Congressional hearings on radical Islam prompt concern locally

Congressional hearings on radical Islam in the U.S. could provide recruiting fodder for Al Qaeda, one Iowa Muslim warns.

“This is just bolstering their point of view,” said Miriam Amer of Cedar Rapids. “They're painting us all with the same brush, which is totally un-American.”

Amer, executive director and founder of the Iowa chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Rep. Peter King, R-NY, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, “has got it all wrong.”

“He's afraid of more terrorism, but this is the wrong way to go about it,” she said. “He's saying 80 percent of the mosques in this country are run by radical leaders. He's taking statistics from the sky – I don't know where they're coming from. He's using people who have an ulterior motive.”

Both King and one of his witnesses backed away from that 80-percent claim during today's hearing.

“He could take a different way,” said Imam Taha Tawil of the Mother Mosque of America in Cedar Rapids. “He could take imams into his confidence, and we could talk to him and suggest how we could all be together as a team. But singling us out, it just increases the islamophobia that we have, and thank God we don't have it in Iowa.”

Most American Muslims are native-born citizens who wouldn't stand for radical rhetoric in their local mosques, both Amer and Tawil said.

“The power here is with the community, not the imam,” said Tawil. “The community hires and fires the imam, and radicalization is not on the agenda of the Muslims.”

“I don't think any board of any mosque in this country would stand for an imam saying ‘down with America,'” said Amer, who was born at Camp Lejeune, N.C., when her father was a Marine and whose brother, uncle, and cousins were also Marines. “I'm hoping the witnesses who do come forward at these hearings, their words can outweigh those who say otherwise.”

Critics have tried to tie CAIR to radical Islam “because we've been very vocal about this we're not going to sit by and let this happen,” said Amer.

Tawil noted the congressional hearings come as moderate Muslims are toppling governments in the Middle East through nonviolent protest, disproving Al Qaeda's position that only violence can lead to change there.

“Peaceful demonstration was able to put two regimes out” in Egypt and Tunisia, Tawil said. “That's how we are defeating them, by having our rights protected.”

Young, well-educated Muslims were key, the imam said.

“They were educated in America and Europe and they came back to their country, and they can't find their freedom,” Tawil said.

“Muslims want nothing but security for this country,” said Amer. “We want it to survive and prosper, just like everyone else.”

“If we want to start putting splits in our community – this is black, this is white, this is Christian, this is Moslem – this will be the end of America,” said Tawil.