Muslims at Fort Voice Outrage and Ask Questions

[Absar]

~ Sgt. Fahad Kamal participated in Friday prayers at the mosque of the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen outside Fort Hood.~

KILLEEN, Tex. — Leaders of the vibrant Muslim community here expressed outrage on Friday at the shooting rampage being laid to one of their members, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who had become a regular attendeeof prayers at the local mosque.

But some of the men who had befriended Major Hasan at the mosque said the military should examine the policies that might have caused him to snap.

“When a white guy shoots up a post office, they call that going postal,” said Victor Benjamin II, 30, a former member of the Army. “But when a Muslim does it, they call it jihad.

“Ultimately it was Brother Nidal’s doing, but the command should be held accountable,” Mr. Benjamin said. “G.I.’s are like any equipment in the Army. When it breaks, those who were in charge of keeping it fit should be held responsible for it.”

The mosque, the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen, sits off Highway 195, near Fort Hood. Major Hasan began attending prayers about two months ago.

The mosque has about 75 families who have lived peacefully with their Christian neighbors.

“After 9/11, nothing happened here,” said Ajsaf Khan, who owns three convenience stores with his brother, Abdul Khan. “We are very cooperative.”

A mosque leader, Dr. Manzoor Farooqi, a pediatrician, when asked if he feared retribution for the shootings, said he hoped good relations would prevail.

Major Hasan was one of about 10 men from Fort Hood who attended prayers in their uniforms, Dr. Farooqi said, and he was shocked to see the major’s face on television identified as that of the gunman. “He is an educated man. A psychiatrist,” he said. “I can’t believe he would do such a stupid thing.”

“I have no words to explain what happened yesterday,” Dr. Farooqi said at Friday afternoon prayers, in which about 40 men were led by the mosque’s imam, Syed Ahmed Ali. “Let’s have a moment of silence to bless those who lost their life.”

“The Islamic community strongly condemns this cowardly attack, which was particularly heinous in that it was directed at the all-volunteer army that protects our nation,” Dr. Farooqi said.

Among those attending Friday prayers at the Killeen mosque was Sgt. Fahad Kamal, 26, an Army medic who wore his Airborne uniform, and later he said he was angered on several levels. “I want to believe it was the individual, and not the religion, that made him do what he did,” said Sergeant Kamal, who returned to the United States last year after a 15-month tour in Afghanistan. “It’s an awful thing. I feel let down. We’re better than this.”

Duane Reasoner Jr., an 18-year-old substitute teacher whose parents worked at Fort Hood, said Major Hassan was told he would be sent to Afghanistan on Nov. 28, and he did not like it.

“He said he should quit the Army,” Mr. Reasoner said. “In the Koran, you’re not supposed to have alliances with Jews or Christian or others, and if you are killed in the military fighting against Muslims, you will go to hell.”

Mr. Benjamin, who worked as a private contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan after leaving the Army in 2000, said the military should have let Major Hassan resign. “They should take more consideration of the human beings in the uniform,” he said, “rather than simply say, ‘We invested our money in you and need to get our money’s worth.’ ”

Still, Mr. Benjamin added, Major Hassan had overlooked an important, and peaceable, tenet of Islam. “We do have the right to retaliate,” he said, “but he who does not is twice blessed.”

Reference: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/us/07muslim.html?_r=1&hp

 

[EjazR]

Richmond-area Muslims say Islam no threat to military | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Ali Faruk grew up as a Muslim in an Indian-American military family in Northern Virginia.

Soldiers and police officers routinely showed up in uniform for Friday prayer services at Dar AlNoor Islamic Community Center in Woodbridge, sometimes carrying their service weapons.

"It really wasn't a big deal," said Faruk, who works as a policy analyst for the Virginia Interfaith Center in Richmond.

Faruk and other Muslims in the Richmond area don't accept the notion that their faith poses a conflict or a threat to service in the American military, despite a deadly shooting at Fort Hood by an Army psychiatrist who is a Muslim.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, who was seriously injured in shootings that killed 13 and wounded 29 others, grew up in Arlington County, where military service also is common in a Muslim community that is ethnically diverse.

