After the Albuquerque killings, some American Sunnis are calling for solidarity with Shiites.
By David Swerdlick Senior Staff Editor, Opinion |
"I want my children to grow up with friends of all different backgrounds and religions, as I did," writes Wajahat Ali in a guest essay this week. "I want them to think of their Shiite friends as fellow Muslims." |
It's in that spirit that Ali, a Sunni Muslim, addresses what he sees as an under-discussed issue within some Muslim communities. Sectarian bias, or bigotry, has been talked about among Muslim Americans in recent days, after the arrest of a Sunni man originally from Afghanistan in connection with the killings of four Muslim men, three of them Shiite Muslims, in the Albuquerque area. |
While these killings and the motives behind them are still being investigated, Ali's essay offers insight into why, as one Times headline read this week, the news from Albuquerque stirred "sectarian ghosts" for Muslim Americans. In the weeks leading up to the arrest, Ali says, Muslims "knew there was a possibility that the killings were motivated by anti-Muslim sentiment — but few of us expected that a Muslim would be arrested." |
Ali, who is the author of "Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American" and familiar to many readers from his appearances on cable TV, explains with some sadness, but also hope, how he wants Muslims to choose understanding and openheartedness. He urges fellow Sunnis — a majority of Muslims in America and worldwide — to avoid excusing even casual anti-Shiite comments as "harmless jokes" or "political incorrectness" and to embrace the "common bonds devoutly held within both sects." He calls on Muslim Americans, who've faced bigotry from non-Muslims and have had their patriotism questioned, particularly after Sept. 11, to reject intolerance of all types, including between the religion's sects. |
He shares the perspectives offered by two chaplains, one Shiite and one Sunni, from the Islamic Center at N.Y.U., and as we edited his piece, what I found inspiring was how Ali described growing up in Fremont, Calif., with his best friend, a Shiite, remembering: "We spent our summers making homemade action movies together. Our Pakistani American mothers fed us biryani, and we prayed in each other's homes." What comes through, despite the tragedies that generated this conversation, is Ali's optimistic belief about how things can and should be. |
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