By Caryle Murphy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 6, 2001; Page A01
Shortly after last month’s terrorist attacks, two bricks ferried
handwritten notes with crude, racist remarks through the front window
of the Old Town Islamic Bookstore in Alexandria. Store manager Hazim
Barakat was angry and frazzled. The Palestinian immigrant also was
unprepared for what happened next.
About 15 bouquets of flowers and more than 50 cards – some with
money – arrived at his store. People from as far away as Tennessee
and Nebraska called with condolences. A local businessman, who would
not give Barakat his name, paid for a new window. Christian ministers
and a rabbi dropped by to express their support.
“The people in the neighborhood were so nice you don’t believe,” said
Barakat, 44, who runs the store for the American Muslim
Foundation. “This is like another family I have. This is my big
family. I want to thank everybody.”
Terrorism and bigotry, it seems, can have unintended consequences.
Across the Washington area and the nation, many Muslims say that
since Sept. 11, they have been encouraged and comforted by unexpected
acts of kindness from communities and individuals. In subdivisions,
stores, restaurants and offices, non-Muslims have approached them
with hugs, handshakes, moral support – even the sanctuary of their
own homes – as well as apologies for attacks by others.
“The love and support we got from the community was overwhelming,”
said Mohamed Magid, 36, imam of All Dulles Area Muslim Society in
Herndon, describing the response after someone spray-painted anti-
Muslim obscenities in the hallway outside the mosque’s prayer room.
Neighboring churches wanted to pay for the damage. Members of
Shorshim, a Jewish congregation in Reston, hand-delivered a poster of
support. Local women volunteered to shop for Muslim women too afraid
to go out. Magid was invited to speak at nearby churches.
“My appreciation for my neighbors, my country and people of faith has
increased,” said Magid, who is from Sudan. “I think we came out of
this stronger, more caring, more appreciative of one another. And
even more tolerant.”
Many reports have suggested that tolerance was a casualty in the
devastation at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Middle
Eastern-looking men have been ejected from airliners on concerns by
nervous pilots and passengers, and Muslim women wearing Islamic head
scarves have been forced off roads by other drivers.
The U.S. Department of Justice has opened about 100 criminal
investigations into “ethnically motivated” acts of violence –
including three deaths – since Sept. 11, a spokesman said.
Still, a steady stream of e-mail to the D.C.-based Council on
American-Islamic Relations reveals another kind of story.
Nada Hamoui, who lives near Tampa, wrote that two days after the
attacks, she found a red rose on her office desk with a card that
said, “From one American to another.” It came from a patient of her
physician husband. “I held it,” she wrote, “and I cried.”
The Islamic Center in Athens, Ohio, reported being mailed a $100
check from a non-Muslim couple who wrote that “we are all one
people.” In San Diego, the Islamic Center said it was “flooded with
letters and cards of support.” And Olga Benedetto, a 27-year-old
student at Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute, e-mailed an offer
of “help for those in the Chicago area needing groceries or other
needs. . . . I understand that some of you are afraid to leave your
homes.”
Similar sentiments have been evident around Washington. Egyptian-born
Ahmed Heshmat, a doctor who lives near Rockville, said that his wife,
Jenane, was shopping recently with their two young daughters
when “the manager came running up to her and gave the girls a gift.
It turned out to be pencils and papers. He said it was just to show
support.”
In Manassas, a local interfaith group contacted Prince William
County’s Muslim Association of Virginia with an offer to guard its
mosque, said association President Yaqub Zargarpur, a businessman who
came from Afghanistan 20 years ago. “They said they had families
offering their homes to anyone who did not feel safe,” Zargarpur
added. “I am so proud of Prince William County.”
Four days after the Sept. 11 attacks, Adisra Jittipun, a Muslim woman
who wears a head scarf, stopped at Chason’s Country Buffet in
Winchester, Va., with two non-Muslim girlfriends.
About 10 minutes after they began eating, a waitress came over. “It
was kind of our first assumption that she was possibly going to kick
us out,” recalled Jittipun, a 23-year-old senior at George Mason
University. Instead, she handed them the $30 they had paid for their
food, saying the restaurant wanted to give them a free meal.
“She knelt by our table and was very sympathetic . . . saying that
she didn’t want us to go to war,” Jittipun recalled. The waitress
also “said she was very proud that I had the strength to wear the
Islamic attire. . . . I was very happy about that,” Jittipun
added. “And once she left, she was actually in tears. She just walked
away in tears. And everybody was silent.”
Patricia Morris, of Falls Church, said it was a walk with her son the
day after the attacks that got her wondering about her Muslim
neighbors. As they passed Dar al-Hijrah mosque, “it was the first
time I ever saw the iron gates closed, and I wondered what kind of
threats they were feeling,” she recalled.
Morris called a Palestinian neighbor. "She told me, ‘We’re not doing
too well. We’re all very scared,’ " said Morris, 48.
So when President Bush declared the Friday after the attacks a day of
mourning, Morris went into action, leafleting her subdivision of Lee
Boulevard Heights with invitations to a 7 p.m. candlelight vigil of
solidarity outside the mosque. More than 30 people attended. In
appreciation, a few Muslims who had been at evening prayers there
emerged and distributed white roses to the vigil’s participants.
Anwar Al-Awlaki, imam of Dar al-Hijrah, said the mosque has had
other “very positive” responses from neighbors. Eighty tenants of the
nearby Woodlake Towers apartment building sent a statement: “We want
your congregation to know that we welcome you in this community . . .
and wish you health, security and prosperity.”
And George Chiplock, principal of Corpus Christi, a Catholic
elementary school three blocks from the mosque, brought it more than
450 cards made by students. “We teach respect, tolerance and love of
neighbor here,” Chiplock said, “and we thought it would be a good
idea to contact our neighbors and let them know we are thinking of
them.”
Linda Jasper, an English teacher at Rockville’s Magruder High School,
also was spurred to reach out. She and some friends decided that they
would stand guard at night for a week outside the nearby Islamic
Center of Maryland to make sure it was left undisturbed. “The idea of
someone being afraid to pray,” she said, “is crazy to me.”
When the Muslim Student Association at Magruder found out, they sent
Jasper a thank-you note. “Not only were you protecting a mosque that
many Muslims consider another home,” they wrote, “but you were doing
it at a time when it is a dangerous and hazardous situation.”
Magruder senior Karim Baz, 17, whose parents emigrated from Egypt,
said that his friends at school “came up to me and said, ‘Karim, if
anyone is saying anything to you, you just come to us.’ To feel that,
after all this, I’m being accepted, it’s great.”
His feelings are shared by Pakistani-born doctor Abid Khan, 41, who
said he was nervous about going to pray at his Richmond mosque the
Friday after the attacks. But then he found about 50 people from a
Presbyterian church there, holding up banners extolling unity.
“Seeing these gestures gave us a feeling of comfort and peace,” Khan
said. “You have to give the credit to the people who are keeping a
positive, friendly attitude. That’s what makes America great. It’s
not its military or its advances in science. It’s the kindness,
affection, helpfulness and tolerance which is found in the large
majority of people here. That’s really what makes America great.”
© 2001 The Washington Post Company