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I think the kids understand how much it took for us to come from where we were,
you know, back in Kashmir, and where we are now. I think they respect us for that,
and realize that it was not a simple task, it was not just, you know— it’s a journey;
it’s a lot of planning, it’s a lot of hard work before, to be able to make the grades to
be able to apply, and a lot of hard work since we’ve come here; it’s not been an easy
journey, I have to say, it’s only now that we’re getting very— we’re getting
comfortable. I’m not sure how much, being that they are born and brought up here,
I’m not sure how much of an impact it’s making on them, so they understand; we
talk about it a lot, only in the sense that we want them to have some basic values.
You know, that life isn’t easy, it’s hard work; every morning when they say “No, I
don’t want to go to school at 7AM in the snow.”, you have to bring out those stories
of how you did what you did, how you traveled through snow, and how you went to
your tuitions and school and kept pushing for good grades.

I think, for the family, for the children, I think it is good to know that there are
others from the same background and in the same situation where parents
immigrated, and now they are all in the same boat, where we’re all American, we are
from— you know, we’re not born American, but our kids are; and to try to— try to
ease their, any conflicts in them, I think it’s good to have the community grow and
expand, the way it is.

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In general, the Muslim youth have a very distinctive challenge, and this is probably
very similar to a lot of the immigrant communities, but it has a different connotation
when it comes to religious difference, and that is the double identities: the fact that
you have a very strong cultural atmosphere at home, and then you have a very
different life that you have outside of the home. And children, especially the youth,
have a very difficult time balancing those two; so a lot of the youth have a very
difficult challenges with that, balancing their religious and their cultural
requirements, at the same time trying to take on some of the new culture and new
practices that their friends and the environment that they live in practices, and
finding out which one to take and which one to leave behind. So as part of the youth
leaders early on here, that was one of the biggest challenges that we have to
overcome.

I would like to see a very connected community, a community that is connected with
wherever they are. At the same time, a community that’s an example; I mean, if our
religion teaches us to be exemplars, to be the exemplars of mankind, then we have
to play that role. We have to get to the point where that community is looked upon
for other communities look at us for—as an example, as a community to follow. You
know, when people want free healthcare or free clinics, they should know that, you
know, we go to the Muslim clinic because they give us a free clinic. They should
know that whenever there’s a need ‘cause that’s, you know, that’s a tradition of the
prophet, that’s the tradition that we’re supposed to carry on. Yeah, I know we came
here and, you know, we struggled but eventually we’re gonna have to get up, crawl, and start walking, and eventually run and be part of this framework and, you know, build the legacy that was built on by the early settlers here in Minnesota. The people that came here didn’t expect, when they were in this poor conditions in, you know, as farmers, they didn’t know that
694 was gonna be here, 94’s gonna be here, you know, these big buildings and all
this—they didn’t expect that. They were given this flat land and they were asked to
make something out of it, and that’s, you know, that’s a tall order, and I think the
Muslim community came here and they were brought here and, you know,
whichever way and they’re now asked to be part of this community; and the least
they can do is to be part of the community, but also be part of the exemplar part of
the community. And I think that’s my hope for the future.

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It’s a lot more private here at Carleton than it’s—I don’t know if private is the right
word, personal. It’s a lot more having to motivate myself because there isn’t a Masjid
in town. I was really lucky about was I had a fantastic, very, very open and very—the
most loving girl as my roommate and I explained to her at the beginning of the year:
“Um, so I’m going to pray in here.” I figured out the direction and all that sort of stuff
and I was like “here’s what’s going to go down basically, um, five times a day I am
going to be in here and I am going to facing that wall and I’m going to be praying.” I
told her if you ever, ever have any questions about it, please please please ask me;
and she did ask me. It was a lot more, it was really easy—she made it a lot easier for
me to lay down what I needed rather of just being like BAM, this is what I need from
you when I’m praying. She asked me, “Well is there anything I should do, should I not
talk? Should I not play music?” And I was like, Yes! That’s exactly what you should do,
thank you so much for bringing it up for me. The first few times were a little
awkward because she tried to talk to me not realizing I was praying, but she was so
sweet about it.

