After 37 years in America, Cerritos physician Ridha Hajjar can recite a history of tough times for Shia Muslims, who predominate in places such as Iraq -- where they have long been shut out of power -- and Iran.
He recalls the harassment of the Shia, Islam's largest minority sect, by some majority Sunnis. He remembers the stereotypes slapped on them as violent fanatics after the 1979 seizure of American hostages by Iranian revolutionaries.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday July 08, 2003 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 1 inches; 44 words Type of Material: Correction
Shia Muslims -- A caption in Monday's California section with an article about Shia Muslims incorrectly said an image of the prophet Muhammad hung on the wall in the photograph. The painting was an image of Imam Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad.
He ruefully relates how his wife called U.S. officials to protest the slaughter of Shias who rose up against Saddam Hussein after the 1991 Persian Gulf War: "So what? They're just Shiites," Hajjar says she was told.
"That's why we feel bitter -- the whole world has been ignoring us," Hajjar says.
No longer. Suddenly, with the U.S. war in Iraq and subsequent occupation, the Shia are in the spotlight, often sympathetically portrayed as the courageous victims of Hussein. Suddenly, their holy cities and religious rituals are being covered around the world. Suddenly, they are gaining access to U.S. policymakers.
At the opening conference of the country's first nationwide Shia organization recently, for instance, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz gave the keynote address. He lamented their persecution, praised their creative geniuses, lauded their cooperation in Iraq and acknowledged that a "false image of Shia" had been projected to the world.
"There have been radical changes to the American perception regarding Shias," said Imam Moustafa Al-Qawzini, a religious leader from a large family of Islamic scholars and activists in Southern California and Detroit.
But the spotlight has also magnified the challenges facing the nation's Shias, a polyglot community that may make up more than 20% of the American Muslim population.
The nation's oldest Shia community is in the Detroit area, where Lebanese immigrants began settling a century ago.
But California is home to the largest and most diverse Shia population, with more than 30 Shia mosques, still largely divided by culture and ethnicity.
In West L.A., for instance, the Iranian Muslim Assn. of North America offers Persian lessons and Iranian New Year celebrations, in addition to Islamic religious services.
In Pico Rivera, Swahili mingles with English in the Husseini Imam Bara Mosque, which is dominated by East Africans of Indian origin. In Cudahy, Southern California's oldest Shia mosque is populated primarily by Pakistanis, while Bell's mosque is mostly Lebanese.
