Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Muslim Survivor Stories! |
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| jannah |
| 09/26/01 at 16:52:07 |
| We know there were hundreds of Muslims in the Twin Towers as fact. On the front page of jannah.org there is a first hand account by br usman. This is a good story on the cover of todays detroit free press http://www.freep.com/ about a muslim brother's escape from the disaster, not included is the harassment he had to undergos when trying to get back in his hotel and at the hotel. Please read and distribute. ---------------------------------------- [img]http://www.freep.com/art/2001/sep/26/front_zub.jpg[/img] SURVIVOR'S STORY: Man who escaped recalls day of terror Ypsilanti resident has a grim view September 26, 2001 BY EMILIA ASKARI FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER Zubair Munshey was running, disoriented, around the ground-floor mall of the World Trade Center, repeating an Islamic prayer: "There is no god worthy of worship but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger." He had just rushed down 61 flights of stairs in the south tower after a plane had crashed into the tower next door. He took three steps out the door and was knocked to the ground by a second explosion. United Airlines Flight 175 had rammed the tower he just escaped. He turned and ran back inside. There is no god worthy of worship but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger. "I just remember thinking, 'Whatever seconds I have left in my life, I want to make the most of them.' That meant reciting those words. I was yelling them out loud, running. People probably thought I was a terrorist, but I didn't care. I thought my life was over." Munshey, 23, a Muslim of Pakistani descent from Ypsilanti, is a newly minted financial planner for the Livonia office of Morgan Stanley. On Sept. 11, he was attending a training session in New York. Today he is an older man, who will forever look at things around him -- from highway toll booths to U.S. foreign policy -- with a wary eye. He has spent much of the last two weeks thinking about why some Muslims hate the United States so much that they would fly a jet into a skyscraper. Munshey said he thinks he understands -- and he fervently wishes that his fellow Americans also would try to comprehend the roots of that hatred. Unless that happens, Munshey said in his first interview since his escape, he fears that attempts to avenge the terrorist attacks will only increase hatred for America, and result in more terrorism. Some Muslims hate the United States, Munshey said, because it hasn't brokered the creation of a Palestinian nation. In addition, Munshey said, Muslims worldwide will think the United States is hypocritical if it does not offer solid proof of terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden's involvement in the attacks. Since Sept. 11, Munshey's life has changed in some ways. He still shows up for Monday night practice of his all-Muslim softball team, the Underdogs, which plays in the Canton Softball League. He still goes to work every weekday morning, though it seems most everyone he meets wants to hear the story of how he made it out alive. It's a story similar to many already heard. Munshey arrived early for a seminar on credit lending. The subject was so dense that he had to go to the washroom and splash water on his face during a break. Then, there was a sound like a balloon popping. Within minutes, Munshey entered the stream of people flowing down the stairs. Voices in the stairwell spouted information and conjecture. "A plane hit the building!" "Fire!" "The Palestinians!" Munshey -- a graduate of Ann Arbor Huron High School and the University of Michigan-Dearborn -- went faster and faster. Around the 20th floor, someone with a megaphone announced that everything was OK and people should return to their offices. "I just kept going," he said. He reached the ground floor, spun out of the revolving door and took three steps when a loud blast knocked him to the ground. Later, Munshey realized that it was the shock of the second airplane. But right then, he said, he thought a bomb had dropped in front of him. He turned and ran back into the building. People were running everywhere. Munshey saw a police officer and yelled, "Which way?" But the officer was running with panic in his eyes. He didn't answer. Munshey can't remember how he found his way out. Exhausted, he walked about six miles to his hotel, at 37th and Lexington. From there, he called his parents in Ypsilanti. For more than three hours, Munir and Yasmin Munshey had been watching television, wondering whether their son was alive. When his call finally came, they were thankful but not completely relieved: They were concerned about potential backlash against Munshey because of his ethnicity. Since all flights were canceled, Zubair Munshey decided to rent a car and drive home. That, too, was an unsettling experience for the olive-skinned man with the black beard. "Pennsylvania can be a very scary place," Munshey said. "It's like completely a hick town. I had to stop in a rest area, and I was thinking, 'Am I putting myself in a position to be attacked?' At every toll booth, I was scared that the FBI was going to pull me over and put me in jail." Since he reached home, Munshey said he has resolved to make every day count. He is reading the Koran more often and being extra careful not to say unkind things about others behind their backs. When he sleeps, sometimes he has nightmares. They're not about being trapped in a crumbling skyscraper. They're about being chased by an armed FBI agent. |
| Re: Muslim Survivor Stories! |
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| Haseeba |
| 09/27/01 at 19:57:07 |
| lol i was gonna post something about this!! this is a relative of mine......u beat me to it! oh well subhanallah hes ohk |
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