I personally cannot see a life where I do not involve my family, and if my family is
going to be an important part of my life there is just some things I know that my dad
won’t accept, some things I know that my mom won’t be comfortable with and like
barring, like I don’t want to be cut off from them over silly things like this. So it was
important, that’s why it was important for me I guess, to come up with ways that we
could both kind of win because I wasn’t going to be happy sitting at home all the
time and they weren’t going to be happy having me out all the time. So I mean, I’m
sure it’s what every family really has to do, like compromise on curfews and like
allowances and stuff like that. But first generation I think there is just that added
layer of—it’s like not only what your parents want you to do, but the fact that their
expectations are just so different from the very beginning.

I think, I guess advice for Muslim youth today would really be… to make your
Muslim identity part of who you are, and not something separate that you have to
keep referring back to. It’s very important for—I think especially in your teenage
years, where your identity is something you’re always questioning. To be very
deliberate about making your religion part of your identity and not aside of yourself,
and not something separate from who you are.

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I do not doubt that there are elements within the Muslim community that have
decided that they are the only ones that have the monopoly for the truth, they are
the only ones that have monopoly for what is right and what is wrong and the law.
So it’s an exclusive kind of approach to religion, and these are the ones that have
become radicalized, perhaps, or have decided that if you’re not with me, then you’re
against me kind of attitude. I have no doubt that that’s happening. I think the
problem is that brushing everybody with the same brush is a dangerous—is a
dangerous act because then it’s easy to demonize, it’s easy to look at somebody as
being less human than you. And the moment you do that, then we have a problem.

A lot of people understand Muslims as a group of people that worships some other
deity, you know, some other god. And they—and of course, they have no idea of
what we aspire for, what we look for, and what we see, you know, as a purpose in
life and things like that. And what I think I’d like to say, if this is of any use to the
audience here, is that number one, if we believe that this is the same God, right, that
all everybody worships, it obviously is God. It has to be a good God, a wise God and
all-powerful God and all that. And so the same things that we aspire for or that we
should work towards—the things that we should work towards are common.
There’s a lot of the same values and the same aspirations we share. So if, for
example, if somebody says, OK, you have to be fair or you have to be just, then
everybody should benefit from that justice. So my sense of justice is the same sense
of justice that you have.

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Well, I am an Iraqi-American who feels that as I am Iraqi 100% and American
100%, that makes me 200% human being. And that goes beyond all the labels.

Because I am an American, an Iraqi equally and because I am a human being above
everything, when the war started against Iraq in 2003, I felt the war actually started
within me—Sami the American is attacking Sami the Iraqi, and Sami the Iraqi is
reacting violently against Sami the American and its state of violence and war. So I
couldn’t take it, especially when I sit down in my living room watching what’s happening in Iraq at that time and the news was bringing me really sad news that hundreds and
hundreds of Iraqis are killed every day. So I couldn’t work at my place, I couldn’t eat
or sleep; within 12 months I decided to go back to do something as a way of healing. And I formed successfully Muslim peacemaker teams in Najaf, where we could build ties between communities, extend bridges between Shia and Sunnis to remind them
that we are one and if the invasion and the agenda of the occupation should divide
us, we should be aware of that and we should peacefully resist.

And also, creating the Muslim peacemaker teams in Iraq inspired group of people here to form the IARP as an echo for Muslim peacemaker teams in Iraq. And the IARP is the Iraqi-American Reconciliation Project that was founded to support the work of MPT in Iraq—the Muslim Peacemaker Teams—and also to
reconcile between Iraqis and the Americans aftermath the war—after the war and
the destruction. So when Najaf and Minneapolis became sister cities, we were be
able to bring delegates from Najaf to here and from Minneapolis to Najaf for the last
two years.

