By Corey Habbas, Engage Minnesota

As health care costs increase in Minnesota and the uninsured rise in number, the Islamic Center of Minnesota (ICM) has taken on the role of a first-access, primary care clinic for anyone who needs it, through the Al-Shifa Clinic.

“It is our Islamic duty to address the issue of providing people with equal access to health care. We serve anyone in the community, both Muslim and non-Muslim,” asserts Sobia Sarwar, full-time coordinator for Al-Shifa Clinic. Al-Shifa is an Arabic noun for healing.

Since hiring Sarwar, the clinic’s committed doctors, who serve walk-in and scheduled patients, can concentrate on health care and not have to worry about administrative tasks like before.

She adds, “It’s the volunteer doctors that really make it happen. Without their skill set we really would not be able to contribute to the community. The fact that they dedicate their time and effort is enormous.”

Sarwar works in the banking industry, but says that her most rewarding job is her role as coordinator for Al-Shifa Clinic. But Al-Shifa is more than just a clinic.

Al-Shifa: A Clinic, and More

The Al-Shifa clinic is nestled within the front office of the ICM, a separate room that is medically equipped with its own restroom, patient’s table, medical supplies and a variety of diagnostic tools. Yet the clinic’s reach extends much farther, and other services unfold beyond the physical clinic itself.

Sarwar carries a cell phone specifically dedicated to the clinic in order to take calls seven days a week from patients, Al-Shifa physicians, cooperating pharmacies and medical laboratories. She also prepares the physicians’ rota, and creates fliers and brochures to announce health awareness seminars.

When patients arrive at the Al-Shifa Clinic for care, they are saved from the red tape of having to fill out income and insurance verification. They simply give their name, contact information, and fill out a medical history form.

When asked why patients are not required to go through the rigorous paperwork and verifications required by many medical institutions and insurance companies, Sarwar says, “…because we feel that no matter what a patient’s circumstances are, that health care should be made available to all, no questions asked.”

The Al-Shifa Clinic serves all socioeconomic, cultural, and religious groups. They support health efforts for the benefit of Muslims, non-Muslims, immigrants, and native born Americans equally. Although the Al-Shifa Clinic is open to everyone, it is expected that the Twin Cities Muslim community may seek out care here more than others due to special circumstances that make their situation unique.

“Due to social and religious differences, many families hesitate to access health care in the communities they live, regardless of the insurance or their financial status,” says an Al-Shifa Clinic physician who wishes to remain anonymous. He also notes that many families have visiting relatives who are uninsured and, as a function of their age, need access to cheap and efficient health care.

Promoting a Healthy Community

The Al-Shifa Clinic physician notes, “As the immigrant population assimilates into American culture, unfortunately they absorb the same poor lifestyle and eating habits as the surrounding society.” He says that with time health care habits deteriorate and so does the basic understanding of disease. “Our community needs basic education in health care matters in order to improve long-term health outcomes.” He says that this can mean the difference between an elevated standard of living over time because of good health choices, or a radically declining lifestyle in which the patient is always in crisis-mode.

“Al-Shifa Clinic should strive to be committed to promoting a healthy community to assist families making healthy choices according to cultural and religious norms,” says the Al-Shifa Clinic physician. To address community education needs, the Al-Shifa Clinic will be holding public health seminars which include topics such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and including cancer screening and nutrition counseling.

The first health seminar sponsored by the Al-Shifa Clinic will be on Colon Cancer Screening. Dr Irfan Sandozi, from MN Gastroenterology, will be the lead speaker. Topics for forthcoming health seminars include hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, women’s health, children’s health, and immunizations. All seminars will take place on Sundays.

By becoming a first-access health care model, Al-Shifa Clinic is moving away from its previous basic health care model in order to provide a more comprehensive solution for ailing patients.

Al-Shifa Clinic’s first-access resource serves in identifying health issues, providing immediate and basic medical care, gives consultations, and refers patients to any other existing services in the community at a low cost. Al-Shifa Clinic currently has four committed physicians and one non-physician member active in the community and dedicated to making this project an ongoing success.

