Vaguely worded terror warnings result in the whole community being regarded with suspicion, some local Muslims say.
By ROBERT KING
Published June 3, 2004
[Times photos: Daniel Wallace]
Elizabeth Shuayb, 32, shops at the Wal-Mart on Cortez Avenue in Spring Hill. She says life for the Shuayb family is normal despite last week's warnings of possible terrorist attacks.
Memorial Day was slow at Mohammed Hatem's Shop n' Save convenience store and gas station on Cobb Avenue in Brooksville. Unperturbed by last week's warnings of terrorism, Hatem sits at his cash register welcoming customers.
Gliding through the aisles of a Wal-Mart Supercenter, Elizabeth Shuayb's white head scarf and ankle-length black robe seem to announce her Muslim faith.
Yet as she plucks Pepperidge Farm cookies and boxes of yellow cake mix from the shelves, no one gives her a second look. With the exception of a few dark days after Sept. 11, 2001, Shuayb says no one gives her trouble.
While reports of harassment against Muslims have been on the rise nationally, many Muslims in Hernando County say they move effortlessly through the community. Shuayb knows the people behind the meat counter at Publix. Out on errands, she frequently runs into friends.
Even so, announcements such as the one made last week in Washington - that the FBI will be canvassing Muslim communities for information about terrorist threats - has created varying degrees of unease among Muslims.
"We don't want to be viewed as potential suspects, and as the enemy within," said Ahmed Bedier, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Tampa.
Bedier estimates 30,000 to 40,000 Muslims live in the Tampa Bay area, and they are just as concerned about terrorist threats as anyone.
But when a similar terrorist threat occurred a year ago, the FBI came to Muslim leaders and asked for help in seeking information. Bedier said Muslims appreciated being involved as partners.
"This time around it was just a surprise to everybody. I think the community sees itself as a suspect and as a target," Bedier said.
It's no wonder, Shuayb says, that some Muslims feel uncomfortable.
"Exactly how would you feel if someone was watching you?" Shuayb asks, before answering her own question.
The mention of a renewed intelligence effort focused on American Muslims came with Attorney General John Ashcroft's warning that al-Qaida is plotting a deadly new attack in the United States. The FBI also said it was reviving a hunt for seven terrorist suspects, including one with ties to South Florida.
Shuayb's husband, Mohammad, who was born in Syria but came to the United States at age 2, says if he knew a terrorist he would be the first to report him. But he is not happy with what some Muslims see as a call to round up the usual suspects.
"I think it is exactly the same way that the people acted toward the Japanese after the Pearl Harbor attack," he said. "They group everybody in one lump sum."
Across the country, reports of harassment against Muslims increased by 70 percent in 2003 from the previous year, according to estimates put together by Bedier's organization, CAIR.
Since Ashcroft and FBI director Robert Mueller announced the latest terror warnings, no incidents of anti-Muslim harassment have been reported, Bedier said. But Muslims are calling his office to say they are afraid to go out, to go to their mosques or to take part in community activities.
"Some people won't be going out and shopping. It only isolates the community," Bedier said. "It just points a finger at them. The things the government is telling people to look for are too vague."
Elizabeth Shuayb, who is 32, may feel freer to move than many Muslim women because she was born in Lakeland and grew up in Hernando County. She converted to Islam after she got married in 1989. Still, the modest covering she wears makes her local ties almost indiscernible.
In the days after Sept. 11, she felt cold stares while out in the community. But her experience wasn't as difficult as some others'. One Hernando County Muslim woman was nearly driven off the road by an angry driver. Another had a bag of trash thrown on her car.
Muslim men, who frequently are harder to pick out than their hijab-wearing wives, faced difficulties. A male doctor said the prayer rug he used at a Pasco hospital was thrown in a trash can. Others received crank calls and hate mail.
And a bullet was fired into a Hernando County mosque.
However, Muslims in Hernando said they received a great deal of encouragement during those trying days. Patients of Muslim doctors offered their homes as places of refuge or to buy groceries for families if the women were afraid to leave home.
Mohammed Hatem, a Muslim originally from Bangladesh who owns two convenience stores in Brooksville, said friends warned him before he moved to such a small town that he might face discrimination. But aside from a couple of instances right after Sept. 11, including when someone referred to him as part of the Taliban, he says people have been kind to him.
"People are starting to get it that not all Muslims are bad," he said.
And that is one of the things that bothers Mohammad Shuayb about the FBI's plans to canvass Muslim communities. Most Americans want to live peaceful lives alongside Muslims, he said.
But Shuayb, a 34-year-old dentist, considers some in the Bush administration, including Ashcroft, to be going too far in their antiterrorism efforts.
"I guess it is right-wing extremists looking to tangle with Muslim extremists - neither one of them are right," said Shuayb.
"I'm going to live my life the way I have been - as a law-abiding citizen. And I'm going to protect my country from those who want to damage it," he said. "And treat every individual on an individual basis."
- Staff writer Robert King can be reached at 352 848-1432. Send e-mail to rking@sptimes.com