One thing proved that hosting, like Americans hosting Iraqis, just like infidels
hosting terrorists and when they sit down face to face, looking in the eyes and
breaking that bread and Wisconsin cheese together, they found out no, that terrorist
concept and infidel concept just stereotype. There is no place—it’s a hoax, it’s a
myth and we should continue to meet as people to people and implement that
people-to-people diplomacy

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Well, the word ‘shariah’ itself in the language, linguistically, means a path and it
more so means a path to a water body, or it means the water body itself. And the
resemblance here between the path to a water body and the law in Islam which is
not only limited to penalties or penances, it is basically the creed, the practice is
basically a relationship with God. It’s your prayers, it’s your fasting, it is your belief,
it’s your certainty in His presence, in His greatness, in His perfection. All of this is
the way, the way that was prescribed for Muslims to take. And they are not taking it
to a physical water body that is important for their physical sustenance, but they are
taking it towards spiritual sustenance. And that’s the resemblance between the
word shariah and the word, the technical use of the word shariah and the linguistic
use.

Certainly there are differences between America and Egypt, and there are
differences between the culture in the United States and the culture in Egypt.
However, there are core values that human beings, by their general inclination,
agree on, whether they are Christians or Muslims or non-Christians, non-Muslims,
something else. They, by the general inclination that God inculcated in us, we agree
on many core values such as kindness to the parents being a good thing, cruelty to
animals being a bad thing. I think any human being, no matter what their religious
or cultural background is, they would agree on those principles. So, there were
principles that or there were values that you don’t find different. There were
certainly perspectives and perceptions that are different. But many of the core
values that human beings agree on you can find them wherever you go.

So, now this is a community that is, the identity of this community is being formed
and the direction of this community is also being formed. So, it’s a good time, it’s an
exciting time to participate in shaping that direction and that identity of our
community here in Minnesota. Minnesota is known to be tolerant and accepting as a
people. You know the common ‘Minnesota nice’ phrase. So, I think that there will be
less difficulty for Muslims integrating within the Minnesota community.

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Well, the greatest achievement we have I believe, from my heart, that we have too
many mosques, but we don’t have unity among all this communities. But this is
achievement that everyone can go to pray in his place, which is about like, one mile
or two miles away from his place. I think this is a great achievement because the
rules in Minnesota here, you have to have a church every two miles. This is the rules.
And nowadays when I see that we have 56 mosques in Minneapolis and St. Paul
alone, OK, I think this is a great achievement.

There are people fighting for one big place in Minnesota. I said, well, this one big
place probably if we are in these good-weather state, that would be more
meaningful. But because we have bad weather and people want to pray in close to
their homes, then I feel like this number of mosques, it will benefit the community
more than if we have centrally located one mosque.

If you want to serve Muslim community, I would recommend you education,
education, and education. Don’t stop because education never stops, even if you
finish your PhD degree. Try to educate yourself more and more and more because
this is the only—make the Muslim people prosper in this country would be
education. And also, because if you are a very well educated, then you be worship
God more intensely and more faithfully because you understand the power and
make you believe more in God.

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Enes:
It doesn’t matter what color you are, where you are from, what religion you
are; it’s bringing the community together, we’re all here so we’re all “something”
American, so, I think it’s important to bring the community like that, not just say,
“I’m this”, and pull to your corner and just chat with your own group. I think it’s
more important to bring the whole community together as “something” Americans.

Cassandra:
This is something that is, it hurts my heart a little bit to be honest
because in Islam there is so much about peace and justice and not fighting against
others. If somebody were to attack you, you have the right to defend yourself but, to
start a fight or start a war is never a good thing and if you were to kill an innocent
person, it’s as if you have killed the whole of humanity that ever existed or ever will
exist. So, when you look at Islam saying things like this and the Prophet Muhammad
saying things are almost identical to the things Jesus had said. You can see that Islam
is so different than it’s portrayed in the media. That’s my main goal is to show
people Islam and what it truly is versus what people say it is. Because even people of
our own religion sometimes have taken things out of context for either their own
benefit or unfortunately if they are corrupt individuals, to corrupt others. So, main
goal and a lot of Muslims’ goals at this point is to try to dispel those misconceptions,
to try to make sure that people understand what Islam really is versus what it has
been portrayed as.

