Chicago's Muslim community fearful

By Michelle Martin
Staff writer

When Amina Saeed attended the interfaith prayer service at Holy Name Cathedral Sept. 13, she had one special intention in mind: a cousin who worked on the 94th floor of one of the towers of the World Trade Center, and had not been heard from since the terrorist attacks.

But as she stepped out of the house of worship, she had other concerns to deal with. Saeed, who works for the Cook County Public Guardian’s Office, wears a hijab, or head scarf covering her hair. She and other Muslims feared that such distinctive clothing could make them a target for people bent on revenge—revenge against the wrong people.

“Some of our community leaders have advised women and children to stay indoors for the next several days,” she said. “It’s a shame that we cannot mourn without being concerned about our own safety.”

Azam Nizamuddin, a local attorney, also attended the service to pray for peace, for the victims and their families. Outside, he spoke of the decision to close several Muslim schools temporarily to protect the students.

That impulse was no overreaction. In the days following the Sept. 11 attacks, a small mob that gathered in the Southwest suburbs attempted to march on a mosque in Bridgeview. Someone threw a Molotov cocktail at the plexiglass window of an Islamic school in Chicago, leaving a scorch mark. A gas station attendant was attacked with a machete, apparently because he looked like he might be of Middle Eastern descent. Mosques throughout the country have received telephone death threats.

But a wave of resistance to such violence immediately began to mount, with much of the impetus coming from the pulpits of Catholic and other Christian churches.

Father Thomas Baima of the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary, who has been active in ecumenical affairs for 20 years, said that is as it should be.

Muslims form the second largest religious group in the Chicago area, behind Catholics. There are an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 Muslims in the metropolitan area.

Pope John Paul II urged Catholics not to lash out in violence in response to the terrorism.

“May (the Virgin Mary) help all not to give in to the temptation of hate and violence, but to commit themselves to the service of justice and peace,” he told some 40,000 people in Frosinone, 40 miles southeast of Rome, at a Sept. 16 Mass.

On Sept. 14, Cardinal George referred to the swirling threats of reprisals at an archdiocesan racism conference, saying, “I have often wept at the language on both sides.”

Scott Alexander, associate professor of Islam and director of Catholic-Muslim studies at Chicago Theological Union, said such hatred springs from ignorance: ignorance of the very real historical grievances much of the Muslim world has against the United States, and ignorance of the nature of Islam.

While history can never excuse the acts of terrorism, Alexander said, it can help explain why some Muslims may have been susceptible to the arguments of radical terrorists.

Meanwhile, American media can explain that the nature of Islam is one of submission to God, a submission that calls for adherence to a strict moral code that mirrors that of Christianity.

“No religious tradition corners the market on acts of hatred and violence done in its name,” Alexander said. “It’s as if someone came from an isolated island that had no contact with Christianity, and the first they saw of it was the situation in Northern Ireland. I would want them to distinguish between that and my Christianity as I live it.”

Given that, what should Catholics do?

“Catholics should live their faith in its entirety,” Baima said. “That means avoiding all the negative behaviors that Jesus warned us against, and living by the commandments Jesus gave us, especially to love God and love our neighbor.

“Love of neighbor is the answer to your question. If you forget that very essential part of your teaching, you’re not a very good Christian.”

In this case, loving one’s neighbors might mean taking the opportunity to listen to them, he said, and get to know them.

“I want the Catholics of Chicago to know that their neighbors are afraid,” said Baima, who has been listening to his Muslim friends. “They are afraid they will be the targets of misplaced revenge. They are afraid to let their children go out to play. I talked to a woman who is afraid to go to the market.”

The media can help by publicizing the round of condemnations of the terrorist attacks that have been issued by Muslims in Chicago and around the world, he said, and the church can continue its commitment to interfaith dialogue.

Catholics and Muslims in Chicago have a long history of dialogue, said Rita George, of the Office for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.

“There are several ongoing dialogues, and they’ve been going on for years,” George said, referring to dialogue groups that involve the Muslim American Society, the Council of Islamic Organizations and a special women’s dialogue group.

Muslims and Catholics both benefit from understanding one another and cooperating wherever possible, George said, citing Nostra Aetate, the declaration of the Second Vatican Council on the Catholic Church’s relation to non-Christian religions.

“The church regards with esteem also the Moslems,” the declaration says. “They adore the one God, living and subsisting in himself; merciful and all-powerful, the creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even his inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. … Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.”

Imam Kholwadia of the Council for Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago read from the Koran, the sacred book of the Muslims, at the Holy Name service. He read a passage commenting on the first murder—of Abel, by Cain—in Arabic, and then paraphrased in English.

“It is precisely because of what happened with Abel and Cain … that who shall ever kill a soul for no justified reason, it will be as if he has killed the whole of humanity, and whomever spares the life of a single soul, it shall be as if he had spared the whole of humanity,” Kholwadia said.

“We are all Americans,” said Nizamuddin after the prayer service, reflecting on the threats some Muslims had received. “We’re all in this together, and we’re too big for that kind of stuff.”