U.S. Muslims tell Indonesians not to lose faith in America
Berni K. Moestafa The Jakarta Post Jakarta
With Muslims here wary over the U.S.-led war on terror, two noted American Muslims dismissed criticism their government was fighting Islam, which they pointed out was the fastest growing religion in the country.
Speaking via a video link during the launch of the U.S. State Department booklet Muslim Life in America, the two Muslims shared their experience of being Muslim in the United States.
"It means freedom to be myself, to practice my faith and not be afraid to end up in jail at the end of the day," said Imam Yahya Hendi, the Muslim chaplain of Georgetown University.
The university is the first in America to hire a full-time Muslim chaplain, and Hendi said he had been invited to discuss Islam at more than 300 churches across America since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the U.S.
Interest in Islam in the U.S. has risen since the Sept. 11 attack, which the U.S. government blames on Islamic radicals. But before this Islam was already the fastest growing religion in America.
There is no exact figure on the number of American Muslims, as the U.S. government does not record religion during population surveys or on immigration data, according to the booklet. The estimate ranges widely from between two and seven million, it said.
But the 25 percent growth in the number of mosques since 1994 presents another picture of Islam's growing presence in America.
There are now 1,209 mosques across America, the booklet says.
Islam's growing presence in the U.S. is not only the result of immigration from Muslim countries. On average, 20,000 Americans a day convert to Islam, said Hibba Abugideiri, assistant professor of history at George Washington University.
About 64 percent of the converts are African-Americans, she said, and a surprising 27 percent are white Americans. And these converts make up 30 percent of the attendants during Friday prayer.
"So it's not just converting then forget about it," said Abugideiri.
She said American Muslims were gaining influence in the public arena and hoped to one day effect a positive change on the rest of the world from "within the system".
Hendi said the rising influence of Islam in the U.S. came only over the past 15 to 20 years, when American Muslims began to open themselves up to the country in which they lived.
"We have continued and will continue to build this process of relationships," he said.
Hendi added that Christian fundamentalists were a threat to U.S. Muslims and the country's pluralistic society, but said that the moderates were in the majority.
The booklet itself describes the lives of a number of Muslims families in America at home and work. It explains the history of of Muslims immigrants, shows a photo gallery of mosques across the country, and tell how Muslims fit in American politics.
"Our hope is that it will provide a brief introduction to a complex subject, an attempt to explore in words and images the extraordinary range and richness of the way American Muslims live. .. ," said American Ambassador to Indonesia Ralph L. Boyce.
Written in Bahasa Indonesia, the booklet follows on the heels of a series of U.S. government-sponsored television commercials of the same theme.
Indonesia is the first country in which the U.S. has launched this campaign, part of efforts to rally the Muslim world around its war on terror.
While the campaign may dispel the notion that America is anti- Islam, criticism from Muslim countries as well as U.S. allies in Europe center on how the Bush administration is fighting the war on terror.
The director for North and Central America at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dino Patti Djalal, said during the launch event that the U.S. and its politicians must work to understand Islam better.