Omaha Muslims find little rancor

The sun was beginning to sink outside the Millard Islamic Center. People filed in carrying foil pans and glass bowls of food, preparing to pray and break their daylong fast.

The mood was relaxed and reverent as the bay in a strip shopping center filled with a diverse crowd of more than 100 people. There were doctors and lawyers, software specialists and professors, immigrants from such countries as Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Tunisia, children and young men and women who are U.S. natives.

The Omaha scene, on Tuesday night near the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, seemed far removed from the national furor over a planned Islamic center near New York's Ground Zero.

That furor is heading toward a peak this weekend, with the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and a Florida provocateur's plan to publicly burn copies of the Koran.

Mosques under construction have been vandalized in Tennessee and Arizona. A Muslim cabdriver was knifed in New York City, and Muslims were harassed at services in a small town.

There have been angry demonstrations in such Muslim nations as Afghanistan and Indonesia in advance of the Rev. Terry Jones' planned Koran-burning at his tiny Christian church in Gainesville, Fla. National religious leaders gathered in Washington, D.C., to denounce Jones' plan and what they called an “anti-Muslim frenzy.”

By contrast in Nebraska, an expansion of the Islamic Center of Omaha has been progressing peacefully and quietly, and plans for a shared Jewish-Muslim-Christian campus are inching forward without religious or political protest.

Local Muslims have stepped up efforts to explain their religion to the public, including erecting billboards, sending a flyer on Islam through a coupon mailing company and scheduling a public forum on Islam for Sept. 19 at Millard West High School.

“Locally, we haven't had any backlash,” said Fa'iz Rab, a member and spokesman for the Islamic Center of Omaha.

Several people at the iftar, or fast-breaking, in Millard said the same thing, although some expressed concern about how people might be treated outside a major end-of-Ramadan service in downtown Omaha on Friday, coming at the height of the controversy and the day before Sept. 11.

There have been incidents. A couple of years ago, someone busted out windows at the Millard Islamic Center. Sometimes, a man yells, “Go back to your (expletive) country” at Muslims gathering for prayers at the Islamic Center of Omaha.

During the recent controversy, however, Rab said the center has received several e-mails supportive of religious freedom, including from a Bellevue police officer and a Christian pastor.

Generally — so far, at least — people in Omaha appear to be talking with each other, not shouting at each other, about the thorny questions posed by the proposed New York Islamic center and the public's reaction to it.

Of course, while growing in number, there are few Muslims in this part of the world, less than 1 percent of the population in Nebraska and Iowa. And many of them are professionals who have been here and blended into the broader community for years.

Beth Katz, founder of Omaha-based Project Interfaith, which has promoted dialogue among religions since 2005, said the relative air of civility could be traced to how people here generally treat each other.

“It really speaks to a caring spirit in Omaha, a genuine concern for other people,” Katz said.

Naser Alsharif, an associate professor of pharmacy sciences at Creighton University, said he hadn't heard of any instances of harassment of fellow Muslims. He added that local Muslims hadn't gotten very involved in the New York Islamic center debate.

“The one concern I have is the type of comments that have been voiced on radio shows, locally and nationally,” Alsharif said. “They show, in some aspects, some level of misunderstanding and a level of bigotry.”

The religious leaders meeting in Washington on Tuesday, led by Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, emeritus Catholic archbishop of Washington, denounced what they called “the derision, misinformation and outright bigotry” aimed at American Muslims during the controversy.

Alsharif said he and other Muslims understand the sensitivity of building an Islamic center near Ground Zero.

“They understand that the families of 9/11 might feel somewhat betrayed or hurt,” he said. But, he said, “the individuals who are trying to (build the Islamic center) are being treated as suspect, and not as Americans.”

Rab noted that innocent Muslims died in the 9/11 attacks, too. And he said the terrorists were extremists who do not represent the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, and they did not act in accordance with precepts of the faith.

Rab, a 2008 Creighton graduate, said local Muslims have been seeking to correct misinformation about Islam. They recently mailed fliers to 100,000 metropolitan Omaha homes.

The Sept. 19 event at Millard West, open to the public, will include Muslim speakers and small groups who will answer questions about Islam. He said the focus would not be on the New York Islamic center, but speakers “are preparing for questions about that.”

Rab said leaders had thought about having that event Sept. 12 but decided that was too close to Sept. 11.

In some larger American cities, Muslims canceled Eid al-Fitr celebrations at the end of Ramadan because people might misinterpret them as celebrating the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Omaha Muslims chose to go ahead with an Eid al-Fitr religious observance on Friday and a fun day for families on Sunday afternoon. Rab said he hopes they won't be misinterpreted.

If there's a positive in what's happening, it's that people are asking questions, said Katz and Naushaud Qureishi, an Omaha businessman who's on both the Islamic Center of Omaha board and the Project Interfaith board.

Katz said Omahans, whose “dominant cultural trait is politeness,” might be prompted to talk about uncomfortable questions.

“What does it mean to live in a pluralistic society, and to have a Constitution that protects the rights of everybody?” she said.

Qureishi, a native of Pakistan who has lived in Omaha for about 10 years, recalled how, right after the 9/11 attacks, a man approached him at the Westroads Mall, put a finger in his chest and said, “Why did you guys do it?”

“I said let's sit down and talk about it,” Qureishi said, beginning with how the terrorists didn't represent him or the world's Muslims. “We talked for two hours.”

Now it is time, he said, to talk some more.

This report includes material from the Associated Press.

Contact the writer:

444-1057, christopher.burbach@owh.com

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