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Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
Pilgrims Find Changes on Both Ends of Journey |
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amatullah |
02/16/03 at 20:57:49 |
February 16, 2003 By SUSAN SACHS On the way home from the hajj, his emotion-laden pilgrimage to Islam's holy shrines in Saudi Arabia, Shamsul Quadir began to worry that he might get in trouble for coming back a changed man. "I left clean-shaven and with a full head of hair, and now look at me," Mr. Quadir said after clearing the immigration and customs booths at Kennedy International Airport in New York on Friday. Indeed, Mr. Quadir, a Pakistan-born shopkeeper from Louisiana, wore a five-day growth of dark beard, and when he shyly lifted his baseball cap he revealed a bare, shiny scalp. In the Muslim tradition, he had shaved his head as a sign of piety, and his appearance did not quite match his passport picture. "I was a little scared," he said, "with all the security issues." So it was for many American Muslims on their homecoming from this year's annual religious pilgrimage to the birthplace of Islam, an event that would normally stand as the unalloyed religious high point of their lives. They came back transformed, often physically and certainly spiritually. They also arrived, with a jolt, back in a country on heightened alert for hidden terrorists. Many of the returning pilgrims, disconnected from the press of daily news and living in vast tent cities in Mecca, learned only on their way home that the national threat level had been raised over fears of terror attacks timed to coincide with the end of the hajj. Their journey brought more than a mood shift. In the United States, many Muslims have felt on edge since Sept. 11 and defensive about the image of Islam. In Saudi Arabia, they said, even in a throng of nearly two million Muslims during a solemn ceremony meant to erase such differences, they felt the distinction of being American. Again and again in interviews, the first wave of returning pilgrims spoke of how Muslims from other countries made a point of probing whether they were truly comfortable living in the United States after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. "When they'd see me and realize I was American, they acted as though I must have an F.B.I. agent following me everywhere and that I was fingerprinted at every grocery store," said Irfan Malik, a Baltimore engineer of Pakistani descent on his first hajj. "They had all these misconceptions," Mr. Malik added. "They'd heard that some Muslims were getting arrested and then assumed that everyone was getting arrested." Mr. Malik, 49, said he tried hard to reassure the people he met in Saudi Arabia that his family's life was normal, that government agents were indeed arresting and investigating some Muslims, but that over all, Muslim Americans had a voice in their country's affairs. When he felt hints of hostility, it was directed toward American policy in the Middle East and the prospect of war on Iraq. "We didn't hear anyone saying Saddam is a good guy, yet also they didn't want thousands and thousands of orphans and people being killed," Mr. Malik said. Customs and immigration officials said they were not singling out the hajj flights from the Middle East for special attention. All border entry points to the United States, they said, have been on high alert for terrorists. A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in New York, where many of the direct hajj flights land, also said strict security precautions were being applied to all passengers and flights. Immigration officials said both Saudia and Egypt Air, the airlines that most American hajj travel agencies used, were among the airlines that now provided passenger manifests to authorities here while their flights were en route to the United States. The names are supposed to be compared against those on databases of suspected terrorists before the flights arrive. Those pilgrims who returned over the past two days said they had been told to expect long waits at the airports, going out and coming back, for extra security checks. Some were taken to the airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, six hours or more in advance of their return flights and said that their bags were opened and searched when leaving Saudi Arabia and searched again as they transferred to connecting flights in the United States. Dr. Aziz Ahmad, a lean man in a white skullcap, was one of American Muslims who learned about the alarm in the United States on the plane coming home to New York City. That is when he heard, as well, that the Bush administration had advised Americans to stock up on things like duct tape and plastic sheeting to seal their homes in the case of a biological or chemical attack. Dr. Ahmad, 31, was not at all sure whether airport officials would consider him prescient or suspect when they saw his luggage, which he had wrapped in duct tape before leaving Saudi Arabia to keep it closed. "Anyway, I've still got some left," he said after greeting his father at the airport. Making the pilgrimage, which starts on the eighth day of the 12th month of the Muslim lunar calendar, is a requirement in Islam, an obligation that every adult Muslim with the financial means and physical ability is supposed to complete at least once. It is an arduous experience, not least because of the polyglot crowds from all over the world. The hajj involves long uphill walks, camping out and exacting rules for when and how to pray during symbolic rituals re-enacting events in the life of the biblical patriarch Abraham and his son Ishmael. Muslims regard Abraham as a prophet and Ishmael as the father of the Arabs. "It's a very humbling experience," said Mona Negm, a retiree who left her home in Baltimore to perform the hajj in honor of her mother, who at 80 was too infirm to go. "There are people who can't walk, who don't have the means to be living in luxury, and we all gather in one place and we all worship one god." It is also exhausting. "It's like giving birth," Mrs. Negm said as she waited, clutching a hard-bound edition of the Koran, to transfer planes in New York. "It hurts when you're going through it, but then you just remember the wonder of the experience." Mrs. Negm, too, was struck by how often she was asked about discrimination in the United States. She shrugged the questions off. "They're fascinated to know how we're being treated," she said. "I just say it's a wonderful country, and we're lucky to be part of it." This year's hajj drew more than 1.9 million Muslims to Mecca, according to Saudi authorities. All but about 500,000 of the pilgrims came from outside Saudi Arabia, with at least 10,000 of them from the United States. For this year's pilgrimage, Saudi authorities issued visas only to people who came as part of tour groups organized by travel agencies accredited by the Saudi government. As a result, many pilgrims spent much of their time with fellow Americans. Some people, though, said they felt an undercurrents of hostility toward the United States and, by extension, to the American pilgrims. Faheem Zahir, 49, from Bridgeport, Conn., could not shake the memory of standing in a pharmacy in Medina, where the prophet Muhammad is buried, and waiting in vain to buy cough medicine. The pharmacist, Mr. Zahir said, pointedly ignored him. "This was supposed to be my Muslim brother," Mr. Zahir recalled when he landed in New York. "I did feel some discrimination because I was American. It just wasn't a good experience." Others said they managed to come to a mutual understanding with those they met. Dr. Hahd Alsaghir, a physician from Bloomfield Hills, Mich., said an Indonesian man cornered him for 45 minutes after discovering he is American, peppering him with questions about the situation of Muslims in the United States. "I talked about how people need a better understanding of Islam and how we've been connected to terrorism and it's not fair," said Dr. Alsaghir after arriving in Detroit. "We are both frustrated by the far right in our religion." |
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