Want to Know More?

• The clinic is open every Sunday between 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., and is located in the Al Amal School Building at the ICM, 1401 Gardena Ave N.E, Fridley MN 55432. Appointments can be made by contacting Sobia Sarwar at 763-567-9605.
• Attend the community health forum on hypertension (the medical term used to describe high blood pressure) on Sunday, April 27 at the ICM. Dr. Amin Rahmatullah will speak at the event.
• Read more about Al-Shifa on the ICM website, and view a PowerPoint from the clinic’s tenth anniversary celebration.
• Find information on donating to Al-Shifa here.

Corey Habbas is a freelance writer and children’s-book author who lives in Blaine, Minn. Her articles have appeared in The Milli Gazette, IslamOnline, Iqra! Newspaper, as well as many others.

Habbas is also a regular contributor to EngageMN.com.

“I was mad after watching that movie Hidalgo,” Habbas said, “because it was such a distortion about Muslims, and that is what inspired this book. I wrote it in 2004 [after the movie was released], and it took me a long time to get it published!”

The book follows an African slave, named Ibsitu, who finds compassion and freedom once she escapes to the first Muslim community established by Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in the city of Madinah.

“It’s important that Muslim children learn about who they are by taking from Islamic sources, not from an entertainment industry that feeds on a climate of misunderstandings,” Habbas said in a release.

The book, issued by Muslim Writers Publishing, is now available through the publisher and Amazon.com and is scheduled to be available on IslamicBookstore.com. Look for more about the book, and its journey to publication.

Read more:

• The book’s official website
• Color-Illustrated Children’s Book Offers a Tribute to Muslim Heritage and Culture

At the Islamic Center of Minnesota in a northern suburb of Minneapolis, Sundays are one of the busiest days. Community members fill the hallways and classrooms of the busy weekend school. The center, or ICM, is one of several Muslim organizations in Minnesota that serve multiple aspects of their members’ lives.

In addition to providing Islamic education to children of all ages, the ICM also has extended services for adults learning Arabic, Islamic Studies and Qur’an. On Sundays, the ICM opens a library and bookstore, and the ICM Women’s Society runs a popular lunch kitchen that is used to raise funds for other charitable projects. The Al-Shifa clinic provides free health care to families without access to affordable medical care. Every third Sunday of the month, the ICM opens its food shelf providing free food to families in need, and an interfaith dialogue takes place on the same day.

On Sunday, December 16, one more event took place to pack the already full community center: Community members turned out to cast their votes for the ICM officers.

Communications Director Dr. Shah Khan, a scientist from New Brighton, said, “This is the first and biggest Muslim organization in Minnesota where board and council members are elected by the members.”

Voters selected who would sit on the board of directors and council of trustees that run the organization. Election results were announced the next day.

Owais Bayunus of Cottage Grove, a retired senior manager with the oil industry, won the ICM presidency to serve a three-year term, winning 77 percent of the votes. Members chose Nasir Mohammed of Woodbury, a technology and manufacturing industry manager, for a three-year term as Board Secretary. Mahtab Khan, a financial analyst from Plymouth, ran uncontested for another three-year term as Education Director, and Sister Nuzhat Qureshi of Robinsdale, vice president of an engineering consulting firm, received 65 percent of the votes to win a five-year term on the Council of Trustees.

A week prior, the Muslim community had a chance to hear the candidates speak at an ICM-sponsored “Meet the Candidates” event where attendees came to listen and ask questions. The meeting was open to the public.

Issues that surfaced during the event were loss of participation and lack of diversity within the ICM. Some of the election candidates noted and explained these trends, stating that many masjids and schools have surfaced that now provide services in people’s local areas, which means that people no longer need to commute as far to be part of a Muslim community.

