[Vision2020] A World Against: UI Muslims Speak Out

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (April 21, 2006) UI Argonaut with a special thanks to Nate
Poppino (Writer, UI Argonaut) and John Pierce (President, UI Muslim Student
Association) -

"Islam is the human religion, not a religion of war. It's a religion you use
to live by. It's a religion of life."

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A World Against: UI Muslims Speak Out
Written by Nate Poppino -Argonaut     
Friday, 21 April 2006  

Unlike many student groups that reserve rooms in the Idaho Commons or
Student Union Building, John Pierce holds his meetings out in the Commons
Food Court.

The benefits of this location are two-fold: His group gets noticed by the
student community at large, and his members become more accustomed to being
publicly known as Muslims.

Kentaro Murai / Argonaut Mechanical engineering sophomore John Pierce
performs Dhuru, or midday prayer, by the Clearwater Room Wednesday.
After all, events of recent years have made many members of the Muslim
Student Association hesitant to do much of anything outside their homes.
"There was a period right after Sami when nobody did anything," Pierce says,
referring to Sami Omar al-Hussayen, arrested in 2003 by the FBI on visa
fraud charges and acquitted in 2004.

That's beginning to change. After trying to kick-start the group during his
two years at the University of Idaho, Pierce, currently the president of the
association, is finally seeing results. The group meets at 6 p.m. every
Thursday, often gathers for a dinner on Friday evenings and had a table at
this year's Vandal Friday Activity Fair to drum up support. Still, Pierce
says the group has a long ways to go.

"We used to play games on Saturdays," he says. "We'd put out an info table,
have potlucks, invite speakers."

First formed in the 1970s when Saudi Arabia sent students to be educated in
the United States, the group serves to both unite Islamic students and
educate the public about the religion. Though only three or four students
show up to each meeting, they're not always the same students, and Pierce
says he considers every Muslim on campus a member by default. The group has
about 30 members at large.

When the group really becomes active is around the time of the Eid al-Fitr
and Eid al-Adha holidays, two of the most important dates on the Muslim
calendar. Al-Fitr celebrates the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting, while
al-Adha serves two purposes, commemorating the prophet Ibrahim's willingness
to sacrifice his son, Ishmael, to God and marking the end of the pilgrimage
to the city of Mecca for many Muslims.

(Ibrahim is known to Judaism and Christianity as Abraham, and both religions
contain a similar story involving Abraham's son Isaac. In all three
versions, the sacrifice is a test of Ibrahim's will, and God stops him
before he kills his son.)
As Islam follows a lunar calendar, the celebrations fall on a different date
each year. This year, Eid al-Fitr will be Oct. 24, while Eid al-Adha will be
from Dec. 31 to Jan. 2. MSA celebrations for both holidays are open to the
public, Pierce says, and he encourages other Moscow residents to
participate.

"We usually have a lot to do with the Eid celebrations," Pierce says. "It's
basically a big feast. We have a sheep slaughtered. We bring traditional
dishes. It's good food and wonderful company."

For Pierce, a sophomore studying mechanical engineering, Islam was a choice
made long ago as he grew up in southeast Idaho.

"I grew up with it (Islam) in the background," he says. "My dad converted,
but he never put it on me."

The religion, he says, is his moral compass.
"It gives me moral reference,  and the values, they keep you thinking clear,
thinking right," he says. "I try to be kind to people. I don't put them
down. I treat them like they're human."

Islam also contains practical instructions for living a healthy, happy life,
he says.
"Islam has a set of values that are easy to live by, and they're relevant,"
he says. "Look at a lot of problems, disease and social problems. Islam has
(rules) to address those problems."

Islam's guidance can be applied other places as well, says UI graduate
student Emily Hull, who is studying chemistry. For her, the religion also
serves to focus and settle herself.

"I used to be a hyper person," she says. "Islam helped me calm down and
channel that energy into more fruitful values."

Hull, who wears the traditional head scarf typical of Muslim women, says the
act helps remind her of how she should conduct herself, and also sets her
apart from other women on campus.

"The act of covering my hair makes me conscious of how I act around people,"
she says. "It's not my goal to attract sexual attention. I don't want to be
objectified."

For junior Shingis Madakhmetov, visiting the United States, first as an
exchange student at a Kennewick, Wash., high school and now as an electrical
engineering major at UI, truly broadened his horizons. The country is home
to many more varieties of Islam than his home country of Kazakhstan, he
says, simply because the religion has not united with the culture.

"If there is one culture, they usually have one way (of practicing Islam),"
he says. "When I came to the United States, I saw it is very diverse. I can
see a lot of opinions."

For him, Islam provides a deeper meaning to life besides working and
studying, and promises the great reward of an afterlife.

"People talk about heaven and hell. They're not as important. Saying life
doesn't end, that's the important thing," he says.

A good Muslim, he says, understands that any moral code he develops on his
own is not complete without God's rules.

"You can get those rules from a divine source, (and they) are complete. They
make you a better person," he says.

Muslims should use those rules to guide them toward being better people, he
says.

"(A Muslim's) goal should be personal improvement," he says. "If something
good happens to him, he thanks God."

