Muslims React to Sept. 11

Suggested Lead-in:

Growing up Muslim in America isn’t easy...and the September eleventh attacks didn’t make it any better.
Muslims on U-N-C’s campus say they’ve felt a lot of tension in recent months.
Michael Handy reports.

Package:

A group of Muslim students and professors come together each week for Friday prayers.
This week they are once again praying for peace and understanding.

Nat-sound of prayers

Last time the prayers were for the Oklahoma City bombing.
This time it’s the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Many Muslims describe a feeling of déjà vu as they experience discrimination all over again.
Dr. Ikramuddin Aukhil explains where this discrimination comes from.

“We have a lot of misunderstanding in this world, and people have misunderstood and misinterpreted a religion for whatever reasons, and my sincere opinion is a lack, a lot of it is simple, pure lack of knowledge.”

Aukhil says the attacks have nothing to do with religion.
He wishes more Americans would take the time to understand Islam.

“What happened September eleventh has no place in Islam. Period. You know, Islam condemns all acts of violence targeted toward innocent people. Definitely killing innocent women and children and other innocent people.”

This lack of understanding is causing lots of anxiety on U-N-C’s campus.
Muslims usually take a lot of pride in their culture.
But since September eleventh, many are scared to wear traditional clothing.
Some are even scared to listen to traditional music.

Nat- Sound of Traditional Music

Senior Saba Maroof says she’s more alert now than ever.

“My parents were very worried about me. They didn’t, they wanted me to take off my scarf for some, like at least some time because they thought it would be impeding on my safety, and I didn’t go out at night for like one or two weeks after it all. And, I also felt like a stranger and like a foreigner and that was, I mean that was a very alien feeling to me.”

Senior Bashar Staitieh and his family are also more cautious.

“When I was going home for fall break, I had, uh my mom came and picked me up by herself. Normally, the whole family comes in, but they didn’t want to take the risk, and I told them don’t take the risk cause I don’t want my dad to be walking around in an airport and get hassled just because he’s brown. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Dental student Nadia Siddiqui says she’s always been alert.
She remembers discrimination back in her high school days.

“I remember specifically in high school, one guy totally flipping out on me, he’s like, ‘No, no, no, no, no, you’re Muslim, you can’t be from Orlando, you can’t be born here.’ I looked at him, I was like ok, we’ve got some major misconceptions here, we’ve got some major misinformation here, and if there’s any sort of silver lining out of all of this, is I think, hopefully people realize is that they’re ignorant, and that they’re wanting to at least learn.”

Learning is exactly what Maroof hopes Americans will do.
She says knowledge is key.

“This isn’t the way to deal with fear and, you know, you just can’t keep like running away and shunning like your own fellow Americans by like just hiding from them or having them hide from you…fear breeds from an ignorance, I think, and if we remain ignorant about any certain type of people or any religion, then yeah, we’re going to be afraid of them.”

So for now, Muslim students on U-N-C’s campus will continue to pray for peace.

Nat-sound of Traditional Music

In Chapel Hill, I’m Michael Handy.