Hundreds participate in Muslim Open House

Stacy J. Willis and Daniela Mohor

Monday, Oct. 1, 2001 | 9:57 a.m.

Sandy West had just slipped out of her sandals and stepped barefooted onto the red carpet in Jami Mosque.

Across the room, a man knelt and placed his forehead on the carpet.

West, who attends a Catholic church, whispered to her mosque tour guide, "Is he praying?"

"Yes," Cadry Genena, a Muslim, said. "When your head is on the ground, we believe you are closest to God. It is absolute humility before God."

West was one of hundreds of Las Vegans -- including Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. -- who visited one of three area mosques or the Omar Haikal Islamic Academy Saturday for the valleywide Muslim Open House.

The event was intended to open dialogue between local non-Muslims and Muslims in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks -- and it did.

At Jami Mosque on East Desert Inn Road, tour guides wearing badges that said "Ask Me" led visitors through the mosque, which is adorned with Arabic script on the walls and chandeliers overhead. They showed them copies of the Koran, the Muslim holy book.

More than 6,000 Muslims are estimated to live in the Las Vegas Valley, more than 5 million nationwide, and 1.2 billion worldwide. Muslims believe in one God and that he revealed the holy book, the Koran, to the prophet Muhammad in the 7th century A.D. Muslims confirm the Torah and New Testament and believe Jesus was a prophet, but do not believe he was resurrected.

After the tours at Jami Mosque, about 40 people sat down to participate in a question-and-answer session.

The questions ranged from the straightforward -- Do you believe in Satan? Do you believe in Heaven? What day are your sermons on? Why do women wear that scarf? Why is everything in the mosques green? -- to the more complicated -- Why don't Muslims in the Middle East take to the streets to explain that they don't support terrorism? Aren't you bound by the Koran to support liberation movements in the regions where monarchies exist?

Muslims do believe in Satan, and in Heaven; they pray five times daily and have services on Friday evenings. Women wear the hijab as a sign of modesty; green has no significance in the faith.

On hand at Jami Mosque to help answer the questions was Dr. Aslam Abdullah, editor of the Los Angeles-based Minaret magazine, a monthly publication billed as "America's Source on Islam."

Abdullah condemned terrorism and said that in Islam, suicide is a sin. However, because there is no hierarchy in Islam as there is, for example, in Catholicism, different mosques may teach different interpretations of Islam.

Osama bin Laden, tour guides said, distorted the true and peaceful meaning of Islam and developed "a cult" that is not representative of the vast majority of Muslims' beliefs.

However, Abdullah explained that though Muslims believe peace and humility are most important, many Muslims from other nations are upset with U.S. policies.

"One of the major problems that Muslims have with the U.S.," Abdullah said, is this nation's foreign policy in the Middle East and Central Asia. He said the U.S. has "given more importance to oil than to human rights and human dignity" in the region.

"Whenever Muslim people have launched a movement for civil rights and democracies (in the Middle East or Central Asia) ... they are crushed, and the U.S. turned a blind eye," Abdullah said.

"There is so much anger."

"I think I have a better understanding now," Las Vegan Greg White, an electrician, said after the question-and-answer session. "I think we have really messed up our foreign policy. I don't think all the blame is ours, but I think maybe a combination of a lack of education and the lack of hierarchy in Islam to throw out someone like bin Laden combined to cause problems.

"President Bush needs to concentrate more on changing foreign policy that leads to the repression of freedom in the Muslim world," White said.

But White was one of few who delved into the politics of the day. Many people just wanted to learn more about worship and the spiritual beliefs in Islam -- and express their support and acceptance of Muslims in America.

At the Omar Haikal Islamic Academy in Henderson, the first Islamic grade school in the Las Vegas Valley, school administrators and students focused their efforts on introducing the public to the Koran. They read and translated parts of their holy book and cleared common misconceptions about its content.

"Islam shares many aspects with other religions," said Mahmoud Harmoush, the school director of religious affairs."We pray for Moses and for the mother of Jesus, Mary."

Muslims, like Christians, he explained, not only worship the prophets. They also believe in the day of judgment, in doing good works and in respect.

Dr. Osama Haikal, president of the board of directors of the Islamic Foundation of Nevada, further explained that the Koran, like other holy books, condemns those who kill innocent people.

"In the Koran, whoever kills an innocent life is equal to someone who has killed the whole of mankind," he said.

Many in the audience knew little or nothing about Islam and were surprised to discover it wasn't so different from their own religion.

"We came here to show our support and let them know that we realize that all Muslims are not terrorists," said a Green Valley resident who asked not to be identified. "I learned that it (Islam) is very similar to our religion. I didn't know."

These similarities, some said, helped them overcome their apprehensions and break through their prejudice.

"My main question was: Is there anything in the Koran that would justify activities of terrorists?" said Chris Kaempfer, a local attorney and a member of The Lakes Lutheran Church."The answer is clearly no. (Terrorists) are as much an abomination to Muslims as they are to all mankind."