Five years after 9/11, are Muslim Americans still “taking back Islam,” or is the job done?
Amanullah: The general lay population within the Muslim community has reacted admirably. I know many personal examples of people who were completely apolitical, who isolated themselves, but after 9/11, they really took it upon themselves to reach out. But notwithstanding these efforts, as long as people define our Islam by what people do overseas, it’s unfortunately going to be a losing battle. I think the hatred and the distrust of Muslims now is even worse than post-9/11. I think the polls will even bear that out. I still am hopeful but I’m starting to worry a little bit. Siddiqi: Nine-Eleven shocked the Muslim community. We were not prepared. We were living quite comfortably–building our community and our mosques, raising our children, developing our schools. But now we realize that many of our neighbors don’t know us, and they are suspicious of us. So people have opened their homes, their mosques. I feel our community has done good work. The Muslim community in America is a very u
