Michael:
I’m so impressed with the factory tour that I do something I almost never do. I walk into the gift shop and buy myself a
souvenir, a blue-and-white baseball cap with the Ford logo stitched on the front. As we board the bus for the ride back to the Henry Ford, I examine the tag sewn into the hat’s lining: MADE IN CHINA.
From the factory floor to the mosque: our next stop is the Islamic Center of America. It was important to me that we spend some time hanging out with Muslims on this trip because Islam takes up such a large part of our national dialogue. Because, let’s face it—Islam freaks people out.
My impression is that most Americans don’t know what to think about Muslims. On the one hand, we are a nation that prides itself on accepting people of all faiths. On the other hand, Muslims scare us because of 9/11. Whether or not that’s fair is a matter of opinion, but I understand the fear. If a bunch of Scientologists had blown up a couple giant buildings, we might be scared of them too.
(Actually, after seeing Tom Cruise jump on Oprah’s couch, I
am
a little scared of Scientologists.)
People correctly make the argument all the time that terrorism isn’t limited to Muslims. But in America, terrorism is most closely identified with Islam because most of our experience with terrorism is Islamic terrorism. There have been enough terrorist plots and terrorist acts committed against Americans by Muslims (some of them homegrown) that we have a hard time separating crazy jihadists from run-of-the-mill American Muslims just trying to go about their lives.
Part of our apprehension probably has to do with the fact that most of us do not know any Muslims. Despite all the attention it gets, Islam is still a tiny religion here, accounting for less than one percent of the population. It’s easy to fear somebody when you have never met them. My best Muslim friend is a comedian with Elvis sideburns who does a videogame podcast; it’s hard for me to get too worked up about Islam in general when that’s the guy I most closely associate with the faith.
At the same time, Americans tend to automatically dismiss homegrown, non-Muslim terrorists like Timothy McVeigh as nut jobs because all of us know so many people who look and act like him.
Who hasn’t met the paranoid, angry white guy with the buzz cut muttering about black helicopters? Most of the time, that dude is a harmless crank. When he does end up doing the unthinkable, we shrug him off as crazy. If two Muslim teenagers had gone through their high school spraying bullets like Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris did at Columbine, we would have blamed the whole religion instead of the kids. We would have said they were terrorists instead of maniacs.
Is that fair?
Even so, Muslims haven’t done themselves any great service in the years since 9/11. Why don’t we hear them decrying violence? Part of the problem is that they are a disparate group. There is no Muslim pope. No Muslim king. Muslims are like Jews, organized into small enclaves loosely affiliated with each other through larger umbrella organizations. They have no overall governing body. Nor is there any prominent American Muslim to stand up and speak for the faith. So, when Americans hear a collective silence from the Muslim community after an Islamic terrorist attack, they often interpret that silence as acquiescence rather than what it most likely is, a lack of leadership.
Meghan:
I went to college at Columbia University with a lot of Muslim students, and I am still friends with a number of people who practice the Muslim faith. That doesn’t mean I consider them my “Muslim friends.” In fact, religion rarely comes up in conversation with them. I believe that, unfortunately, when it comes to stereotypes about Muslims, a few radicals have severely damaged the reputation of an entire faith. Do I think there are Muslim extremist jihadists in the Middle East who want to destroy my way of life? Yes, of course, and it scares the living hell out of me. However, Islam is the second-largest religion in the world and the vast, vast majority of Muslims reject the extremists and agree that the radicals have done damage to their faith.
I feel fortunate that I had the opportunity to go to a university that offered wonderful courses on Islamic history and faith. Not
many Americans get the opportunity to advance their understanding of a religion they find mysterious and, in some cases scary. Through my different religion requirements at school, I read the Koran, studied Islamic art, and read Middle Eastern writings. I am grateful that I had the experience as a young adult to learn about the culture from educators in an environment that was safe and allowed open dialogue. I also feel lucky to have studied at a school with such a diverse student body that all races and religions are given an opportunity to share and understand each other. I had that luxury and that exposure; if you have not had that opportunity, it is easy to be scared of what you don’t know.
