WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 — Shortly after last month’s terrorist attacks, two
bricks ferried handwritten notes with crude, racist remarks through the
front window of the Old Town Islamic Bookstore in Alexandria, VA. Store
manager Hazim Barakat was angry and frazzled. The Palestinian immigrant
also was unprepared for what happened next.
ABOUT 15 bouquets of
flowers and more than 50 cards — some with money — arrived at his store.
People from as far away as Tennessee and Nebraska called with condolences.
A local businessman, who would not give Barakat his name, paid for a new
window. Christian ministers and a rabbi dropped by to express their
support.
“The people in the neighborhood were so nice you don’t
believe,” said Barakat, 44, who runs the store for the American Muslim
Foundation. “This is like another family I have. This is my big family. I
want to thank everybody.”
Terrorism and bigotry, it seems, can have
unintended consequences.
AN ‘OVERWHELMING’ RESPONSE
Across the
Washington area and the nation, many Muslims say that since Sept. 11, they
have been encouraged and comforted by unexpected acts of kindness from
communities and individuals. In subdivisions, stores, restaurants and
offices, non-Muslims have approached them with hugs,
handshakes, moral
support — even the sanctuary of their own homes — as well as apologies for
attacks by others.
“The love and support we got from the community
was overwhelming,” said Mohamed Magid, 36, imam of All Dulles Area Muslim
Society in Herndon, describing the response after someone spray-painted
anti-Muslim obscenities in the hallway outside the mosque’s prayer
room.
Neighboring churches wanted to pay for the damage. Members of
Shorshim, a Jewish congregation in Reston, hand-delivered a poster of
support. Local women volunteered to shop for Muslim women too afraid to go
out. Magid was invited to speak at nearby churches.
“My
appreciation for my neighbors, my country and people of faith has
increased,” said Magid, who is from Sudan. “I think we came out of this
stronger, more caring, more appreciative of one another, and even more
tolerant.”
‘FROM ONE AMERICAN TO ANOTHER’
Many reports
have suggested that tolerance was a casualty in the devastation at the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Middle Eastern-looking men have been
ejected from airliners on concerns by nervous pilots and passengers, and
Muslim women wearing Islamic head scarves have been forced off roads by
other drivers. The U.S. Department of Justice has opened about 100
criminal investigations into “ethnically motivated” acts of violence —
including three deaths — since Sept. 11, a spokesman said.
Still, a
steady stream of e-mail to the D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic
Relations reveals another kind of story.
Nada Hamoui, who lives
near Tampa, wrote that two days after the attacks, she found a red rose on
her office desk with a card that said, “From one American to another.” It
came from a patient of her physician husband. “I held it,” she wrote, “and
I cried.”
The Islamic Center in Athens, Ohio, reported being mailed
a $100 check from a non-Muslim couple who wrote that “we are all one
people.” In San Diego, the Islamic Center said it was “flooded with
letters and cards of support.” And Olga Benedetto, a 27-year-old student
at Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute, e-mailed an offer of “help for those
in the Chicago area needing groceries or other needs. ... I understand
that some of you are afraid to leave your homes.”
Similar
sentiments have been evident around Washington. Egyptian-born Ahmed
Heshmat, a doctor who lives near Rockville, said that his wife, Jenane,
was shopping recently with their two young daughters when “the manager
came running up to her and gave the girls a gift. It turned out to
be
pencils and papers. He said it was just to show support.”
In
Manassas, a local interfaith group contacted Prince William County’s
Muslim Association of Virginia with an offer to guard its mosque, said
association President Yaqub Zargarpur, a businessman who came from
Afghanistan 20 years ago. “They said they had families offering their
homes to anyone who did not feel safe,” Zargarpur added. “I am so proud of
Prince William County.”
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