opposition grew so heated that a sheriff’s deputy ended the meeting early and sent everyone home to cool off. After the San Bernardino shooting in December, the mosque canceled a second public hearing for fear that the same protesters would show up.
The Fredericksburg Muslim community first organized in 1986, when only a handful of families were members of the congregation. The group built their current prayer center on a quiet stretch across the street from a Goodwill and a Walgreens in 2000 to accommodate a modest number of worshipers. Now, around 300 people squeeze into the small mosque for afternoon prayers at 1 p.m. on Fridays, followed by 300 more people for a second service at 2 p.m.
In the back of the mosque last Friday, as the women bowed forward to touch their heads to the floor, there was only about one foot of open space in front of the first row and even less room behind the last. Large celebrations like Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that marks the end of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, are almost impossible to host in the mosque. Ideally, Mr. Shalaby said, the mosque would be able to hold Friday prayers and celebrations where all 1,200 congregants could gather to share a meal and pray together.
Since November, the Fredericksburg Islamic Center has hosted a handful of interfaith potlucks and events to introduce residents and other local congregations to the mosque. Along with church members and the mosque’s neighbors, a handful of protesters carrying Confederate flags and signs with anti-Islam statements also showed up for these events. But over all, Mr. Shalaby said that in his opinion, the events had helped build a bridge between the mosque members and other residents of Fredericksburg.
“Letting people in the mosque opens it up,” Mr. Shalaby said. “It shows it’s not suspicious.”
Still, Imam Shah cautioned his congregation on Friday to be alert for protesters and those who wish Muslims harm. “All of us have to be the soldiers of Islam, meaning we have to live Islam the way it is supposed to be,” he told the congregation.
He encouraged people to talk to their neighbors and answer questions about the mosque, but carefully. Imam Shah advised his congregation to avoid arguments and keep a watchful eye for those who might want to cause trouble for the mosque.
But he ended his sermon with the hope that Muslims would be more accepted with time.
“It used to be the Jews when they came into this country, then it was Catholics, then it was Mormons,” Imam Shah said. “Now it is Muslims.”
Source: The New York Times