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November 13, 2009

Anonymous The Joplin Globe Fri Nov 13, 2009, 09:46 PM CST

By Roger McKinney

rmckinney@joplinglobe.com

Among those praying for victims of the Fort Hood tragedy are Joplin Muslims.

“We are saddened by the events,” said Dr. Navid Zaidi, treasurer of the Islamic Society of Joplin. “Our hearts and prayers are with the families. We have had special prayers at the mosque for the families of the victims.”

Lahmuddin, the imam, or prayer leader, at the Joplin mosque, said his sermon the day after the shooting addressed the tragedy that he said saddened everyone.

“How can you justify this?” he asked. “It has nothing to do with Islam. What we can do? We just ask God to give us guidance.”

Zaidi said Islam rejects violence.

“Acts like this are against humanity and against the teaching of Islam and the Quran,” Zaidi said. “The Quran says if you kill one person, it’s like killing all mankind. If you save one person’s life, it’s like saving all mankind.”

Zaidi has said the mosque’s congregation has 40 families.

Zaidi and Lahmuddin also said they have felt no repercussions from the Fort Hood shootings and that Joplin accepts Muslims as part of the community.

“We do become apprehensive every time someone crazy does something violent,” Zaidi said. “Muslims are in the spotlight again because of the actions of a lunatic.”

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, is accused of shooting and killing 12 soldiers and a civilian on Thursday, Nov. 5, at Fort Hood Army Base in Texas. Thirty-four others were wounded.

Hasan, an American Muslim of Lebanese descent, had e-mail contact 10 to 20 times last year with radical Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. After the shooting, al-Awlaki praised Hasan as a hero on his Web site. Army intelligence and the FBI had monitored the e-mails, but finding no evidence of a crime being planned, dropped the investigation. Doctors overseeing Hasan’s training at Walter Reed Army Medical Center last year also found him to be behaving strangely and having extreme religious views.

A native of Joplin, Logan Burnette, who was wounded in the shooting, said that Hasan shouted “Allahu akbhar” or “God is great,” when he opened fire.

Zaidi said it does not help that people and the media tend to stereotype Muslims.

“I think that Muslims do not have to be apologetic,” he said. “Muslims are peaceful people. Islam promotes peace and compassion and love.”

Lahmuddin said it is unfair to label all Muslims because of the actions of one man. He said no one questioned the religion of Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech student who in 2007 killed 33 people at the school before killing himself.

‘Brainwashing’

Zaidi said the problem occurs when dangerous fundamentalists such as al-Awlaki are able to influence normal Muslims.

“Faith runs through a Muslim’s life in every aspect, so when one goes crazy, it’s very likely his crazy fundamentalist ideas will be twisted around faith,” Zaidi said. “These fundamentalists are getting hold of these people. They’re brainwashing them on the basis of religion.

“Muslims need to be proactive in their own mosques and in their own communities,” Zaidi said. “We need to be vigilant against people trying to take over with fundamentalist ideas.”

Zaidi also said he thinks intelligence agencies that monitored Hasan’s e-mail communication with al-Awlaki failed. He said Hasan could have been stopped long before the shooting.

“It’s a threat if you have links with fundamentalist and terrorist groups,” Zaidi said. “These people need to be rooted out, just like any criminal.”

Muslims have been the victims of crimes, too. The FBI last year started an investigation into who set fire to the Joplin mosque’s wooden sign. It was being investigated as a possible hate crime. There have been no arrests.

Since then, a gate at the entrance to the mosque’s parking lot is kept locked except during prayer times. There is a “no trespassing” sign.

Lahmuddin said the mosque has welcomed many non-Muslim visitors since it opened.

Discrimination

A survey released in September by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 45 percent of all respondents said Islam was more likely than other faiths to encourage violence. The figure was 55 percent among respondents who said they were conservative Republicans, 53 percent among evangelical Protestants and 25 percent among liberal Democrats.

The survey also found that respondents who had familiarity with Islam and who know a Muslim were more likely than others to have a positive view of the religion and reject the idea that Islam encourages violence.

The Rev. Steve Wilson, an Episcopal priest in Carthage, has studied Islam and visited majority Islamic countries in the Middle East. He has made presentations about the basics of Islam at his own and other area churches.

Wilson said no one ever comments on the religious convictions of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, or of the Rev. Jim Jones, a leader of a Christian denomination who led his more than 900 followers to mass suicide in Guyana in 1978.

“To me, it seems dubious that one man’s religion is more dangerous than another man’s,” Wilson said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

‘Barbaric act’

The Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim Public Affairs Council-DC and the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council held a news conference the day after the Fort Hood shooting denouncing it as a barbaric act of violence. They urged the media and the public to view the tragedy as a criminal act. The ISNA has launched a fund to benefit the Fort Hood victims and their families.