American Muslims

Thursday's U.S. attack on suspected terrorist strongholds in Afghanistan and Sudan may spark fears among many American Muslims - fears of renewed stereotyping of Muslims and Arab Americans. Violence has no place in Islam. By injecting the words Muslim or Islamic before the words terrorists and extremists, we are denigrating 6 million American Muslims who encompass a wide spectrum of ethnic backgrounds. Why should one group bear the burden of radicals whose actions don't represent their religion?

THERE'S A FAMOUS photo of a Japanese-owned grocery store in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor with these words emblazoned across the front: "I AM AN AMERICAN. " It accurately encapsulates the way many of us in the Islamic and Arab community feel at this hour. As it becomes ever more apparent that our co-religionists have visited slaughter upon our compatriots, so many of us want to declare from the rooftops our allegiance to this great nation, to show our solidarity with our fellow citizens, and to join the fight against our common enemy.

AN AMERICAN, who seems normal but is driven by religious fanaticism, picks up a gun and kills 29 unarmed, innocent people. This was not U.S. Army Major NidalMalik Hasan, who killed 13. It was Baruch Goldstein, who killed Muslim worshippers in a West Bank mosque in 1994. I have no trouble calling Goldstein a religious extremist and a Jewish terrorist. He was widely and loudly condemned by almost all American Jews and Israelis. Why should anyone pause before calling Hasan a religious extremist and an Islamic terrorist?

NEW YORK - There's a new reality show star on the tube Sunday night. Suehaila Amen doesn't drink, prays daily, and wears a head scarf in public to preserve her modesty. I don't think we're at the Jersey Shore anymore, Snooki. Suehaila is one of the cast members of TLC's new series All-American Muslim . While most of the women on the show, set in Dearborn, Mich., choose to wear the hijab (traditional scarf), there are some startling exceptions. Glamorous blonde Nina Bazzi, for instance, appears to have wandered over from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills set by mistake.

Azza Selim was among the millions of Americans who spent part of yesterday preparing a Thanksgiving feast, but, unlike many other budding Martha Stewarts, the 52-year-old Vanguard employee couldn't sample her fare. A practicing Muslim, Selim was observing Ramadan, the 30-day period of sunrise-to-sunset fasting and abstinence. Yesterday, for the first time in 32 years, Ramadan, observed during the ninth month of the Muslim lunar calendar, coincided with Thanksgiving. Ramadan is one of the five pillars of the religion, along with declaration of faith, prayer, charity and pilgrimage to Mecca.

Abdul-Malik Mujahid's sermon was about pain. His thin arms grasping the air, his lilting English heavy with the accent of his native Pakistan, Mujahid told the 1,000 Muslims seated on rugs in the converted ballroom that the Persian Gulf war had demonstrated the pain of the Islamic world. Who are the people in the world most displaced from their homes? he asked. Kuwaitis, Palestinians, Afghanis Muslims. Who are the sickest, the hungriest? Ethiopians, Sudanese, Bengalis - Muslims.

America's millions of Muslims - adherents to possibly the nation's fastest-growing religion - are gradually learning to embrace politics. The change can be seen in the politicians who flock to meet voters in Detroit-area mosques and in California Islamic centers. At Muslim gatherings across the country, thousands have registered to vote. And, in a departure from the past, some Muslims are entering politics themselves, and the professionals among them are learning to exercise their financial clout.

Jennifer Bryson is a scholar in the Islam and Civil Society Project of the Witherspoon Institution in Princeton Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University Many Americans, including liberals like Howard Dean and Harry Reid, as well as some prominent American Muslims, believe that a decent respect for the feelings of families...

As Osama bin Laden's call for all Islam to rise up in holy war against the United States echoes chillingly worldwide, it is heartening to hear increasing numbers of American Muslims denounce fundamentalist hatemongering. These moderates deserve strong encouragement as they seek to define their faith's proper place in America and to shape Islam for the world. For these moderates, who regard this nation as the promised land for the realization of their religion's true mandate, now is the time to make a lasting imprint - not just on America but on the world of Islam.

As parades go, this one was small, but participants saw it as a way to make a statement about a big problem: prejudice against American Muslims. They wanted to make the point - quietly - that Muslims are not a threat. Nor are they foreigners, in an area where many Muslims are African Americans. About 100 representatives of Muslim organizations, ranging from a Boy Scout troop to the Moorish Science Temple of America to the Muslim American Veterans Association, gathered outside the Independence Visitor Center to start a gray, muggy day of festivities at the 19th annual Islamic Heritage Festival and Parade at Penn's Landing.

