Raja Abdulrahim and Mitchell Landsberg
Some experts say the tense relations and suspicions Muslim Americans have faced since 9/11 may come to an end in 'a new era' without Osama bin Laden. Others caution that change will come slowly.
The reactions reflected unalloyed joy and deliverance: It was "double good news," a "victorious day," the dawn of "a new era." These were the voices of Muslim American leaders and scholars, for whom the news of Osama bin Laden's death came bundled with an extra ribbon of relief.
"American Muslims have kind of been in a kettle, a boiling kettle, and the fire has been this terrorism," said Ihsan Bagby, an associate professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Kentucky. "Hopefully, the demise of Qaeda and this terrorist philosophy will put out the fire."
For all that hope, there were those who said Monday that it was too early to tell whether Bin Laden's assassination by U.S. forces would unshackle the American Muslim community from associations in the public mind with extremism.
"I think the potential lies in either this being a step forward or being a step back, and it all depends on how we decide to use the moment and reflect on it," said Imam Khalid Latif, a chaplain with the New York Police Department and New York University. "We would need people to step up beyond press releases and statements, and really begin to do meaningful work that highlights to people how Islam and Muslims are able to bring benefit back to society."
The attacks unleashed by Bin Laden on Sept. 11, 2001, were a disaster in many ways for American Muslims, who suddenly faced the sort of broad-based suspicion that fell on Japanese Americans during World War II and German Americans during World War I. It was compounded by what some critics viewed as hesitance by Muslim American leaders to adequately denounce terrorism — a charge that the leaders denied, but to little avail.
Complicating the situation was the fact that Muslim Americans, by and large, differed with broad swaths of the country on sensitive issues such as U.S. support for Israel and initial public support for the war in Iraq.
Bin Laden's death may not immediately extinguish the flames of Islamic extremism internationally or anti-Muslim sentiment at home, but many Muslim Americans said they hoped it would be the beginning of the end.
"Bin Laden was symbolic," said Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council. "And the fact that he's eliminated is a symbolic victory for all of us."
May 02, 2011, LA Times