“In diversity, there is strength,” Owais Bayunus said at the Meet the Candidates event. “I will do my best to bring the community together.” He continued that he would support the youth movement. He added, “It is pivotal for Muslims to be politically active.” As President, one of his goals is to spread accurate information about Islam to non-Muslims (called dawah) because, he says, that this is crucial in post-9/11 America. Bayunus studied Islamic Jurisprudence and Islamic Law at King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia. Now retired, he would like to devote his time serving Islam and Muslims.

Nasir Mohammed, the winning candidate for Board Secretary, is also the developer of the ICM’s membership-tracking and weekend school computer systems. His priorities as Board Secretary include revitalizing the Membership Committee and leveraging more community participation. “We absolutely must have volunteers, or we will not be successful. It gives people a sense of community and belonging,” Mohammed said at the Meet the Candidates event.

The unopposed Educational Director, Mahtab Khan, noted that the ICM has the potential to become the Islamic vocal chord of Minnesota, especially if it harnesses community diversity, provides more community services and improves participation. “The community expects more than just a running weekend school.” Khan stated that the fact that the ICM is democratic, transparent and open distinguishes it as one of the most effective models of Islamic community life in Minnesota. He also noted, “The teachers’ roster is very diverse. Almost all Arabic classes are currently taught by native Arabic speakers.” Other staff, teachers and volunteers include Muslims with Indo-Pakistani, Somali and European heritage.

Newly elected Council of Trustees member Nuzhat Qureshi said that she would like to implement social services for the elderly and plan revitalization projects. In her candidacy speech, she stated, “What this place needs is a leader who will provide a platform for people to be involved and be a part of the ICM.” Mrs. Qureshi sees teamwork as integral to drawing in more of the community and mentioned the importance of addressing grievances to gain feedback and resolve issues.

The ICM, established in 1969, is one of the oldest Muslim organizations in Minnesota. It is located at 1401 Gardenia Ave. N.E. in Fridley, and in 1978 the center purchased a masjid (mosque) in Columbia Heights to allow a space for community prayers. According to office estimates, the ICM has more than 350 paying members, but has approximately 2,000 community members who, in on way or another, use facilities and services on a regular basis. The organization serves all Muslims beyond its paying membership base living in the Twin Cities and surrounding suburbs.

“Every quarter we distribute more 2,000 ICM newsletters to the community and beyond,” says Dr. Shah Khan. “Many non-Muslim organizations and media use our newsletter to educate their staff about Islam and Muslim issues.”

The ICM’s mission is to develop and empower Muslim individuals and families, maintain a sense of community, and establish healthy relationships with communities of other faiths.

Ayesha Eemaan-Sayles, a Minnetonka retiree who has worked at the ICM for five years as a bookkeeper and administrative assistant, said, “When there’s a disaster in the world somewhere, we (ICM) are right there with fundraisers and donations to give our help. That’s what we’re in the world for because we should be concerned with all humanity. That’s the reason why I became Muslim.” Sayles, a native Minnesotan whose family migrated to the state from the south after the civil war, reverted to Islam in 1992 and remembers her initial search for community. “I had finally found an Islamic center with an open door,” she says, speaking of the ICM.

Corey Habbas is a freelance writer who lives in Blaine, Minn. Her articles have appeared in The Milli Gazette, IslamOnline, Iqra! Newspaper, as well as many others.

“Look at any advertisement. Is a woman being used to sell the product? How old is she? How attractive is she? What is she wearing? More often than not, that woman will be…taller, slimmer and more attractive than average, dressed in skimpy clothing. Why do we allow ourselves to be manipulated like this?” So asks a Muslim teen, Sultana Yusufali, in an article she wrote for Toronto Star Young People’s Press.

Her indignation is not unlike that which Muslims living here in the Twin Cities and elsewhere feel when they see women treated like commodities.

