American Muslims

The news made Nihad Awad sick to his stomach. Like the rest of the nation, Awad, who heads the Council on American-Islamic Relations, learned this week that it allegedly was a Muslim who opened fire at a U.S. Army base in Texas, killing 13 people and injuring many more. According to witnesses, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan issued the great, exalting cry of his faith before opening fire: " Allahu akbar !" God is great. Hearing the story, Awad too would invoke his maker -- but with a weary lament that is echoing coast to coast among American Muslims.

Lowe's should have expected backlash when it pulled advertising from the TV reality show "All-American Muslim" in response to an email campaign by a conservative Christian group in Florida. Consumers who see the bigotry behind that campaign are understandably disappointed with the home improvement giant. It wasn't the company's finest moment. But Lowe's has every right to spend its advertising dollars where it chooses. It may not have been a courageous move or even, ultimately, a smart one, but it was a business decision the company is entitled to make.

The Muslim population in the United States is projected to more than double in the next 20 years, from 2.6 million to 6.2 million, according to a report by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life. The estimated increase, which would put Muslims at 1.7% of the U.S. population, would be mainly from continued immigration and high fertility rates, the researchers said. The Pew report , released Thursday, puts the global Muslim population in 2030 at 2.2 billion, about a 35% increase, which would make Muslims more than a quarter of the world's population, slightly higher than the current share.

Home improvement giant Lowe's Cos. continues to come under heavy criticism from activists, some politicians and customers after pulling its ads from a reality TV show featuring Muslim Americans. The North Carolina company decided to stop advertising on the show "All-American Muslim," on Discovery Communications Inc.'s TLC channel, after complaints by the Florida Family Assn., a conservative Christian group that lobbies companies to promote "traditional, biblical values. " The association praised the move, but the decision sparked immediate backlash.

Re "Arabs See Jewish Conspiracy in Pokemon," April 24: As an American Muslim, I look forward to a day when all Americans are given the truth about Islam by the media. I look forward to the day when Islam is portrayed as the religion of 6 million Americans who contribute to their communities and neighborhoods. A day when everyday American Muslims are interviewed for their courage and discipline in the month of Ramadan and their charity work to keep kids off drugs and alcohol. Unfortunately, that day is not today, as all too often I see images that only portray Muslims as extremist, violent and intolerant.

One of the most interesting things about American Muslims appears to be their sports loyalties. That's what many have discussed in filming personal messages for an online campaign aimed at countering anti-Muslim rhetoric in the wake of controversy over a proposed Islamic center in New York City and mosque protests elsewhere. Several dozen videos have been posted so far. The videos, which American Muslims are invited to record and upload onto the campaign's website, mostly follow a script: The speakers introduce themselves, give an "interesting fact" about themselves and then launch into a prewritten message about Islam's teachings.

Five young American Muslims who Pakistani police say left their homes and families in suburban Virginia last year to link up with extremist groups in Pakistan were convicted Thursday on charges of plotting terrorist attacks and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The five men had said that they wanted only to carry out humanitarian work in Afghanistan, but Pakistani authorities alleged that the group had clear targets in mind in Pakistan, including an air force base in the city of Mianwali and a nuclear power plant in Chashma.

Looking for a tape of Islamic rap music? Or maybe toothpaste and soap declared halal, permitted for use by Muslims because they contain no animal fat? How about a video of Islamic cartoons, an Islamic road map to mosques throughout the United States, an alarm clock to wake you with a tinny "Allahu Akbar?"

Home improvement giant Lowe's Cos. continues to come under heavy criticism from activists, some politicians and customers after pulling its ads from a reality TV show featuring Muslim Americans. The North Carolina company decided to stop advertising on the show "All-American Muslim," on Discovery Communications Inc.'s TLC channel, after complaints by the Florida Family Assn., a conservative Christian group that lobbies companies to promote "traditional, biblical values. " The association praised the move, but the decision sparked immediate backlash.

"Groups Give U.S. Muslims a New Voice" (Nov. 24), on the fledgling Muslim organizations that attempt to defend human rights for American Muslims and "yet to be naturalized" American Muslims, was uplifting. It may come as a surprise to your readers how many Muslim mosques and Islamic centers there are in America. Just a few months ago I visited (by chance) a Somalian friend of a friend at his apartment complex. I was very surprised to find that the majority in the apartment complex were Somalian Muslims who had cooperatively retained an apartment to use as a mosque--surely a sign of American resourcefulness being expressed by these Somalis who, one day, may be proud to call themselves American Muslims.

