American Muslims have never been much of a presence in the Los Angeles Police Department, accounting for less than 1% of its nearly 10,000 officers.
But now, with department leaders eager to improve relationships with local Muslims, top brass have named the force's first Islamic chaplain: a Pakistani-born spiritual leader who has spent much of the last decade trying to build bridges between law enforcement and Los Angeles County's diverse Muslim communities.
Sheik Qazi Asad, 47, will serve as a reserve chaplain at the LAPD's North Hollywood station. The volunteer post requires about eight hours of service each month. But to Asad and his LAPD patrons, it represents an opportunity to expose officers to a culture and faith that many may find unfamiliar, even foreign.
And that, Asad and LAPD leaders hope, will enhance relations that have been strained at times, particularly in the aftermath of a much-criticized plan by the department in 2007 to map the city's Muslim population. The plan, which some critics equated to religious profiling, was scrapped after a week of protests.
"We need to establish very good communication . . . where both parties are talking to each other," Asad said. "This is just opening up the door."
Asad arrived in the United States at age 24, with virtually no money and speaking very little English. He learned to speak the language by taking classes at Los Angeles City College and by watching the news on television. And he learned a profession, the insurance claims business. Meanwhile, he began serving informally as a religious advisor to other Muslims -- presiding over weddings and funerals, heading a nonprofit organization whose members prepare the dead for burial, conducting weekly spiritual classes at a storefront office space in Inglewood.
He got involved with law enforcement after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca asked Asad to join a news conference at which Baca and other elected leaders demonstrated their solidarity with the embattled Muslim community. Baca had met Asad in the 1990s at dinners with elected officials and community leaders in the South Bay, where Asad lives.
The bearded Asad, a U.S. citizen, came to the news conference wearing traditional Muslim attire -- a turban, long collarless shirt and trousers ending above the ankle. Soon after, he was asked to join Baca's Executive Clergy Council. He brought about a dozen other American Muslim leaders with him.
