Muslim Community, Daily Prayer and ... Politics?
On the corner of East 11th Street and First Avenue in Manhattan, Abul Agad, 43, is sitting next to a table of goods, wearing a traditional white kurta. Agad serves as “sort of a manager” for the Madina Masjid Islamic Council of America in the East Village. At 6 a.m. each morning he readies the center for the five daily prayer sessions, and in between he sits out at his table selling incense, topis (traditional Southeast Asian hats) and other goods many of the Muslims who come to pray often pick up on their way out.
Agad came to America from Bangladesh 12 years ago and is an American citizen. On a clear September morning he is sitting at his table, fiddling with his long salt and pepper beard, thinking about a very important, but seemingly very private question: should he register to vote? At a political rally in June, Agad and his two brothers picked up voter registration forms, but he hasn’t sent his in yet.
“I don’t know why,” he said. “I just never think about politics.”
And that seems to be more of the norm than the exception at Madina Masjid. Nearly 1,000 Muslims come in and out of the center daily. They come from all over New York City and New Jersey for what Bahiy Udeen, 40, calls the “most authentic prayer” in the area as well as the social and support network of the community. “We are friends here,” Udeen said. “We talk and think together and our families meet.” But politics, it seems, is not talked or thought about very much here.
“People think we are all mad to be Muslim here [in America] and hate George Bush,” said Joseph Haashim, a 54-year-old native New Yorker. “To tell you the truth, I think this is first talk of politics I’ve ever heard here. No one talks about it.”
Haashim is also not registered to vote. But he said he thinks his 20 year-old son Joseph Janam is registered. “I’m not sure though,” he added. When asked which presidential candidate he favors, he shrugged and said, “Neither, I guess.”
Stories like that of Haashim and Agad are not the ones being widely publicized by agencies like the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Islamic civil rights and advocacy group Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Judge Mary Rose Oakar, ADC president, wrote on their website that she is confident all Arab-Americans will do the right thing and vote, while other groups like the Arab American Democrats say they are confident that they will be a key force in helping Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry into the White House.
CAIR, one of the few organizations to keep statistics on Arab American voters, reported in June that 54 percent of eligible Muslim voters said they would vote for Kerry in November, while 26 percent favored Nader. According to CAIR, 14 percent of Muslim voters said they are still undecided.
Notably, 55 percent of the 1,161 surveyed, said they voted for President Bush in the 2000 election.
Nihad Awad, the executive director of the council, told The New York Times in February that he wanted to encourage voting so that the country’s Muslim population, of nearly seven million, can exercise political force in this election.
“Voting used to be an option,” Awad said. “Now it is a must. Since September 11, Muslim people feel disenfranchised. They feel they do not get the same political attention as other minorities.”
Not so, says Agad. For Agad, his wife Pratta, and his two brothers and sister-in-law, America has been a blessing. He says that even after September 11, he “felt and still believed this is my home.”
Haashim disagrees with both opinions. “I don’t think it’s true that Muslim people here think of life in those minority terms,” he said, putting a slightly sarcastic emphasis on the word minority. “I think the problem for me is that I don’t understand how a different President will change what I believe is wrong with this country.”
Haashim paused for several minutes, tapping his knuckles against Agad’s table while trying to think of examples of what, in his opinion, was wrong with America.
“No respect, no spirituality,” he said with a shrug.
Finally, by the last prayer service of the day, Omar Roydh, 18, came in ready to talk politics. Roydh was born in America while his parents were here on an expired vacation visa. “I’m voting because my parents brought me up to know what it meant to be free,” he said. Roydh, a sturdy-looking young man wearing designer jeans, is obviously passionate about America. So passionate that he spent most of the summer campaigning for John Kerry.
According to CAIR, 34 percent of Muslim voters believe that the Democratic Party best represents American Muslim interests. While 24 percent said that they prefer the Green Party, 22 percent said no party reflected their views.
Roydh is not surprised by these statistics. “I’ve heard them before,” he said. “The problem is a lot of people here that I know, and at home, aren’t concerned with politics. Maybe because they don’t understand it.” Roydh hopes to start college next year. He said he plans to major in political science.
Despite his passion for politics, however, not even Roydh talks politics at Madina Masjid. “People come here to pray and be happy,” he said. “The president isn’t on their minds.”
Cristi Hegranes is a graduate student at NYU and a freelance writer for the Village Voice.
Related:
Council on American-Islamic Relations
