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Copyright 2006 Daily Record (Morristown, NJ)
SECTION: Pg. COMMUNITIESAll Rights Reserved Daily Record (Morristown, New Jersey) September 9, 2006 Saturday LENGTH: 889 words HEADLINE: Morris Muslims: We're treated well BYLINE: NAVID IQBAL DAILY RECORD BODY: The hostility, loathing and mistrust that Muslims in New Jersey and the United States say they have experienced since members of al-Qaida hijacked planes five years ago have not been as apparent in Morris County, local Muslims say. After a recent Friday prayer, as men piled quickly out of the Islamic Academy in Boonton to head for their jobs, many longtime Muslim residents of Morris County said their experiences are unusual compared with people of who follow their way of life in other parts of the country. Mohsan Khan, a 2004 graduate of DePaul University in Chicago and a 2000 graduate of Boonton High School, said he has been profiled at airports while traveling and he knows it is because of the way he looks and because his name is obviously Muslim. But he is unfazed by it, he said. "I don't mind being profiled; in fact, profile me, profile everyone else, too. Just make sure the plane doesn't blow up," said Khan, of Boonton. Khan said neither he nor his family have experienced discrimination of the sort that has been witnessed by Muslims elsewhere. Recent published reports of Americans with Muslim names, or even brown-skinned people believed to be Muslim, indicate that life for adherents to Islam who live in the United States is experiencing dramatic changes since Sept. 11, 2001. The Associated Press reported that in Texas "the backlash has primarily been focused on those with ancestries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia." "We feel embarrassment, frustration, anger on a daily basis," said Farha Ahmed, general counsel for the Muslim American Republican Caucus in Houston. In Maine, someone threw a frozen pig's head -- an animal considered vile in Islam -- across the floor as Muslims kneeled during communal prayers at a storefront mosque in July. Mosques have been firebombed and vandalized -- the way black churches had been in the South during and beyond the civil rights era of the 1960s -- over the last five years in California, Arizona and elsewhere. Yet within Boonton, the Muslim community's roots and ties to the area may have a lot do with why such incidents have not been apparent here, members of the community said. While things haven't been completely perfect -- during a heated issue over extending the Boonton facility, someone nailed an American flag at the mosque entrance, an incident perceived to be an act of intimidation -- Muslims here believe they are close with their fellow citizens. "Generally in our area," Khan said, "the Boonton area especially, we have 200 family members that live in the area. We know it's a small town. Our mosque is not known for extreme views. We help the community like every other community organization helps the community. Our mosque in general is involved in the town a lot. They know we're not extremists and we assimilate well." Khuram Chaudry, 20, a 2004 Boonton High School graduate who works at his father's gas station, said he has a cousin who lives in Alabama and often hears stories about the things he experiences there, where there aren't as many Muslims. "In our area our point of view is going to be a lot different than my cousin who lives in Alabama because his surroundings are completely different than ours," Chaudry said. "Our mayor has a good relationship with the masjid (mosque) community." Shoaib Iqbal, who graduated from Boonton High School in 2001, said it is easier for him and people his age, in their 20s, born and raised in the United States, to get along without any issues related to discrimination or isolation than it might be for recent immigrants. The bumpiest parts were during the Islamic Academy's expansion proceedings, but those concerns were related to traffic. "I felt as secure as I did prior to 9/11," he said. "For people who are immigrants, or not as Americanized as me, they feel safer now, but in the initial stages after 9/11, they probably felt uncomfortable. My parents definitely had it rough for the first two to three years." His father, Mohammad Iqbal, 63, said he has never felt isolated while in Boonton. A patriarch of the Boonton Muslim community, he moved here in the 1960s from his native Pakistan. Most of the Boonton community is in fact from Pakistan. Kamel Benbora, who was born in Algeria and immigrated to the United States about 10 years ago, said he has never experienced discrimination. It is a relief to be in the United States, he said -- a lot different from back home, where a brutal civil war in the 1990s and a war of independence from France decades earlier had left the country in disrepair. Shoaib Iqbal credited national organizations such as the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, as well as local religious organizations for making the ride much smoother. "We don't really see too many of the downsides," Chaudry said. "We can all relate to each other and support each other. They know that we're not up to no good. They know what we believe in -- they know that from 9/11, terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. They know it's something al-Qaida believes. They know terrorism has nothing to do with us. We're there to pray to Allah (God) and get on with our business." {dcdc}Editor's note: Shoaib and Mohammad Iqbal are not related to the author of this article. Navid Iqbal can be reached at (973) 428-6627 or niqbal@gannett.com.
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