Muslim Community Center Helps Residents Grapple With Turmoil in Home Countries

As American and European forces continue air strikes this week against Libya’s authoritarian government, the uprising in that north African country will likely remain a hot topic at the Muslim American Society Community and Youth Center on Big Horn Blvd.

Islam stands for justice, says the center’s imam, Mohammed Dwidar.

“Allah opposes oppression not just among rulers and followers, but among non-followers and others at home and away, and between any two human beings,” the imam told 80 Muslims facing Mecca during a recent Friday prayer at the center.

Dwidar’s comments referred specifically to the pro-democracy movements that have blazed across North Africa and the Middle East in the last two months. Many Elk Grovians from the region have used the center’s support network to discuss and organize around the changes taking place in their home countries.

Center members attended local rallies together urging the overthrow of Egypt’s former ruler Hosni Mubarak in February.  On Sunday, center executive director Jamal Kabbaj and a half-dozen others from the center attended a Carmichael fundraiser in support of Libya’s pro-democracy movement, which has been under armed attack by forces loyal to dictator Colonel Muammar Qaddafi.

“We are informing our young people, like my kids, about Libyan culture, the regime of Colonel Qaddafi and what preceded it, plus Libya’s strategic oil resources and non-existent public education, labor unions and Internet,” said Osmond Beidalah, a Libyan-American and computer engineer at Intel who attends the center.

Beidalah said he supports the United Nations no-fly zone over Libya as a way to protect civilians in the country.

About 2,000 Muslims live in Elk Grove, according to estimates from the Muslim American Society-Sacramento Region. Affordable home prices in the early part of the last decade attracted Muslim arrivals from the San Francisco Bay Area, Southern California and Sacramento proper. Many were born in countries that have experienced significant political turmoil recently.

Until the MAS opened its center last June, Elk Grove Muslims attended mosques in other areas of Sacramento County. But demand quickly grew for a local Islamic religious and social center.

“Establishing our center was a huge accomplishment for the Muslim Elk Grove community,” said Ossama Kamel, 17, the education officer for the center’s youth committee.

Like Kamel, about eighty percent of the population that uses the center is aged 18 and under, center leaders said. That same youthful demographic has played an important role in the protests unfolding across the Middle East.

Kamel and his family left Egypt for the United States in 1999. He has been in regular communication with family members since the uprising in Egypt.

“It really struck me hard,” Kamel said, “seeing on the news people dying, storming out into the streets, with the courage to stand up against a tyrant who oppressed them for 30 years, knowing that they might not make it.

“I have stories from my family members about their neighbors who spoke out against the government and, sometimes, were never seen again. Egyptians now want to establish a political system for and of the people. That is really amazing.” 

Many of the activities at the center are decidedly apolitical. At a Family Friday Night event in February, kids from pre-schoolers to teenagers flitted about the 6,500 square foot facility while parents toted in Girl Scout cookies and homemade dinners in covered glass dishes.

Bilal Issa, 12, and Yassir Tarin, 9, played a children’s hand game in the recreation room while in another room, Imam Abdel Khader Al-Amin of the San Francisco Muslim Community Center gave a lecture on Black History Month.

Omneya Gomaa, an elementary school teacher, volunteers as a group leader for young mothers and their children, organizing puppet shows, stories and playtime. “It’s a great way for children and their mothers to meet one another and create bonds of friendship in the community,” she said. A similar family program for young fathers and sons is forming, she said.

On weekdays, youth take after-school classes in Arabic, the Koran and math and science. Muslims and non-Muslims alike are welcome to attend events at the center, said Tamer Ahmed, vice president of the Muslim American Society-Sacramento.

“In our after school programs and Sunday school we try to instill in our kids that Islam is a peaceful religion, and to feel proud that they are Muslims, despite being a minority in the U.S.,” said Kabbaj.

“As Muslim parents we want our kids to grow up to be righteous citizens,” he added. “At the same time we want them to be good Muslims.”

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