Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October/November 1997, Pages 55-60

Muslim-American Activism

Annual ICNA Convention Draws More than 3,000

According to its organizers, the 22nd annual convention of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) held in Pittsburgh, PA over the July 4 weekend was attended by between 3,000 and 4,000 people. A random survey of delegates by the Washington Report revealed that all conferees spoke English, most spoke Urdu and some spoke Arabic. All deliberations were in English.

The theme of the convention, "Win Duniyah, Win Aakhirah" ("Win Here, Win in the Hereafter"), symbolized the awareness, if not actual discomfort, of at least a section of the Muslim population that is growing up in capitalist (read materialist) America. The challenges that flow from the decision by Muslim immigrants to make their homes in North America were the principal topics of discussion, and word went out in almost every session of the three-day convention that "bridges have to be built" between Muslims and adherents of other religions in America without making any compromises on fundamental beliefs.

While not minimizing the inherent risks to Muslims, especially for the coming generations, speakers nonetheless emphasized the need for opening up America's mosques and community centers to non-Muslims. Setting the tone of the convention, ICNA president Dr. Mohammed Yunus urged that Muslims close ranks and recognize that this is not the "promised land," but is instead a "land of promises" that affords an opportunity for Muslims to grow and spread the word of Allah.

In keeping with Islamic tradition, separate sessions were arranged for women within Pittsburgh's David Lawrence Convention Center, where the convention was held. Similarly, separate meetings were organized for the youth.

However, participants met together in assigned areas during the general sessions. ICNA is known for its strict adherence to the word and spirit of Islam and its conservatism was visible during the meetings.

As in previous years, ICNA drew its members mostly from the East Coast and Canada. A heartening sign of increasing unity among North American Muslims was the participation of Dr. Muzzamil Siddiqui, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), former ISNA president Dr. Abdullah Idrees, and also a strong contingent of African-American leaders who included Imam Plemon Al Amin representing the Ministry of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed, Imam Jamil Al Amin from Atlanta, Imam Seeraj Wahaj from New York and Imam Khalid Griggs, chief editor of The Message, the ICNA publication.

While ICNA has given out a call to build bridges between "here" and "hereafter," there are more than cosmetic issues that separate groups within the American Muslim community. Efforts are being made, however, to see that conventions, conferences, seminars and workshops conducted by different organizations do not conflict in time and place.

All factions acknowledge that transplanted communities bring with them the baggage of divergent cultures and mores and are destined to go through a period of turmoil before pieces start falling in place. That such a community subscribes to a common faith, Islam in this case, is a positive underpinning, that eases the resolution of conflicts.

Speaking of the much more pressing issue of Islamic integration into North American society, Paul Kenny, a devout Catholic from Squirrel Hill, PA said at one convention session that "Islam is something that most of us have no experience with." He said that after attending the ICNA convention, he realized that "people of different religious traditions have so much in common, but just let the differences get in the way."

Dr. Jamal Badawi, an Islamic scholar and an academician from Halifax, Canada, urged Islamic organizations to place more emphasis on providing a holistic environment to the Muslim youth growing up in North America who are exposed to the temptations of a permissive society. "Just weekend schools are not enough," he said. "Our children need to be engaged full-time and our homes should be the training grounds for them and our community centers should assist in their moral and intellectual development." He emphasized, however, that these institutions should not become "havens of escape" or "islands of isolation" battening on attitudes of self-righteousness.

The major thrust of the ICNA convention was on spiritual regeneration and directing the coming generation to the righteous path. Less attention was paid to the issue that remains most under attack in the West: the role of women in Islam. A session in the women's section of the convention, however, did discuss challenges facing Muslim working women in America. Very useful explanations were provided about the differences between the Western concept of feminism and the Islamic concept of motherhood.

Many of those who had attended previous ICNA conventions told the Washington Report that the 1997 convention showed not only that the organization was coming into its own, but also that signs of unity and organizational maturity between different Islamic groups were much in evidence.

