Attacks on U.S. Soil:
The Muslim Community
With Al-Haaj Ghazi Y. Khankan
Executive Director, CAIR-N.Y.
(Council on American-Islamic Relations)
Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2001; 1 p.m. EDT

In the wake of Tuesday's terrorist attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller said Monday that "dozens of retaliatory hate crimes have been directed at members of the Arab-American community, including assaults, arsons, threatening communicatons and two possibly -- and I say possibly -- ethnically motivated murders. Many of these criminal acts have been directed at Muslim houses of worship and at Muslim community centers."

Al-Haaj Ghazi Y. Khankan, executive director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations-N.Y. and director of interfaith affairs at the Islamic Center of Long Island, will be online Tuesday, Sept. 18, at 1 p.m. EDT, to discuss the current situation.

Khankan said in a telephone interview with the washingtonpost.com that "it is unfair to associate Muslim Americans and Arab Americans with acts of violence or terrorism because true Muslims who follow the teachings of Al-Quraan do not kill innocent people nor commit suicide because both acts are sacrilege and sinful acts in Al-Islaam."

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washingtonpost.com: Ghazi Khankan will be with us shortly.

washingtonpost.com: Ghazi Khankan will be with us shortly.

Al-Haaj Ghazi Y. Khankan: I would like to begin by stating that as reports of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab backlash begin to surface in the wake of the tragic terrrorist attacks in N.Y., Washington, and Pennsylvania, we are urging our Congress and Senate to issue to their constituencies a call to help in avoiding or stopping hate crimes or assaults or physical attacks perpetrated against innocent Muslim Americans or Arab Americans. I understand that the Senate and the House of Representatives did issue a resolution on the floor to which we applaud as we applaud President Bush for visiting the mosque in Washington and speaking on prevention of attacks against Muslim Americans. But what we need now is that our senators and congressmen, through their newsletters, to publish these resolutions and ask their constituencies to be alert and prevent such attacks on Muslim Americans or Arab Americans. Muslims and Arab Americans share the sense of grief and loss resulting from these terrorist attacks and we have offered our condolences to the familes of those killed and injured. We are doing our best as a Muslim American community to take part in the recovery efforts through volunteering, medical doctors, donating funds to the efforts of the Red Cross and doing blood drives to collect blood for those in need of it. Indeed, many Muslims have died in the World Trade Center tragedy. In fact, one Muslim police cadet at the police academy in N.Y. who is also in the E.M.S. (Emergency Medical Service), volunteered to help and never returned home. His name is Muhammad Suleiman Hamdani and there are others who also perished.

Arlington, Va.: President Bush visited a mosque, bought coffee and asked that people not discriminate against their Muslim neighbors. Will people pay attention to the president and do it in their normal lives?

Al-Haaj Ghazi Y. Khankan: It is a decent thing to do. We have to respect other "hyphenated" Americans and what the president said makes sense, but it is our duty as American citizens to also educate ourselves about the Islamic way of life and we are helping as a Muslim community by having next Sunday, Sept. 23 a mosque open house nationwide, inviting our neighbors and everyone to meet face to face with real Muslims. Please call your local mosque and visit.

Reston, Va.: Sir, can you give those who simply do not know the difference a quick definition of Muslim, Islam, and Arab?

Al-Haaj Ghazi Y. Khankan: All Arabs are not Muslims and not all Muslims are Arabs.

Islam or Al-Islaam is not only a religion but a civilization and a complete way of life for about 1.3 billion human beings. Islam is derived from two verbs in Arabic, one meaning "to live in peace" and the second word meaning to "submit to the will, teachings and commandments of God almighty." A person who believes in this is called a Muslim.

Arab is any person who might speak the Arabic language and there are Christians and Jews who do in addition to Muslims. And there are about 200 million Arabs in the 22 countries who are members of the League of Arab States who feel that they belong to the Arabic people, regardless of their color, ethnicity or religion.

Only 20 percent of Muslims are Arabs.

Framingham, Mass.: What is a holy war?

Al-Haaj Ghazi Y. Khankan: The term "holy war" is of non-Islamic origin. It was used by the crusaders in the 10th century when they came from Europe to Palestine on a holy war. There is no such two words in Al-Quraan, the holy book. Al-Quraan is the only authoritative source of Islamic teachings next to the personal statements of Prophet Muhammad, "Peace be upon him." Some media unfortunately translate the word "jihad" incorrectly as "holy war." Jihad means to struggle and to strive to better oneself. It is an Islamic concept that can be on a personal level as inner struggle against evil within oneself. Also, a struggle for decency and goodness on the social level and a struggle on the battlefield if and when necessary only for the purpose of self-defense. I think it appropriate for me to quote Al-Quaraan on this matter, Chapter II, Verse 190: "Fight in the cause of God against those who fight you, but do not transgress limits for God does not love the transgressors." So war is therefore the last resort and is subject to the rigorous conditions laid down by the sacred law. For example, a Muslim soldier in a jihad defending himself must not harm vegetation, children, women, old men and civilians. Only the combatants or the army can be fought against.

Gaithersburg, Md.: At a community level, what can Christians and other non-Muslims do to show our support for American Muslims and combat threats and violence you are receiving with positive messages?

Al-Haaj Ghazi Y. Khankan: God bless the questioner. We are inundated with telephone calls and we are receiving statements from many priests and rabbis doing exactly that. So that is why we are inviting all to visit the open mosque on this coming Sunday. To find a mosque near you, please call us at CAIR-N.Y., 212-870-2002 or at the Islamic Center of Long Island at 516-333-3495.

