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WAVENEY ANN MOOREAs they observe their faith's holiest month, Muslims are encouraged to help dispel negative perceptions.
ST. PETERSBURG - As Muslims in America prepare to observe their faith's holiest month - Ramadan - many will have more than fasting on their minds.
A new poll finds that one in four Americans holds negative stereotypes of Muslims. Many agree with statements that Muslims teach their children to hate and that they value life less than others outside the faith.
Local Muslim leaders are disappointed with the findings.
"I knew that there was obviously a negative perception and anti-Muslim sentiments in the country, but I was very surprised by the results," said Ahmed Bedier, communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Tampa.
"However, there was some hope in it. In the poll, it showed that those who actually interacted with Muslims or knew them, over 50 percent had positive feelings."
As believers prepare to observe this year's Ramadan, which begins late this week, they are being urged to combat negative stereotypes.
During Ramadan, a time of penitence, fasting, forgiveness and renewal, Muslims abstain from eating and drinking during daylight hours. The ninth month of the Islamic calendar, Ramadan also is a time for extra prayers and charity. Followers believe that it was during this holy month, which begins with the sighting of the new crescent - Friday or Saturday - that the prophet Mohammed received his first revelation from God. His revelations make up the Koran, the holy book of Islam.
This Ramadan, mosques are being asked to hold open houses for members of other faiths and to invite non-Muslims to the traditional evening meals that break their dawn-to-dusk fast. Individual members of the Muslim community also are being encouraged to identify themselves to neighbors and colleagues and to talk openly about their faith. In Jacksonville, a company has created a Ramadan postcard that can be used to send goodwill greetings to non-Muslims.
Locally, the Tampa Bay Area Muslim Association is planning a public pre-Ramadan gathering 6:30 to 8:30 tonight at the Enoch Davis Center, 1111 18th Ave. S. The Islamic Society of the Tampa Bay Area held its annual open house last weekend at its large Tampa mosque. In Hernando County, Dr. Adel Eldin, a Spring Hill cardiologist, said Muslims plan to ask others in the community to join them for an evening break-the-fast meal or iftar during Ramadan. He said the community began distributing Ramadan-Thanksgiving baskets after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Eldin added that Hernando Muslims also offer programs in local schools about Ramadan.
"Those of us who consider ourselves to be devout Muslims and also consider ourselves to be American patriots have to do a better job of communicating to the American population in general that we are, in fact, part of the same society, country and diverse American culture," said Askia Muhammad Aquil, an imam or prayer leader from St. Petersburg.
"We have to do everything to dispel the myth that Islam is anti-West, anti-Christian or anti-Jewish."
Efforts to establish cordial relations with non-Muslims are nothing new among African-American Muslims, said Aquil, an African-American and executive director of St. Petersburg Neighborhood Housing Services Inc.
Foreign-born Muslims also have tried to establish interfaith relationships, he said. For the most part, though, they have been an insular community as they strived for the American dream, Aquil said.
Sept. 11, 2001, changed that.
"It brought about a mass awakening," forcing foreign-born Muslims to fight for their civil rights and become politically active, he said.
"The bottom line," said Bedier, who is from Egypt, "is that we have to start identifying ourselves as American Muslims."
Bedier said there could be up to 3-million Muslims going to the polls this year.
The recent survey to gauge attitudes about Muslims was sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has its headquarters in Washington, D.C. According to the survey, only 2 percent of those polled responded positively to the word Muslim, while 32 percent had negative comments. Less educated white, politically conservative males had the most negative attitudes toward Islam and Muslims, while African-Americans were more favorable.
Mukhtar Muhammad, a third generation African-American Muslim and vice president of sales and marketing for Famaco Publishers in Jacksonville, said his concern about the negative views of his faith led him create the firm's Ramadan postcard.
"What we noticed was that the existing Islamic greeting card media ... are not taking the opportunity to address the key issues that Americans want to know about Islam," he said of the cards that are available by mail order and through mosques.
Bedier said he hopes the Ramadan initiative will dispel negative stereotypes about his faith and its believers. Also, said the father of 8-year-old Yaqub, and 19-month-old Amira, he hopes the effort will help to lessen hate crimes against Muslims and "establish a better future for the next Muslim generation."