Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 1999, pages 106-110

Muslim-American Activism

Muslim-American and Arab-American Coordination Councils Hold “Landmark” Joint Meeting

What all participants agreed was a “landmark” joint meeting of the four major Arab-American and five largest Muslim-American political organizations was held Jan. 23 in Washington, DC. The meeting was jointly chaired by Dr. Hala Maksoud, chairman of the Council of Presidents of Arab American Organizations, and Dr. Agha Saeed, chairman of the American Muslim Political Coordination Council (AMPCC).

The meeting identified four areas of coordination and cooperation: 1) The future of Jerusalem. 2) Civil and human rights. 3) Arab and Muslim participation in the electoral process. 4) Access and inclusion in political structures.

Also agreed upon were pooling information and disseminating it through the two cordinating councils to all participating organizations; preparation of a common calendar of events to avoid scheduling conventions and other major events on competing dates; and preparation of a national data base of registered voters and key constituencies. A clear indication of the success of the initial meeting was the decision on an agenda item proposing the holding of a similar joint coordination meeting every year. After discussion, the participants chose instead to hold three such meetings annually.

What was particularly striking about the meeting was that although the Council of Presidents of Arab American Organizations has been in existence for several years, the AMPCC was organized only in late 1997 and held its first formal meeting early in 1998. From the beginning, however, the Muslim groups, headquartered in different parts of the country, have heavily stressed cooperation. Each group has invited representatives from the other Muslim groups to its annual conventions.

Muslim groups participating in the all-day Washington meeting were the American Muslim Alliance, a grassroots group with more than 80 local chapters headquartered in Northern California; the American Muslim Council, a lobbying and grassroots group headquartered in Washington, DC; the Coalition for Good Government, a political organization headquartered in Atlanta, GA which draws its membership from Islamic centers affiliated with indigenous Muslim leader Warith Deen Mohammad; the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which concentrates on civil rights and media issues from headquarters offices in both Washington, DC and Northern California; and the Muslim Public Affairs Counci (MPAC), a political group organized around the Islamic Center of Los Angeles but which also has registered to lobby from an office it opened in Washington, DC in 1998.

Arab-American groups participating were the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), a grassroots membership group concentrating on civil rights and discrimination abuses which was founded in 1980 in Washington, DC by former U.S. Senator James Abourezk and now is headed by Dr. Maksoud; the Arab American Institute (AAI), founded in Washington, DC by Dr. James Zogby to encourage Arab-American participation in the U.S. political system at all levels; the Arab American University Graduates (AAUG), first of the groups to be founded, which recently opened a national office adjacent to the ADC offices in Washington, DC; and the National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA), founded in 1976 in Washington, DC and headed by Khalil Jahshan.

At the joint coordination council meeting, task forces were named to coordinate activities on the four major issues identified at the meeting. On Jerusalem the task force included Nihad Awad of CAIR and Hisham Rida of MPAC to work with the existing American Committee on Jerusalem. On civil and human rights the task force included Eric Vickers of AMA and Hala Maksoud of ADC. And on development of an electoral strategy the task force included AAI, AMA, AMC and MPAC.

The joint meeting of the two coordinating councils was held on the initiative of the AMPCC, which circulated a proposed agenda in advance of the meeting. The agenda also included input papers solicited in advance from eight Arab- and Muslim-American activists and heads of political organizations and academic instititutions, and two non-Muslim, non-Arab activist writers, former Congressman Paul Findley and former foreign service officer and magazine editor Richard Curtiss, both of whom have authored books detailing the adverse impact of the Arab-Israeli dispute on the U.S. political system.

The Arab- and Muslim-American contributors were civil rights attorney Abdeen Jabara, a former ADC executive director; Prof. Ali Mazrui, director of the Institute of Global Studies; Dr. Clovis Maksoud, director of American University’s Center for the Global South in Washington, DC; Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, executive director of the Kashmiri American Council in Washington, DC; Hasan Hathout and Dr. Maher Hathout, both of Southern California; Prof. Sulayman Nyang of Howard University in Washington, DC; and Dr. Zahid Bukhari of Valley Stream, NY.