—M.M. Ali

AMA Omaha Protests Award

The Omaha chapter of the American Muslim Alliance joined with students and faculty members to protest the granting of an honorary doctorate of humane letters by the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) to Moshe Katsav, Israel's deputy prime minister and minister of tourism.

In addition to issuing statements printed in the local press denouncing the decision, AMA members and supporters mounted a demonstration on the UNO campus May 20, the day the degree was presented.

A press statement by AMA Omaha political affairs committee chairman Abed Ajrami listed some of the human rights violations in the occupied territories of Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon committed by Israel's current Likud government, of which Katsav is a high official. It also noted his role in opening a tunnel in 1996 near the foundation of the Haram Al Sharif in East Jerusalem. Katsav called the tunnel an archeological and tourist attraction, but the nighttime opening set off rioting in which some 65 Palestinians and 15 Israeli soldiers were killed.

The AMA press statement also detailed harassment by Israel's present government of Palestinian academic institutions. This includes closure of Palestinian universities, colleges, schools and research centers and deportation and imprisonment of faculty and students. Frequently students from Gaza who attend West Bank institutions are prevented from traveling across a 70-mile strip of Israel separating the two Palestinian areas. (Israel has promised to open a land link between them but so far has failed to do so.) Students therefore must cross the border to Egypt, fly from there to Jordan, and then travel from Amman to the Jordan valley to cross the bridge to the West Bank where their colleges and universities are located.

Protesters also pointed out that Katsav, as minister of transportation under the former Likud government of Yitzhak Shamir, in 1990 branded the U.S. proposals that laid the foundation for the peace process "unacceptable." Later, as a Likud party candidate for the Knesset in Israel's 1996 election, he attacked the Oslo accords, saying, "The Likud continues to see the agreements as a historic mistake liable to endanger the existence of the state...The Likud has no intention of recognizing the Oslo accords, and will at any price prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state."

Responding to a letter from Mr. Ajrami, University of Nebraska president L. Dennis Smith said the university takes "serious note of the issues you raise," but added that "for more than a decade, UNO has been involved in the excavation of the ancient city of Bethsaida" which, he said, the university had been overseeing and for which it has been raising funding "to prepare this historically significant site for visitation." Smith's letter continued, "It is important to remember that, in addition to the Ministry of Tourism's commitment to the Bethsaida Excavations Project, Minister Katsav himself has been engaged in an historic tourism campaign which involves the Palestinian Authority and the Jordanians. The campaign is attempting to establish unprecedented dialogue in Israel. It is for these contributions that the Minister is being honored."

In response, Ajrami pointed out that the Bethsaida excavations in which the UNO has been engaged are taking place on land illegally occupied by the Israeli government in the 1967 war. Sam Hakim, associate professor of finance and banking at UNO and a member of the AMA Omaha chapter, was quoted in the Omaha World Herald branding the award to Katsav as both "irresponsible and hasty."

—R.H. Curtiss

Seattle AMA Chapter Hears Gubernatorial Candidate

Dr. Mohammad Said, a former gubernatorial candidate in the state of Washington and a long-time member of the Washington State Democratic Platform Committee, described some of his experiences in state politics at the July 20 luncheon meeting of the Seattle American Muslim Alliance chapter organized by chapter president Rashid Ahmed, an IBM computer programmer, and a number of other Seattle AMA activists.

Dr. Said, a Palestinian American who has been a family medical practitioner for many years in the Wenachee area of Central Washington, served on the state Democratic Platform committee for 12 years, and used that position successfully to introduce resolutions calling for self-determination for the Palestinian people. During the 1988 national election year he debated opponents of his resolution and in balloting afterward won support from 75 percent of the audience.

He was so encouraged that he also introduced resolutions supporting Jerusalem as a city open to people of all religions, for cutting U.S. foreign aid to Israel, and to invite Yasser Arafat to the United States, three years before the "peace process" was initiated in 1991. At one point Dr. Said closed his medical office temporarily to campaign full-time for Democratic presidential candidate Jesse Jackson, who supported some of the same agenda.

