Since 9/11, most American Muslims have taken a low profile, understandably afraid of provoking a backlash. But seven years later, Muslims in the Richmond region have decided the time has come to engage with the community — to go mainstream, as it were. To that end, the Virginia Muslim Coalition for Public Affairs hosted a Ramadan dinner Friday evening for members of the local media. Journalists from print, television and blogs (including yours truly) were in attendance.
The Coalition estimates that some 12,000 to 15,000 Muslims live in Central Virginia, a mix of ethnicities including Middle Easteners, south Asians and African-Americans, with a smattering of “anglo” converts. For the most part, these people have practiced their religion quietly and have kept largely to themselves, with the result that their mostly Christian neighbors know very little about them.
The Coalition’s website explains the reasons for the group’s “coming out” party.
We believe that Muslims in America have to abandon the isolation mentality and resolve to become an integral part of the society, and proactively interact with its components. For that we need to become outward, and acquire social skills of interacting with people and cultivate relationships. It is both an individual and a collective effort. …
The objective should be to let the society at large know through action what Islam is and who are the American Muslims. Our aim should be to serve the society and work for its betterment. We need to work hard and honestly for a better America: for America that is morally sound, more tolerant, more just in its domestic and foreign policies, free of poverty. We do establish programs and participate in any program that serves any good purpose (feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, helping the elderly and the handicapped, etc.)
The Muslims that my wife and I met were exceptionally friendly, hospitable and eager to talk about their role in American society. One man, who has earned his citizenship, extolled the virtues of the United States as a nation of immigrants where, he said, he enjoys more freedom and opportunity than he did in his native Pakistan. He marvelled that, only 40 years after the end of legalized segregation, an African-American has a serious shot at becoming president.
Another fellow stressed the commonality of all people. Muslims, Christians, Jews and others have the same priorities in life: to live in peace, have a good job, come home to the wife and children, and contribute to the community. As became clear to me when an imam explained the meaning of the Ramadan fast, Muslims, like the practitioners of other religions, struggle with their personal frailties to become better people, to follow the way of their God.
The main stumbling point for some of the guests was the status of women in Islam. Nearly every Muslim woman in the room wore a hijab. (I noted only two younger women, students, who did not.) One hijab-clad young woman, a reporter with the Newport News Daily Press, addressed the group about the difficulty she faced reconciling the traditional values of her Muslim family and her ambition as a journalist.
In the tension between tradition and modernity, Muslims have much in common with, say, orthodox Jews or old-school Mennonites. I found nothing particularly alien or threatening with the way our male hosts treated the women in their midst. Indeed, although Islam teaches women to be shy and reserved, many of the women I met struck me as well educated, articulate, passionate and independent minded as most American women I know. I sense that Muslim culture is already adapting to American mores.
As long as Muslims sort out the challenges posed by Westernization peacefully and in accordance with the rule of law determined by our democratic system of government — as opposed to carving out exemptions for sharia law, as some have endeavored to do in Canada and Great Britain — then I welcome them with an open heart. The people I met last night will make wonderful Americans. They will weave another vibrant thread into the rich tapestry of the world’s only true “global nation,” a country where people are united not by race, ethnicity or religion but by their commitment to the idea of America.
Update: Robin Farmer with the Times-Dispatch wrote a story in today’s Times-Dispatch about the charitable impulse in Richmond’s Muslim community — presumably an outgrowth of the Virginia Muslim Coalition’s outreach.