Members of the Council of Presidents of Arab American Organizations arrived with their own proposed, shorter agenda, which was adopted without objection.

The businesslike tone of the meeting was set early when one participant suggested that the initial meeting limit itself largely to “getting acquainted with each other.” Replied AMA board member Dr. Riaz Ahmed of Detroit: “the best way to get to know each other is by working together to carry out the agenda items.”

Participants interviewed after the meeting were almost euphoric about the harmonious atmosphere that prevailed throughout. Noting that the meeting opened a “new phase in mutual cooperation among Arab and Muslim organizations,” co-chairman Dr. Agha Saeed added that it “marks a shift from short-term to long-term planning” and “to specialization and division of labor.”

Said co-chairman Dr. Hala Maksoud in the official press release issued at the conclusion of the meeting. “We hope that as a result of our coordinated work on these issues, the eight million Arab and Muslim Americans will move toward a level of participation commensurate with our presence in this society.”

—R.H. Curtiss

AMC Decries the Strike Against Iraq

When American Muslim Council director Aly Ramadan Abuzaakouk held a press conference in the AMC’s Washington, DC office Dec. 17 to discuss “U.S. Policy in the Muslim World,” the discussion quickly turned to the U.S. bombing campaign in Iraq. “We cannot help but join Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott in questioning the timing, the objectives, and the necessity of such an attack and the ‘Wag the Dog’ approach in conducting the nation’s affairs,” Abuzaakouk said. He declared the U.S. should not have acted unilaterally without U.N. Security Council consent and urged the U.S. to help find a permanent solution to the Iraq crisis.

Council on American-Islamic Relations executive director Nihad Awad agreed, saying, “The American Muslim community wishes to express its condemnation of the current bombing campaign against Iraq. We say this not because we support Saddam Hussain or his policies, but because it is innocent civilians who will suffer.” The CAIR director said that “It is time to re-examine America’s policy on this issue and on the issue of overall stability and security in the region.”

Hussien Ibish, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s (ADC) media director, charged that the administration and news reports sanitized the attacks, obscuring the reality with official rhetoric and military jargon. The fact is, he said, that U.S. attacks are bringing more death and suffering to the Iraqi people and destroying life-sustaining infrastructure. He expressed ADC’s “deep concern for the people of Iraq and profound opposition to the United States military attack.”

Dr. Imad-Deen Ahmad, director of the Minaret of Freedom Institute, deplored the on-and-off attacks on Iraq, and called upon the U.S. administration to work through the United Nations to find a permanent solution to the Iraqi issue. Dr. Anisa Abdul Fattal, from the International Association for Muslim Women and Children, said she prayed that every U.S. soldier would return home safely, but noted that many Iraqis will not be so lucky.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Maryland Teachers Observe Ramadan

The Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, MD, a suburb of the U.S. national capital, hosted a Jan. 6 program for Maryland teachers to share the Ramadan experience with American Muslims. Throughout the month of Ramadan, mosques offer a fast-breaking communal meal, paid for by Muslims who cannot fast for health reasons or because they are traveling.

The teachers’ program was the brainchild of Samira Hussein, who last November received a coveted award from Maryland’s Montgomery County for her work in organizing workshops to help students and teachers increase their understanding of Arabs and Islam.

In the Silver Spring workshop, Muslim teachers described how Ramadan affects the classroom performance of Muslim students. Afifa Syed, from the Muslim Education Council, also discussed other classroom situations that may cause discomfort for Muslim students. For example, assignments in which girls and boys work together in groups may embarrass the Muslim girls. Teachers were also provided with book and video resources to help familiarize students with cultural differences.

Educators were given brochures, lesson plan ideas and handouts with facts about Islam and Ramadan. Amideast book catalogs were available, as were classroom posters from the Embassy of Saudi Arabia. The American Educational Trust supplied copies of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs with its book catalog, and made available samples of many of these books for teachers to browse through or purchase.