Any crowd within the Twin Cities is peppered with what Muslims refer to as hijab, the modest dress code followed by Muslim women. You can see it in Minneapolis, Saint Paul and surrounding suburbs that boast thriving Muslim communities like Fridley and Blaine. Worn by a diverse Minnesotan community including American converts and born Muslim-Americans alike that herald roots from all over the world, as well as immigrants who are Bosnian, Ethiopian, Indian, Indonesian, Middle Eastern, Pakistani, Somali and a collection of others, hijab is beginning to leave a unique mark on the fashion landscape within the state.

Although both Muslim men and women are commanded to wear modest clothing and conform to gender-specific guidelines for hijab, it is often the female form of hijab that is most noticeable to non-Muslims. Thus, upon seeing a woman who wears loose-fitting clothing and covers her hair with a scarf, some Americans might be prompted to ask, “Why do you wear that thing?” If the Muslim woman were to cite the Qur’an or Hadith as an explanation, likely the inquirer’s eyes might turn glossy and their gaze distant.

Since the publication of the American Psychological Association’s (APA) new report on the harmful effects of media on society, coupled with data from other reports suggesting a correlation between sexual promiscuity and suicide rate, non-Muslims can better understand a possible wisdom behind how the Islamic commandments for modesty can be beneficial to not only the individual, but also the surrounding society.

The APA’s report entitled “Report of the APA Taskforce on the Sexualization of Girls” is the secular proof for why modesty is healthy, although the religious proof for Muslims can be found in the Qur’an and Hadith which are approximately 1,400 years old.

The APA, established in 1892, represents the field of psychology in the United States and Canada. In the 72-page report released this year, the APA links low-self esteem, eating disorders and depression to various American media forms that objectify and sexualize girls and women. The mass media constitute one of the most influential forces behind the collective damage of the female gender experience, says the APA, because children and adolescents spend more time with entertainment media than they do with any other activity except school and sleeping.

Images on television, within magazines, video games, and commercial products reinforce to girls and women that they can gain societal leverage from an appearance that arouses the male gaze, but the APA comments that “despite the fact that many girls believe that a sexy appearance brings them power, quite the opposite may be true.” The report cites additional findings that girls who objectify their bodies more have much lower self-esteem than girls who do not.

While it may seem that women who make a choice to dress provocatively are exercising a form of self-determination, the APA suggests that it is less an intelligent choice spawned by strength and individualism than it is a choice motivated by a media industry that teaches women to objectify themselves in order to gain attention, validation, and approval.

The APA findings also suggest that objectifying images in the media also affect men’s experience in society, making it difficult for them to form and maintain loyal and intimate relationships with women because objectified images of women make them less likely to find real women satisfying. “Even viewing a single episode of an objectifying television program such as ‘Charlie’s Angels’ may lead men to rate real women as less physically attractive,” says the report. The report goes on to say that pornography has a degenerating affect on the male-female relationship, causing men to rate their female partners as being less physically attractive, as well as causing men to desire sexual experiences without emotional attachment.

Women, in earnest to keep up with the pace of the objectified feminine ideal, have been spending on plastic surgery with as much zeal as caffeine-pumped adolescents shooting paintballs. According to the report, nationwide, between the years 2000 and 2005, Botox injections rose 388 percent, tummy tucks rose 115 percent, buttock lifts rose 283 percent, upper-arm lifts rose 3,413 percent, and lower-body lifts rose 4,101 percent.

Solutions to combat the tidal wave of damaging media are listed in the APA report, which praises religious practices and social and political activism as some of the strategies communities can use to empower themselves.

“Whereas girls may have little control over how they are represented in the media, they have more control over the identity they create via their clothing choices,” states the APA report.

Hijab, as a component of Islamic worship, is one such strategy for Muslims. Muslim women who follow hijab cover up, usually leaving only their face and hands visible. They dress this way not as a sign of submission to man, but as an act of worshiping God. In the Qur’an, God states, “Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty…And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty….” The religion of Islam promotes a view of women that enhances their value and worth as human beings and contributors in society.

