Faith and Acceptance: Muslims Work to Overcome Stereotypes

By Elizabeth W. Crowley

The Patriot Ledger

Although it boasts the largest concentration of Muslims in the United States, New York City was no place for Moustafa Ghonim.

The city was too dirty, too crowded and too expensive. It wasn't until the native of Egypt visited a friend in Quincy that he felt he'd made the right choice by coming to America.

On the South Shore, Ghonim found good schools, friendly people and an established Muslim community.

As advertised, Ghonim said, "America is a free country where you have many freedoms and opportunities and you can practice your religion without problems."

When Ghonim, his wife and their four children joined the Islamic Center of New England's Quincy mosque in the early 1990s, they were among 250 families who attended services there. By 1994, a second mosque opened in Sharon to accommodate the growing number of Muslims settling on the South Shore.

Islam grew rapidly in Quincy and surrounding towns during the 1980s and 1990s, said Imam Talal Y. Eid, the religious leader of the Quincy mosque. Families like the Ghonims who were seeking economic opportunities in America, yet wanted to maintain their religious identity, were attracted to the South Shore because of the mosques.

Today, the Islamic Center's Quincy and Sharon mosques attract between 400 and 500 families from the South Shore and about 500 more from greater Boston and northern Rhode Island.

Massachusetts has an estimated 50,000 to 75,000 practicing Muslims. The president of the Islamic Center of New England, Dr. Abou Samra of Stoughton, says 15,000 to 20,000 Muslims live on the South Shore and neighboring towns.

About half of the Muslims who call the South Shore home are from the Middle East, 30 to 40 percent from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and other Asian

countries, and 10 to 20 percent from Africa. A handful of American-born black Muslims are also members.

In all, 26 different countries are represented in the Quincy mosque.

A large majority of Muslims who attend prayer services at the mosque are immigrants, many of whom came to the United States to attend school, married and had their children here, Samra said.

"There is a relatively young population of Muslims in this area," Imam Eid said.

That's generally true of Muslim Americans, said Ali Asani, a professor of Islamic studies at Harvard University. There are more than 5 million Muslims in the United States, most of whom arrived after immigration laws were changed in 1965 to allow more non-Europeans into the country.

Quincy's Islamic roots took hold in the early 1900s, when a handful of Lebanese and Syrian families settled in Quincy Point and went to work at the Fore River Shipyard. Some of these newcomers were Christians, some Muslims.

At first, the newcomers were bound together by nationality. But as time went on and ties to their homeland weakened, they separated by religion.

Many Quincy Muslims attended prayer services in the basement of Ma's Lunch, a Quincy Point restaurant popular with shipyard workers.

By 1961, the second generation of Quincy Muslims -- they are referred to as the seven founding families -- had resolved to build a mosque in their neighborhood. By 1964, they had opened a tiny building on a hill overlooking the shipyard.

Then, as now, local Muslims adhered to their faith without much notice from the larger South Shore community. Outside of the mosque, few women covered their heads with a scarf, or hejab, in accordance with Islamic tradition.

"We were friendly with all of the neighbors in Quincy Point," recalled Fatima Allie, 66, of Weymouth. "I never ran into any kind of segregation and I never really felt any prejudice toward me because I am a Muslim.

"The neighborhood was so diverse, I had friends from every religious background, and everybody seemed to accept those differences."

Membership in the Islamic Center grew steadily but slowly until the early 1980s, when the pace of immigration quickened. American-born Muslims were soon outnumbered by immigrants.

At the same time that increasing numbers of the South Shore's Muslims spoke with foreign accents and wore traditional Islamic dress, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment grew.

Imam Eid, who had come to Quincy from his native Lebanon in 1982 to become the spiritual leader of the Islamic Center, recalled people staring at his wife as she walked in the city.

"In the beginning, when people would see my wife covered with the hejab, they would ask, 'Why is she dressed like that?' Sometimes they would say it with anger and resentment."

Since they arrived in this country, Muslims have been fighting the stereotypical portrayal of their religion as one of mindless, and at times violent, devotion.

"The image of the Muslim as terrorist is still pervasive," Imam Eid said.

Several events during the mid-1980s and early 1990s shattered the notion that Muslims had been fully accepted in the United States.

In 1985, the militant Jewish Defense League burned a dummy of the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran in front of the Quincy mosque. In 1990, an arson fire caused more than $ 500,000 damage to the mosque.

The following year, as local Muslims were about to close on a deal on land in Milton where they wanted to build a second mosque, they ran into local opposition. The deal collapsed and the Islamic community began looking elsewhere, eventually settling on land in Sharon.

For every negative encounter, however, local Muslims say they count hundreds of others that restored their faith in their non-Muslim neighbors, including the public support they've received from other religious groups.

"I'd say about 70 percent of the people don't have any understanding of Islam, but there are more and more people who do. People still ask questions, but most of them want to learn, not to ridicule," Imam Eid said.

The struggle to overcome stereotypes held by non-Muslims is ongoing. So too is the balancing act of bringing up American-born children as good Muslims in an increasingly secular world.

"When it comes down to attitudes held by Muslims about non-Muslims, you see stereotypes there as well," Asani, the Harvard professor, said. "Some will say that everything Western is bad and evil. On the other end, you've got Muslims who feel that they and their children can participate fully in the local culture and that is not in conflict with their religion. This is very important to the second-generation Muslims who were born here and consider themselves Americans."

The vast majority of local Muslim children attend public schools during the week and religious instruction classes on the weekends. They learn Arabic so that they can read the Koran.

"We are very pleased with the Braintree schools, but I think it can be confusing for the children," Ghonim said. "We are trying to keep our children within the religion and to teach them morals. But a lot of what they see doesn't go along with that."

"This country can help you fill your pockets, but it won't help you bring up your children," Imam Eid said.

In 1996, the Islamic Academy of New England opened in Sharon. One of only two Islamic schools in the state, it has about 130 students in kindergarten through grade 8, and plans are being drawn up to add more classrooms because of increased demand.

"Parents want to bring up their children as good U.S. citizens who are good Muslims as well," said Principal Nouredine Zettili. "Here the students learn everything they would in a public school, plus they learn and grow in their Muslim identity."

Sasha, a seventh-grader from Stoughton, likes the school. She attended public school until the fifth grade. "Here it's easier," she says. "It feels like a family because everyone knows everybody else."

Tareq, another seventh-grader from Stoughton, also enjoys the school, but has noticed one drawback.

"All the teachers here know your parents. You can't get away with anything."

Permission has been obtained for republication/translation of this text (including for IIP's home-page on the internet) by U.S. Embassy Public Affairs and press outside the U.S. On the title page, credit author and carry: "by Elizabeth W. Crowley for The Patriot Ledger. Copyright, 1999, The Patriot Ledger."