Cousin John pulls up in our giant RV and Eide A. Alawan greets us in the parking lot of the Islamic Center of America. He is a small man with a white beard and a warm smile. He’s holding a couple of head scarves and a shawl, and I suddenly realize that I’m dressed in leggings and an open-neck T-shirt. When I dressed this morning I was only thinking about this ongoing heat wave; I should have known better than to dress this way to visit a mosque. Mr. Alawan doesn’t seem to mind, but asks Stephie and me to put on the head scarves, and then hands me the shawl to wrap around my shoulders and chest. I am embarrassed and feel bad for dressing in a way I would never have to visit a church. The dress code slipped my mind.
We walk in and Mr. Alawan starts giving us a tour of the mosque. There is some kind of event going on in one of the larger rooms. There are tables and balloons, teenagers everywhere. It looks like it’s going to be some kind of a celebration. It reminds me of the events I used to go to at my church as a child.
Michael:
The Islamic Center of America is not, as the name implies, the Islamic center of America. It’s just a grandiose name for a mosque that only represents its own community, those Muslims living in Dearborn and the surrounding areas. This is one of the first things we learn from Eide.
He explains the mosque’s name for us when we ask about it. Eide says it used to be Islamic Center of Detroit, but the imam thought
the name should attempt to extend its reach. Personally, if that was the goal, I think they should have gone with “Islamic Center of THE UNIVERSE!!!”
Eide leads us on a tour of the mosque, which seems no different from any synagogue or church I’ve been to. We look in on a community room where a bunch of teenagers are hanging out getting ready for a program later in the evening.
Two young women in head scarves approach.
“Aren’t you Michael Ian Black?” one of them asks.
I say I am.
“That’s awesome!” the other says, and they walk away.
I did not expect to get recognized in a mosque.
“What was that all about?” asks Eide. I tell him they probably recognize me from VH1, but he seems baffled. “I thought maybe they were putting me on,” he says. “I was going to apologize. I thought maybe they were drunk.”
He is, of course, kidding.
We go into the prayer room, or maybe the prayer room
is
the mosque. I don’t know. It’s an enormous, empty round room lined with beautiful Arabic calligraphy around the perimeter of the ceiling. He asks if any of us have been in a mosque before. Stephie says she tried to enter one in Israel but was forbidden because they would not let women in. Eide seems particularly wounded by this.
“Did you have a head scarf?”
Yes.
“Were your legs covered?”
Yes, they brought clothing to cover themselves.
“I apologize,” he says. “That should not have happened.”
We sit in the prayer room for a long time talking. Eide tells us he’s had a busy decade since September 11, doing interfaith outreach to the community. He says the day after, on September 12, a thousand Muslims gathered in Greenfield Village for a candlelight vigil. He says he was just as appalled by the attacks as everybody else. That his religion should be associated with the attacks seems to deflate him.
“I’ve lived here all my life, and have been practicing Islam since well before September 11,” he says.
“But how do you feel about radical Islam hating what you love?” Meghan asks.
“Radicals come in every form,” he answers, a response I sense he has given ten thousand times in the last decade. “I do not accept that just because somebody says he is a Muslim—and the nineteen hijackers said they were Muslim—to me, they do not represent Islam.”
The subject of President Obama comes up.
“What were your feelings about the Obama Muslim controversy ?” I ask.
“I believe he’s a Muslim,” Eide says.
Meghan seems shocked.
“You do? Really?”
Eide laughs. He’s kidding. “No,” he chuckles. “I keep on telling people he’s a Muslim. An undercover Muslim.”
He says he voted for Obama, but not because of his religion. “First time in my history I voted for a non-Republican. Don’t tell your dad that,” he adds as an aside to Meghan. “I voted for a Democrat because I want to see change in this country. I want to see an African American be president. I would have voted for . . . what’s her name?”
“Hillary,” I say.
