AS AMERICAN AS...
Muslims, Sikhs and Arabs are patriotic—but scapegoated

He wanted a congenial space where people might gather, which is why Balbir Singh Sodhi was outside his Chevron station in Mesa, Arizona, two Saturdays ago, surveying the groundcover he had just planted. Says Guru Roop Kaur Khalsa, one of Sodhi's ministers: "Even though it was just a gas station, he saw it as a center of the community. He looked for innocence and sweetness and tried to capture it." Then, police allege, a man named Frank Silva Roque drove by in a black Chevy pickup and pumped three bullets into Sodhi, killing him almost instantly. Sodhi appears to have died because he looked Muslim. He was not. He was a Sikh, and his religion was born as a reform of Hinduism. But to some, the turban and beard that most Sikhs wear look like Osama bin Laden's. When the police caught Roque, they claim he explained his actions by saying, "I'm an American."

Imagine this: you wake up every morning nervous, stalked by faceless enemies. It's nothing personal; they just hate what they think you represent. The attack could come at any time, and there is virtually no defense. If that seems to describe all America at the moment, there is one group for whom the unbearable tension since the World Trade Center attack is doubled. If you are a Muslim or an Arab, or look like one to someone focused primarily on his own rage, you must fear not only bin Laden-style terrorism but also the insults, blows and bullets of your countrymen.

Last Thursday someone threw stone after stone through the windshields of cabs in Manhattan's Central Park, apparently targeting dark-skinned drivers. "A lot of cabdrivers are not driving," says Ali Agha Abba, a Pakistani-American taxi driver in New York City. "I can't afford to not work. So I have to take a chance." Last Monday a man drove a Mustang through the front entrance of the Grand Mosque in Parma, Ohio, the largest in the state. The Sunday before, a Muslim woman in Memphis was beaten on her way to worship. The day before that, a Pakistani Muslim store owner was shot and killed. The FBI called it a hate crime.

True, George Bush spoke out for Muslims at a mosque and before Congress last week, telling them, "We respect your faith. Its teachings are good and peaceful." FBI agents began a round of bureau meetings with local Muslim and Arab leaders in various states, asking for their help with investigations and assuring their protection. Said a relieved participant: "We know we have the FBI behind us."

And yet . . . on Monday Louisiana Congressman John Cooksey told a radio show, "If I see someone come in that's got a diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over." (He later apologized.) On that same day, the pilot of a Delta flight in Texas had a Pakistani American removed before takeoff because he said his crew did not feel comfortable with the man aboard. Delta offered him a new ticket—on another carrier. (It later apologized.) A cnn/USA Today/Gallup poll of 1,032 adults indicated that 49% thought all Arabs—American citizens included—should have to carry special id cards.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations counts more than 600 "incidents" since September 11 victimizing people thought to be Arab or Muslim, including four murders, 45 people assaulted and 60 mosques attacked. Thousands were intimidated into not going to work, their mosques, their schools. Some 200 Muslims are estimated to have died in the Twin Towers. Yet, says C.A.I.R.'s Nihad Awad, "Muslims are being accused of something that the community has not done, and it's really an awkward and unfair position to be in."

There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet. Pray five times a day. Give alms. Fast during the month of Ramadan. If you are capable, make a pilgrimage to Mecca. If these "five pillars" seem foreign to you, you may not be talking with your neighbors. Islam is an American religion. There are some 7 million Muslims in the U.S. That's more than the number of Jews and more than twice the number of Episcopalians. Thirty years ago, the Islamic count was a mere 500,000. The number of mosques rose from 598 in 1986 to 1,372 this year. The number of American-born Muslims now far exceeds the count of immigrants.

Islam, the youngest of the major faiths, was influenced by Judaism and Christianity. Muslims are "people of the book," accepting the Jewish Bible and the New Testament as Holy Scripture while maintaining that the Koran's famously elegant and expressive Arabic is God's final and inerrant word. Similarly, followers of Islam believe Moses, John the Baptist and Jesus were prophets but the final messenger was Muhammad, to whom, they say, the angel Gabriel dictated the Koran. Like Christians and Jews, says Jamal Badawi, a religion professor at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, their core concerns are "moral behavior, love of neighbor, justice and compassion. We believe that we are created for a purpose, and we are going to be held responsible for our life on earth on the day of judgment." Muslims do not worship Muhammad (who, unlike Moses or Jesus, was a lavishly documented historical figure, dying in a.d. 632) but regard him as exemplary. It is upon the Koran and collections of his sayings (Hadiths) that Islamic law, or Sharia, is based.

Like Christians, Muslims evangelize and look forward to the eventual conversion of the human race. The faith's directness, bright-line moral stances and the absence of hierarchy have proved attractive to converts in the U.S., while its role for women, who make up only 15% of average Friday mosque attendance, repels some seekers.

The burning issues in the average Muslim-American household are far less likely to be political than fairly standard sitcom fodder. A child refuses to wear a hijab. A mother suddenly realizes that despite the prohibition on premarital dating in most Muslim households, her daughter's "good friend" is really a boyfriend. A married couple notes that their college-age son, like many of his peers, seems to be returning to religious observance. Meanwhile, in his dorm room, that son is plying the Web in service of a human-rights organization, protesting American policies regarding Kashmir or Palestine or even Kabul—from within the American system.

Questions

1. In what ways were American Muslims and Arabs scapegoated after the attacks of September 11?

2. How is Islam similar to Christianity and Judaism? What contrasts does the writer note?