The APA continues that, “The sexualization and objectification of women in the media appear to teach girls that as women, all they have to offer is their body and face and that they should expend all their effort on physical appearance.” Islam teaches men to lower their gaze, to turn their faces away, and instructs both men and women to guard themselves with modest attire. The Islamic message encourages people to look past the material and into the spiritual. While the media promote adversarial relationships between men and women, Islam nurtures a cooperative atmosphere between genders. Muslims believe that Islamic commandments on modesty are as relevant today as they were 1,400 years ago, and the implementation of hijab is a relevant response to a damaging atmosphere created by a media rooted in commercialism which thrives on the most base instincts.

Yet the Muslim woman’s brave choice to cover up in a society often hostile to Islam is not without its trials. Girls and women who wear hijab can be targets for discrimination because the modest attire makes them look visibly Muslim. The visible difference causes some non-Muslims in the surrounding society to feel threatened and so the backlash can include mild forms of ridicule to dangerous physical threats or an attempt by those in power to repress or attempt to remove those values they deem threatening. Or too difficult to understand.

In 2006 a Muslim girl who wears hijab and attends school in the Spring Lake Park School District in Minnesota was repeatedly harassed by classmates. Only after repeated mediation from the local Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations was the incident handled and resolved by school officials so that the student could resume her studies in a less hostile environment.

And just in June 2007, a California school administrator loudly ordered a 13-year-old Muslim girl to remove her headscarf in a room crowded with more than 100 other students. In the same state, less than a year prior, a Muslim woman wearing hijab, the mother of six children, was gunned down while walking to pick up her children from school. Muslim women who wear hijab can be afflicted with job discrimination, verbal and physical harassment, and exclusion by non-Muslims from participating in various aspects of social, civil and political life.

Many non-Muslims who oppose women who wear hijab are hostile to what they think it represents, rather than its true intent of modesty.

Many Christian communities are returning to a value of modesty as an alternative to media’s value of immodesty. The aptly named Modesty Movement is gaining ground with young women and their communities. Pure Fashion, an American Christian initiative that reaches out to communities nationally, offers to turn girls into Pure Fashion Models with a value on covering up a little more. Yet their modesty guidelines fall far short of the Islamic standard of modesty. Pure Fashion guidelines imply that you can still show a lot of skin, as long as a girl’s bra strap isn’t visible through her shirt, and so that her shorts don’t creep higher than mid-thigh. People who subscribe to the Islamic faith would tend to view these guidelines as being unsuccessful at curbing objectification. With fashion guidelines in which large patches of skin can be revealed and curvy body contours still displayed by minimal cloth, not much de-objectification happens, no matter how sincere their intention to place an emphasis on what is on the inside of a person.

Minnesota Muslimah youth, in an effort to have fun and at the same time maintain their high standards of modesty, are finding outlets of their own. In June Al-Madinah Cultural Center and Muslim Youth of Minnesota co-sponsored PROM (Party foR Only Muslimahs) to allow Muslim girls who were graduating from various high schools in the Twin Cities to attend their own celebration in which their modesty would not be compromised. After more than 100 girls were within the private enclosure, they could discard their hijab, participate in a fashion show, talent show and dancing.

Modesty in the city trumps the sexist media. The APA is letting us know in 2007. For Muslims, the news came in the 7th century.

From a Muslim teen’s perspective, Sultana writes, “I made this decision [to wear hijab] out of my own free will. I like the fact that I am taking control of the way other people perceive me. I enjoy the fact that I don’t give anyone anything to look at and that I have released myself from the bondage of the swinging pendulum of the fashion industry and other institutions that exploit females. My body is my own business.”

Corey Habbas is a freelance writer who lives in Blaine, Minn. Her articles have appeared in The Milli Gazette, IslamOnline, Iqra! Newspaper, as well as many others.

This month, the Arabic language came under attack when Debbie Almontaser, principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, New York’s first public school that integrates Arabic language and cultural studies with a public school curriculum, explained that the English translation for the word “intifada,” literally means to “shake off.” Almontaser had been asked to explain a word on the T-shirts circulated by the AWAAM (Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media), a Brooklyn-based organization that empowers girls and women.