"It's really not about his religion," said M. Imad Damaj, a Virginia Commonwealth University professor who serves as president of the Virginia Muslim Coalition for Public Affairs.

They say the shootings say more about the state of mental health in the military than religion or ethnicity.

"The really important thing is how we are meeting the mental-health needs of our service members," said Faruk, whose father is a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and whose brother is a second lieutenant in the Air Force.

"We need to start paying attention to the strain and demands put on our military families," he said.

Damaj, who met with the Richmond Times-Dispatch yesterday to talk about the Fort Hood shootings, compared the rampage to the massacre committed at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007, when Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 students and faculty and then himself. Cho was a Korean-American who grew up in Springfield, but his race and ethnicity were not raised as reasons for his actions, Damaj said.

"It wasn't about Korean-Americans," Damaj said. "It was about that young man. He was mentally unstable, and he snapped."

Damaj attends the Virginia Islamic Center in Chesterfield County, where he lives. Active-duty military and veterans worship at the center, where their service isn't an issue, he said. "People don't even think about it."

---------- Post added at 06:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:18 AM ----------

Another 9/11 for US Muslims, Columnists - Aseem Chhabra - Ahmedabad Mirror,Ahmedabad Mirror

As an Indian living in the United States, there have been a number of times when I have thanked the Gods that I should perhaps believe in more sincerely, for the fact that I was not born in Pakistan. When I look at the political mess that Pakistan is becoming and when a magazine like Newsweek declares that nation to be the most dangerous place on earth, I thank the time in 1947 when my father’s family left their home in Jhang, Punjab and settled down in New Delhi in independent India.

I thought of this feeling on Thursday after I learnt about a Muslim who went on a rampage at a military base in Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 people and injuring 30 others. The 39-year-old Major Nidal Malik Hasan is an American-born doctor and a licensed psychiatrist, who also happens to be a Muslim- born to Palestinian immigrant parents. Reports indicate that Hasan yelled out ‘Allahu Akbar’ as he shot people in the middle of the day, mostly soldiers who were about to be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Hasan lies in coma while Muslims across the US fear potential backlash, violence that often ensues such random or planned attacks. The hate crimes following the September 11 terrorist attacks are still fresh in our minds. At that time, the crimes were committed against people with brown skin no matter if they were Arabs, Muslims, Sikhs or Hindus.

Headlines in newspapers and 24-hour cable news channels are screaming about the attack. By Thursday night, the channels had acquired a security video footage of Hasan in his traditional Arab garb as he shopped at a grocery store just hours before the attack.

It is a serious matter. President Obama and the governor of Texas have ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff position. In Washington DC, the speaker of the House of Representatives asked her colleagues to observe a minute’s silence. But Obama also asked people to remain calm.

“We don’t know all the answers yet,” he said on Friday. “And I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts. What we do know is that there are families, friends and an entire nation grieving right now for the valiant men and women who came under attack yesterday.”

A Pakistani American journalist friend wrote to me saying he was relieved that he was unwell to report to work on Friday. He said he was afraid that he would have been asked to speak about how to cover the story from a Muslim angle. And he seemed glad not having to be identified as a Muslim in the professional setting, even though most of his colleagues must know about his religious background.

I have a sense of what my friend must be feeling. Most Americans tend to be fair and reasonable people. But events like this must make them feel somewhat uncomfortable when their colleague happens to be a Muslim, belonging to the same religion as the killer from Texas.

Soon after the September 11 attacks, when the US had declared war against the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, an American colleague asked me “Are with us or against us?” His question rattled me. By that time I had been a US citizen for over 10 years, voted in elections, paid taxes, and accepted America and New York as my new home. And yet my colleague was questioning my loyalty based on the colour of my skin and my accent that gave away my foreignness. My response was that the Indian government was backing the US-led actions against Taliban and Al Qaeda, and so that would make me supporting of the war in Afghanistan.

I am sure it must be hard to be a Muslim in America today. There are 20,000 Muslims serving in the American armed forces. And a few million Muslims live in the US. Their loyalty to the US and its flag should not be questioned, based on a heinous crime committed by one man who happens to be a Muslim.