“We also pray that America will keep its tradition of accepting other faiths and other creeds.” “We prayed for those who are innocent victims of the disaster in Oklahoma City,” said Anwar Khan, fund-raising coordinator for Islamic Relief Worldwide in Downey. How do we know they’re not going to come here? Yeah, I’m worried about my kids,” she said Thursday.Īs Muslims went to mosques and Islamic centers on Friday, two prayers were on their lips. “Every time something happens, they go after the Muslims. I really am,” said Kathy Abdelmaksoud, mother of two children who attend the Crescent School. A carwash planned for Sunday was canceled. In Orange County, gates were locked around the Islamic Society-run school in Garden Grove because parents feared their children might be in danger. One caller said the center would be blown up Friday if it was proved that Arabs were responsible for the Oklahoma bombing. The Islamic Center of San Diego had received eight threatening calls within hours of the bombing. Every time there is some type of violence in the United States, immediately we tend to look at the Middle East and blame the Islamic extremists,” he said.ĭespite cautions from President Clinton and other government officials not to stereotype or to single out a particular ethnic or religious group, Muslims across the country reported hundreds of threats. “This is not the first time in American history when this has happened. Richard Hrair Dekmejian, who has taught courses on terrorism and studied Islamic fundamentalism, said the backlash is nothing new. Mansuri said his organization got two supportive calls from local rabbis and that a pastor from Community Church of Corona del Mar invited 20 members of the Muslim community to have dinner with 100 members of his congregation.īut while the epithets and hate directed against Muslims have cooled, many fear that underlying suspicions and ignorance of Islam by many Americans only awaits arousal by a new provocation. ![]() ![]() Orange County Muslim leaders said the threats they received immediately after the Wednesday bombing stopped Friday, and that many calls of support for the community had come in. but we are against any kind of collective guilt as we saw (Wednesday and Thursday in which) all Middle Eastern people are suspect and there is harassment of innocent people.” “We wanted very much to see the culprits apprehended. “My feeling is that this was a horrible act against humanity, and whoever did it ought to be punished, whoever they are,” said Shabbir Mansuri, director of the Council on Islamic Education in Fountain Valley. In Orange County, there was some relief among Muslims at the apprehension of two suspects, but mostly there was sadness because of the bombing and lingering dismay at the anti-Muslim backlash. Muslim leaders said they understand that the involvement of Muslim terrorists in the bombing two years ago of the World Trade Center in New York helps explain why the rage of so many was suddenly directed at them. ![]() Outside, private security guards watched the doors to the center. ” Al-Marayati ticked them off as he waited for prayers to begin. ‘What are you Muslims doing now? You should all be run out of town.’. The Islamic Center had logged about a dozen harassment phone calls since Wednesday afternoon, according to Salam Al-Marayati. “I’m 50 years old,” said the Egyptian-born Etman, now a U.S. ![]() Nonetheless, the morning of the bombing as he arrived at work, “Someone said, ‘Where were you this morning?’ “-a tasteless joke meant to imply a connection to the bombing. On Friday, 1,000 gathered in Los Angeles for the weekly noon prayer ritual at the Islamic Center of Southern California, and vented their frustrations and expressed their relief that the media glare has shifted, for now.Ĭivil engineer Sameer Etman considers most of his colleagues well-educated, decent people.
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