"Even if you fail," he told his fellow Muslims, "you are succeeding because you are making your views on critical issues more widely known."

Master of ceremonies for the Seattle program was Saabir Ibn Mark, a past vice president of the Muslim Chaplains' Association and editor of Al Irshad, a semi-monthly newsletter for Muslims with 4,000 circulation.

Mr. Ibn Mark, a U.S.-born African-American convert to Islam, said there are today in the U.S. 8 to 10 million adherents to Islam, the fastest growing religion in the United States, and that 14 percent of all immigrants to the United States are Muslims. He said that of 5.5 million Muslims present in the U.S. in 1992, 45 percent were African Americans, 28 percent were immigrants or descendents of immigrants from South Asia, and 12 percent were of Middle Eastern background, with the rest of European or other ethnic origins.

Noting that many Muslims have not discarded the "baggage" from other cultural or religious backgrounds, he deplored what he called a "mindset that has developed that I am going to separate my religion from my business." Islam is not a one-day-a-week "assalamu aleikum" club that can be ignored the other six days of the week, he said.

He cautioned against "being afraid in America because of the situation where you may come from, where speaking out can be dangerous." Don't be afraid to become involved, he advised his co-religionists. "If you're going to be taxed you have to have a voice. Don't say you don't want to be involved. You are involved."

AMA national chairman Dr. Agha Saeed told the audience that when Jesse Jackson ran for president "he lost but he laid the foundation for successful participation by African Americans in the system. Since then we have been waiting for Muslims to make a difference, and in 1996 they did.

"In South Dakota incumbent Sen. Larry Pressler was defeated by Tim Johnson and Muslims nationwide helped make the difference," Saeed said. In the senatorial race in New Jersey Republican Dick Zimmer attacked Democrat Robert Torricelli on the charge that he had received Muslim support. Although Muslims had been indifferent to or divided about the race before that, 96 percent of registered voters from New Jersey's community of 450,000 Muslims voted for Torricelli, Saeed said. "Torricelli, acknowledged afterward, 'I won because of the Muslims.' This year, as guest of honor at a dinner attended by 1,000 New Jersey Muslims, Gov. Christine Todd Whitman acknowledged this tremendous concentration of American Muslims in her state."

What these numbers mean, said Dr. Saeed, is that Muslims can win at the local level but they also can be important on the national level if they organize and build coalitions with like-minded groups to support the candidates whose economic, social and political platforms conform most closely to Muslim ethical and moral standards.

Washington Report editor Richard Curtiss recounted the overtures made by leaders of five national Muslim organizations to the election committees of presidential candidates Bill Clinton and Bob Dole prior to the 1996 general election.

"The Clinton campaign was not really interested, but the Dole campaign was," Curtiss said. "One Muslim group dropped out, but representatives of the other groups met with Dole campaign aides, after which Dole gave a letter to the heads of the four groups affirming his agreement to most of the points the Muslim leaders had raised.

"The problem was that by then polls indicated that Dole was going to lose, no matter how Muslims voted," Curtiss said. "Dole campaign directors lost interest in making further concessions, and some of the Muslim leaders feared that if they endorsed a loser, their followers would think it was a disaster. So there was no unified endorsement by national Muslim leaders, there were no simultaneous announcements in America's 1,000 mosques, and there was no bloc vote.

"In my opinion, it was an opportunity lost," the Washington Report editor said. "But the important thing is not to lose another such opportunity if in the year 2000 clear differences should arise among presidential candidates, either in the primary or the general elections, on issues of importance to Muslims.

"American Muslim leaders must explain to their followers that what is important is not to pick a winner, since the moment Muslims try to do that, candidates need no longer compete for the Muslim vote," Curtiss said. "What is important is to demonstrate the will and discipline to vote as a bloc. If American Muslims can do this, candidates from both parties for both local and national office will realize that in order to win they finally will have to begin taking Muslim views into account regarding everything the candidates say and do."

