From Public Radio International
June 20, 2017
Mosques around the country are being encouraged to step up their security. Hassanen’s murder did not occur in isolation, however, says Arsalan Iftikhar, a human rights lawyer who prays at the ADAMS mosque.
“It’s really shaken up the entire American Muslim community,” says Iftikhar, the author of “Scapegoats: How Islamophobia Helps Our Enemies and Threatens Our Freedoms.”
Iftikhar says going out for late-night snacks during the month of Ramadan is sort of a rite of passage for young Muslims in America. And now, he says it feels like that rite of passage has come under attack.
“It’s really struck home,” Iftikhar says, “for millions of people around the country who now either feel trepidation or fear for letting their kids go.”
Iftikhar says Hassanen and her friends were “visibly Muslim,” meaning that they were wearing headscarves and abayas, which are long, traditional dresses that made them easily identifiable as Muslims.
American Muslims are painfully aware of the uptick in anti-Muslim incidents in recent weeks and months, Iftikhar says. As an example, he points out the attack in Portland last month that ended with the stabbing death of two men who tried to intervene when a man was harassing two Muslim girls.
Just this week, a man drove a van into a group of Muslims outside of a mosque in London. And in January, six worshippers were shot dead in an attack outside of a mosque in Quebec City.
“These are not just isolated incidents,” Iftikhar says. “People are becoming emboldened because of the rhetoric that we’ve seen from people like Donald Trump.”
In some ways, the motivation of the perpetrator in Hassanen’s death is secondary. That’s because nothing will bring her back, Iftikhar says.
“What I really, really hope is that young Muslim kids … do not feel scared,” Iftikhar says.
Young Muslims should not be afraid of expressing their religious identity, he adds, and doing things like going out at night for some pancakes or omelets after late-night prayers at their mosques during Ramadan.
Listen to Story Here:
