Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 23, 1994 TAG: 9401210132
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MARA LEE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Virginia Tech's Muslim Student Association will hold Islamic Awareness Week Jan. 24-28, and these are some of the stereotypes they wish to dispel about their religion.
The group has 150 members, three-fourths are graduate students, and most are foreign students. Members come from the Arab world, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Turkey, Sudan, Somalia and Kenya, as well as the United States.
Osama Ashour, the group's president, estimated roughly 400 Muslims live in the New River Valley.
Radford University Economics Department Chairman Abdul Turay will moderate a panel Tuesday on misconceptions about Muslims. One of the most prominent problems is people's equating of Islam with violence. "As in any religion, you find the good guys and the bad guys and that is also true with Islam."
Turay, originally from West Africa, said the New River Valley was more aware of Islam than many other places he has lived in this country, although he said it's possible he doesn't hear many comments because people aren't aware that he has a Muslim name.
Mark Dougherty, a graduate student in agricultural engineering, converted to Islam from Catholicism three years ago. He, too, said very few people know he's Muslim. "Religion isn't discussed much in our culture."
Najiah Hassuneh, who teaches Arabic at Tech, doesn't have the luxury of anonymity. Hassuneh, a Palestinian who grew up in Kuwait and was stranded in the United States when the Gulf War started, wears a white damask hajeb, or head covering Islam asks women to wear.
"The way we are dressed is not hard for us," said Hassuneh, who was wearing a brightly embroidered vest and chic shoes in addition to a fairly conservative white blouse and black skirt. She said most Islamic women she knows are educated, many are doctors and engineers, but they interact with male colleagues only on a professional level.
In the Middle East, it's considered impolite for men to look women in the eye, and she said American men tend to avoid eye contact with her as well. "I feel they respect us," she said.
But American women tend to have a little more difficulty with the outward sign of her faith. "It hurts a lot," she said. "We are suffering a lot from the media. From the whole society."
Dougherty said his perception of women has changed since his conversion, that he respects them more. "I respect women more that respect themselves." He said dressing modestly shows self-respect. "She would tend to be more of a reserved person, more of a contemplative person, more of a patient person, more humility, devotion."
He said American women may not intend to be provocative. "She feels she's producing no undue temptation to a man. Many American men would tell her different. Women by nature are beautiful and it's very hard to hide the fact."
In contrast, Turay said the women's dress code was a trivial matter in the question of women's equality, and pointed out that many Muslim women, such as former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat's wife, do not cover their heads.
Because of the restrictions on interaction between the genders, modern dating is not permissible. In a courtship, the couple is never alone in private together.
Tahir Qazi, a Tech graduate student from Kashmir, India, said he doesn't believe platonic friendships with women are possible. "I think in the subconscious of a man, there is always desire."
But while there may be barriers to intimacy between men and women, racial and cultural barriers don't come up in the Muslim association. Qazi said, "We don't have any barriers of race. No human being is superior to others. People actually practice it. That's what we are taught right from the beginning."
Hassuneh agreed. "All Muslims, they have the same pain, the same misery, that we are living in this world. We are like a body. If one of its parts ache, all the body will be in pain."
Turay said Radford students have filed a constitution to start a Muslim group, and added he hoped the group would begin dialogues on the Middle East with Hillel, the Jewish student group.
"Communication is very, very important for society as a whole, for us to get along. Coexistence is very important to me," he said smiling.
Why maintain a religion that is so misunderstood? "We're children of God," Dougherty said. "Children need rules of conduct in order to live right, do good, not be bad."
by CNB