The Jewish-American community is a good example of a religious minority’s programs to educate Americans about its beliefs. B’nai B’rith’s Anti-Defamation League has spent millions of dollars for its “A World of Difference” programs to help combat anti-Jewish and other bigotry in the classroom. More than 350,000 public school teachers have received free special training, videos for classroom use, and often all-expense-paid trips to Israel to help the teachers educate 12 million American students about Judaism and Israel.

While the Muslim-American community does not yet have that kind of funding, programs like Samira Hussein’s teachers’ workshops are a start. After the workshops, teachers were invited to observe prayers and then join Muslims as they broke their fast.

The teachers enjoyed the workshop and dinner, and many looked forward to using what they’d learned in their own classrooms in April, which has been named Arab-American Heritage Month in the schools of Montgomery Country.

—Delinda C. Hanley

Political Group Formed in Chicago

The founding conference of the United Muslim American Association (UMAA) was held Dec. 17 in suburban Chicago. Local Muslim activists felt the need for a political organization that would tend to their local concerns, as well as their national and global interests. The founding conference was the culmination of a series of events that began with Town Hall meetings held in three different parts of the metropolitan area to enable community members to discuss the scope and structure of this new organization. This resulted in appointment of a committee to draft a constitution and bylaws. At the founding conference the constitution was ratified and an interim board of trustees elected.

The UMAA’s general objectives are to educate Muslim Americans about the U.S. political system; to foster grassroots participation among Muslim Americans in public, civic, and political life; to develop a social and political platform for the Muslim American community; to educate and lobby U.S. public officials at all levels and fields; and to support the human and civil rights of Muslim Americans.

“The plan is to start with the village boards and the state legislature,” said Sabri Samairah, an interim board member and key figure in the founding of the UMAA. “This will be a comprehensive organization that will nurture and utilize the great political power of our community in order to ensure and secure our interests.”

Explained interim board chairman Rafeeq Jaber, the former national chairman of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), “You cannot go to Washington and expect to have good results if you do not have a strong local base. The late Tip O’Neill once said, ‘All politics are local,’ and I couldn’t agree more.”

Activities and programs the UMAA plans to conduct include participation in local, state, and federal election campaigns; aiding Muslim-American candidates for offices with technical and financial support; conducting educational and political seminars, conventions, and debates; and building relations and coalitions with other public, religious, and civil rights political groups.

Major Islamic organizations in the Chicago area whose leaders are supporting the new organization include the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, the Islamic Foundation, the Mosque Foundation, the Islamic Association for Palestine, and the Muslim Community Center.

—Raeed N. Tayeh

Chicago Mosques Report Unprecedented Ramadan Attendance Despite Winter Blizzard

Chicago mosques reported record attendance at Friday prayers and Taraweeh (evening) prayers during the month of Ramadan, which ended Jan. 18. They also reported record charitable contribution totals during the month, a traditional time of giving.

At the Mosque Foundation in suburban Bridgeview, both Friday and Taraweeh prayers had to be divided into two shifts by the imam (prayer leader), Sheikh Jamal Said. He initiated this unique practice two days into Ramadan after the mosque overflowed with worshippers.

“We feel great. The number of people praying at our mosque has tripled in the past five years,” the imam said. “This success is now putting pressure on the community to build a grand mosque in order to facilitate all of our worshippers at one time. This is truly a great blessing from God.”

Dr. Talal Sonbouli, the president of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago (CIO), has received similar reports from other mosques in the area. “We have 64 mosques and Islamic centers in our area, and they are all following the same trend,” he said. “We even have people holding Taraweeh prayers in their homes for friends and family members due to mosque overcrowding.

Shortly after the beginning of Ramadan, Chicago was hit with a blizzard that brought over 22 inches of snow and winds that carried below-zero temperatures, but that didn’t stop the area’s persistent Muslims. They dug out their cars and braved icy roads and weather to make it to Taraweeh prayers.

Observers attributed the increase in mosque attendance, a continuing trend, both to a return of local Muslims to the fundamentals of Islam plus the increase of American converts to the fastest-growing religion both in the world and in the United States.

