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The roots of a new beginning

About 50 Muslim families come for opportunity and liberty. In the wake of 9/11, they find themselves forced to reach out from their community in an uncertain time.

The American flag on the mailbox had always been a source of pride for Tarek Elmansoury.

But a few days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Tarek, who was 5 at the time, came home from school to find his American flag gone.

A neighbor had seen four men drive by the Elmansoury home in Lake in the Woods, rip down the flag and drive off shouting "Death to foreigners."

All night, Tarek kept asking his parents - Muslims born in Egypt - the same question: "How could they take my flag?"

Like so many other Americans, Tarek Elmansoury cried in the wake of 9/11. Like the rest of America, something had been taken from him, and he wasn't sure why.

The hijackers who struck at America's heart called themselves Muslims and said they were acting in the name of Allah. And they died for their cause.

Left behind to live with the repercussions were millions of Muslim-Americans, including a small community in Hernando County that includes the Elmansoury family.

Muslim doctors, including Tarek's father, cardiologist Nasser Elmansoury, had for years busied themselves with seeing patients and establishing themselves as an important pillar of Hernando County's medical community.

But they had done little to define their Muslim faith and culture to the larger community.

On Sept. 11, the hijackers defined it for them.

In the days after the attacks, a bullet was fired into the mosque on Barclay Avenue, the only Muslim house of worship in Hernando County.

A Muslim woman wearing a head scarf was nearly forced off the road as she drove on State Road 50. Another had a bag of trash thrown on her car.

For days, Muslim women stayed indoors, afraid that their distinctive clothing - head scarves and flowing robes - would make them targets for a violent backlash. Likewise, they kept their children home from school.

As time passed, the hysteria died down.

Then, a year ago, a Muslim man living in Spring Hill who had attended the mosque for a short time was arrested by the FBI and charged with helping raise money for Middle Eastern terrorists.

The shock of that arrest and the lingering fallout from 9/11 led some in Hernando County to begin asking questions about a local Muslim community that had previously received little notice.

Are there terrorists among them?

How does their view of Islam compare with the radical brand that inspired the Sept. 11 hijackers, or the militant version that still inspires suicide bombers in Israel?

Is it the peaceful Islam that President Bush defended in the dark days after the attacks?

And then there was a more basic question: How did this Muslim community of roughly 50 families and more than 200 people come to exist in Hernando County?

More than two decades after their arrival, Hernando County Muslims are known to thousands as "doctor." Far fewer know them as friends. And, as evidenced by what happened to Tarek Elmansoury's flag, some still know them only as "foreigners."

Their story, in many ways, is like that of other immigrant groups and minorities who have struggled to gain a place at the table in America.

But the task for these Muslims is not an easy one.

It is a community that cherishes its privacy and is in many ways insulated from the outside world. It sends most of its children to a school in Tampa. It worships on Fridays in a building most remarkable for its lack of visibility. Few of its women work outside the home, and the men, mostly doctors, seem to work all the time.

Now, after nurturing their privacy for so long, Muslims in Hernando County say it is important that they reach out and get to know people a little better.

The job is made more difficult in this worrisome age, when we are warned in color-coded clarity that dangers may lurk among us.

Nevertheless, it is a story they must tell: The story of Islam in Hernando County.

Nazir Hamoui was born in Damascus.

Like most Syrians, he took the faith his family taught him.

"I was born a Muslim. I was raised a Muslim," he said.

Though he studied at Damascus University Medical School, Hamoui longed for the chance to train in the world's finest medical system - in the United States. So, in 1972, he left his homeland and came to America.

He spent a year in Detroit and six in New York City. In the midst of his training, he paused long enough to return home to Syria to marry.

Nazir was 30 years old. His new wife, Nada, was 14 - not an uncommon age gap in Arab culture.

By 1979, with his training winding down, Hamoui began looking for a place to start a practice, preferably somewhere with a demand for urologists.

He noticed an ad in a medical journal that touted Hernando County as one of the fastest-growing counties in the country. The man behind it, Brooksville gynecologist Jose Berrios, needed a place to send patients whose problems were better suited to a urologist.

Hamoui took the job.

Nazir, Nada and their 2-year-old son, Omar, left New York for a county in Florida with 40,000 residents and only a handful of doctors.

Nada found the place peaceful, and suitable for raising children. It was close enough to Tampa - a city with a mosque - that she could associate with other Muslims.

But without even a Kmart or a Pizza Hut, Hernando County was a far cry from New York.

"What a shock," she said.

The arrival of the Hamouis on July 13, 1979, is significant. They were the first Muslim family to settle in Hernando County.

For two years, they were alone.

Nazir Hamoui recalls that an early patient referred to him by a prominent local doctor initially complained: "I don't want any of those damn Arabs to touch me."

But the man eventually got over his fears.

"People in the United States are open-minded," said Hamoui, now 58. "As long as you provide good service, people will accept you."

