U.S. Muslims see threat from within

ASSOCIATED PRESS

After the September 11 suicide hijackings, distraught U.S. Muslim leaders feared the next casualty would be their religion.

Islam teaches peace, they told anyone who would listen in press conferences, at interfaith services and, most famously, standing in a mosque with President Bush. Five years later, the target audience for their pleas has shifted. Now the religion’s American leaders are starting to warn fellow Muslims about a threat from within.

The 2005 subway attacks in London that were committed by British-born and -raised Muslims and the relentless Muslim-engineered sectarian assaults on Iraqi civilians are among the events that have persuaded some U.S. Muslims to change focus.

“This sentiment of denial, that sort of came as a fever to the Muslim community after 9/11, is fading away,” said Muqtedar Khan, a political scientist at the University of Delaware and author of “American Muslims.” “They realize that there are Muslims who use terrorism, and the community is beginning to stand up to this.”

Muslim leaders point to two stark examples of the new mind-set:

• A Canadian-born Muslim man worked with police for months investigating a group of Islamic men and youths accused in June of plotting terrorist attacks in Ontario. Mubin Shaikh said he feared any violence would ultimately hurt Islam and Canadian Muslims.

• In England, it’s been widely reported that a tip from a British Muslim helped lead investigators to uncover what they said was a plan by homegrown extremists to use liquid explosives to destroy U.S.-bound planes.

Cooperation isn’t emotionally easy, as Western governments enact security policies that critics say have criminalized Islam itself. Safiyyah Ally, a graduate student in political science at the University of Toronto, wrote recently on altmuslim.com that Mr. Shaikh, the Canadian informer, went too far.

She said the North American Muslim community “is fragile enough as is” without members “spying” on each other. Leaders should counsel Muslims against violence and report suspicious activity to police — but nothing more, she argued.

But Salam al-Marayati, executive director of Muslim Public Affairs Council, says working with authorities underscores that Muslims are not outsiders to be feared and also gives Muslims a way to directly air their concerns about government treatment.

In 2004, his group started its National Anti-Terrorism Campaign, urging Muslims to monitor their own communities, speak out more boldly against violence and work with law enforcement. Hundreds of U.S. mosques have signed on, Mr. al-Marayati said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations ran a TV ad campaign and a petition drive called “Not in the Name of Islam,” which repudiates terrorism. Hundreds of thousands of people have endorsed it, according to Ibrahim Hooper, the group’s spokesman.

After the London subway bombings, the Fiqh Council of North America, which advises Muslims on Islamic law, issued a fatwa — or edict — declaring that nothing in Islam justifies terrorism. The council said Muslims were obligated to help officers protect civilians from attacks.