—Raeed N. Tayeh

Pakistani Community Warmly Welcomes Premier Washington Showing of “Jinnah”

Hundreds of Pakistanis and PakistaniAmericans turned out Jan. 23 for the premier showing in the U.S. national capital of “Jinnah,” a beautifully produced full-length feature film depicting the life of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, who is now remembered by his people as Quaid-e-Azam (the great leader).

Virtually every seat in Washington, DC’s historic LincolnTheater was filled with guests who paid $100 per person to see the deeply moving film, and stay for a brief program afterward. The funds collected will be used to help defray some of the $5 million total cost of making the film, which was produced in England and partially filmed in Pakistan in 1997, and then, after a halt for financial reorganization, was completed in New York with some $1.5 million collected from Pakistani Americans by the Quaid Project, USA, chaired by Dr. Nasim Ashraf, a Pakistani-American living in the Maryland suburbs of the U.S. national capital.

Guests were addressed after the premier by Noor Naghmi, coordinator of the local organizing committee, who then introduced noted Pakistani actor Talat Hussain, who plays a cameo role in the film. The actor described his own childhood memories of 1947, the turbulent year in which the subcontinent was divided into India and Pakistan and the year in which the most tragic and triumphant events depicted in the film took place.

In that year, the actor said, his parents elected to flee Delhi by train to Bombay, from which they would board a ship for the newly created Muslim state. At each stop, he said, his parents hid him and his brother under benches covered with baggage so that if communal rioters boarded the train to kill the Muslim passengers, the children might be spared.

The next speaker was Dr. Ashraf, who thanked investors who made the film possible, and particularly John P. Kelly, president of the Enterprise Bank of Maryland, and Moeen Qureshi, a longtime official of the World Bank who retired from the bank to accept an interim appointment as prime minister of Pakistan, for their roles in organizing the financing.

Pakistani Ambassador Riaz H. Khokhar then paid tribute to “all those Pakistanis and Pakistani Americans who have contributed to this...splendid, touching and moving” film. It contains a “message to the young people of Pakistan [that] we need to abide by the principles and the ideas that Quaid-e-Azem has set for us,” he said. “Part of the problems that Pakistan has faced in the past 50 years are because we have moved away from them.” Ambassador Khokhar concluded by saying that “this film is absolutely important for every Pakistani to see.”

The final speaker, former Pakistani Prime Minister Qureshi, also praised the “indefatigable group led by Dr. Ashraf who have given generously of their time and their resources.” Turning to the subject of the film, he said that “Mr. Jinnah envisioned a nation that would be united and progressive, that would be disciplined, and that above all would be tolerant of diversity...We have drifted very far from those ideals.” Paraphrasing the Pakistani poet Ahmad Eqbal, he compared ideals to stars. “We will never reach them,” Mr. Qureshi said, but “like mariners on the sea” we must be guided by them.

The film was conceived by Prof. Akbar Ahmed, a Cambridge University Islamic scholar, and filmed and directed by award-winning filmmaker Jamil Dehlavi, who collaborated with Dr. Ahmed on writing the screenplay.

The film revealingly depicts the personal interactions of Jinnah and his influential sister, Fatima, with four other major players on the South Asian stage in 1947: Mohandas K. Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Lord Louis Mountbatten and his wife, Edwina.

The film unblinkingly examines the achievements of partition, the origin of the still-ticking time bomb of the Kashmir problem, and the tragic consequences of the hasty manner in which the partition timetable was accelerated by Mountbatten, for his own reasons, with the resulting deaths of millions of victims of communal violence.

The film was premiered on Sept. 2, 1998 at the World Film Festival in Montreal, and had its Hollywood premier on Sept. 26. It also was shown at the London Film Festival in November and the Cairo International Film Festival in December. It received excellent reviews in all of these initial appearances as did its cast, made up of such leading actors as England’s Christopher Lee, who plays the mature Jinnah, and popular Indian film star Shashi Kapoor, cast in the role of a narrator who accompanies Jinnah on a trip back through his life.

It is an accurate reflection of a time and a place when, in the immediate aftermath of World World II, the structure of the postcolonial world was being erected, without a blueprint, by leaders who had to overcome monumental challenges with goals and dedication that dwarf those of our age of pop culture.

—Richard Curtiss