By Eric AdelsonDec 29, 2015 1:08 AM
A Houston mosque caught fire Friday, forcing worshippers to move to a temporary space in a shopping mall the next day. Investigators say the two-alarm blaze was set intentionally. This could be one more example of anti-Muslim sentiment in the weeks since terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. According to one poll, only 27 percent of Americans had a favorable view of Muslims. That poll was taken last year.
For Muslim athletes like Oday Aboushi, the growing mistrust of people of his faith is both a disappointment and an opportunity.
Aboushi, who was born in New York, has been troubled by the comments of politicians like presidential candidate Donald Trump, who proposed restrictions on Muslim immigration and has done little to tamp down anti-Muslim sentiment.
"It's more alarming that a person is proposing something like this," he says. "It's such a small-minded idea. How can you punish a whole religion based off a few people? If people did that, the world will be doomed. To have a guy like that is alarming. What are his true motives? Imagine what's next, what's possible, what else is he willing to step over or on."
Aboushi has a distinctly American story: his Palestinian parents were born in East Jerusalem and they emigrated to the United States – his mother to Michigan and his father to New York. Aboushi was born in Brooklyn, raised in New York City and played college football at Virginia. He washonored by the State Department in 2011 for his athletic contributions as a Muslim-American. He says part of the calling of his faith is to donate a portion of his salary to charity and he says he has done so, in addition to making trips to Sudan to help children with cleft palates.
"It's a very peaceful religion," he says. "It's about helping others, treating people how you want to be treated."
There aren't a great deal of prominently visible Muslim leaders in America, in politics or popular culture, and so comments from presidential candidates and pundits are passed around far more than any kind of rebuttal or clarification from actual Muslims. That has put Muslim athletes in a position of speaking for a diverse faith, and of trying to teach people that extremists and terrorists are not only outliers, but completely out of the teachings of what they believe in. Over the past two weeks, NFL players such as Ameer Abdullah and Isa Abdul-Quddus have spoken out against Trump's views.
"There's a basis of innocence to [Islam]," Aboushi says. "It has a basis in humanity. But the reputation of Muslims is going to get tarnished because of the few individuals that are doing things on their own terms."
President Barack Obama said in a televised speech earlier this month that Muslims "are our sports heroes," and Trump replied on Twitter with bafflement. "What sport is he talking about, and who?" Trump asked.
Two of the most successful athletes in the history of American sports, Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, are both Muslim. Both offered strong statements of rebuke. But Trump's response underscores reality: there aren't that many famous Muslims in American popular culture.
"There's not the Pope for Muslims," says Amaar Abdul-Nasir, founder of the Muslim sports blogUmmahSports.net. "There's not a recognized person, where this guy is a leader of the faith, so what he says, goes."
Abdul-Nasir's site, which is affiliated with MuslimMatters.org, attempts to cover Muslims in American sports, but it's not political in scope. "I wish more Muslims spoke out on social or political issues," he says, "but I don't feel comfortable saying, 'You should do this.' Because it's a complex religion, I don't expect a lot of athletes to be experts or scholars. I might not feel comfortable answering about the faith because I don't have the right answer."
Some Muslims, like Abdul-Jabbar (and Abdul-Nasir), converted to the faith. Some, like Aboushi, were raised in the faith. Many conflate Muslim-Americans with Arab-Americans, but in fact the majority of Arab-Americans are Christian. Fear of "radical Islam" has in some cases overshadowed truths about Islam.
Aboushi is all too familiar with this, as a blog once described him as a "Muslim extremist" and the director of the Anti-Defamation League had to make a statement to defend him. "Being pro-Palestinian does not mean you're an anti-Semite or an extremist," Abraham Foxman wrote. "The record simply does not show that Aboushi has crossed that line."
Years later, it's not his own reputation on the line but that of his entire faith.
"It's an unfortunate situation," Aboushi says, "but it's an opportunity to correct people and let them know what the religion is about. They're not just gonna learn. You have to take it on yourself to make them understand."
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/with-few-voices-in-athletics--muslim-americans-in-difficult-position-060805548.html
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