To the people who wear the T-shirts inscribed with “Intifada NYC,” it is a non-violent term that the AWAAM internalizes to mean a nonviolent shaking-off of pressures related to prejudice.

“I feel, as an Arab woman, as a Muslim woman and as a woman of color, pressure from two sides,” says Mona ElDahry, co-founder of AWAAM, in an August 2007 interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!

In the interview, Mona ElDahry describes the first pressure as the prejudice faced by Muslims and Arabs in the streets. The second pressure, she says, is when youth go home to their families, especially after the September 11 tragedy, and are told that they must hide their heritage, their language and remain silent about political issues.

Khalil Gibran International Academy has no affiliation with the AWAAM. But simply for explaining the meaning of an Arabic word, Almonaster and her school were attacked. In the same interview, activist and educator Paula Hajar comments, “It’s tragic that they attack the language the way they do.” Hajar notes how Arabic terms are frequently twisted and misinterpreted. “…the [Arabic] word for a school is madrasah, and they use it as an epithet, you know, that this was going to be a madrasah, meaning [to those who were against the school] a training ground for jihadists…” Hajar, who still hopes to see the new school open, expresses, “..it’s kind of tragic for all of us to see our culture peeled away this way and trashed, really.”

The attack on Khalil Gibran International Academy is one of the most recent examples of America’s fear of the Arabic language, but it is only one of numerous examples throughout the nation.

In August 2006, JetBlue Airways refused to allow an Iraqi man to board a flight at Kennedy International Airport because he wore a t-shirt inscribed with Arabic and English. The phrase read, “We Will Not Be Silent.”

In 2004, after the Michigan City Council approved a measure to allow the Muslim Call to Prayer (Athan) over a loudspeaker from the Al-Islah Islamic Center, some angry citizens and right-wing commentators feared that religious leaders could use the audio system to deliver Arabic commands to Muslim congregations that could incite a war against the local non-Muslim population.

Maintaining language in a hostile environment

Ironically, while the pathologic and irrational fear of Arabic persists, what is really dangerous to the Muslim population is the loss of Arabic language.Although Islam is the second largest religion in the world, practiced by more than 1.4 billion followers, Arabic is not the second-most spoken language in the world. Arabic, a Semitic language closely related to Aramaic and Hebrew, is spoken by an estimated 246 to 422 million people worldwide. Many Americans find it surprising that most Muslims worldwide do not speak Arabic.

While it’s true that Arabic is the liturgical language of Islam and all Muslims do learn to recite prayers in Arabic, many rely on translations of the Qur’an in order to gain understanding of the holy text. Despite this, Muslims everywhere are encouraged to embrace the language.

Non-Muslims often mistakenly think that non-Arab Muslims are asked to embrace Arabic because, in Islam, Arab culture and Arab language is promoted as being superior to other cultures. Yet Islamic historical and religious records clearly refute this misconception.

Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is recorded to have said in his last sermon:

“All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. “

While the non-Muslim population in America may feel threatened by Arabic, Muslims are in danger of losing the language in which the Qur’an was revealed. Muslim youth struggle to maintain what their parents, and older generations, may have taken for granted, while non-Arabic speaking Muslims struggle to attain the language that will move them closer to original scripture.

The ethnically diverse Muslim population in Minnesota numbers close to 150,000 people and includes Muslims fluent in Arabic from the north and central Africa and the Middle East, as well as primarily non-Arabic speaking Muslims from Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, and American Muslims who were either born Muslim or who converted.

Al Amal School is a forerunner in maintaining the Arabic language, a private Islamic school with more than 400 students, located in Fridley, Minn. Each grade has three levels of Arabic so that students can be placed in classes that match their abilities. Al Amal School Arabic instructors enforce an Arabic-only rule so that students are immersed in Arabic during each class session. Outside of class things are different. Yasmina*, an older student who attends Al Amal at the high school level confesses, “We always end up defaulting to English because it’s easier. There are too many different Arabic dialects.”

