20 September 2001

Africanist and Islamic Scholar Cites Bush Trip to Mosque As Positive

By Jim Fisher-Thompson
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington - Famed Africanist and Islamic scholar Ali Mazrui believes President Bush's visit to a mosque and Islamic study center shortly after the devastating terrorist attacks by suspected Muslim extremists in New York and the Pentagon on September 11 was "a very positive step" in forestalling demonstrations of anger toward Muslims and Arabs living in the United States.

The September 17 visit by Bush to the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., "reassured Muslims," Mazrui told the Washington File in a phone interview September 20, because the president "moved very rapidly to make sure that the present situation doesn't deteriorate into widespread Islamophobia."

During his visit, Bush said: "When we think of Islam we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. Billions of people find comfort and solace and peace. Women who cover their heads in this country must feel comfortable going outside their homes. Moms [mothers] who wear cover must not be intimidated in America. That's not the America I know. That's not the America I value.

Kenyan-born Mazrui is the Albert Schweitzer professor in humanities and director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at Binghamton University, State University of New York, and a professor and senior scholar in African studies at Cornell University. He was also the producer and narrator of the award-winning 1986 television series "The Africans: A Triple Heritage." He serves on the board of directors of the American Muslim Council, the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, and the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University.

He said: "I think the federal government has behaved very well because of the danger of harassment of Muslims and Arabs, some of which is already occurring, even here on our campus among students. It is very important to provide leadership to the American people to make sure people don't start embarrassing or actually hurting people who belong to a particular religion simply because we are angry at a particular member of that religion."

Mazrui referred to Usama bin Laden -- a Saudi militant and fanatic of the Muslim faith, whose involvement in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa has made him a fugitive from justice in hiding in Afghanistan. His terrorist network "al Qaeda" is being held responsible by the U.S. government for the plane hijackings and suicidal crashes into the two World Trade Center Towers in Manhattan and the Pentagon building in Arlington, Virginia, near Washington. Authorities now say those crashes killed more than 6,300 people.

Among the dead may be as many as 200 Arab-Americans who worked in the World Trade Center, according to an official with the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Mazrui said the attack on the Pentagon, located just across the Potomac River from the capital, was "also a shock in a personal family sense because my son works for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Washington. I thought, 'My God, they're targeting the federal government now,' so we started checking on him and fortunately he was safe. But we grieved for those who lost their lives in the Pentagon and World Trade Center.

"We must all condemn [these] indiscriminate attacks on civilians," he declared.

The author of a number of books on the influence of culture on politics and religion, Mazrui said, "War is definitely something Islamic history has engaged in, but terrorism of this kind, which is indiscriminate in its killing, is an entirely new phenomenon and concerns many in the Muslim world [who believe] that this approach to warfare, even under provocation, is not justified.

"Although it may sound almost like a form of benevolent sexism, there is also a good deal of consensus [in the Muslim world] that the kind of war that does not discriminate about the killing of women and children is additionally wrong," he added.

Asked how the U.S. government should proceed against the terrorists, Mazrui said: "One must go beyond the discussion of how to annihilate the terrorists and find out what the causes are and see how we can address them. I am convinced that until the situation in the Middle East is solved, problems will remain because that is one of the major triggers of terrorist acts."

Later in the evening, President Bush addressed a joint session of Congress, where he made clear that Usama bin Laden and his movement would be brought to justice for their terrorist acts against the United States. At the same time he touched on the religious aspect of the crisis, telling Muslims worldwide: "We respect your faith. It is practiced freely by many millions of Americans, and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah.

"The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself. The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them," Bush declared.