Chicago-Area Mosque Vandalized

By Raeed N. Tayeh

The Islamic Foundation of Villa Park, IL was the target of a hate crime recently when a giant concrete block was thrown through the window of the newly renovated mosque. The mosque, one of the largest in the country, is set in a very quiet upper-middle-class suburb of Chicago. Along with the prayer hall, the complex houses a full-time Islamic school, a large activity center, and a book store.

Administrators at the mosque say that this incident wasn’t an isolated one. During its expansion, windows at the mosque were broken by assailants driving a white van. The same white van has been seen lurking around the grounds of the mosque occasionally, and it is believed to have been used in the most recent act of vandalism there. Besides these physical assaults on the mosque, there have been numerous incidents of verbal harassment of Muslim women standing in front of the mosque who were dressed in religiously mandated clothing.

“It is really a shame that people would target our mosque, or any other mosque or religious institution,” said Abdul Hamid Dogar, president of the Islamic Foundation.

The vandalism of the mosque received extensive coverage from the local media. On the national level, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Washington, DC issued a statement calling on law enforcement officials to investigate the attack as a possible hate crime.

“Bigots do not always leave evidence, such as anti-Muslim graffiti, at the scene of a crime. The apparently premeditated nature of this attack would seem to indicate that it was not a random act of violence, but was instead directed specifically at the Muslim community,” said CAIR’s national communications director Ibrahim Hooper.

The vandalism at the Islamic Foundation came shortly after a terrorist attack was prevented at another mosque situated, by unhappy coincidence, in Littleton, CO, site of the rampage by two high school students in which they killed themselves and 13 others and shocked the nation.

On May 12, police noticed a suspicious vehicle parked outside the Colorado Islamic Center. The driver of the car sped away and attempted to elude the police officers. When the suspect was eventually caught at his apartment, he began fighting with the officers and said, “I am an enemy against the Islamic nation and I was going to take care of business.” A cache of weapons was found in the suspect’s car, including two 9mm semi-automatic pistols, a loaded shotgun, a high-powered rifle, bomb-making materials, several knives, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

Dozens of mosques have been the target of such hate crimes, and mosques in Yuba City, CA, Springfield, IL, and Greenville, SC all have been targets of devastating arson attacks. CAIR is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction of the perpetrators of the arson attack that left the Minneapolis, MN mosque in ruins last March.

Many politicians and religious leaders from the Chicagoland area gathered at the Villa Park mosque in a sign of solidarity with the Muslim community. “For 65 years we have stood amid broken glass and painted swastikas,” said the Rev. Stanley L. Davis Jr., executive director of the National Conference for Community and Justice. Davis labeled the vandalism “a cry of weakness amidst the strength that you see standing in this circle of concern today.”

The mosque also received several letters of support from figures such as Cardinal Francis George, Roman Catholic archbishop of Chicago, and the presiding hierarch of the Greek Orthodox Diocese of Chicago.

As nearly two dozen non-Muslim community leaders ceremonially removed the concrete block from the mosque, the Muslims present were reminded of a similar scene that dates back nearly 1,400 years. The Prophet Muhammad once settled a dispute amongst feuding factions in Mecca who were arguing over who should carry a sacred stone to the Ka’ba, the first house of worship built by the Prophet Abraham. Muhammad suggested that the stone be placed on a sheet, and that a representative of each faction assist in carrying the rock to the holy shrine. His idea was accepted, and the dispute was settled.

IAP-Chicago Holds Jerusalem Festival

On May 8, the Chicago chapter of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) held its first annual “Jerusalem Festival for English Speakers.” The event attracted some 200 community members, young and old. For more than a decade, the IAP has been holding similar annual festivals, not only in Chicago, but in many other cities as well. This festival was different, however, because the entire program was in English, whereas the others had been in Arabic. “The purpose of this festival was to connect the American-born Muslims and Palestinians to the Holy Land of Palestine,” said Abdelbaset Zhour, the assistant director of the IAP in Chicago.

The festival program included a video presentation, speeches, Islamic entertainment, a dance performance, and a panel discussion. The festival was opened with a recitation from the Holy Qu’ran by Sheikh Kifah Mustapha. Afterward, a video produced by the Holy Land Foundation called “In the Memory” was shown.

This film detailed a half-century of Israeli oppression with dramatic archival film footage and personal accounts of victims of the massacres at Deir Yassin in Palestine in 1948 and Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon in 1982. Magdi Odeh, one of the organizers of the event, remarked, “I never knew the extent of my people’s suffering until I watched this videotape.”

An array of speakers sent out strong and encouraging messages to the youths in the audience.

Sheikh Jamal Said, the religious leader of the community, spoke about the importance of Jerusalem in Islam, and the duty of Muslims toward it. He said, “The Prophet Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him, was forced out of his home in Mecca, leaving behind everything. He lived in exile for 10 years before liberating his homeland from the idolaters. You must be patient as well, and you must excel in your studies if you want al-Quds [Jerusalem] to be free.”

Manal Taiym, a young Palestinian-American, spoke to the audience about Palestine from the perspective of an American-born Muslim woman. “Palestine is under occupation,” she said, “and don’t think that since you don’t live in Palestine that you’re not occupied, because you are. Your identity as a Palestinian is under siege....If everyone carries his or her own weight in the struggle, we will then be able to come together as one body, and speak with one voice, and that is when we will get Palestine back.”

Featured speaker of the evening was Richard Curtiss, executive editor of the Washington Report. He urged audience members to increase their political activity and visibility. “The only way that U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East will be changed is for Muslim Americans and Arab Americans to vote, and when one candidate clearly is the best qualified in terms of your interests, to vote as a bloc,” said Curtiss.

The audience enjoyed a delightful dance performance by male students of Universal School, an Islamic school where the festival was held. They did the debka, the traditional Arabic folklore dance, as the Isra’ Band played music. It was a very exciting experience for audience members as many were clapping, whistling, and swaying to the music. The school’s hall was decorated for the festival with largePalestinian flags and posters of Al Aqsa mosque. Spread in front of the podium was a long, segmented mural listing Zionist massacres of Palestinians. On the back of their program cards, attendees could read 10 basic facts about Palestine.

Each attendee received a free copy of the Washington Report, as well as a book written by Dr. Assad Busool and published by the IAP entitled, Palestine: Who’s Land Is It? “We really wanted to load them up with factual information that they can’t get elsewhere,” said Khaled Ghori, another organizer of the festival.

The president of the IAP office in Chicago, Rafeeq Jaber, gave a riveting speech on his vision for the youth of the community. “It’s time for you to get involved at the leadership level. It is your duty to lead all of the institutions of our community, from the mosques and Islamic centers to the IAP, from ISNA to CAIR,” said Jaber.

After the speeches, Rafeeq Jaber and Richard Curtiss held a panel discussion to answer questions from the audience. The program ended with entertainment from the Isra’ band. Several young men from the audience chose to express their satisfaction with the festival by performing their own debka, as band members sang their hearts out.

The “Jerusalem Festival” didn’t happen by accident. IAP, like other organizations originally founded predominantly by Arabic speakers, realized that its support base is shifting more and more toward American-born Arabs and Muslims whose native language is English.

In November, IAP will hold its annual convention in Chicago. The convention committee hopes to have a strong English program for those who are interested in the Islamic perspective on Palestine. Nearly 50 percent of all efforts and funds for the convention will be earmarked for the English-language program.

Raeed N. Tayeh is a Palestinian-American journalism student. He can be reached via e-mail at kasper49@hotmail.com