View from the Pew
A look inside Hawaii's houses of worshipBy Mary Adamski
Isle Muslims to pray
for 9/11 lives lostFor Muslims here and elsewhere, "it has been a year of soul-searching, of being called on to defend oneself and to educate the people," said a local Islamic leader.
Hakim Ouansafi, president of the Muslim Association of Hawaii, has taken the microphone or the pulpit at hundreds of church, business, club and community organization gatherings to talk about his faith during that year.
Wednesday will be no exception as he fulfills five invitations to speak. He will join in interfaith prayers at the 5 p.m. memorial at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Punchbowl, sponsored by federal, state and city governments, and will appear at a vigil on the Iolani Palace grounds sponsored by the Hawaii Ad Hoc Committee for Peace. Another will be a candlelight memorial in Kapiolani Park with his co-workers from Aston Hotels and Resorts.
Oahu Muslims plan to take their prayer rugs to a park for communal prayers "for all the innocent life that was lost," he said. Fasting is a basic religious practice in Islam and many will abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset Wednesday. He said tradition encourages fasting every Monday and Thursday of the year and the Sept. 11 anniversary will be added by many Muslims.
The Morrocan-born general manager of the Aston Waikiki Parkside Hotel is an articulate spokesman for Islam and for the Muslim community in Hawaii, which numbers about 3,000.
STAR-BULLETIN / SEPTEMBER 15, 2001
Diana Mills gave a lei and a hug last September to Hakim Ouansafi, president and chairman of the Muslim Association of Hawaii. Mills and other Christians were on hand at the Islamic center in Manoa supporting Hawaii Muslims a few days after the 9/11 attacks on the East Coast.
As elected president of the association, he stepped in because the local mosque, a converted Manoa house, has no resident imam, or religious leader.
Since Day One, when Ouansafi was called on to respond to the attacks, he has stressed the need to recognize the difference between the religion and the political systems where it is predominant. One example he has used to make that distinction is to recall Timothy McVeigh, found guilty in the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. McVeigh is a Christian, but his religion has never been held responsible for his terrorism.
Ouansafi said he has met mostly positive response to his talks. At the peak in September 2001, he would speak to groups two or three times a day. The invitations keep coming, he said, because "People are curious. They hear about something that doesn't fit about a religion and they want to know more."
There has been some negative reaction. "A minority of people don't hear what they want to hear ... when you tell them it is a religion of peace, they want to hear something else."
In a recent nationwide poll by the Muslim Council on American Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C., 57 percent of the respondees said they have experienced bias and 79 percent reported they have experienced acts of kindness and support.
"In Hawaii it is totally different," said Ouansafi. "The overwhelming support and acts of kindness are more than 90 percent. Only 1 or 2 percent have encountered people with not so pleasant statements being made. There haven't been confrontations."
One of the worst incidents here was a woman who was asked to leave a mall because, the security guard said, she made people uncomfortable. She responded, "This is my country," and said she had been made uncomfortable, too. The guard left her alone.
RELIGION CALENDAR
Mary Adamski covers religion for the Star-Bulletin.
Email her at madamski@starbulletin.com.