Springfield, Va.: Taliban leaders recently jailed aid workers who were practicing their own religion. Yasser Arafat's forces have threatened and intimidated reporters who film or write stories documenting west bank celebrations over the bombings. Without a common basis of ideals, such as freedom of religion and freedom of the press, how can our relations ever imporve?

Al-Haaj Ghazi Y. Khankan: The video which was aired showing so-called celebrations, I am told, was an old segment of a video, not immediately after September 11 -- it was before that date, but we also saw a genuine outpouring of condolences of Palestinians lighting candles and putting flowers in a Palestinian town ouring the deaths and the tragedy of September 11. All Muslim and Arab countries did send condolences.

Improving relations is a two-way street. We must learn, we must dialogue, we must try to understand each other's way of life. It might not be possible through the media to do this, but I urge people of religion to have interface dialogues throughout the U.S. and also internationally because Al-Islaam is the most misunderstood and the most mistranslated and misrepresented in the vast majority of the media.

Colorado Springs, Colo.: Do you feel that we need to have a National conference on religion? To let fellow Amreicans know what Islam stands for?

Al-Haaj Ghazi Y. Khankan: One hundred percent support and agreement to this question. Any Christian or Jewish organization that is interested in such a conference, please let us know and we will work with you. Our e-mail is cair-ny@cair-ny.com.

Irvine, Calif.: What is the American Muslim leadership doing within their own communities to help deter or identify possible terrorists?

Al-Haaj Ghazi Y. Khankan: Al-Islaam teaches the following: Prophet Muhammad, "PBUH," said support your brethern when they are oppressed and when they are oppressive. He was asked," Oh Prophet,we support those who are oppressed but how can we support one who is oppressive and he replied, "By preventing him from oppressing." This is the Islamic teaching. If we know of a terrorist whether he be a Muslim, Christian, Jew or Hindu or whatever, we are obligated to prevent them from harming others.

Baltimore, Md.: What are the best three ways both to attain justice with regard to the September 11 attacks and to end the threat of future terrorism?

What can ordinary citizens do to help achieve these objectives?

Al-Haaj Ghazi Y. Khankan: We must work through the U.N. to find the culprits and bring them to justice. To end future terrorism we must also examine independently and find out why so many countries in the world do not like our foreign policy.

We can achieve these objectives by calling upon the White House to create an independent foreign policy commission to study the root cause of terrorism. Nobody is born terrorist.

Sterling, Va.: I am no expert on Islam, but the alleged "Fundamentalists" that carried out these attacks frequented topless bars and consumed alcohol. Those actions, along with murder of innocent people, obviously have nothing to do with Islam.

How come that has not been examined further? What is your opinion on this? Thanks.

Al-Haaj Ghazi Y. Khankan: Anyone who consumes alcohol is doing a sinful act in Islam and therefore is not a good Muslim. He's probably a Muslim by name but not in reality. Good Muslims will not drink alcohol or take drugs or commit suicide or kill innocent civilians. All these are sinful acts in Islamic teachings and those who do such things will be punished on the day of judgment.

Al-Haaj Ghazi Y. Khankan: Furthermore, "fundamentalism" is a non-Islamic term. You are either a pious practicing Muslim or you are not.

Plano, Tex.: Have efforts been made to have a detailed explanation of how far the Taliban and bin Laden have betrayed the teaching of Islam? I have read many articles about how most of the the Islamic World has condemned the Taliban for years for their abuses of women and other faiths is direct violation of the Word of the Prophet, but now when it is most needed I am not seeing any detail. In addition, there is now doubt that the Prophet condemed all attacks on non-combat forces in the strongest of possible language, but rarely do I see articles that point this out in detail. Are there Web sites up on these subjects that I could give to others as references?

Al-Haaj Ghazi Y. Khankan: A very good question. One of the Web sites is www.discoverislam.com. Another is www.cair-net.org.

We have put out many press releases to that effect but unfortunately the media seem not to care publishing them.

Silver Spring, Md.: Even though there is a radical form of Islam that peaceful Muslims disagree with, when the radical form is attacked it will draw all Muslims together to resist the outside force, viz., the countries that are trying to resist terrorism.

Is there any chance that the mainstream Islamic faction will raise their voice against the violent faction?

Al-Haaj Ghazi Y. Khankan: There is no radical form of Islam as there is no radical form of Judaism or Christianity. It is individuals who might be extremists in their understanding of their religion because no religion teaches radicalism.

Islam does not teach violence, therefore, like Judaism and Christianity, anyone who violates the teachings of his or her religion cannot be part of that religion.

We have condemned in no uncertain terms the terrorist attacks on New York, on Washington and Pennsylvania but why do we assume that these acts are done by true Muslims? I have raceived a phone call from my cousin in Saudi Arabia and sent me two clippings from Saudi papers stating that two of the supposed terrorists who hit the Twin Towers whose names were given showed up Saudi Arabia. They said this is my name and my date of birth is correct but our passports have beens stolen when we visited the U.S. So these two who are on the lists as the terrorists are not the same people. Somebody is stealing passports and using them for such horrific acts.

Al-Haaj Ghazi Y. Khankan: I wonder who is behind this terrorism and who benefits from it. Based on this discovery of these two names printed in the Saudi newspaper along with their pictures, I believe that many of the names of the terrorists are people impersonating innocent Muslims and Arabs.

Al-Haaj Ghazi Y. Khankan: Please contact this e-mail: arabnews@arabnews.com and www.asharqalawsat.com for further details to see the pictures and the names of these two alleged terrorists.

washingtonpost.com:

That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the discussion.

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