Community Corner

Union County Muslims Look to 9/11 Anniversary Without Worry

Group lost member in attack on towers, emphasize that Islam is a religion of peace.

The prayer began shortly after 9 p.m.

The men faced an eastern corner of their small basement headquarters in downtown Elizabeth for the Isha, the fifth of the daily Muslim prayers. The prayer was sung in a lulling cadence. For long stretches, the words dropped out, and the light whirring of the fans drying out the lingering moisture from Hurricane Irene filled the room.

“When we do the [prayer] Salat, we do it calmly, we do it softly,” Abdul Shiekh said.

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It was a Thursday, and less than a dozen members attended the nightly prayer service at the Muslim Community Center of Union County. Friday, the brothers said, was the big night for services, when more than 200 members packed into the center’s room for prayers. That night, the small room had plenty of space.

The group has been meeting in its Elizabeth headquarters since 1997. The members were of Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Indian origin. They were doctors, pharmacists and students, as well as fathers and sons.

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I was visiting them to learn how Union County’s Muslim community was encountering the tenth anniversary of Sept. 11. I met with the group on Thursday, Sept., 1., the day after Eid ul-Fitr, the feast marking the end of Islam’s month-long daylight-fasting holiday Ramadan. Despite the upcoming anniversary and the recent controversy surrounding the appointment of Muslim judge Sohail Mohammed to New Jersey Superior Court, the members were untroubled by controversy and focused instead on prayer and their community’s future.

After the attacks on the towers, despite backlash against Muslims in other parts of America, their neighbors in Union County did not lash out. Most of the members live in Elizabeth and Union Township, where  diverse communities displayed compassion and understanding. 

“My neighbors after 9/11 were calling me and asking me if I needed any help,” MCCUC board president Nawaz Sheikh said.

The attacks on the towers presented the group with a different challenge. One of its members, 25-year-old Khalid Shahid of Union, a systems administrator for Cantor Fitzgerald, was on the 105th floor of Tower One in the World Trade Center that morning. Shahid’s father is a member of the group, but declined to participate in the story. Members of the group expressed their compassion and sorrow for all victims of the attacks.

“They were innocent people, there for bread and butter,” Abdul Sheikh said.

Shiekh and others said that because they were visible and friendly members of their communities, their neighbors treated them with familiar understanding.

“Our neighbors came to us and said there’s a huge disconnect between what I see in the media and what I see in you,” an MCCUC member said.

The federal census does not record religious identification, and there are no exact statistics for how many Muslims there are in New Jersey or the United States. The CIA World Factbook estimates that 0.6 percent of Americans were Muslim in 2007, putting the total U.S. Muslim population at about 1.9 million. Other estimates vary, but most agree that the number of Muslims in America is growing faster than any other religion. New Jersey is said to have the second highest statewide number of Muslims by population after Michigan.

Reflecting on places in America where Muslims suffered backlash and attacks, they said they believed the attacks occurred in places where few Muslims lived.

On the wall behind the MCCUC, members hung a chart with dates and dollar values. The MCCUC is raising money to buy a former Arab church in Elizabeth, a location priced at slightly more than $1 million. 

They're about a quarter of the way to the goal. They expressed optimism about their ability to meet the price, but were upbeat no matter the outcome.

"We're hoping that people will read your article and donate money to help us," Nawaz Sheikh said, happily. "But if we can't raise the money, we'll find a smaller place."


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