As Hamoui's practice became more established, he began spreading the word about this open frontier on Florida's west coast.

The first Muslim to join him was gastroenterologist Husam Shuayb, who was Nada's cousin and someone Nazir had trained with in Detroit.

From there, things began to snowball. As other doctors came, they invited their Muslim friends to follow from Northern hospitals. A few were recruited by hospitals or clinics. But most were drawn through this new pipeline.

Muslim physicians say foreign-born doctors - of any faith - are typically more willing than American-born physicians to set up practices in rural areas.

For one thing, the great need for physicians in rural areas offers young doctors from foreign lands a greater certainty of business success.

For another, Muslim families found Hernando to be family-friendly and seemingly less dangerous than larger metropolitan areas.

"We like small towns," said Ayman Alibrahim, a 41-year-old allergist who came from Syria.

As the number of local Muslim doctors increased, so did the possibilities.

By 1986, a small group of Muslim physicians chipped in to buy land on Barclay Avenue - between Powell Road and State Road 50 between Brooksville and Spring Hill - to build a mosque.

"According to the religion, you establish a community through a mosque," Shuayb said. "We met an obligation of the faith. When you go somewhere, a Muslim should feel deficient until a mosque is built."

By 1991, the desire had grown for a Muslim school that could provide the children a safe environment, challenge them academically and nurture their faith. And they worked together to establish a school in Tampa, where it could also serve a larger Muslim population.

These days, the Muslim community that once could be contained in a small living room needs a banquet hall for its gatherings during Ramadan, where daylight fasting gives way to a feast overflowing with dates, stuffed grape leaves and roasted lamb.

The Muslims in Hernando County come from at least 15 nations.

The greatest number are, like Hamoui and Shuayb, from Syria. But there are Egyptians and Tunisians; Iranians and Indians; Filipinos and Malaysians.

Such diversity is a source of community pride. Local Muslims boast that their community is a miniature version of the United Nations.

From the same neighborhood in Cairo came both Elmansoury and his best friend, Allam Reheem.

While Reheem was a local soccer star, Elmansoury played Beatles tunes in a garage band. His greatest claim to fame was a musical impersonation his friends dubbed the "Egyptian Elvis."

Elmansoury, 47, was recruited by a local cardiology clinic. Reheem, 48, an anesthesiologist and pain management specialist, gave Orlando and Tampa a try before following Elmansoury to Hernando. Now they share an office suite.

From a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank came Mahmoud Nimer, 47, whose passion for the cause of his people is as strong now as when he left them nearly two decades ago.

Nimer, a cardiologist who found Hernando County through Elmansoury, says Israel unlawfully took his parents' home near Jerusalem when it declared its independence in 1948. And he considers the American government's unquestioning support of Israel to be shameful.

From a region in India ravaged by ethnic violence came Syed Ali, now a doctor of internal medicine with a practice in a Brooksville storefront.

As a medical student, Ali, 37, worked in an emergency room where the mangled bodies from riots between Hindus and Muslims were brought for treatment. He was amazed to see what people could do to each other.

After training in Chicago, Ali sought a warmer climate. He accepted Oak Hill Hospital's offer for a year's worth of financial support to get his practice going.

A small number of Muslims here, like Ali Ben Haloua, have no ties to medicine.

Haloua, a native of Tunisia, worked at the U.S. Embassy in Tunis. He came to America and worked in accounting for 27 years in Cleveland. In the early 1970s, he took a vacation through Florida that included a stop at Weeki Wachee Springs.

Haloua, now 56, always remembered the area because of Weeki Wachee. When it came time to retire, he found his way back.

And some, like Rashid Burgess, were made in America.

Burgess, 31, grew up trying a number of churches in the Florida Keys and found none to his liking. Eventually, he found what he was looking for in Islam. As part of his conversion, he gave up his birth name, Lee, to the Muslim name, Rashid.

This group of citizens from around the world is united by a faith that bridges geographic boundaries. Above all else, they are Muslims.

Yet, since Sept. 11, 2001, being a Muslim in America hasn't been easy. Their faith has come under intense scrutiny.

Author Salman Rushdie, who wrote The Satanic Verses, suggested that Muslims should examine what it is about their religious teachings that prompts young men to fly planes into skyscrapers.

The Rev. Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, called Islam an "evil, wicked religion."

For their part, local Muslims recoil at such suggestions.

They say Islam had about as much to do with Sept. 11 as Christianity had to do with the fiery deaths of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. They wonder whether Christians would like to see their faith judged by the preachings of David Koresh.

They say they reacted to the 9/11 attacks with the same horror the rest of America felt. But with something more: anger that the attackers had sullied Islam.

"People will burn in hell for that. They are not martyrs," said Ali, the Brooksville internist.

"These people are criminals, and they will rot in hell," Elmansoury said.

Ghiath Mahmaljy, who is both chief of medicine at Oak Hill Hospital and a spiritual leader at the mosque, said Islam specifically prohibits harming innocent people.

