City of Residence:
Maple Grove, MN
Occupation:
Pharmacist
Excerpt:
I think we have to realize that [when] we do the Sunday schools, the Islamic schools, the weekend schools, that we are not in Kabul anymore. We are not in Karachi anymore. We are not in Cairo anymore. We are not in Mogadishu anymore. We’re in America and we really are a minority. We’ve got to start teaching them very relevant things. We have to teach them how to pray, how to fast, why they believe, why are they Muslims? We have to teach them comparative religions, we have to teach them about Islamic identity. And I think the other thing that we have to do for them is to make sure to have a positive environment for them.
I think not only that we have mosques, but I think mosques are doing more things; they have more food shelves, they are not only reaching out to the Muslim community, but the larger community. They are doing more volunteer work, their people are actually going and cleaning up the highways and trying to go and help out the neighbors as an organized way to rake their leaves from their yards if they’re elderly, they’re trying to help reach out more to the larger community, not just the Muslim community, which I think is really good to have.
I think that I’ve been blessed in many, many ways. I was able to go to school, I was able to meet a lot of good people; a lot of good people who did not look at me like a Muslim foreigner, a lot of people who looked at me like as I’m regular person. They offered me jobs, and internships, and volunteer activities; and they showed me the way, how to apply to scholarships and how to apply to colleges and things, so I met a lot of very good people here. And, alhamdulillah, thank God, I think that life has been good. I was able to finish college, I was able to get a job as a professional, I was able to invite my parents to come over. I was able to have our children here go to school, and buy a house, and buy a car—what people call the American dream. So, Alhamdulillah, I think that it has been very good, and I have been telling people also that we should be grateful for the blessings that God has given us in America, the blessings that God has given us in Minnesota, because sometimes, the other side of things is that we forget about the blessings.
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