—Nathan Jones

Portland AMA Hears Former Governor

Keynote speaker at the July 19 dinner program of the Portland, OR chapter of the American Muslim Alliance was former Oregon Republican Governor Victor Atiyeh. Other speakers at the program, held at the Inter-Religious Center of Portland State University, included AMA national chairman Dr. Agha Saeed and Washington Report editor Richard Curtiss.

Governor Atiyeh, America's first Arab-American state governor, attributed his involvement in politics, which he combined with a successful career in a family-operated business, to his service as a very young soldier in World War II. That opened his eyes to America's need for dedicated and enlightened public service.

Although he is a Christian Arab American, Governor Atiyeh cited to his Muslim audience his own experiences as evidence that American voters are willing to judge candidates on their character and what they stand for rather than according to religious or ethnic stereotypes. He pointed out that during long years of community service and experience in the state legislature he acquired friends and supporters of many different backgrounds, who were willing to work tirelessly as volunteers in his campaigns. He also noted that coalition building is essential both for groups and individuals who wish to make their views known.

Muslims can cooperate to help make this happen, he said, but in most parts of the United States, as in Oregon, they cannot win elective office without the cooperation of other individuals and communities. He suggested that the way to achieve success is for members of Muslim communities to begin work well in advance, reach out to colleagues, friends and neighbors of all backgrounds, and have the patience to work hard and selflessly with these acquaintances in joint community endeavors to demonstrate their civic-mindedness, dependability and leadership abilities.

AMA national chairman Agha Saaed curtailed his own address to asked everyone in the Portland audience to stand up and answer two questions: "(1) How do we get a qualified Muslim in the U.S. Congress by the year 2000? (2) What should be our strategy for the year 2000?"

Among suggestions and comments from the audience were the following: have preliminary meetings to agree upon common goals; concentrate on points upon which the community agrees; let people who have time to donate take the lead and look to those who cannot volunteer time to help financially; make sure all eligible Muslims register to vote, and make the entire political process better known to Muslims so that they can focus their efforts; make alliances with other like-minded groups; become more broad-minded and inclusive by getting out to meet all kinds of people so that we can become familiar with their concerns and they can become familiar with ours; "work together, stick together, stay together." Determine what is real truth and wisdom by listening to each other; recognize that if we don't vote, we have no one to blame but ourselves for everything that goes wrong in the U.S.; keep in mind that we have to remove all prejudices within ourselves if we are going to be effective as a Muslim community; the problem is not that we're not together, but that we're not connected; develop means of communication among ourselves and to the communities in which we live; educate ourselves concerning the issues and the candidates; electing a Muslim to Congress will inspire Muslims to participate effectively in the political system; an Islamic candidate who runs even though he knows he has no chance of being elected may damage the cause; be sure Muslims become engaged politically at all levels, including participation in parent-teacher associations, community associations and school boards.

—R.H. Curtiss

Bosnian American Addresses AMA Illinois Chapter

Former congressional candidate from Chicago Ilyas Zenkich was a featured speaker at the July 11 meeting of the American Muslim Alliance Illinois chapter held at the American Islamic College campus in Chicago. Zenkich, a successful businessman and Bosnian-American Muslim, won the 1996 Republican nomination in his Chicago constituency but was defeated in the general election.

Zenkich was one of a panel of speakers at the "Strategy Year 2000" for political advancement conference, one of a series being held at AMA chapters around the nation. Other speakers included AMA national chairman Dr. Agha Saeed, a professor of political science at California State University at Hayward; Iqra Foundation director Abidullah Ghazi; executive editor Richard Curtiss of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs; and two AMA Illinois chapter officers. They were advisory board chairman Dr. Mohammad Ashraf Toor, a Chicago cardiologist, and chapter president Mohammed Salim Akhtar, a Chicago hotel broker.