"To say you go and kill people in the name of Islam is a joke," said Mahmaljy, 50.

He said the hijackers were motivated not by religious doctrine, but by politics. A broad swath of Muslims disagree with how the United States deals with Israel and Palestine, he said, but the hijackers took it too far.

"It does not justify what they did. This is a politically motivated crime. It's ugly. It's despicable. Does it have its root in Islamic teaching?" Mahmaljy asks. "No way."

Local Muslims say there is a great deal of ignorance about their faith in America.

They say most Americans have lacked the curiousity needed to dispel the myths. And they say the media's tendency to paint Muslims as evil caricatures hasn't helped.

But Muslims also say the misunderstandings are partly their fault.

"Sept. 11 woke up Muslims to stand up to the challenge and to let Americans know what Islam is about," said Adel Eldin, a cardiologist from Egypt who is making the most public efforts to promote awareness about Islam in Hernando County.

When his friend and fellow doctor, Mohamed-Nagi Hassan Salam-Kadri, recently died in a plane crash, Eldin organized an interfaith memorial service where much of the time was devoted to educating mourners about Islam.

They have bought books and materials that favorably explain Islam and placed them in local libraries; they have put on Islamic art fairs, arranged Thanksgiving meals for the poor and visited Christian churches to build bridges between the communities.

Local Muslims are also zealously engaging in that uniquely American tradition of political fundraising. Their favorite candidates are those who stand up for the rights of Muslims and other Arab-Americans, regardless of their party or where they are from.

Eldin, 42, has been such a prolific donor and friend to people in high places that he earned a handshake from President George W. Bush and served as doctor of the day in the Florida Legislature. "I'm trying to put out fires," Eldin said.

The fires are those still smoldering from 9/11, when many local Muslims say their freedom began to melt away.

They say random security checks at the airport established after 9/11 are not so random for Muslims.

They bristle at the Patriot Act and its expanded wiretapping powers, which they think will be used to invade Muslims' privacy.

Some even joke that their phone conversations are being monitored by Attorney General John Ashcroft, whom many Muslims see as the greatest threat to personal freedom in America.

They watched in awe as federal agents raided Muslim charities or froze their funds in the wake of accusations that they were used to finance terror. Yet, they ask, when will the proof follow the charges? They wonder about prisoners - many of them Muslim - who were captured during the war in Afghanistan who have been held for nearly three years at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mahmaljy says he left Syria largely because its repressive dictatorship operated a secret police force that took people from their homes without warning.

When he came to America 25 years ago, he found a country committed to the rights of individuals and to the freedom to live without fear.

Now, he's not so sure America and Syria are so far apart.

"I'm asking myself, "Is it much different anymore?' It is getting closer for Muslims. Where are all these great principles that made this country what it is?" Mahmaljy asked.

"They are going down the drain."

Allam Reheem became an American citizen in the 1980s. He saw America as a refuge of freedom that offered anybody an opportunity if they were willing to work hard - a cliche, he admits.

But now Reheem says freedom in America is under siege. And he feels it personally.

Reheem is an acquaintance of Sami Al-Arian, the former University of South Florida professor who is accused of being the ringleader of the terrorist fundraising scheme.

Reheem served on the board of directors of the Muslim school in Tampa that Al-Arian founded and that the government says was used to raise money for terrorism. Reheem has left that board since Al-Arian's arrest. He considers the allegations preposterous. But he still wonders whether his association with Al-Arian will come back to haunt him.

"I could be the next on the chopping block," he said. "It could happen to any one of us because of the climate."

Still, Reheem is an idealist. He clings to the hope that America remains the country it was when he arrived.

"This is the greatest nation on Earth during good times. We had hoped that this country was built on such a solid foundation with its Constitution that even 10 9/11s will not shake it," Reheem said.

"It is the price of freedom and liberty. Freedom doesn't come cheap."

Despite their fears, local Muslims say they found some friends they didn't know they had in the darkness that followed Sept. 11. Non-Muslims offered up their homes as a place of refuge, if the need presented itself. Others offered to buy groceries for women who feared going out.

Nada Hamoui, who was nearly driven from the road by a crazed driver, returned to work in her husband's office to find a card with a red rose - a sign of support from a patient. Other doctors received similar tokens from patients they had healed over the years.

Even little Tarek Elmansoury, who cried when his flag was taken, found a ray of light. A friend of the family presented him with an Uncle Sam cutout to stand up in the front yard - an Uncle Sam waving an American flag.

Tarek's father, who didn't lose a patient after the attacks, says he will not worry about the future. As a Muslim, he knows his destiny is in God's hands.

"I know I am a very good citizen. I work for the best of this country. Why should I have to prove I am a good citizen?" he said.

"This is my home. I am going to stay here."

- Times researchers Caryn Baird, Kitty Bennett and Jenny Lichtenwalner contributed to this project. Robert King can be reached at 352 848-1432. Send e-mail to rking@sptimes.com