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Muslims
in
U.S.
military reassert their patriotism
By KAREN
BRANCH-BRIOSO Post-Dispatch
updated: 03/29/2003 05:35 PM
WASHINGTON
- The news shocked the nation last week as word spread that a deadly grenade
attack on the 101st Airborne in
Kuwait
came allegedly at the hands of an Army sergeant. But for Air Force Sgt. Nidal
Allis, who works at the Pentagon, the news hit doubly hard.
"I was shocked and upset and hurt, just like everybody else, but when I
heard he was a Muslim, I thought, 'Geez, here we go again,'" said Allis,
27, a Muslim born in
Cleveland
to Palestinian immigrants. "My initial fear was, I don't want people to
have a misconception of this. A couple of my co-workers asked me if I felt like
it was going to be a problem for other Muslims. I turned the question back on
them and said: 'Do you look at me any differently?' And they said no. I put on
my uniform proud every day."
Allis belongs to the Association of Patriotic Arab Americans in Military.
The group was formed by a Marine gunnery sergeant whose uncle found himself
shunned after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 - until he posted in his
business a photograph of his nephew in full military regalia.
As the nation wages war against
Iraq
, a Muslim nation, many of the thousands of Muslims in the
U.S.
military find themselves questioned again.
"I don't feel like we're at war with another Muslim nation. We're at war
against a dictator and his evil government," said Allis, who is on standby
for deployment to
Iraq
. "I felt like I was going to fight against a dictator who killed other
Muslims."
"Loyal Americans"
Abdul-Rashid Abdullah, an Army veteran, said that for most Muslims, "if
you're in the military, you've already come to some sort of personal resolution
... over war, which is not something that Islam promotes. They've made peace
with themselves. And if they do have issues (with a particular war), hopefully
they'll be taking other channels. There are a lot more appropriate channels to
take."
Abdullah said he knows of few Muslim soldiers who would take issue with the war
in
Iraq
: "Saddam has killed more Muslims than the American military has, and I
think our country is doing its best to minimize civilian casualties."
The suspect in the attack March 23 is Sgt. Asan Akbar. Fifteen soldiers were
wounded, two of them fatally. As Akbar was taken away in handcuffs, fellow
soldiers quoted in the Los Angeles Times said he said: "You guys are coming
into our countries, and you're going to rape our women and kill our
children."
The Nashville Tennessean interviewed Akbar's mother in Louisiana, who said he
had long believed his Muslim faith had blocked his advancement in the military:
He said, 'Mama, when I get over there I have the feeling they are going to
arrest me, just because of the name that I have carried."
The Army's official position in its investigation: "No one can tell you for
absolute certainty it had anything to do with the Muslim religion," said
Army spokeswoman Martha Rudd. "We have about 2,000 soldiers in the Army who
have identified themselves as Muslims and they are, by all reports, loyal
Americans."
At latest count, 4,070 active-duty members of the
U.S.
military list Muslim as their religion: 1,940 in the Army; 869 in the Navy; 744
in the Air Force; and 517 Marines. But organizations such as the Patriotic Arab
Americans in Military and the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veteran Affairs
Council believe the number is closer to 10,000. There are about 1.4 million
troops.
"If you go to the bases that are major hubs where the recruits are at, you
have more people attending Islamic services than some of the Christian
services," said Qaseem Ali Uqdah, 45, a former Marine who is executive
director of the Virginia-based council.
Accommodating the faith
Uqdah, born into a Southern Baptist family, converted to Islam in his teens. For
most of his 21-year military career, the military made few accommodations for
the tiny minority of Muslims. In 1993, just two years before Uqdah left the
military, the first Muslim chaplain came on board: Army Chaplain Abdul-Rashid
Muhammad. The military made the move after the Persian Gulf War, when more than
1,000
U.S.
military personnel converted to Islam while stationed there. Uqdah's younger
brother, stationed with the Navy in
Saudi Arabia
in 1991, was one of them.
Uqdah said the troops in the Gulf saw Islam in its purest form in
Saudi Arabia
, the birthplace of Islam and home to
Mecca
and
Medina
, the religion's two holiest sites: "Based on my conversations with my
brother, his exposure to Islam at the time was an unfiltered introduction. He
saw the beauty of Islam. ... I had a roster years ago (of military personnel who
converted during the Gulf War) and it was something like 1,600 people converted
to Islam. It was amazing."
Today, Muhammad, who serves at
Walter
Reed
Army
Medical
Center
in
Washington
, is one of 12 Muslim chaplains in the military.
Uqdah called Muhammad's appointment "breathtaking, like a baby being
born."
"Chaplain Muhammad was (first) stationed at
Fort
Bragg
. His responsibility was for that unit. But he had (Muslim) soldiers calling him
from all over the world. That was overwhelming."
The same year of the first Muslim chaplain's commission, Abdullah, a young Army
parachute-rigger, witnessed firsthand at
Fort
Bragg
a step forward for Muslims in the military. The Army began to issue Meals Ready
to Eat (MREs) prepared to Muslim standards, which include no pork.
"I was one of the initial testers back in 1993," said Abdullah, 30,
who converted from Catholicism to Islam in college. "The first time I had
one I was sitting in the field at
Fort
Bragg
with the Jewish chaplain, and here we were breaking bread - with a kosher MRE
and a halal MRE."
The halal MREs are readily available now. And, even on the battlefield, Muslim
soldiers have greater access to Islamic chaplains, many of whom are now deployed
in the
Iraq
war. Indeed, among them is the Muslim chaplain assigned to the 101st Airborne
Division from
Fort Campbell
,
Ky.
He is now in
Kuwait
with the division that suffered the grenade attack last week - as well as
ministering, by e-mail, to concerned Muslim veterans elsewhere.
Abdullah, who left the Army three years ago to start a business in
Hawaii
, said he and his wife and two friends who are active-duty members of the
Marines and Army and Muslims as well, all were startled with the news.
"We looked at each other and said, 'Oh, God,'" Abdullah said.
"That was our primary concern: that people who are serving with Muslim
service members would start doubting their loyalties and, for (Muslim) members
who are officers, imagine the breakdown in moral, in discipline, if they lost
the confidence of their troops."
So Abdullah e-mailed the chaplain in the 101st Airborne Division in
Kuwait
to find out more. Abdullah received an e-mail Friday from the chaplain, whom he
declined to identify. The Department of Defense Web site identifies the Muslim
chaplain from the 101st Airborne Division as Mohammed M. Khan.
"This incident has nothing to do with the religion. The soldier had
problems with his command earlier," the chaplain wrote in the e-mail to
Abdullah, who shared it with the Post- Dispatch.
Uqdah had a similar exchange of e-mails with the chaplain.
"He told me they have 12 American Muslims that are praying with him
regularly with the 101 in
Kuwait
," Uqdah said, "but (Akbar) never prayed with them."
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