In his good-humored address, Zenkich put a new twist on the adage that "half of life is just showing up" by saying that half of political success is "showing up on time." "This is advice that we Muslims, in particular, need to follow," Zenkich said, pointing out that the Chicago program was almost an hour late in getting underway. (Some speakers, not including Zenkich, and many audience members were delayed by heavy Friday rush-hour traffic in sprawling downtown Chicago.)

Zenkich gave pertinent examples of how to build political coalitions with other groups with overlapping interests, even to the extent of agreeing that all component groups will support the same designated candidate in each district so that at least one representative of each group is elected to city councils, county boards, and especially to state legislatures.

In his remarks Curtiss challenged the audience, pointing out that although the Jewish community makes up only 2 percent of the U.S. population, two of nine Supreme Court justices are Jewish, there have been Jewish members in both Clinton cabinets, more than 10 percent of current Senate and House members are Jewish, and even excluding Madeleine Albright, almost all of the top State Department policymakers and both of the two top White House foreign policymakers are Jewish. By contrast, Curtiss said, although Muslims constitute about 3 percent of the U.S. population, clearly outnumbering their Jewish compatriots, there are no Muslims in Congress, in the cabinet, in the Supreme Court or in policymaking positions in either the White House or State Department.

This provoked a lively discussion in which one audience member said that if Muslims organize, they have the power to achieve anything accomplished by the organized Jewish community, even though the latter considerably predates any organized Muslim community in the U.S.

A Canadian Muslim participant demurred, saying that in a survey of contributions to charitable and civic organizations in his country, Jewish contributions were double the per capita national average, while Muslim contributions were considerably below that per capita national average. Before Muslims can make a contribution to society commensurate with their numbers in North America, he said, they are going to have to accept the fact that they are here to stay, and adjust their thinking and habits accordingly.

—Lucille Barnes

Candidate Addresses AMA Staten Island Chapter

Democratic State Assemblyman Eric Vitallano, a candidate for Congress in the 1998 election and Staten Island Democratic Party chairman Robert Gigante were guest speakers at the summer dinner meeting of the AMA Staten Island chapter at the Bistro Restaurant in New Dorp, NY.

Gigante gave the group a primer on the structure of the local Democratic Party and praised the chapter, whose membership has grown since November 1996 from 30 to 183, for its effort to inform members about the political process.

"Very often when people are unfamiliar with how things work they tend to stay away from politics," Giganti said. "Hopefully, together we can try and remedy that."

"We're still in the process of getting out the message, but this is all very exciting," chapter vice president Dr. Khalid Rehman said. "This organization provides our young Muslim community with a tremendous opportunity to learn."

At the Staten Island chapter's spring dinner children of members were invited to share with the audience their experiences as Muslim students at area colleges and universities. At the summer dinner meeting the children of Dr. Salman Zafar, one of the founders of the Staten Island chapter, 17-year-old Arwa Zafar and her 14-year-old brother, Wahib Zafar, discussed their interest in the political system. Said Wahib, "If I begin to listen now, it will help me be a better voter in the future." Said Arwa: "Most Muslims aren't very politically aware, so I'm glad to be getting more involved. I'm hoping to improve my political education enough to become a better voter when I turn 18."

"Our goal is to orient Muslims to the history of the United States political system," explained chapter president Dr. Mohammed Bari. Dr. Zafar said the group plans another forum with a 1998 Republican congressional candidate, councilman Vito Fossella Jr., and Staten Island Republican Party chairwoman Olga Igneri.

—R.H.Curtiss

CAIR Workshop on Political Empowerment

Some 50 leaders from mosques and Islamic centers all over the United States attended a two-day political and media strategy workshop organized by the Washington, DC-based Council for American-Islamic Relations on Aug. 2 and 3 at the Crystal City Hilton Hotel at Washington National Airport.