The letters TLC, regarding the cable network of that name, originally stood for the Learning Channel but now seem to represent, or seem to want to be seen to represent, something closer to the old Tender Loving Care. The network has made something of a specialty of series that focus on unusual families — that is to say, different from the families of most of the people who watch TLC. Maybe there are more wives than usual; often there are many more children. Little people, big people: The message is that we're all the same, but different, but the same.

The one-line email that greeted Mohammad Mertaban came straight to the point. "Mertaban, find me a husband, k? I await your list of potential suitors," wrote a woman who lives on the East Coast. Mertaban was not surprised, although he knew the woman only slightly. "If it comes from a brother or sister whom I don't know very well, I know that she would do it out of frustration, desperation or a strong desire to get married," he explained later. An information technology project manager who lives in Fullerton, Mertaban, 30, has grown accustomed to urgent requests — by phone, email and in person — since he began dabbling in matchmaking for friends and acquaintances about eight years ago. Those he helps are observant young Muslims searching for a modern path to marriage that stays true to Islam.

Maria Khani was at her computer that September morning, working on an Arabic textbook. The small TV on the desk was turned to Al Jazeera. Suddenly, news came: A plane had struck the World Trade Center. Minutes later, she watched the screen as the second plane hit. Khani sat frozen, questions racing through her mind: "Oh, my God, what do I do right now? Is everything that I built … gone?" For five years, she had been planting the seeds of goodwill with Americans of other faiths.

A survey of Muslim Americans released Tuesday portrays a community largely content with its place in American society and optimistic about the country's direction, despite concerns about anti-Muslim discrimination in the years since the Sept. 11 attacks. The poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that Muslims in the United States are more satisfied than other Americans with the way things are going in the country. A majority said that most Muslims who come to the U.S. want to adopt American customs and ways of life.

At the pulpit of an inner-city Chicago mosque, the tall blond imam begins preaching in his customary fashion, touching on the Los Angeles Lakers victory the night before, his own gang involvement as a teenager, a TV soap opera and then the Day of Judgment. "Yesterday we watched the best of seven.... Unfortunately we forget the big final; it's like that show 'One Life to Live,' " Imam Suhaib Webb says as sleepy boys and young men come to attention in the back rows. "There's no overtime, bro. " The sermon is typical of Webb, a charismatic Oklahoma-born convert to Islam with a growing following among American Muslims, especially the young.

Last year, a Muslim congregation in Murfreesboro, Tenn., a pleasant college town of about 110,000 people southeast of Nashville, decided that the time had come to build a proper mosque. For 20 years or more, the town's roughly 250 Muslim families had met for prayers in makeshift quarters, and the congregation's prosperous leaders — doctors, professors, auto dealers — thought they could do better. They bought a 15-acre plot of land next to a Baptist church south of the city limits, and won approval from the Rutherford County Planning Commission for a 53,000-square-foot community center.

Three American Muslims accused of training for holy war against the United States by waging paintball battles in the Virginia woods were convicted Thursday of conspiring to support terrorism. Prosecutors said the three were part of a "Virginia jihad network" that used paintball games in 2000 and 2001 to train for holy war around the globe. After the Sept. 11 attacks, the group allegedly focused its efforts on defending the Taliban.

Omaima Bukhari is a precocious Muslim in Maryland. She's 20, fascinated by Islam, computer science and psychology. She discusses everything with her father, Zahid, who works at Georgetown University and counts as friends imams and sheiks from Al Azhar, the prestigious seat of Islamic learning in Cairo. Last December, she attended an engagement party for relatives in Pakistan. The bride-to-be was sobbing in the next room.

The sounds of Helen Reddy's 1972 anthem to the women's liberation movement, "I Am Woman," filled the Irvine hotel ballroom where several hundred participants gathered Saturday for the American Muslim Women's Empowerment Conference. The song selection was fitting because the message speakers gave was basically the same as it was four decades ago: Know your rights, and exercise them. But there was an added twist: By standing up for their rights inside and outside the home, American Muslim women can be a force against religious and political extremism.

Three young women, all wearing delicate hijabs, are gathered outside a TriBeCa lecture hall in eager anticipation. It's not an actor or a pop star they're waiting for. The object of their giddiness is Sheriff Lee Baca, in town for just one night. It might be unusual for a lawman anywhere to have fans, let alone one a continent away from his jurisdiction. But such is the life of Los Angeles County's chief law enforcement officer since his outspoken support of American Muslims vaulted him into the national spotlight.