TAMPA, Fla. - The conservative group that got Lowe's to pull its ads from a reality TV show about American Muslims has been fighting for more than two decades against gay rights, strip clubs and most anything else that offends evangelical Christians. The leader of the Florida Family Association is David Caton, 55, a family-values crusader who left an accounting career to found the group in 1987. He said the association has 35,000 members who were urged to email Lowe's to pressure the home improvement giant into dropping commercials during the TLC cable network show "All-American Muslim.

NEW YORK - There's a new reality show star on the tube Sunday night. Suehaila Amen doesn't drink, prays daily, and wears a head scarf in public to preserve her modesty. I don't think we're at the Jersey Shore anymore, Snooki. Suehaila is one of the cast members of TLC's new series All-American Muslim . While most of the women on the show, set in Dearborn, Mich., choose to wear the hijab (traditional scarf), there are some startling exceptions. Glamorous blonde Nina Bazzi, for instance, appears to have wandered over from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills set by mistake.

Aadil Malik was 6 and living on Byberry Road in Torresdale a decade ago when planes slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field. School was dismissed. His father, Babar, a native of Pakistan living in the United States since the early 1980s, picked up all the Muslim children and drove them home. The Maliks were the only Muslim family on their block. Neighbors on either side, sensing imminent local hostility, served to buffer and protect the family.

As parades go, this one was small, but participants saw it as a way to make a statement about a big problem: prejudice against American Muslims. They wanted to make the point - quietly - that Muslims are not a threat. Nor are they foreigners, in an area where many Muslims are African Americans. About 100 representatives of Muslim organizations, ranging from a Boy Scout troop to the Moorish Science Temple of America to the Muslim American Veterans Association, gathered outside the Independence Visitor Center to start a gray, muggy day of festivities at the 19th annual Islamic Heritage Festival and Parade at Penn's Landing.

THANKS TO THE Middle East Media Research Institute, which puts a magnifying glass on the world's most poisonous neighborhood (sign up for free at memri.org), I got the latest copy of al Qaeda's magazine - yes, the global terrorists have a magazine - and the first thing I think is, "Are they hiring?" I wonder if al Qaeda pays better than the Huffington Post, which gloms almost everything for free. Or the Daily News ? Or the Philadelphia Gay News ? I believe the mag is only online (because if you bought it at a newsstand, the FBI would follow you home)

Muslims have reason to seek blood Both Rep. Peter King (R., N.Y.) and Michael Smerconish ("We can't root out terrorists while in blinders," Friday) fail to answer the question of why some American Muslims have resorted to bloodshed. It isn't religion or ethnicity that lies at its roots. A closer look at these individuals reveals that their behavior was a reaction to more than a decade of American violence that has left death and destruction from Iraq to Afghanistan to Yemen and beyond.

Brian Carso directs the Government, Law and National Security program at Misericordia University in Dallas, Pa. Every fall in New York's Hudson Valley, Benedict Arnold's ghost visits those of us with an acute historical imagination. The hills were rich in autumn colors when, in late September of 1780, Arnold's plot to betray the patriot cause was revealed to Gen. George Washington. That Arnold would give over the strategically critical fort at West Point was treachery enough, but with the British capture likely to coincide with Washington's visit, it's easy to imagine a pang of excitement in the heart of the British hangman.

RE SALEEM Safdar's Sept. 20 letter, "I'm a Muslim & as American as You Are" : Saleem, there is more to being American than just being born here. The freedom that we enjoy and that still lures so many to our shores was bought and paid for by the blood and sweat of all who came before us. They put America first - above their heritage, above their religion and even above their lives. You say you witnessed firsthand the attack on 9/11 - seeing with your own eyes innocent victims leaping to their death.

IN 1776, OUR country's founders met at Independence Hall, signing their names to the Declaration of Independence. They concluded, "With a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor. " Their actions in the cause of freedom took genuine courage, with the outcome certainly unclear on that hot summer day. Since then, despite harsh criticism (or maybe because of our constant soul-searching), America, flawed like all human endeavors, has been a beacon of freedom and a defender of justice throughout the world.