صراط عشق صراط عشق
The warning came as Iman Hassan walked over one Ramadan night to grab some Mediterranean food on a table close to the women’s prayer space at Masjid Al-Israa in Fridley. “Don’t go there yet,” she heard an Arab woman tell her children. “The Somali hyenas are over there.” Sedika Gazey, who describes herself as a “dark-skinned” Yemeni who rented a basement room from a Palestinian-Jordanian Muslim family in Minneapolis, had to put up with one little boy who called her the N-word. Each time he said it, his mom laughed and said, “Oh, it’s OK. He doesn’t know.”
Kamal Hassan watched Somali congregations evaporate from their beloved Masjid Al-Tawba in Eden Prairie after an Arab mosque leader called them “cockroaches” because they didn’t follow the parking instructions he laid out for them. The killing of George Floyd on Memorial Day, which has ignited high profile demonstrations against racism across the United States, is also helping to expose long-festering wounds of racism in Minnesota’s estimated 150,000-member Muslim community. In the fraught atmosphere after Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer, racist comments surfaced on social media that Lianne Wadi, the daughter of Holy Land CEO Majid Wadi, and her cousin Suleiman made on Instagram several years ago.
Layla Asamarai and Julie Henderson, Twin Cities Muslim scholars who lead regular online discussions that typically focus on mental health issues in the community, focused their talk over the weekend on the history of race, the persistence of racism and the importance of speaking frankly about anti-blackness — even if it means airing the community’s dirty laundry.
Asad Zaman, executive director of Muslim American Society of Minnesota, urged people in a Facebook post to “uproot the sin of racism” from their community and to stand in solidarity with black Americans in their struggle for justice. Many religious leaders in Minnesota — and across the nation — also addressed the issue in their Friday sermons. Ordinary Muslims who don’t have access to large platforms took to their personal social media accounts to express their frustration with bigotry in the community.
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Kassim Busuri, executive director of Islamic Da’wah Center and former St. Paul City Council member. Credit: Jaida Grey Eagle | Sahan Journal