Among several speakers at the two-day session, conducted by CAIR executive director Nihad Awad, were Suhail Khan, legislative assistant to Rep. Tom Campbell (R-CA); CAIR public affairs director Ibrahim Hooper; and executive editor Richard Curtiss of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

The purpose of the workshop was to discuss improvement of Muslim community political and media relations. Mr. Khan, who came to Washington, DC from California with Representative Campbell, gave the audience examples of how he and other Muslims in the national capital have been able to work with members of Congress to ensure that wording in pending legislation that Muslims would have found offensive, or even threatening, was omitted or changed before final passage.

Some such problems arise inadvertently, he said, and others are deliberately created by members of Congress, or congressional staff members, with private agendas. In most such cases problems can be averted simply by explaining to members of Congress how and why such wording should be changed.

As an example he cited legislation introduced by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) condemning persecution of Christians by Muslims. When Khan and other Muslims pointed out to Campbell and other members of Congress that a clear condemnation of all religious persecution anywhere would provide more protection to Christians, who are actively persecuted in China and other non-Muslim countries, and also would do more to protect all victims of religious persecution, some members moved to change the wording to condemn religious persecution anywhere. The legislation is still pending.

This sort of intervention can be provided, Khan pointed out, if American Muslims are active politically and have access to their representatives in Congress, just as do constituents from other religious communities, many of which are less numerous than are Muslims in the United States.

Noting that Muslims can build up rapport with their representatives in Congress by regular group visits both to the member and to appropriate staff members, Khan said Muslims should base their arguments on solid facts, not emotions, should have clearly defined goals for each visit, and should make sure that the spokesperson for such a visit is effective. Muslim constituents should follow up visits to their representatives in Congress by working to support or oppose the candidate at election time, depending upon the results of their visits and subsequent voting records. Such activities must be systematic and continuous, Khan said, and not carried out only at the last minute in election years.

CAIR public affairs director Ibrahim Hooper outlined similar strategies for Islamic communities in dealing with the media at local and national levels. He said that while there are journalists "like Steven Emerson or Judith Miller who do have an agenda," many journalists do not and some of the seemingly hostile things they write may result from ignorance or actually being misinformed about Islam, Islamic countries and Islamic concerns.

Hooper advised workshop participants when they return to their homes to "sit down with the editorial boards of newspapers." In doing so, he continued, "we need to get away from rhetoric. We have to deal with the facts, figures and information that most Americans do not have.

"Basically only one point of view has been put forth for decades with no opposition," Hooper said. "We need to start 'showing up' because power goes to those who do show up."

He told the audience with a smile that an Associated Press reporter recently gave CAIR, which specializes in working with the media, "a strange compliment." "You guys are as good as the gays," the reporter told him. This meant, Hooper said, that "every word we send out has been checked and thought out. We also need to concentrate on American interests and American values. Why, when we complain about what the Israelis are doing in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, does no one point out that United States taxpayer money is financing segregated housing there, something most Americans do not realize?"

Richard Curtiss suggested that Muslims will be taken more seriously by both local candidates and local media if they demonstrate in 1998 that they can work together. "If members of different Islamic centers within a city and state cooperate in meeting, questioning and interacting with candidates starting right now, they will have little difficulty in making joint recommendations to their communities regarding which candidates Muslims should favor," Curtiss said. "Politicians will take note, and where there are large Muslim communities, political pollsters will begin to take "the Muslim vote" into consideration in their calculations. This is the beginning of political empowerment, becoming players instead of spectators in the U.S. political system."

—Kurt Holden

Farrakhan Conference Confuses "Mainstream" Muslim Communities

The tumultuous wake of a four-day Nation of Islam conference entitled "Islam in the 21st Century" indicates that American Islamic movements will not reach the next millennium free of the problems of this century. With Muammar Qaddafi's image beamed on two large screens, a Cypriot iman overseeing a "coronation," and Minister Louis Farrakhan, the center of it all, many people wondered just what was going on in the Windy City.

