Summayia Khan, president of the Pakistani Student Association, says she and the PSA are doing their best to educate others on Muslim and Islamic misconceptions.
Photo: Allyson Felt, NewsNetNebraska
When CNN announced the name of the suspect who opened fire at Fort Hood on Thursday, Maliha Zuberi's heart sank.
The Pakistani-American grad student knew that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan spelled trouble for her and those like her.
"Right away, any Muslim knows that that's a Muslim name," said Zuberi, who is the president of the Muslim Student Association at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. " So you're like, ‘Oh no, what are they going to say? Why did it have to be a Muslim name? Islam is going to come under attack because of this.'"
For the Lincoln Muslim community, the shooting at the Texas army base on Thursday represents one more example of high-profile violence -- in America and abroad -- allegedly committed in the name of a religion that they say promotes nothing but peace.
Members of the community echo the sentiments expressed in a statement released by the Council on American-Islamic Relations on Thursday. In it, the group condemns the "cowardly attack in the strongest terms possible."
"It's hard for Muslims to grasp this attack," said Justin Wood, secretary to the board of the Islamic Foundation of Lincoln. "We feel like our religion is being hijacked."
Some Lincoln Muslims go even further in their rebuke of the shooting.
Farooq Baloch, a UNL journalism graduate student from Karachi, Pakistan, agrees with Wood that the principles of the religion have no connection with violent acts.
"Anyone who kills another human being, to me, is not a Muslim," Baloch said. "A terrorist is a terrorist. He has no religion."
However, Lincoln's Muslims admit that simplistic media portrayal can prevent dialogue and fuel fear about the nature of the religion.
"The first words I heard were ‘9/11, terrorist, jihad.'" Zuberi said. "Automatically people started connecting it and they flashed back to 9/11, and so you have this connection to Islam."
And community leaders fear the backlash against Muslims that can result from this false connection, as was the case of 9/11.
Numerous leaflets at the Islamic Foundation of Lincoln include information for Muslims on stopping racism, as well as different lessons to be learned from the Quran.
Photo: Allyson Felt, NewsNetNebraska
Rizwan Khan, a UNL graduate from Pakistan, experienced this backlash firsthand. When he was a student at Southeast Community College in 2004, a veteran fresh from Iraq stood up one day in class and announced his fervent distrust of Khan because of his skin color and religion.
Khan, however, has lived in America for 10 years; he understands the fear that can grip the nation and does not blame some Americans for harboring this point of view.
And neither does Wood.
According to his organization, the Lincoln Islamic Foundation, the best medicine for preventing backlash is interpersonal relationships.
"Most people haven't visited the local mosque, so if that's what you see - Muslims doing violence in the media - you will have a negative perception," Wood said.
He said the Foundation encourages its members to maintain strong interpersonal relationships with colleagues, friends and neighbors of all faiths.
"When something like this happens, people in the community can say ‘I know Mohammed or Fatima or even Jim, and I know them to be a good person,'" he said. "This is the most powerful type of testimony."
More dialogue about the culture and the challenges facing Afghanistan and the region would also be beneficial, many of those interviewed said. If Americans can gain more understanding of the complexities of the conflict, Zuberi and the others agree, more effective solutions to underlying problems can be sought.
"Most people don't understand that that part of the world (northwest Pakistan) is mostly illiterate," Zuberi said. And when only a few people can read the Quran, she said, they can skew it and maintain a "kind of control" over the population.
Muslims look to the Quran for divine guidance and direction for living life.
Photo: Allyson Felt, NewsNetNebraska
A lack of opportunities and resources in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan allow the Taliban to flourish among a desperate population.
"They (the common people) don't have education, don't have job opportunites, don't have running water." Baloch said. "Of course they are vulnerable to being exploited."
He knows of men from the Northwest Provinces who have spent 60 years building a home and life "to have it all blown away" in U.S. drone attacks. And a lack of stories like that - those humanizing the struggles of people in the Northwest Provinces - has contributed to the misunderstanding.
Even though media portrayal has "hijacked" the American public's view of Islam, the community remains steadfast in its outlook. The Muslim majority in Pakistan - just like the Muslim minority in America - simply wants an end to the violence.
"We do not support the Taliban; of course we do not," said Summayia Khan, a senior UNL student from bomb-wracked Peshawar. "Islam preaches peace left and right."
Indeed, that same peace allows for a strong sense of compassion in Lincoln's Muslim community - for victims of all religions in Fort Hood, in Peshawar and around the globe.
"Even if I'm not personally affected," graduate student Baloch said, "those who were killed were my brothers."
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly quoted Baloch as saying there is a connection between the Fort Hood shootings and the bombings last week in Peshawar, Pakistan. That passage has been removed because of the error..
The article is clearly written and covers the subject objectively. The video and photos enhance the work and make it a complete story. Nice job on a very sensitive subject.
+1
... written by Rhonda Frans,
November 10, 2009
Well written article--on a very complex issue!
+0
... written by Omran Malik,
November 10, 2009
It is no doubt a complex issue but to make a connection in the article between Fort Hood shootings and Peshawer bombings is absolutely irresponsible with no basis to support it in the article. Another problem is that in the Video, Maliha Zubari's comment was repeated and cut off at the end before she finished her sentence where she states that there is no ideology that promotes violence now sounds like she is saying otherwise.
+0
... written by Rachel Frans,
November 10, 2009
Karalynn, I thank you for putting such a compassionate outlook into the media. I hope that everyone will read it and realize that there is a lot to learn in order to truley understand the peace of Islam. Education is the key to life and understanding. Everyone needs to take the time to learn about the worlds MANY religions in order for us to have peace on this earth. Thank you for your work.
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