Another Al Amal School student makes similar observations. Asma, who is enrolled in the upper grades, notices the Muslim community losing the Arabic language through the younger generations. “It’s usually the kids that grew up speaking Arabic that try to talk with our instructors in English. He will ignore them until they ask him in Arabic.” Asma says that it’s usually the students who don’t have an Arabic language background that end up making an effort to use the language in class. When asked if she hears students using Arabic on breaks and lunches, Asma says, “It seems like when it is, it’s used as a way to exclude other non-Arabic kids from the conversation.”

While it might be expected that some Muslims from non-Arabic cultural backgrounds may reject a language that has been used by some to exclude them, Asma notes that the exact opposite seems to be happening. “People try to learn Arabic even more, so that they can understand what others are saying.” A widespread belief held by Muslims is that Arabic is a language for all Muslims, not just for those born or raised in Arabic-speaking cultures.

Manufactured illiteracy: Tool of oppression

For Muslims, the dangers of not being literate in the language of Islam are numerous. Wars and violence are quick to pave the path from a literate and well-functioning nation to a state of illiteracy. The foreign political strategy of many conquering powers has been to weaken their victims by separating them from their past by destroying information and the means of transporting it, as well as exterminating people of knowledge.

One such assassination happened this year. The renowned Islamic calligrapher, Khalil al-Zahawi, was gunned down outside his home in Iraq. Although western media sources claim executions such as this are due to sectarian violence, most Iraqi residents and skeptics worldwide understand that Khalil al-Zahawi and his calligraphic contributions were prized by both Sunni and Shia alike.

Many Muslims feel that if oppressive powers are able to eradicate Islamic art, culture and literacy, especially in the Arabic language, then non-Muslims would be prevented from learning accurate information about Islam and Muslims would be prevented from practicing and celebrating their true religion.

When language is used as a cage

Literacy creates an atmosphere of freedom, equality and stability. In the same way that language can be used to unite people, it can also be used to cage and compartmentalize people. The slow death of another people’s language can be used as a long-term political strategy as an attempt to sever long-term transnational alliances.

In Turkey, a country in which most people are culturally and religiously Muslim, Arabic was once banned. Ataturk, the developer of Kemalist ideology, used radical means in order to pry people away from Islamic faith and worship. He closed religious schools, banned Islamic institutions and legal systems, outlawed the Arabic script used to write the Turkish language and replaced it with the Latin lettering system, and appointed government-approved puppets as religious leaders whose lectures and teachings were strictly controlled.

For a time, Ataturk made it mandatory for people pray in the state language. Most Muslims were offended by the proposition of being denied the right to pray and read Qur’an in Arabic, and the Arabic language was eventually re-legalized. Ataturk’s anti-religious policies became a cage in which he put his people so that they were separated from Islam and the language that was used to reveal the message of the Last Prophet of Allah.

As the French initiated the brutal colonization of Algeria in 1830, language became a cage by which to convert the colonized victims of the North African coast. Algerian libraries were burned. Of the mosques that were not destroyed, many were turned into churches, or used as animal barns. The literacy of an entire generation was erased as the French stole the colonized population’s wealth and resources.

Many American and European texts express what the French did to Algeria as a “modernization.” The Algerian people know differently. Although Algerians took back their rightful independence, now, the colloquial dialect spoken in Algeria is a combination of Arabic, French and innovated words.

In many ways, keeping standard Arabic alive has allowed countries representing a majority Muslim population whose Arabic language has been manipulated by European imperialism to unite people who live under different dialects of the same linguistic core.

*Name changed to protect the privacy of the interviewee.

Corey Habbas is a freelance writer who lives in Blaine, Minn. Her articles have appeared in The Milli Gazette, IslamOnline, Iqra! Newspaper, as well as many others.