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I think my interest in civil rights came from my childhood, just growing up in Iowa.
There was—we had a lot of great, friendly neighbors, but there was also, you know,
people in the community who did not understand us, who didn’t know who we
were. And we would get, I remember, you know, when I was six, somebody called
our house, just really upset with us and I didn’t really know why, they were
swearing at us, they told us to get out of town; you know, just horrible things like
that. And as a six-year-old, you don’t really understand, you know, like what’s going
on. And I remember my parents just quickly deleted the message, they didn’t wanna
hear it, they didn’t want us to hear it, but I just felt like, you know, like, nobody
should have to live like that. There’s people that have it worse, like, much worse
than our family did in that time because we had a lot of friends, you know, we had
been there for a long time so there were a lot of people that would stand up for us
and advocate for us. But I just thought, well, what about the people that are just by
themselves that don’t really know what their rights are, that are just being
mistreated on a daily basis and they just put up with it? And I think, just early on, I
think that just stuck with me, just having experiencing just a little bit of it myself and
thinking, even back to the civil rights movement and connecting it to now, you
know, just, what if the Muslims in America, what if they were dealing these issues
also? And I think that’s really what sparked my interest.

Most of the people that come to us, they’re not asking for anything huge, they just
want to be able to work, have an income for their family, and just be able to be
respected at work, just be able to pray, just be able to practice their faith at work; I
think that’s really what they’re asking for. And I think it’s amazing that we can help
achieve that, ‘cause what we find is it’s really not a lot of, like, anti-Muslim hatred or
anti-Muslim bigotry that’s stemming a lot of the cases that we get; it’s mostly, you
know, just not understanding, like, they don’t understand, just a lot of ignorance.
And so we can help, just get rid of some of that ignorance, and I think that’s great.

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I have been host for them for the past almost four years, and on topics that
are most of the time chosen by people like the Minnesota Department of Health, and
other healthcare-related organizations, or safety—we also covered topics that are
related to safety in case of emergency preparedness and stuff like that. So the topic
is chosen based on whatever the need is or information that otherwise those
communities won’t get from mainstream media. So, we host a monthly show
through TPT—TPT Minnesota, Twin Cities Public Television Minnesota.
Shows such as cancer, such as what would you do if there was tornado warning?; or, let’s say if
there’s a fire, or children’s dental health—it’s a really wide—wide variety of topics
here that are covered, and it’s really important work because I feel like the ECHO
show is more popular than my radio show because every time I walk into a
shopping center, Somali shopping center, or a place where the community—there
are at least one or two people that watch the show and they were like, oh, we say
you on TV! Or, have I seen you somewhere? And I’m like, probably ECHO TV. So, a lot
of people watch it, a lot of people benefit from it, and I even benefit from it; every
time I’m at those meetings prepping for the show, or doing the actual show, I’m
learning one or two things.

Well, my relationship with being—well, I view myself to be somewhat both,
you know, Somali but then as Minnesotan as it gets. I work with them, I go to school
with them, I’m one of them. When I’m at school, I can hardly differentiate between
the two. So I feel like I, especially with my work at KFAI, I get to learn a lot of things
for my own good, which is, you know, basically the view of people that are not
necessarily Somali, of the Somali community, view of my community, of the others
and just—I feel like I live in the best of both worlds and I really enjoy it.

I feel like right now, although it’s a really tough time for Muslims in
Minnesota, I somehow feel good about the future because every new wave of
immigrants in this country went through what we’re going through—it’s not really
specific and special to us. Of course, when things are happening with you, they’re
specific and special to you, but you know, going again, back to history, the Italians
went through this, the Jews went through this, so we’re really not the only ones
that’s going through this—it’s just America and its history of giving hard time to the
new-comers. So, soon, insha’Allah, we’re going to, you know, prosper and it’s going
to be history that we’ll remember and tell our kids, I guess.

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