Y-S Muslims honor
9/11 attack victims
Sac Bee Excloo
YUBA CITY 9/11/02 (YSN) - Beneath the morning sun and the moon-topped minaret of the Yuba City Islamic Center, Muslims raised Old Glory on a new flagpole Wednesday, then lowered it to half staff to honor the innocent dead of the 9/11 attack one year ago.
The Arabic words a priest sang to begin the commemoration conveyed the unifying message of the day.
"Do good and duty as God has done good to you. Do not look for trouble, for God does not like people who make trouble in the world. To kill one person who has not killed another is as if you killed all humankind," a translator explained.
Amen, said the local officials and church leaders who joined in the community event.
Muslim communities elsewhere may have suffered negative reactions to the World Trade Center catastrophe, but not so in Yuba-Sutter, Islamic Center spokesman Abdul Hameed said.
"There've been 2,200 hate crimes against Muslin's reported in the country (since 9/11), but none in Yuba-Sutter," Hameed said. He attributed this in part to the area's long history cultural diversity going back to gold rush times.
"Hindus, for instance, were here before anywhere else in the country," Hameed said.
The increased post-9/11 interest in Islam and Muslims has been "very positive" and has "erased a lot of stereotypes," Rahma Krambo found. "It think people are sincerely trying to understand us better," she said.
Bearded electrician Abdul Kabir, an American convert to Islam and student of Sufism, held that awareness breeds compassion. "If you can get two men to sit down and drink tea together, they tend to get to know each other better," he said.
The parallel interest various government agencies have taken in Muslims does not dismay Benazir Bath, a 24-year-old graduate student at California Sate University at Sacramento.
"We welcome the FBI and CIA. Let them come here. We are Americans and proud of what we do and say," she said.
Retired Sutter County worker Mukhtar Mohammed Dean also did not fear newly-imposed restrictions on civil liberties and constitutional rights. "I don't feel (liberties) have been taken away. I feel the opposite, that others took advantage them," Dean said.
Yuba College economics instructor Khalid Chaudry felt otherwise. "We are in a constitutional crisis," he lamented.
Chaudry, a recent transplant from Chicago, explained why he and his wife, a medical doctor, chose to live in Yuba-Sutter.
Pointing to the open doors of the mosque, he said, "First, we came because there was a mosque here for our children. Then we wanted to leave Chicago, which is the most racist place in the country."
The Chaudry's also selected Yuba-Sutter for its rural setting and its cultural acceptance.
"This is a Little America. Many cultures are present. Just take this mosque," Chaudry said, pointing once again to the open doors. "Thirty different Islamic sects worship at this one mosque -- Sunni, Shiite, even a few Wahabbis. Imagine that."
9/11 attack victims
Sac Bee Excloo
YUBA CITY 9/11/02 (YSN) - Beneath the morning sun and the moon-topped minaret of the Yuba City Islamic Center, Muslims raised Old Glory on a new flagpole Wednesday, then lowered it to half staff to honor the innocent dead of the 9/11 attack one year ago.
The Arabic words a priest sang to begin the commemoration conveyed the unifying message of the day.
"Do good and duty as God has done good to you. Do not look for trouble, for God does not like people who make trouble in the world. To kill one person who has not killed another is as if you killed all humankind," a translator explained.
Amen, said the local officials and church leaders who joined in the community event.
Muslim communities elsewhere may have suffered negative reactions to the World Trade Center catastrophe, but not so in Yuba-Sutter, Islamic Center spokesman Abdul Hameed said.
"There've been 2,200 hate crimes against Muslin's reported in the country (since 9/11), but none in Yuba-Sutter," Hameed said. He attributed this in part to the area's long history cultural diversity going back to gold rush times.
"Hindus, for instance, were here before anywhere else in the country," Hameed said.
The increased post-9/11 interest in Islam and Muslims has been "very positive" and has "erased a lot of stereotypes," Rahma Krambo found. "It think people are sincerely trying to understand us better," she said.
Bearded electrician Abdul Kabir, an American convert to Islam and student of Sufism, held that awareness breeds compassion. "If you can get two men to sit down and drink tea together, they tend to get to know each other better," he said.
The parallel interest various government agencies have taken in Muslims does not dismay Benazir Bath, a 24-year-old graduate student at California Sate University at Sacramento.
"We welcome the FBI and CIA. Let them come here. We are Americans and proud of what we do and say," she said.
Retired Sutter County worker Mukhtar Mohammed Dean also did not fear newly-imposed restrictions on civil liberties and constitutional rights. "I don't feel (liberties) have been taken away. I feel the opposite, that others took advantage them," Dean said.
Yuba College economics instructor Khalid Chaudry felt otherwise. "We are in a constitutional crisis," he lamented.
Chaudry, a recent transplant from Chicago, explained why he and his wife, a medical doctor, chose to live in Yuba-Sutter.
Pointing to the open doors of the mosque, he said, "First, we came because there was a mosque here for our children. Then we wanted to leave Chicago, which is the most racist place in the country."
The Chaudry's also selected Yuba-Sutter for its rural setting and its cultural acceptance.
"This is a Little America. Many cultures are present. Just take this mosque," Chaudry said, pointing once again to the open doors. "Thirty different Islamic sects worship at this one mosque -- Sunni, Shiite, even a few Wahabbis. Imagine that."
<< Home