And if something bad happens to UI Muslims, they weather the storm.
The arrest of al-Hussayen, a former MSA president, and the imposing FBI
presence on campus during the time of his arrest had a distinct effect on
the group. The government tried to link the UI computer science doctoral
student to terrorist organizations through Web sites he maintained for
outside individuals, but a Boise jury acquitted him. He was then deported,
like his family had voluntarily been shortly after his arrest.

"(Sami's arrest) had a very strong impact on the group," Pierce says. "It
caused many members to keep to themselves."

That reluctance to openly display their faith still lingers in many UI
Muslims, but others are now coming back into the open. Some, such as Hull,
are facing both curiosity and discrimination because of it.

Hull, a graduate student, is American, but is often recognized as Muslim
because of her head scarf. The scarf, she says, has attracted too much
attention at times, including graffiti on her car when she lived in Lewiston
that read "Muslim Go Home."

"When I was living in Seattle right after 9-11, people, when I would wear
the scarf, would give me dirty looks," she says. "Someone told my husband in
the grocery, 'You and Osama are like cousins.'"

In Moscow five years later, she says, the reactions have mostly become
curious, but are still bothersome.

"People do stare at you a lot," she says. "I've been confronted in WinCo by
people asking questions. People aren't as friendly to you. It's not that
awful, but it's not great, either."

In fact, she said, it can get downright creepy.
"When people stare and realize you notice, they smile and then look away,"
Hull says.

Perhaps the strangest was the time she was confronted by a women's rights
activist who saw the scarf as a symbol of religious and sexual repression.
"She said, 'End the oppression, sister.'"

Madakhmetov has witnessed the reverse in terms of discrimination. With his
Asian appearance, he was laughed at once in a class when he suggested he was
Muslim.

"If I don't say I'm Muslim, they wouldn't even guess," he says.
His looks have come in handy, though; for example, when he needed to enter
the country.

"I got my visa in 10 minutes," he says. "The way I look and where I'm from,
I'm not identified as a Muslim."

Neither Hull nor Madakhmetov have experienced what it's like to be an Arab
Muslim in the United States, but they sympathize with those who are. UI's
population of Arab Muslims has declined in recent years, and Hull says
that's because many just don't want to come here any more.

"I can't say I blame them," she says. "It's a loss from the U.S. and a gain
for the European continent. Those who study abroad are the upper crust of
their society."

Pierce, with his ragged beard, rough fabric shirts and ball cap, has had no
such problems. But then, he was born in Idaho.

"I could look like a redneck, a logger type," he says.
His appearance actually causes the opposite problem for him in the Middle
East.

"Guys look at me on the street and say, 'He's an American. We don't like
Americans,'" he says.

Kentaro Murai / Argonaut Shingis Madakhmetov, a senior in electrical
engineering, performs wudu before prayer at the Islamic Center of Moscow
Wednesday at sundown. Wudu is an Islamic term for ablution or ritual
cleansing of parts of the body by water.

He acknowledges he has it easy.

"For the people of Middle Eastern origin, it's made it a lot harder for them
to come out in public. People are always asking questions. They'll come up
and tell them to leave," he says.

Particularly annoying, he says, are critics of the religion who selectively
choose passages from the Quran to back up their claims.

"They make a story for themselves. The story isn't there. If you pay
attention, you'll see that's not what it's saying," Pierce says.

Often missing from such quotes is the context of whatever story the book is
telling. For example, Pierce says, one story tells of a treaty made with a
neighboring nation and broken many times by that nation. Finally, the Muslim
people, feeling betrayed, are directed to wage war on the treacherous
nation, a passage often misquoted.

"You can't read one sentence," he says. "You have to understand how it was
revealed."

Unfortunately, he says, Muslims also create image problems for themselves
through actions such as the riots and embassy burnings that accompanied the
publication of several Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad earlier this year.
"Myself, I don't agree with the cartoons at all. I also don't agree with .
the violent reaction," Pierce says. "You can't do that, even if what someone
else did was wrong first. It was nothing made into something."

Americans need to keep in mind what Islam actually teaches when they watch
such events, Hull says.

"Just because they say they're Muslim doesn't mean they follow anything
Islam teaches them. Belief and practice are two different things," she says.
Islam, Pierce says, is a relatively easy religion to follow. Just keep up
with the prayers, the charity and the other rules, and you should be fine.
For example, he says, any of the five daily prayers that fall during class
time, often the noon prayer, can be delayed until class is over.

"All you have to do is try," he says. "There is no excuse why you shouldn't
be praying, shouldn't be fasting."

Only one-fortieth of a Muslim's earnings has to be donated to charity, a
practice known as "zakat." Pierce says he gives to the Islamic Center of
Moscow, located at 316 S. Lilley St., and the needy, both here and overseas.
"I give to the mosque. It has power bills to pay," he says.

In the end, Pierce says he is a Muslim because the religion speaks to him.
"I look at it this way: Either all of this is for naught, or Islam is true,"
he says. "Islam provides so many examples of relevance, and so many truths
are stated in Islam, it's easy for me to say Islam has purpose and is a way
to relate to life.

"Islam is the human religion, not a religion of war. It's a religion you use
to live by. It's a religion of life."

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Thanks, John Pierce, for reminding us of what the vast majority of the
Islamic faith truly aspire to.

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

" . . . wording plays a big part in understand[ing] the nature and meaning a
verse written two thousand years ago in a different language, and some
Bibles just have it plain wrong."

- Donovan Arnold (August 23, 2005)