There is the dread of leaving the house that morning. People might stare, or worse, yell insults. Prayers are more intense, visits with family longer. Mosques become a refuge.
Eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks in the US, many US Muslims still struggle through the anniversary of the attacks. Yes, the sting has lessened. For the younger generation of Muslims, the tragedy can even seem like a distant memory.
“Time marches on,” said Souha Azmeh al-Samkari, a 22-year-old student at the University of Dayton in Ohio.
Yet, many US Muslims say Sept. 11 will never be routine, no matter how many anniversaries have passed.
“I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach every year,” said Nancy Rokayak of Charlotte, North Carolina, who covers her hair in public. “I feel on 9/11 others look at me and blame me for the events that took place.”
Rokayak, a US-born convert, has four children with her husband, who is from Egypt, and works as an ultrasound technologist. She makes sure she is wearing a red, white and blue flag pin every Sept. 11 and feels safer staying close to home.
Sarah Sayeed, who lives in the Bronx, said that for a long time she hesitated before going out on the anniversary. The morning the World Trade Center crumbled, she rushed to her son’s Islamic day school so they could both return home. The other women there warned that she should take off her headscarf, or hijab, for her own safety. She now attends an interfaith prayer event each Sept. 11, keeping her hair covered as always.
“There’s still a sense of ‘Should I go anywhere? Should I say anything?’ There’s kind of that anxiety,” said Sayeed, who was born in India and came to the US at age eight. “I force myself to go out.”
The anniversary brings a mix of emotions: sorrow over the huge loss of life, anguish over the wars that followed, but also resentment over how the hijackings so completely transformed the place of Muslims in the US and beyond.
A poll released this week by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 38 percent of Americans believe Islam is more likely than other faiths to encourage violence. That is down from 45 percent two years earlier.
It is now common in US mosques for Muslims to preface public remarks by saying they know the government is eavesdropping, but Muslims have nothing to hide.
“It put a lot of Muslim Americans in the position of, ‘We don’t blend in as much as we thought we did,’” said Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, a native New Yorker whose college friend was killed in the World Trade Center.
Some of the Muslims interviewed for this story said they have been subjected to insults, though not just on the Sept. 11 anniversary.
Sayeed remembers a man walking by and calling her “Taliban.” Closer to the attacks, an anonymous caller told Rokayak to get out of the country.
Abdul-Matin said he avoids TV news on the anniversary “if it’s too much of this drumbeating or warmongering, if the focus is on ‘what they did to us.’” He prefers spending the day with his relatives, especially his mother, who was with him in Brooklyn the morning of the attacks.
“It’s a family day,” Abdul-Matin said.
Asim Rehman, president of the Muslim Bar Association of New York, was at the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan when the planes hit. He said he passes the day “as a proud New Yorker” in “prayer and reflection” for the victims, their families and others.
A feud has broken out between the top leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on whether to maintain close ties with Russia. The AfD leader Alice Weidel this week slammed planned visits to Russia by some party lawmakers, while coleader Tino Chrupalla voiced a defense of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The unusual split comes at a time when mainstream politicians have accused the anti-immigration AfD of acting as stooges for the Kremlin and even spying for Russia. The row has also erupted in a year in which the AfD is flying high, often polling above the record 20 percent it
Ecuadorans are today to vote on whether to allow the return of foreign military bases and the drafting of a new constitution that could give the country’s president more power. Voters are to decide on the presence of foreign military bases, which have been banned on Ecuadoran soil since 2008. A “yes” vote would likely bring the return of the US military to the Manta air base on the Pacific coast — once a hub for US anti-drug operations. Other questions concern ending public funding for political parties, reducing the number of lawmakers and creating an elected body that would
The latest batch from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s e-mails illustrates the extraordinary scope of his contacts with powerful people, ranging from a top Trump adviser to Britain’s ex-prince Andrew. The US House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on trying to force release of evidence gathered on Epstein by law enforcement over the years — including the identities of the men suspected of participating in his alleged sex trafficking ring. However, a slew of e-mails released this week have already opened new windows to the extent of Epstein’s network. These include multiple references to US President Donald
CHARGES: The former president, who maintains his innocence, was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison for a failed coup bid, as well as an assassination plot Far-right former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro is running out of options to avoid prison, after judges on Friday rejected his appeal against a 27-year sentence for a botched coup bid. Bolsonaro lost the 2022 elections and was convicted in September for his efforts to prevent Brazlian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking power after the polls. Prosecutors said the scheme — which included plans to assassinate Lula and a top Brazilian Supreme Court judge — failed only due to a lack of support from military top brass. A panel of Supreme Court judges weighing Bolsonaro’s appeal all voted to uphold
RSS