“Hillary. I would have voted for Hillary except I have a problem with her husband. I couldn’t stand the guy.” He laughs again. “But the point is, I voted for Obama because he’s an African American. I’m old, as you can see, and I want to see change in my lifetime.”
I find his words touching. Eide is old enough to remember a time when the idea of a black or female president was unthinkable. Meghan and I are both young enough to take for granted that the realistic possibility of both of those outcomes wasn’t always the case here. Of course we will have a female president, a Hispanic president, and maybe, sooner rather than later, a Mormon president. It doesn’t seem possible today, but I have no doubt that one day we
will also have a Muslim president. For somebody like Eide, it must seem a little amazing that such things are possible. He is relentlessly upbeat about America and his community’s place here.
Stephie asks him if it troubles him that a contingent of this country is threatened by the belief that Obama
could
be a Muslim.
“To me, it doesn’t represent a large percentage of the community. Like you, I love America. I wouldn’t want to live anyplace else in the world. This is America, folks. I mean, Jews weren’t well liked. Catholics weren’t well liked by the Puritans, if you know any of your history. It’s our turn in the bucket.”
In a way, I find his optimism encouraging and in a way, I find it naive. My sense of what America thinks about Muslims is darker than his. He believes in America’s better angels, but I am not so sure. Why does anybody need to be in the bucket?
Yes, we want to welcome all faiths, but I also know that for all of our bravado, Americans are sometimes a fearful people. Even though we welcome outsiders, they often end up scaring us once they are here. It’s a strange dichotomy of the American character. I hope his vision of America wins out.
A larger concern for Eide seems to be tensions
within
the Muslim community, mainly between Sunni and Shia groups. He has a term for Muslims who can observe together: “Sushis.” His own mosque is Shia, and I ask him if Sunnis would feel comfortable praying there. “Maybe two or three percent would,” he answers. “But within ten or fifteen years, I think it’ll be fifty-fifty.”
I’ve met a lot of clergy. The ones I liked the most seem to radiate an inner calm. Eide is not a clergyman, but I sense a similar stillness within him. His life’s passion is this work, interfaith as well as in-trafaith. When I hear conservative talk radio blowhards railing against Islam, screaming about impending “Sharia law,” I wonder if they have met people like Eide or the girls who recognized me from VH1, or the teenagers grilling hotdogs and hamburgers out back.
For much of our time in the mosque I’ve noticed a little boy about two years old running around the big, empty room. He’s having a
great time, just running and running, tripping over his own legs, laughing. His mother stands nearby, watching, but making no effort to stop him or silence him. Eide doesn’t even seem to notice the boy. But I do, because the idea of running and laughing in a place of worship is alien to me. Every church and synagogue I have ever attended has been a place of solemnity. It never occurred to me that a prayer room could also be a place for unbridled laughter and fun. But seeing this little boy acting that way, here, makes perfect sense to me. Of course a house of prayer should be fun. It
should
be a place where there is laughter and joy. Of course.
After we say goodbye to Eide we start to exit the mosque. Before we can, a burly guy enters the room and says,
“As-salamu alaikum”
as he passes. Eide responds,
“Wa alaikum as-salaam.”
We pass. The man stops and calls to me. He’s pissed.
“I say
‘As-salamu alaikum’
to you!” he growls. I’m flustered and I feel my cheeks start to flush. I don’t know what to say. He stares at me. “Why don’t you say
‘Wa alaikum as-salaam’
?”
Eide tries to interject, to explain that I didn’t know, but the man’s eyes remain hard and, frankly, scary. I mutter the phrase to the best of my ability, mortified.
“Wa alaikum as-salaam,”
I try to say, but it comes out more like “Wakka wakka salami.”
The man glares for a few more seconds, then grumbles away.
“I’m sorry,” says Eide. “He can be a little difficult.”
Maybe it seems stupid, but I’m actually kind of shaken by the encounter because, after speaking with Eide for an hour, my feelings about religion, all religion, have softened. After this encounter, though, I am again reminded how strident people can be, how unyielding and prone to offense. I tell Eide it’s fine. But it’s not fine.