The leader and spokesman of The Nation of Islam, Farrakhan was by all accounts the chief sponsor of the four-day event. Described as a gathering for Muslims from all over the world, the event was lacking in participation by Muslim organizations in Chicago.

Most major Islamic organizations were invited to the event, and Farrakhan had personally contacted many leading imams and Muslim dignitaries from around the world. Many Chicago-area Muslims and their organizations, however, felt uncertain about its purpose and nature.

One Muslim activist voiced the concerns of many when he asked, "What is it about? What do you get into when you attend Farrakhan's events?" Another activist, Mazher Ahmed, said that when the invitations were received, most organizations wondered what to do. "People met in their groups and discussed it. But we asked, What good will it do for the community? This is our main concern."

Although many "mainstream" Islamic leaders seem to share this concern, many also see Farrakhan as a powerful speaker and potentially strong ally. In a press release prior to the conference, Secretary-General Dr. Sayyid Muhammad Syeed of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) said that Farrakhan had "charisma and dynamism for a far larger role than as a leader of a particular group." He called upon Farrakhan to use his position to "reform the belief system of the NOI to the path of true Islam." This, Dr. Syeed said, "will help remove the doubts that have developed in certain minds about the alleged racial interpretation that does not belong in Islam."

Dr. Syeed's statement suggested that in fact Farrakhan already had affirmed "the oneness of Allah, the finality of the prophethood of Prophet Muhammad and the globality of the Islamic message" at a conference in Chicago in 1990.

By contrast, the managing director of the Institute of Islamic Information and Education in Chicago, M. Amir Ali, said that Farrakhan made it "impossible for himself to be recognized as a Muslim, when, last February, he declared himself to be a 'messenger of god.'"

The followers of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed, the son of Elijah Mohammed and a leader of Sunni Islam, were also not optimistic—and, indeed, have a different historical basis from which to view events. They maintain that the leadership of this community was conferred to Imam W.D. Mohammed in 1975. Farrakhan's conference, therefore, prompted a special issue of the Muslim Journal (Aug. 1, 1997), a newspaper which promotes Imam Mohammed's ministry. The cover page depicts W.D. Mohammed on a podium, "raised to leadership" in 1975 following the death of his father. The ministry, which believes that its mission is to transform the NOI into mainstream Islam, has devoted pages to "setting the record straight," including pictures and statements from witnesses and other Muslim leadership.

The outcry over the conference would have been less emphatic had not the major Chicago newspapers portrayed the event as a watershed in the history of mainstream Islam's relationship to the Nation of Islam. Chicago Tribune writer Jerry Thomas began his article, "It has taken 67 years for members of the Nation of Islam to be accepted as true Muslims." The scene that prompted this was the "coronation" of Farrakhan as "Iman" by the grand imam of Cyprus, Sheikh M. Sobhi Billo. The placing of a white turban on Farrakhan's head and the proximity of several robed and suited Muslim dignitaries was interpreted by the Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times and others as mainstream Islam's acceptance of Farrakhan.

Representatives from groups such as the Louisville-based Islamic Research Foundation, and Burbank, CA-based Geo-Political Academy also said that Farrakhan was indeed a leader of "the entire Muslim community." Nevertheless, such major U.S. Islamic organizations as ISNA and the Islamic Circle of North America were, like Imam W.D. Mohammed's ministry, not represented at the Chicago event.

Some leaders in the Chicago area believe that Farrakhan's success with mainstream African Americans during the Million Man March prompted a similar gesture to the mainstream Islamic communities. But judging from their responses, the 21st century might be a better time.

Until then, "mainstream" Muslims and Farrakhan's much smaller but highly motivated following will remain separate, awaiting the day when the charismatic leader's statements seem less jarring when measured against traditional Islamic teachings. Ironically, however, as both sides keep wrestling the mainstream press into fairer and more accurate reporting, it seems Farrakhan has won a journalistic bon-bon—hopefully not at the expense of the other Muslims.

—Raeshma Razvi